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"Hmm." She sighed. "Damn you, Edgar. How tiresome you are."
"Guilty," he said. "And bourgeois and tyrannical. And in love with you."
This time she heard and paid attention. This time she dared to consider that perhaps it was true. And that
perhaps it was time to respond in kind. But she could not say it just like that. It was something that had to
be approached with tortuous care, something to be crept up on and leapt on unawares so that the words
would come out almost of their own volition. Besides, she was terrified. Her legs felt like jelly and she
was breathless. It was not the walk or the skating that had done it. She was not that unfit.
"If we are not to skate even at a snail's pace, Edgar," she said, "perhaps we should retire from the ice
altogether."
"I'll take you home," he said. "You must be tired."
"I do not want to go home," she said, looking up to see that the stars were no longer visible. Clouds had
moved over. "We are going to have fresh snow. Tomorrow we will probably be housebound. Let us find
a tree behind which we can be somewhat private. I want to kiss you. I want you to kiss me. Quite
wickedly."
He laughed. "Why waste a lascivious kiss against a tree," he asked, "when we would be onlysomewhat
private? Why not go back home where we can make use of a perfectly comfortable and entirely private
bed and do more than just kiss?"
"Because I want to be kissednow ," she said, wrestling her arm free of his grip and taking him by the
hand. She began to skate across the center of the ice's surface in the direction of the bank. "And because
I may lose my courage during the walk back to the house."
"Courage?" he said.
But she would say no more. They narrowly missed colliding with Letty and her father-in-law. They
removed their skates on the bank. They almost chose a tree that was already occupied by Fanny
Grainger and Jack Sperling. They finally found one with a lovely broad trunk against which she could
lean. She set her arms about him and lifted her face to his.
"You are quite mad," he told her.
"Are you glad?" she whispered, her lips brushing his. "Tell me you are glad."
"I am glad," he said.
"Edgar," she said, "he has forgiven me."
"Yes, love," he said, "I know."
"I have loved during this Christmas season and have been loved," she said, "and I have brought disaster
on no one."
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"No," he said and she could see the flash of his teeth in the near darkness as he smiled. "Not unless
everyone comes down with a chill tomorrow."
"What a horrid threat," she said. "It is just what I might expect of you."
He kissed her hard and long. And then more softly and long, his tongue stroking into her mouth and
creating a definite heat to combat the chill of the night.
"You have brought happiness to a large number of people," he said at last. "You are genuinely loved.
Especially by me. I do not want to burden you with the knowledge,Helena, and you need never worry
about feeling less strongly yourself, but I love you more than I thought it possible to love any woman. I do
not regret what happened. I do not regret marrying you. I do not care if you lead me a merry dance,
though I hope it will always be as merry as this particular one. I only care that you are mine, that I am the
man honored to be your husband for as long as we both live. There. I will not say it again. You must not
be distressed."
"Damn you, Edgar," she said. "If you maintain a stoic silence on the subject for even one week I shall
lead you the unmerriest dance you could ever imagine."
He kissed her softly again.
"Edgar." She kept her eyes closed when the kiss ended. "I have lied to you."
He sighed and set his forehead against hers for a moment. "I thought we came here to kiss wickedly," he
said.
"Apart from Christian," she said, "I have never been with any man but you."
"What?" His voice was puzzled. She did not open her eyes to see his expression.
"But I could nottell you that," she said. "You would have thought you werespecial to me. You would
have thought me vulnerable ."
"Helena," he said softly.
"You were," she said. "I was. You are. I am. Damn you, Edgar," she said crossly, "I thought it wasmen
who were supposed to find this difficult to say."
"Say what?" She could see when she dared to peep that he was smiling again grinning actually. He
knew very well what she could not say and the knowledge was making him cocky.
"I-love-you." She said it fast, her eyes closed. There. It had not been so difficult to say after all. And then
she heard a loud, inelegant sob and realized with some horror that it had come from her.
"I love you," she wailed as his arms came about her like iron bands and she collided full length with his
massive body. "I love you. Damn you, Edgar. I love you."
"Yes, love," he said soothingly against one of her ears. "Yes, love."
"I love you."
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"Yes, love."
"What a tedious conversation."
"Yes, love."
She was snickering and snorting against his shoulder then, and he was chuckling enough to shake as he
held her.
"Well, I do," she accused him.
"I know."
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zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkwiatpolny.htw.pl
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| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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