Chapter 28

 

The bedroom of the bagnio was warm now, the air within it still. The lantern on the floor beside the divan shone steadily, bathing them in soft light. Relishing the feel of the strong arms encircling her, Christian stretched her body within his warm grasp, pointing her legs and feet as far as they would go before relaxing back again.

He pressed a kiss against her brow. ‘All right?’

‘More than all right. A lot more.’

He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. His chestnut brown hair slid over her breasts like a length of silk. ‘It gave you pleasure? I gave you pleasure?’

She turned into him, mumbling her answer against his chest and the fine hairs covering it. ‘Couldn’t you tell?’

‘Aye. I could tell.’ He was smiling, she could hear it in his voice. ‘Even though you didn’t use many words. To be more precise, because you didn’t use many words.’

Remembering how she had moaned against his mouth, how his lips and his fingers had rendered her incapable of coherent speech, the sounds she had made when they had joined together, she kept her face where it was. He was clearly enjoying himself too much to stop.

‘Not many words at all,’ he mused. ‘Apart from my name. Over and over again.’ He paused for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was husky, no teasing now in his words. ‘I loved hearing you say my name over and over again!’

Those words brought her head up. ‘Och, Robert…’ She took a strand of his hair between her fingers and tugged, bringing his face closer to hers. ‘Did I give you pleasure?’

‘Couldn’t you tell?’ he countered.

‘I thought I could. But I want to hear you say it.’

‘Aye. You gave me pleasure. So much pleasure.’

‘Could we maybe do it again? After we bathe?’

A flash of devilment in his grey eyes, he pretended to consider her question. ‘Oh, I daresay you could persuade me. Using your womanly wiles. For now, let me go and run our baths. Or should that be bath?’

His mouth widened into the broadest of smiles at her answer.

 

He came back from the little bagnio with a bowl of warm water, a cloth folded into a pad and a fresh towel. Christian came up onto her elbows. ‘I can clean myself up.’

‘All right,’ he said, dipping the cloth into the bowl, squeezing it out and handing it to her. He squatted down beside the bed. He’d shrugged his shoulders into his banyan before he’d left to run their bath. It was a sumptuous garment, with a pattern of red and turquoise dragons rising out of a yellow background. He’d been wearing it over his nightshirt the day she had called at the guard-house.

‘I ought to be embarrassed about doing this in front of you,’ she said, glancing up from the task in hand.

He cocked his head to one side. ‘And you’re not? That’s good.’

‘Maybe it means I really am shameless.’

‘You have nothing to be ashamed of. All done?’

When she nodded, he sprang to his feet and took the blood-stained cloth from her, dropping it back into the bowl of water. ‘Let us slip the towel out from under you and you can transfer your … eh … posterior, to the clean one. I’ll dispose of all this and you can get your wrapper out of your basket. Did you bring slippers too?’

 

Made of lead, the bagnio’s bathtubs were always lined with a white linen sheet. He’d done that and the bath, one of two in the little bagnio, was nearly full. One of their three lanterns lit up the room.

‘I have the towels ready.’ He indicated them with a wave of his arm. ‘Couldn’t find the soap.’

‘I’ll get it. There are a few bars in one of the cupboards in the pantry.’

Back in no more than a moment, she crossed over the black-and-white floor tiles to where he stood beside the bath. She felt as if she were gliding towards him, floating above the floor tiles. She told him so, adding: ‘It’s as though we’re in a different world to the one outside the bagnio. A thousand miles away from it.’

‘We are.’ Taking her in his arms, he held her close. ‘Our own world.’

‘The world where all things are possible?’

‘That’s the one.’

After they had tossed their dressing gowns aside, he took her hand to help her step into the bath. ‘As though you’re helping me into a coach,’ she said. ‘Politely. Like a gentleman. Nothing at all like the man who threatened to throw me over his shoulder the night we first met.’

‘I’d have done it too.’

‘I know you would.’

‘No point in issuing threats if you’re not prepared to carry them out. Going to sit down, Miss Rankeillor? And slide forward a bit?’

‘Not easy to slide on a linen sheet. The bagnios you’ve visited before must have had marble baths. I’ll have to lift my … eh … posterior. I’d jalouse you normally use a coarser word.’

‘Hah!’ was the only response she got to that before he stepped into the bath behind her. Bent at the knees, his strong legs fitted in on either side of her body.

‘Lean back against me. And give me the soap.’ He dipped it in the water, moved it to and fro. ‘Lemons,’ he observed as it released its scent. ‘I love the smell of lemons.’

‘They grow outdoors in Italy, I believe.’

‘In great abundance.’ He drew the soap up from one of her wrists to her shoulder and down onto her breasts, smoothing it over both in turn. Sighing, she relaxed even more against him, with the inevitable result.

‘Something else growing here.’ He said the words into her hair.

‘So there is. Could I turn round so I can see it?’

His hand stilled. ‘What?’

‘I’ve seen the male organs of generation before, made drawings of them several times, but I’ve never seen them on a living body— Oh, what’s the matter?’ For behind her, he had begun to shake.

‘Nothing,’ he howled. ‘Not a bloody thing!’ He got the words out, then dissolved into helpless laughter.

 

They ate their supper at 8 o’clock, registering the time by the ringing of church bells. They had retrieved the satchel and clothes from the floor at the foot of the divan and put them out of the way. Now they sat cross-legged on the divan, facing each other. He wore his colourful banyan, she her cream-coloured cambric wrapper. He had brought a tray of food through from the pantry and set it between them, going back for the tall wooden stool and placing it beside the bed to hold their glasses of wine.

‘Noisy place, Edinburgh,’ he observed once the church bells had stopped ringing.

‘Are not all cities noisy?’

He smiled at her ‘How many cities do you know?’

‘Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. I have been furth of Edinburgh, you know.’ A sheepish look followed her momentary indignation. ‘I suppose that’s not a very long list.’

‘Would you like to visit other cities? London or Paris or Berlin or Dresden or Rome?’

‘I should love to visit all those cities. Do you know each one?’

He nodded as he set out their supper. ‘I’ve lived in Paris and I’ve spent time in the others. I’d love to take you to Rome. You would find much to sketch and paint there among the antiquities.’

He handed her a plate with a thick slice of ham, two slices of bread, a few curls of butter and a small knife to spread it with. ‘While I should enjoy sitting there watching you. You would have to wear a straw hat with a nice wide brim. The sun is very strong in Italy. We wouldn’t want your pale Scottish skin to get burnt.’

He served himself and raised his plate. ‘Eat,’ he urged, when she made no move to do so.

‘You’d love to take me to Rome,’ she repeated. ‘Pray tell, Captain, how would we manage that?’

‘We’re in our own world tonight,’ he reminded her. ‘One where all things are possible.’

‘Our own world may only last for this one night. We cannot know if we will ever be able to be together like this again.’

She looked so sad, sounded so wistful. He wanted to lift the sorrow from her, assure her they would have many more nights together, promise her the Earth – and knew he could not. Promises made and not kept are worse than promises not made at all.

So he could not give her the present he had brought for her. Could he?

‘Hope,’ he said, his voice not quite steady. ‘We have to hold onto hope. Now let us eat.’

 

He came back into the bedroom after clearing away their supper things and drew in a sharp breath. In the warm lantern light, she looked like a painting. One which moved, as she raised both arms, lifted her mass of dark hair and flipped it over her shoulders to tumble down her back. In response to the movement, her wrapper fell open at the front. Catto’s eyes flickered downwards. Spotting him in the open doorway, she tugged the two sides closed and crossed her hands over her breasts.

He walked over to the divan and sat down on the edge of it. ‘Too late for that. I’ve already seen them. And very lovely they are too. Will you let me look again? I like to look. Just like you do.’

She allowed her arms to fall to her sides. Leaning forward, he moved the fronts of her wrapper apart, adjusting the soft fabric so one breast was half exposed, the other fully bare.

‘Artistically draped. Like a beauty in an Italian painting. If I could draw as well as you can, I would draw you as you look now.’

‘So you would have something to remember me by?’

He raised his eyes from her breasts to her face.

‘We must part, Robert. Sooner or later. You know that as well as I do.’ A tear slid down one smooth cheek. He reached out to blot it with his thumb – and made his decision.

Springing to his feet, he walked across to where his clothes were laid over the back of a chair. He knew she was watching him, knew she was wondering what he was doing. Digging into his waistcoat pocket, he brought out a small paper packet, came back and handed it to her. ‘A gift. From me to you. With all my love.’

He was holding his breath as he watched her open it and place its contents in the palm of her hand. A brooch. Two hearts entwined, surmounted by a crown. Small and dainty and beautifully wrought in silver.

She looked up at him. ‘You do realize what a luckenbooth brooch signifies?’

‘That’s why I bought it,’ he said, sitting back down on the edge of the bed, his voice carefully light. ‘Had to endure insult to do so.’

‘Which unfortunate person incurred your wrath?’

‘The silversmith who sold it to me.’

‘What did the poor man say?’

‘He winked in a damned impertinent manner and said he hoped the lassie was bonnie.’

‘Did you glower at him?’

‘I do not want to talk about the silversmith. I want to know if you will accept the brooch. As a token of a promise made from me to you and you to me.’

‘A promise that can only be made – and kept – in our own world, the one where all things are possible?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are most certainly moonstruck.’

‘Undoubtedly. Will you be moonstruck with me?’

She raised her free hand, trailed her fingertips down the side of his face. ‘Even though our moon may be buffeted by storm and wind, tossed about like a ship on a stormy sea, at times obscured and hidden from view?’

‘Aye,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘All of that.’ He took her hand and kissed it.

The pause before she spoke again could only have lasted seconds. To him it seemed much longer.

‘On that basis, I’ll accept the luckenbooth. I should really give you a silver coin in exchange but I did not bring my purse out with me. So the pin of the brooch does not pierce our friendship,’ she added, responding to a puzzled look.

‘What is between us is vastly more than friendship. I thought you might wear the luckenbooth in some concealed place. Kept secure in the little roll you keep for your pins, perhaps. Tucked inside your pocket.’

She curled her fingers, wrapping the little brooch in her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and found herself incapable of saying anything else. He had one final question for her.

‘Tell me something, Kirsty. Maybe this is no more than a forlorn hope…’

‘Go on,’ she said when he hesitated.

The words were rattled out, as though his courage might fail him if he didn’t say them quickly enough. ‘If it were possible for us to wed, would you want to?’

‘Of course I would, Robert. Och, of course I would!’

Leaning forward, he drew her into his arms. They held each other for a long, long time.