The Kiss

5.

Soon he was called again, this time by the house factotum. Another drawing-room visitor. He arrived in high dungeon, thinking it'd be Signor Name-Your-Price again, and found himself staring into a pair of wide celadon eyes again. She wore a long traveling coat buttoned to her throat, wispy dun hair tied almost severely back in a half bun. She set her case down beside her.

"You came," she said. The miserable expression on her moonlike face faded at the sight of him, like the break of dawn on a gray night.

They sat on the divan. A stray, curly tress fell over her forehead and he had to restrain himself from tucking it away behind her ear, caressing her soft cheek. He hadn't remembered her looking this beautiful, as if her beauty were a living thing that grew out of sight, before one's eyes.

"I leave for Florence," she told him. "My aunt has a house there. I'm done with all my courses; there's nothing keeping me here."

"Do your parents know?"

"No, and with any luck they won't find out until it's too late," she said steadily. "I have to make the train in the hour, so I have little time. But I couldn't leave without seeing you one last time."

"Your father came to see me."

"What? When?"

"Some time ago. He tried to blackmail me, bribe me against seeing you. He said you were getting married."

Her shoulders slumped miserably. "He was a rich lord above sixty. He came round to court me. He proposed, and my father was so delighted I couldn't object. Papà is ambitious, eager to rise. My own wishes matter very little. It was my fault, I should have been honest from the start, stood up to him."

A flash of insight. "So that's the real reason why you came."

She hung her head. "I wanted to experience love on my own terms. Not that it made much of a difference." She was quiet a moment. "How much did he offer you?"

"A thousand lira."

"Insane."

"I rejected the bribe."

She stared at him, her puzzled eyes roving his face as if she could spot the motive there. "Why did you do that? Don't you need the money?"

"I do." He felt a mute frustration, unable to articulate what should be said. "Just not like this. Not at your expense. Besides, I don't like to be intimidated."

She gazed down at her twisting hands, playing with the opal on her finger. He took them in his hands.

"Tell me how I might help you," he said. "Have you money? I have a little that can get you far. You can stay with me while I speak with your father on your behalf."

"You're very kind," she said, color seeping in her cheeks, "but I must go alone. My father will not see reason."

"Then tell me what you want." He massaged her wrist with his thumb. "I'll grant it." Downcast eyes, embarrassed. "Do you want me?"

The frank look in her eyes dried his throat, as if something were wanting and had made itself known to him. "There hasn't been a moment since we separated that I haven't thought of you. About our night. And...and how I'd give anything to be with you again."

The tense knot within him eased. He had expected as much, like an unwritten rule they would eventually follow, a script whose lines they would read. So why did he feel a slight disappointment, as if she had said the wrong thing? Gently, he tried to lead her out of the room, only to encounter the tug of resistance. She had planted herself on the spot.

"I don't have money to pay you," she said. "I cannot stay long. I...I only ask..."

She approached, tentatively taking hold of his other hand. Her simple wish lay open and clear on her face. She didn't have to speak it. He already knew.

As they moved together like undulating waves, the warmth between them sparking to radiant flame, a possible near future took shape. In the mind's eye passed a lifetime of love, compressed into a few precious minutes. In that brief, phantasmagoric ecstasy, the girl was his, in love and passion, and this kiss was its proof, like a great lord's impresa or a bureaucratic stamp. Numb with too much sensation, with too much tendering, interrupted only by sea-gasps of breaths. She stood dazed as he continued to give kisses, on her cheek, her face, her rosebud mouth. His arms tightened about her.

"Don't go."

"No, no." In their embrace, her hands feeling down the plane of his broad shoulders.

Tracing her ear, nuzzling against her soft neck, the dear arch of her cheek. "Be with me, Anetta. Anetta. My sweet. Stay with me."

"I will, I will. Oh, my love. I will."