“I have a machine that will play recorded music.” Nik lit the two candle stubs in the holder on the library desk. “Sometimes when I dream of you, in the dream my favorite song is playing and I hold you in my arms while we move together as though I know the steps to a long-forgotten dance.”
“I would like to hear that music.”
From a drawer of the desk he removed two disks and a flat black box about the size of his hand.
“This is old equipment,” he said. “We found it when we were cleaning out one of the rooms. Luc is clever with machinery; he works with it at the water-cleaning plant, and so he was able to make this player function for me.”
Carol expected the sound to be as scratchy as a tune from an antique phonograph record, but obviously Luc had known what he was doing when he repaired the disk player. The music was clear and pure. The strains of an old waltz filled the library like the echoes from a long-ago ball. Carol caught her breath, and her eyes stung with sudden moisture.
“I do not know this dance except in dreams,” Nik said, holding out his hands. “Will you teach me?”
She went into his arms, and showed him where to place his hands, and counted out the steps for him. And all the while, her heart was beating to an ancient refrain. The music filled her ears and her mind, drenching her in reawakened happiness.
“It’s easy,” Nik said after a few minutes. “But then, I have an expert teacher.”
It’s easy if some part of you already knows the steps, she thought.
When the music stopped he went to the machine and set it to play the same waltz over again.
“Do you always hear the same song in your dreams?” she asked, watching his long fingers moving on the equipment. “Never another song?”
“It is always the same, but I cannot be certain if the music was already in my mind or if I learned it when I was finally able to use the player. The first time I heard the recording, it seemed to me as though the song was familiar.”
It was, she thought. Three hundred and fifty years ago, you knew it well.
The second time they danced, he was much more sure of himself and of the steps for the waltz. He caught Carol in his arms and whirled her around the nearly empty library as if they were on the polished floor of a grand ballroom. Looking into his eyes, seeing his smile, she felt the centuries drop away until once again they were betrothed lovers entranced by newfound desire, caught in hope and in dreams of a bright future together. When the music stopped a second time he stood holding her, looking hard at her, and she knew he had seen the image in her own mind.
“How strange,” he murmured, blinking as if to clear his sight. “How wonderful. It was like a waking dream. We were somewhere else, a place beautiful and shining with candlelight.”
“I know. I saw it, too.” She smiled at him with trembling lips.
“It was not just the music,” he went on, “nor the memory of the dreams I’ve had of you. It was real.”
“So is this, the here and now.” She could no longer bear the intrusion of the past upon the present. True, he was, in a mysterious way she did not understand, Nicholas, but he was also Nik, and the man he was in this future time was a brave and noble person. He, too, was worthy of her love.
She knew they would soon lose each other, but whether he came to her as Nicholas or Nik she would not stop loving him, and the love was what was important. In all the world, in any time, love was all that mattered.
“I have not had a woman for many long months,” he told her, his voice low. “Not since well before last Winter Solstice. I have been so consumed with planning, and with making certain all of my friends would be safe, that I have taken no time for myself. For these few remaining days before the uprising begins, will you lie with me, Car? Will you stay with me for the entire night?”
“I have already said yes,” she reminded him.
“I thought it best to put it into words so there can be no misunderstanding. You have seen how I live. I own few earthly possessions and my existence is a dangerous one. I can offer you nothing but my heart, and what hope there is for our cause.”
“There are no greater gifts than love and hope,” she whispered.
He took her face between his hands, smiling when she raised her own hands to hold him in the same way. Slowly, prolonging their anticipation, they drew closer, until at last their mouths met, and held, and melted into one warm and blissful joining of lips and tongues and richly burgeoning desire.
It was a long while until he released her. Leaving her to stand reeling from the effects of his kiss, he took up the pottery candleholder and thrust it into her hands.
“Hold on to this and don’t burn yourself,” he ordered. Before she could ask him what he intended, he swung her off her feet and into his arms.
“Nik, this is dangerous,” she cried, trying to shield the candle flames and hang on to him at the same time.
“It is the least dangerous thing I have ever done,” he responded. He carried her out of the library to a room that opened off the main hall. He managed it without incinerating either of them, but looking at the flames reflected in his eyes when he put her down on his bed, Carol thought it would not be long before they were both consumed.
With unsteady hands she set the candle-holder on the floor beside the bed. Then she looked around. It was a bare little chamber, a space stolen from the back end of the old drawing room. The familiar carved molding along the ceiling stopped abruptly where it met the plain expanse of a more recently constructed wall. There was one long window curtained in olive green blankets. She was sure the opening behind the blankets was covered by boards. There was a small chest of drawers, and a wooden chair with two slats missing from its back. The bed, covered with another olive blanket, was wide but hard and lumpy. That was all—walls, covered window, bed, chest and chair, and two candles. It looked like Paradise to Carol.
Nik sat on the bed beside her. While she was looking at the room he had stripped to the waist. Carol ran her fingers along a wicked-looking raised scar that crossed his chest.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was a gift from one of the civil guards some ten years ago,” he said. “I was fortunate. They did not learn my identity, and my friends got me safely away. I have been more careful since.”
“You could have been killed!” she cried. “You could still—”
“Not another word,” he commanded. “What happens three days from now is in the future. I will not spoil the intervening days and nights by worrying. Not when I can have you in my arms.”
As he spoke he was working at the sash and the buttons of her raincoat. The house was so badly heated that Carol had immediately adopted the habit of her companions, and at all times wore as many layers of clothing as possible. She’d added the old cloak Pen had found for her when she went outdoors.
“So many garments,” she murmured, letting him remove the raincoat with its woolen winter lining and then the cardigan sweater. Beneath this she still had on a gray wool turtle-neck sweater and matching wool trousers.
“The clothing only makes you appear more provocative,” he said. “I have spent many delightful moments wondering what lay beneath it.” He paused, looking with some amusement at her plain cotton bra and briefs before removing them, too. Then he waited, giving Carol time to finish undressing him. His eyes glinted with easy male humor when she gulped at the sight of his proud flesh.
Like the rest of the house, his room was cold. Carol began to shiver. With a sound deep in his throat that was part chuckle and part growl of rising passion, he quickly tumbled her under the covers and got in beside her. The thin, patched sheets were cold, the blankets were inadequate. Only Nik was warm. She clung to him as if her life depended on his heat.
“Are you frightened or only freezing?” he teased.
“How could I be afraid of you?” She put her hands on his chest, running a finger along the ridge of scar tissue. While he nibbled at her earlobe, she sighed with pleasure. “I am cold, but I do believe you will find a way to warm me as quickly as possible.”
“I will try.” He moved from earlobe to throat to shoulder. He reached her breasts and she arched against him, moaning. Heat filled her and she was vividly aware of his hardness against her thigh. Her need for him was a painful ache. Their teasing banter ended suddenly. Unable to control herself, she grabbed for him.
“Car,” he groaned, “I’d be gentle if I could.”
“Don’t wait.” She shifted, giving him ready access to her hot and moist flesh. “You don’t have to be gentle, either. I don’t feel gentle, myself. I feel greedy. I want—want all of you—Nik!”
She screamed as he filled her, and then she wrapped her arms and legs around him, pulling him closer, ever closer, rising to meet him as he pounded into her in a fury of passion. It was as though he exploded inside her. Carol bit his shoulder, trying with the last fragments of thought available to her to stifle her cries. She was unsuccessful. She gave up the effort to keep some modicum of control over herself because it was too distracting when all she wanted was to follow him into the place where he now was, where blinding, searing passion canceled out all thought of yesterday or tomorrow, where there was no time, but only the present, the moment, and the two of them together, made one in love.
When she recovered enough to think again, she was still in his arms and he was still part of her. She marveled that she had ever thought his room was cold.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, his rough cheek against hers. “That was too fast. I should have been more careful of you but, Car, I lost my mind. Never—never before—”
“It was just right.” She kissed him to stop the unnecessary apology. “Just what I needed. Time enough to be slow later.”
“I wish I could be sure we would have the time.”
“We have tonight.” She moved a little, then gasped in shocked surprise. He had not withdrawn from her and he was growing hard again. She closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation.
“It’s amazing what a year of abstinence can do,” he murmured, and fell to devouring her once more.
Neither of them made any pretensions to innocence. They did not discuss their romantic histories, or talk about the future they knew they could not share. Instead, they devoted the night to enjoying each other, to giving— and taking—as much pleasure as possible in the hours before dawn.
Thus it was that when Bas rapped on Nik’s door, to warn him it was time for him to be up and dressing if he intended to be in the square before the Solstice ceremony began, Carol stretched beside her lover, and kissed his cheek and the scar on his chest and then his mouth, and did not feel the least bit injured or insulted when he rolled away from her and got out of bed and began to dress.
She lay watching him in the light of the now-guttering candles, knowing an inner peace and completion she had never experienced before. As during the hours of the night, so now in these few moments before the festival day began, she did not think of any other time or place or person. There was only Nik.
“You’d better hurry,” he urged, seeing her with the coarse green blanket pulled up to her chin. “The square becomes crowded and it’s often hard to find a place to stand where you can see what is happening.”
Breakfast was a simple meal, only a chunk of coarse brown bread left from the previous night and a cup of hot, flavored water that Bas called tea, but that tasted like no tea Carol had ever drunk before. She thought it was a mixture of dried herbs rather than real tea, but without complaint she swallowed it for its warmth and to wash down the dry bread.
With Jo’s help Bas was already preparing the feast, and the kitchen was surprisingly warm. Carol noticed that there was an oven built into the chimney, and presumably this oven was being heated in advance. Bas trussed up the chicken the women had purchased the day before and placed it into a roasting pan. With so small a bird there was room left in the pan for plenty of the root vegetables that made up most of the diet at this cold season of the year. Peeled chunks of turnips, parsnips, carrots, and potatoes went in around the chicken. Bas threw some chopped onions on top and Jo sprinkled in a few herbs. Then the lid was secured and the whole thing put into the waiting oven.
“It will cook slowly and be ready to eat by noontime,” Jo said to Carol. “I have made the bread already, and Nik is donating wine from his mysterious cellars down below.”
“Then the sweets to finish the meal,” Pen added.
“If we took away your sweets, would you celebrate the season as happily?” asked Jo, laughing.
“Probably not,” Pen admitted. She sent a wink toward her brother, and winked at Carol, too.
Still laughing, they all left the warmth of the kitchen for the damp chill of the pre-dawn square.
“Is it always so cold in winter?” Carol asked Nik. They were picking their way through the debris that lay around Marlowe House. With the others well ahead of them, Carol did not think anyone would overhear what she said to Nik.
“Sometimes, it’s colder,” Nik answered. When he spoke, his breath formed a frosty cloud.
“During my time, December is much milder in this city.” Carol stopped talking while she negotiated a climb up a mound of broken masonry and a sliding descent along the other side of it. “What kind of bombs were used in the wars? Could the detonations have sent enough dust into the upper atmosphere to cool the climate?”
“I don’t know. It may be so.” Nik’s voice turned bitter. “There is entirely too much we are not told. I hope that particular situation will change soon, so we will have the information we want and need. Car, I must warn you again. Be careful what you say while we are outside the house. There will be many civil guards in the square during the celebration. Some of them will not be in uniform.”
“I understand. I won’t mention forbidden subjects again. May I ask questions about the ceremony?”
“If you phrase them carefully and whisper them to me.” They were past the debris and onto the flat, paved expanse of the square. Nik took Carol’s arm. “Stay close to me.”
There were no artificial lights. Only the faintly brightening sky lit their way as they crossed the square toward the World Tree at its center. A row of civil guards in helmets and brown overcoats kept open a circular area around the Tree, allowing no one to approach the metal artifact. There was no pushing or shoving, and the crowd was for the most part a quiet one. Only the occasional cry of a baby broke through the soft murmur of whispering voices and the shuffling sound made by many pairs of booted feet. The sky grew infinitesimally lighter, and an air of heightened expectation rippled across the crowd.
“Here they come,” Pen whispered to Carol. She and Al were standing next to Carol and Nik, but in the semidarkness Carol could not discern the presence of anyone else she knew. Presumably, Bas, Jo, Luc, and the rest of Nik’s group had melted into the throng.
At a nod from the officer commanding the civil guards the crowd separated, opening an aisle from one corner of the square to its center. Along this aisle walked a procession of notables. A man in flowing golden robes came first. Beneath his gold headdress his face was solemn as that of any priest, and Carol quickly decided that must be what he was. Behind him walked two women in sky-blue gowns. Since they were not shivering, Carol wondered if they were wearing thermal underwear. Her own hands and feet were fast reaching a state of numbness, and she could not see how anyone could move so lightly while wearing gowns so sheer and loose unless they possessed an unapparent source of warmth.
“The next person is one of the Leaders.” Nik spoke to Carol in a voice just above a whisper. “His name is Fal.”
He was a plump, pompous-looking fellow with a slight limp. His tunic, trousers, and boots were all a deep shade of red, and a round medal of some kind hung from a heavy chain to rest on his too-wide chest. He was surrounded by a dozen or so attendants in black and gray. A collection of civil guards in brown and another group of military types in gray uniforms ended the procession.
“The Leader’s personal guard,” Nik murmured into Carol’s ear. “We have only one Leader with us today. The other two are celebrating elsewhere.”
The actual ceremony did not take long. This was doubtless because of the astronomical requirements of the Solstice, since sunrise only lasted for a few minutes, but Carol could not help wondering if the biting cold played its part to keep the participants moving through their roles with brisk efficiency. The priest in the gold robes approached the World Tree and began a singsong incantation which, after a few verses, was taken up by the women in blue and then, gradually, by the rest of the people in the square. As if at the command of the man who stood with golden arms outstretched, the sky began to take on a touch of yellowish dawn color. Against this pale shade the fingers of the World Tree arched upward, pleading.
“Our square is used for this ceremony,” Nik informed Carol in a low voice, “because, thanks to the destructive wars, from here we have a direct view of the horizon for the midwinter sunrise.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the upper rim of the sun began to rise above the horizon. At the exact moment when the first ray of sunlight shone forth, the Orb appeared.
It came out of nowhere, an enormous golden-orange sphere with a metallic sheen to its surface. Carol heard no sound from it, and while she had admittedly been watching the sunrise and the priest, still she was sure the Orb had not come gradually. It simply materialized in the air above the square as if by magic and hung there, motionless. The people standing beneath the Orb gaped at it, murmuring their wonderment in hushed, reverent voices.
Very clever, Carol thought, appreciating the effect the Orb was having upon the crowd, though she could not participate in the emotions it was evoking in most of the onlookers. Does it have an engine inside it and perhaps a pilot, or is it moved by remote control, like one of those toy airplanes that people fly in the park on Sundays? Since Carol could discern no break in the smooth surface of the Orb to indicate a door by which a pilot might enter, she decided the object must be moved by remote control. And a very precise control, too, to judge by its subsequent motions.
After a few minutes the hovering Orb began to move. Slowly it descended, sinking toward the square with remarkable timing. Exactly as the disk of the sun stood full upon the southeastern horizon, the Orb settled into the waiting arms of the World Tree. The metal fingers curved around it, holding it securely in place.
A cheer went up from the crowd. Some laughed, others openly wept for joy, still others did both. Carol noted with some cynicism that the Leader and his guards were among the few who stood unmoved by the spectacle.
“And now,” intoned the gold-clad priest, speaking above the soft, continuing chanting of the women in blue, “now the Solstice is upon us. Cold winter’s end can be foreseen. From this moment onward, the days will grow longer. Now we can be certain that spring will in truth come, and with the returning warmth all life will be renewed.” Again he raised his arms toward the Tree.
“Now we see with great thanksgiving the Blessed Orb held within the Sacred Embrace of the World Tree, which will keep it secure for us and not let its warmth and light flee from us.”
He went on in this way for some time, but Carol soon grew tired of listening to his repetitious invocations. She tugged at Nik’s arm, and when he bent his head to her, she whispered her question in his ear.
“Do people actually believe the sun is held fast like that, in the branches of a tree?”
“I am sure some do believe it,” he replied. “It makes a pretty picture. Once in late afternoon I saw the branches of a dead tree against the setting sun, and what I beheld looked much like the Orb resting in the World Tree. Were this ceremony presented to us as a symbol only, I could accept it, for it’s true enough that the days will now begin to grow longer. But this worship of Tree and Orb is a state religion and no other beliefs are allowed. Men and women have died for saying it ought to be otherwise.”
“So this Government practices religious as well as political oppression.”
“Do not say so here,” Nik cautioned, and Carol obediently fell silent.
Once the ceremony was over and the officials marched away in another solemn procession, the atmosphere in the square changed. A young man pulled a homemade flute from beneath his jacket and began to play a cheerful tune. Someone else had brought along a small drum, and began to keep time on it with his hands. A third fellow produced a stringed instrument on which he plucked out a soft harmony to the flutist’s song.
A woman began to sing. She was joined by a second and then by a third voice. This was nothing like the formal chanting during the ceremony. This was folk music, cheerful and boisterous, requiring the clapping of many hands. The musicians played louder, providing backup for the song the women were singing.
Then the dancing started. Luc appeared, to clasp hands with Pen and Carol. Al grabbed Pen’s free hand and Nik was on Carol’s other side. A woman Carol did not know moved next to Nik, a man joined the woman, and so it went, hands linked into a circle for a community dance. Around and around the square they went, first in a circle and then in a long, spiral line, always with the World Tree and Orb at their center. Knowledge of the exact steps was unimportant. It was only necessary to keep up with the other dancers.
They generated their own heat. A cloud of exhaled breath hung over the square. Above the heads of the dancers the Orb glowed orange-gold where the low rays of the midwinter sun struck it, and seemed to shed both warmth and light on those gathered to celebrate the beginning of its slow return from southern regions.
There followed a period of perhaps an hour when Carol felt at one with the emotions of the people around her who were dancing and singing so joyfully. This future world was so gray and bleak, and so restrictive, that the cold and rain and snow of winter represented a real additional hardship in most lives. The turning of the year brought with it fresh hope. No doubt summer held other miseries—excessive heat, vermin, diseases—but from the depths of winter that other, warmer, season appeared to be one of bright promise, fresh food, and an end to numbing cold and dampness. If they could not drink down the darkness as the ancient Vikings had once tried to do, these people would sing and dance away the year’s shortest day and longest night.
Shortly after midday the weather brought an end to outdoor celebrating. For all its golden brightness, the sun was too low in the sky to be able to shed much genuine warmth upon the northern half of the world. After hours in the cold, noses were red and dripping, and lips had become too stiff and blue for more singing. The crowd broke into smaller groups, families or clusters of friends heading homeward for their holiday meal. As if to signal the official end of the morning’s celebration, a troop of civil guards marched through the square in tight formation, ignoring the people, staring straight ahead, scattering merrymakers to the left and right.
While adults and teenagers had been dancing, the children too small to join in were left to play at one side of the square under the care of elderly men and women. Now parents hastened to collect their children, and a few of the young ones, seeing mothers and fathers coming toward them, ran to meet their parents.
The civil guards continued their march, knocking down a couple of little boys along the way. A murmur of irritation erupted from the grown-ups. The guards did not stop or change direction, but marched straight on toward the other side of the square. Directly in their path stood a child perhaps three or four years old, so heavily bundled in jackets and sweaters and scarves that it was impossible to tell if it was a boy or a girl. The child appeared to be frozen in place, staring at the oncoming guards out of huge, round eyes.
“No!” Carol saw what was happening and knew the guards would not stop. They had already knocked down a few children; one more would be nothing to them. They did not care about the civilians in the square. Ordinary folk were unimportant to them. And for some reason—were they too cowed by the guards and thus afraid to react?—Carol knew no one was going to stop the inevitable collision. Nik was talking to someone, his back turned to the scene. Carol could not see anyone else who might help, and time was running out.
She moved forward, running toward the child on cold-numbed feet, pushing aside the few people who stood between her and the innocent who would be knocked to the ground and perhaps trampled.
“Stop, damn you! You bloody lunatic!” She saw the total lack of concern in the eyes of the guards’ commander and knew her cry was wasted. The guards would not stop. Throwing out her arms she scooped up the child and kept on running. The guards marched on out of the square.
The whole incident had lasted for only a few moments, and during that time Carol’s eyes had connected with those of the guards’ commander for but a second, yet she was more chilled by the encounter than she was from hours spent outside in the cold of winter. Something about the commander’s indifferent expression and his blank eyes that saw nothing except his path directly across the square tugged at Carol’s mind. She did not know the man—had never seen him before—yet in a vague, illogical way she recognized him. And feared him as if he had laid a curse on her.
“Car!” Nik was beside her, and with him was the woman who had taken his hand when the dancing started, who seemed to know him.
“Sue!” The woman seized the now-weeping child from Carol’s arms. “I didn’t see what was happening. I thought she was still with the elders.”
“Are you all right?” Nik asked Carol. She nodded, unable to speak for a moment because she was shaking in reaction to what had just happened.
“How can I thank you?” The woman put out a hand to Carol. “Sue is everything to me. She’s all I have since my husband died.”
Leaving it to Nik to answer the woman, Carol tried to get her emotions back under control. She could not go to pieces here in public.
“I don’t think she’s hurt.” Nik turned his attention from Carol to the child. “She is well padded with clothing and, thanks to Car, the guards didn’t touch her. Car, this is Lin, who is—a very good friend.”
The emphasis he put on the last phrase of his introduction told Carol that Lin was a member of one of the other dissident groups. Lin would probably be involved in the coming uprising.
“I understand,” Carol said, meeting Lin’s eyes. “You do not want any harm to come to your child. You want her to be safe, and happy.”
Lin nodded, hugging little Sue close to her bosom.
“Take her home and see that she’s warm,” Nik said. “Do you have a holiday sweet for her?”
“Oh, no.” Lin looked a bit embarrassed. “I could not afford any sweets. There was barely enough money for food.”
“Wait here.” Nik sprinted toward Marlowe House, disappearing behind a mound of broken bricks and stone when he ran down the servants’ steps. He soon returned, bringing one of the miniature sugar trees from the selection Pen had bought at the market.
“Every child should have a sweet at Solstice,” Nik said, giving the sugar tree to Sue. He had taken off his heavy gloves, and now he stroked one finger across the little girl’s soft cheek. The gentle tenderness of the action caught at Carol’s heart. Sue stuffed the bottom of the tree into her mouth, and Nik chuckled at her obvious pleasure in the taste of it.
“Thank you, Nik,” Lin began. He cut off her words.
“Just be certain she’s safe,” he said, and both women heard the double meaning in his caution. If Lin was going to be a participant in the uprising, her child would have to be placed with people who would be willing to hide her identity in case her mother was killed or captured.
“She goes to a friend tomorrow night,” Lin said. Watching her walk away, Nik put an arm around Carol’s shoulders.
“Those terrible civil guards,” Carol said. “Nik, their commander stared right at me and the look in his eyes terrified me. I could almost hear the wheels turning in his brain. He knew he didn’t recognize me and knew I did not belong here. Is there a chance that my presence could cause trouble for you?”
“I don’t think it will matter,” Nik said. “People from outside the city come here for the Solstice celebrations. There are always strangers in the square during holidays. One more will make no difference.”
“I yelled at him. I cursed him,” she persisted. “He will know me if he sees me again.” And I will know him. Why does the thought fill me with dread?
“There is nothing to worry about. You are cold and tired and upset by seeing a child almost hurt.” Nik headed toward Marlowe House, taking Carol along with him, an arm still across her shoulders. “Come inside now. Jo is piling wood on the fire as if we had a room full of logs to spare, instead of just the remains of broken furniture. You will soon be warm, and a glass of wine and a good meal will lift your spirits.”
Carol went with him willingly, giving her hearty agreement to the prospect of once more being warm. In the kitchen they discovered the food Bas had put into the oven early in the morning was nearly ready to eat. While the women prepared a salad from the greens Pen had selected on the previous day and Luc and another man set the table, Nik took Carol down to the lower levels of the house.
“There used to be a locked wine cellar down here,” Carol told him. “Crampton the butler held the keys to it, and he guarded the wine as if it were gold. I have never been into these rooms before.”
“I think they must have been useful as shelters during the wars. The wine is of more recent vintage than your time. Most of it is less than one hundred years old.” Nik paused, holding high the oil lamp he had brought with him. Having found the section he wanted, he gave the lamp to Carol while he slid between the dusty racks to retrieve two bottles.
When he came out again he put up his hands, holding a bottle in each. With a wicked laugh and a comical leer he backed Carol against the stone retaining wall that formed the deepest foundation of Marlowe House. There he kissed her.
“You do have a tendency to play with fire,” she noted, lifting the oil lamp until its flame was a fraction of an inch away from his chin. “First candles, now this.”
“Hold it to one side,” he suggested, “and I’ll kiss you again more thoroughly.”
“If the oil spills, the light will go out and we may be stuck down here for hours.”
“Never so long.” He was laughing at her. “The others are too hungry to wait for more than a few minutes for the wine to go with their dinner.”
“Then we ought to go back upstairs at once.”
“Not yet, Car. I have waited all day for this.” An instant later his mouth was on hers a second time, and she lost herself in his lips and his tongue and the passionate heat of him. Carol’s only regret was that, since he was still holding the wine bottles, he was not free to put his arms around her.
“Nik,” said Pen’s voice from above. “We are starving. The celebrations aren’t over yet but we need our food and some wine if we are to continue.” She was interrupted by Jo, who shouted down the stairs over Pen’s gentler tones.
“Bas says to tell you he is serving the chicken and if you want any, you are to come at once. Delay and it will all be eaten.”
“She’s telling the truth,” Carol said, laughing now herself. “It is not a very big chicken.”
“You are asking me to make the supreme sacrifice,” he said, leaning into her, letting her feel his hardness until she moaned softly. “Do not expect me to wait much longer to hold you.” He kissed her again quite thoroughly before he released her and motioned for her to light their way out of the cellar and up the stairs.