“You grow more lovely with each life,” he said, and he smiled again. Now I could see that it was a smile. “Noah…”
Terrified of what he might say, I rushed in. “Long Tom said we must heal the wounds between us. Brutus, I am so sorry that I ever denied you the right to kiss me, or that I said to you such foul words about Melanthus, or that—”
“Noah, do you loathe me?” He seemed to have disregarded every word I’d said, which made me cross, because it had taken all my effort to force them out. Gods, they’d been sitting unsaid in my mouth for two and a half thousand years and they had not easily leapt forth into voice.
Finally what he said sank into my consciousness. “Loathe you? Why?” How could he possibly think that? Hadn’t I spent two lifetimes throwing myself at him in one form or another?
“After what I said to you, when last we parted. After what I did.”
“Brutus, I begged you to kill me. I thought you loathed me. You said—”
“I said stupid things.” He suddenly reached out a hand and ran it through my hair. I shuddered, and I know he felt it, for his eyes widened in an almost stunned disbelief.
He hadn’t thought I would respond so readily to him. He had been scared, and was scared. Could it possibly be that he was as apprehensive as I? As terrified of failure as I?
His hand came to a halt at the back of my neck, his fingers so warm and strong.
“I have always said stupid and hateful things to you,” he repeated, “because I was so frightened of you.”
“Frightened of me? Why?” His fingers were now stroking at the back of my neck, and I wished to every god in heaven and hell they would never stop.
“I was frightened of you because I felt too deeply for you. I was scared of loving you. I was terrified of you the moment I first laid eyes on you, I think. You stood there so proud and sure in your father’s megaron—” he half laughed “—having just kicked one of my guards in the shins. I was scared of you, and of your father, and that is why I acted as I did. I demanded you as my wife, for I think I knew even then I could not bear to lose you to another.”
I could say nothing. I could hardly believe I was hearing these words.
“I would murder the world, if ever I lost you to another,” he whispered, and I shivered.
He was so close now, and our bodies touched briefly, with this breath and that, at breast and chest. I could feel his heat, see his heart skittering in his rib cage, and without thinking, acting only on instinct, I put out a hand and rested it on his chest.
His skin jumped under my fingers. “I am sick of being scared of loving you,” he said. “Noah, please…”
And then I knew that he truly was scared and I could stand it no longer. If he wanted a new beginning, then so be it. I did the one thing I had denied him in this chamber so long ago, the one thing our relationship had foundered on for so many lives.
I leaned against him, pressing my breasts against his chest, ran my hands down to his hips, and raised my face to his.
His hand tightened against the back of my skull, and somehow we were doing so easily what we had never allowed ourselves to do before: kiss.
It began gently and nervously, trembling tentative movements of mouth against mouth, each of us almost too scared to touch the other, but then suddenly he grabbed at me with his hands and body and mouth.
Oh, gods, this was not like the kiss he had given me in the death chamber under Tower Hill. This was the kind of kiss that could found empires and tear down skies all at the same time.
I would settle merely for the founding of an empire.
“Do I still taste foul?” I asked eventually, pulling my mouth away from his.
He paused, as if thinking through what he had felt.
“I tasted you, and all that you are,” he said, kissing me softly on the top of my nose, and then again behind my left ear.
Ah, I almost melted at those brief caresses.
“I tasted the land and its rivers and the tug of the moon; all this in your mouth.”
Again he kissed me, more deeply this time, and with enough passion that I moaned. Suddenly all this kissing was not quite enough for me.
“And, yes,” he said, pulling away just enough so his words could play across my upturned face. “Yes, I can taste that imp within you, but in you it does not taste foul. What you are overcomes all that the imp represents. When I kissed Swanne, then I tasted all that she had become, and it was foul.”
“But you said that I also—”
“I was a fool. I tasted only what I wanted. I was so angered, so terrified, and so lost when I realised how Asterion had tricked you, that all I could taste was foulness. But that foulness was my foulness, not yours.”
“But this imp remains within me, even in this enchanted place. Are you not afraid of it?”
“Oh, gods, Noah. I am afraid for you. Long Tom has told me that you are destined to become Asterion’s whore in this life, and—”
“Hush,” I said, laying fingers against his mouth, “do not speak of that now.”
“I cannot allow it.”
“You must, my love.”
“I will save you. Somehow. I will.”
His fervour touched me deeply. I knew that he could hate well. I had never realised until now how well also he could love.
“That is far into the future,” I whispered. “Pray, let us not talk of it. But…we do need to speak of the imp. I need to know if you are willing to—”
“I am not willing to allow this imp to keep me from you,” he said. “Not ever again. If it snatches, then so be it.”
“That is not the Brutus I knew and loved,” I whispered.
“Then can you know and love this one?”
“Truly,” I said, “I think I might be able to manage.”
And with that, he picked me up, and carried me to the bed. “Cornelia,” he said, naming me by my ancient and first name as he laid me softly down, “will you be my wife?”
“Yes!” I said.
“Cornelia,” he said, “will you love me?”
“Yes!” I said.
“Cornelia—Caela—Noah,” he said, and he was laughing and weeping all at the same moment, “and Eaving too, if she wants to hear it, the depth of love that I feel for you has been exceeded only by the stupidity I have shown in not realising it.”
“You love me?” I wished he’d just say it, three simple words, and not wrap them about with all this elegant court-speak.
“Most exceedingly,” he said.
“Then, dear gods, just say it!”
He laughed, and kissed me, softly. “Aye, I do love you, Noah. I always have.”
“Well, that is good,” I said, and I felt emotion choke my voice as I spoke those practical words, “for I happen to discover that I love you, too.” I paused, then continued in a whisper, “And always have.”
I reached out and undid the knots of his linen waistcloth, then allowed him to divest me of my skirt, and he lay down beside me and cradled me in his arms.
“Asterion be damned,” I whispered, and he laughed, and then kissed me, and all was very well.
When, eventually, he rose above me, and entered me, I ran my hands through his hair and pulled his face back to mine, and let him kiss me all he wanted.
“Shelter me,” he whispered, raising his face slightly, and I did, and so much of my worry and apprehension slid away as, together, in this place that was both Mag’s Pond and the bedchamber where we had originally made so many mistakes, we finally did something right.
Idol Lane, London, Hampstead, Middlesex, and Antwerp, the Netherlands
Jane felt it, knew it, the instant that Cornelia-reborn and Brutus-reborn met. She stood in the centre of the fish market, staring northwards, and gaped.
And then felt agony as the imp within her womb bit deep.
Come home! Weyland’s voice seethed through her mind. Come home! I command it!
Jane dropped the basket she held over one arm, tore her mind free of whatever it was Brutus and Cornelia were doing, and half sank to her knees in pain, her arms wrapped about her belly.
“For Christ’s sake!” she whispered. “Allow me to walk and I will return to you!”