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The twitching lips curved into a full smile. “I find her beautiful, my irrational beloved, because she is the very image of you.”
“Veronica, are you quite all right?” “I do not know,” I replied. “You are agreeing with me. It is a curious feeling.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I shall not make a habit of it.” “Don’t,” I begged. “It is distinctly unsettling.”
If, however, you are referring to the refreshing and healthful sessions of physical congress in which we frequently engage, I refer to them only obliquely, I assure you.”
“You are clearly a lady of unconventional thought and resourceful thinking,” I told her. “Like recognises like,” she replied graciously.
Without a word, Stoker took my hand and we made our way across the encampment.
Stoker, who was given to quoting Keats at romantic moments, did not disappoint. His delicious baritone shaped the phrases of mellow fruitfulness before passing on to some decidedly more direct passages, and I responded as any red-blooded lady with any claim to human emotion might have done.
“You are all the tonic I require,” he told me. (The interlude that followed does not bear upon the narrative, so I shall include no further comment except to say that it was gratifying indeed.)
“But I am prepared to make it up to you.” “How?” he asked, his gaze sharpening at once with an interest I recognised very well indeed. I primmed my mouth. “How would you propose?” I asked innocently. He told me. Reader, I did it.
“For once, I mean to surprise you,” I told him. “I think we ought to wait.” “Wait? Veronica, I had no notion that word was even in your vocabulary. You are the most impetuous, headstrong, reckless—” “There is no call to make hurtful remarks,” I cut in. “Hurtful? I mean them as compliments.
“Well, I forbid you to die,” I told him. “I should not like that at all, you know. I have grown far too accustomed to you to do without you. But I do not think you should have to do without me. So I think we should make a pact. Neither of us is permitted to die without the other. What do you think?” He wrapped his arms more tightly around me. “I promise. If I am ever near death, I vow to take you with me.”
“Some men prefer a lady who is silent,” Spyridon replied sagely, “because they like to think they are smarter than their women and if she talks, he finds out he is stupid.
“Say it,” he ordered. “Just three words, but they are poetry. And I want to hear them.” “I love you,” I told him, tipping my head to the side like a winsome kitten.
“Veronica Speedwell. Say. It.” “Very well,” I muttered. “I was wrong.” He threw his head back and laughed, the sound of it echoing off the marble walls until the whole of the little bathhouse was filled with his merriment. “My god, I have never been so happy to hear anything in the whole of my life.” “Enjoy the moment,” I told him tartly. “It will surely never come again.”
It was the first piece of jewellery he had given me, and though there would be other tokens of his affection through the years, none would ever move me quite so deeply as that slender gold ring.
