LITMIR.BIZ

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at the same time. His eyes went to the copper light in her hair, and the tilt of her head on her long neck, the pearls in the hollow of her throat and the swell of pale skin under his hand.

      She saw how much he needed her. And just as quickly Nick drew down a veil somewhere. They were kneeling on the bare flagstones now, facing each other with their fingers interlaced, and he leaned back a little.

      ‘Is this what you came for?’ he asked her. ‘It’s been a long time. A very long time –’ she heard the huskiness in his voice – ‘but I can do this if it’s what you want.’

      Taunting her, she thought, and testing her. Testing himself, and his power to resist as well.

      If he would just ask her, Amy thought, she would gladly lie down there and then on the bare stones and give herself to him. And knowing that, she was past pride. If he thought she was voracious, well then, she would prove herself to be other things too.

      ‘Not just for this,’ she told him, struggling for the truth. ‘To be able to look at you and talk to you, as well. I told you, I wanted to be with you. I don’t understand what else, quite, yet. But yes, I wanted you to touch me. That’s the truth, Nick. Won’t you tell me the truth too? Don’t you want it too?’

      She saw it flash in his face, and heard it in the harsh edge in his voice. ‘Oh yes,’ he whispered. ‘I want it. I want you. Ever since I saw you …’

      ‘Nick.’

      The veil had dissolved again.

      ‘Nick, I’m here.’

      Amy felt as if his kiss would swallow her up, and as if her answer to him would wash them both away. His height bent her backwards, and she felt the weight of his body over hers as his mouth moved to her throat, and then to her bare shoulders where the dress had slipped. The stone was cold under her thighs. His dark head dipped again and she saw how black it was against her own white skin, and then he kissed her breast, moving his tongue in a slow circle so that she quivered and felt Nick’s trembling answering her. She drew him closer and he rested his head against her, letting her cradle him in her arms like an infant. As they knelt in the sweet silence Nick looked across the room to the uncurtained window.

      At once in her own head Amy saw the cottage as she had walked towards it from the park, a black shape against the dense woods with the little square of light picking it out. Picking them out, to the eyes of the night.

      Let the eyes look, she told herself, but Nick lifted his head. Gently he slipped the soft stuff of her dress to cover her shoulders. He knelt back on his heels, watching her as if to imprint the sight of her inside his head. Then he reached out and touched her cheek, and with the palm of his hand, he smoothed her hair.

      ‘Why?’ Amy asked him.

      ‘Think,’ he said. She heard the sadness, and she wanted to reach out to him and kiss it away. But Nick picked up her jacket from where it had fallen and wrapped it around her.

      ‘I don’t care,’ Amy said. ‘None of it matters, out there. We can cover the window.’

      And then there will be just us. Nick, I only want there to be us.

      He smiled at her. ‘You’re very honest, Amy.’

      He stood up and began to move around the little room, looking back at her as she knelt beside the hearth as if to convince himself that she was there.

      ‘I want you to think, first. Think about out there, of course, about your life and mine. But I really meant think about in here. About what would happen. If it does begin, you know, it won’t be easy to undo.’

      He was warning her, holding off his own need for her benefit.

      He was right, Amy knew that. There would be no undoing it. It was the thing that she had been afraid of losing, and the same thing that had seemed so easy to grasp, and so sweet when she had briefly tasted it. It was big now, so that it cast a shadow and hid everything else.

      Amy stood up stiffly. She nodded, a quick jerk of her head.

      ‘All right,’ she promised him at last, in the certainty that there would be no avoiding what would happen, and even now no going back. ‘I will think. But I don’t need to. I know, already. I’ll come back. You’ll be here, won’t you?’

      Nick was sitting in his place at the table once more, touching the cover of the journal with his fingertips.

      ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said.

      She looked quickly at him, afraid that he might have retreated into bitterness again. But he was simply stating what was true, and telling her that, yes, if she chose to come back he would be here.

      Amy went to him and put her arms over his shoulders to touch his hands, resting her cheek against his hair. His arms tightened on hers, pulling her closer.

      ‘It wouldn’t be just me taking his lordship’s daughter to bed. It would be more than that, wouldn’t it? I wasn’t sure that I’d ever want that again. Knowing what it costs, in the end.’

      To Amy he seemed almost to be talking to himself. She wasn’t afraid of whatever it was ahead of them, because she had no experience of it. But Nick did, and Nick was afraid.

      ‘Why don’t you go home, any more?’ she whispered against the black warmth of his hair.

      ‘Because we hurt each other. I stay here, and I send her the money every week for Dickon. Once in a while she writes to me to tell me how he is. That’s all.’ And then, so quietly that she had to strain to catch the words, he said, ‘Amy. Amy, is anything that might happen between us worth the risk of any more hurt? Putting everything else aside, that is?’

      Amy thought. Everything else was Chance, and her father and Mr Mackintosh and the orangery, Nantlas and the pits and Mari and Dickon. Leaving herself and Nick. She turned her cheek against his head, closing her eyes. It would be impossible for her to walk out of the cottage now and leave him, and whatever it was he held in his hands for both of them.

      ‘Yes,’ Amy said fiercely. ‘Yes. I know it’s worth the risk.’

      Nick stood up abruptly, turned to face her and pulled her against him. He looked down at the dark patches illness had left under her eyes, and at the hollows in her cheeks. His fingers clenched in her hair but he was gentle as he kissed her. For an instant, so that she was almost giddy with it, she felt the hard line of him against her. Then, just as gently, he let her go again.

      Moving like a sleepwalker, Amy crossed the stone flags to the low doorway. She opened the door on to the blackness and the damp fragrance of the night air filled the room.

      ‘Have you been lonely here?’ she asked.

      Nick smiled slightly. ‘I’ve been as lonely as you have,’ he answered.

      Amy was briefly startled, and then she knew that he was right. For years she had been lonely, and tonight she wasn’t lonely any longer.

      ‘Would you like me to walk with you back to the house?’ he asked formally.

      Amy grinned her happiness at him. ‘Nothing can happen to me at Chance. I’m perfectly safe.’

      ‘I wonder if your father would agree with that, after tonight?’

      Amy’s smile was brilliant. ‘I’m twenty-one years old, I don’t need my father’s safe-keeping any more. Good night, Nick. Think of me.’

      Nick was standing beside his paraffin lamp, the shadows it cast black across his face. ‘I will.’ She had already turned away when he called after her. She heard the crackle in his voice. ‘You think,’ he ordered.

      ‘Yes.’

      Then she was gone, closing the door behind her with a soft click of the latch. Nick went back to his chair, looking down at the books she had brought for him. ‘Thank you for the orchid journals,’ he murmured. Against the dull brown covers, watching him, he saw Amy’s vivid face with

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