Season of Light by Katharine McMahon Read Free Book Online Page B

opened inside her. He said, caressing her cheek, stroking her hair: ‘I have nothing for you, Thomasina, except my love. The last thing I anticipated when I came to Paris was you. I am amazed at myself. I had thought, if ever I married, it would probably be to a girl from my home town and in the meantime anything to do with love would have to wait. But now there is you. I can’t make you promises, I don’t know where I will be next week or even tomorrow. It is your choice whether you go now or stay. If you want, I will take you back this minute to your sister.’
    His face, with the upward quirk of his lips, was too beautiful and she was too stunned by his kisses. She put her mouth to the corner of his lip and this time he locked her in his arms and drew her so close that her breasts and stomach, through the soft layers of muslin, shaped themselves to him. His body was hard and unfamiliar and the scent of his skin tangled her thoughts. His tongue made quick, soft strikes against her teeth and his hand shifted from her waist to her buttock, pressing her closer still so that his fingertips produced shocking flames in her flesh. As he kissed her ear and throat she opened her eyes and saw the blue sky and the green, blowing tops of trees.
    Again and again the voices in her head tried to speak but were answered by just one phrase: There is so little time. She stroked the top of his head as he kissed her neck and breast where the fabric of her under-shift was loosely gathered. When he looked at her again his eyes were blurred by desire. ‘I have felt, until this moment, that in France we might as well be slaves, we are so stifled,’ he said. ‘Your love has liberated me. You make no conditions, you give yourself freely.’
    ‘I can’t help myself.’
    ‘I want you to choose, every time.’
    ‘I do. I choose you.’
    His hand slipped from her breast to the small of her back. She was sure his touch, even through her dress, left a trace on her skin. ‘You must think very carefully. Perhaps I ask too much. I’m going to take you back to the hotel, before it is too late.’
    The sudden pulling away felt like rejection. They straightened their hair and clothes, but as he gathered a sheaf of papers, he seized her elbow and kissed her again, clasping the back of her head so there was no escaping the astonishing demands of his mouth. He said: ‘Think. Choose. Remember, there is only this. I can’t even be sure, from one day to the next, whether it will be the last time I walk free or if I shall be clapped in irons.’
    ‘Are you in such great danger?’
    He laughed. ‘Ah, don’t look like that or how can I bear to part from you even for a moment? But listen. You should know the truth. At the moment the government is treading carefully because it is nearly bankrupt and therefore desperate to see a rise in taxes. It has to make concessions to the people. But we all know, those of us who write in radical newspapers and make our voices heard, the likes of me and Brissot and Danton, that at any moment we are likely to be arrested and slammed into the Bastille. And who knows if we would emerge from that place alive and whole? That’s why I can’t make you any promises.’
    Asa kissed the beautiful, intact face of her living, bold lover, then he led her back down the dark staircase, this time pausing to embrace her so that her head was pushed against the rough plaster wall and her mouth ached. They parted at the crossroads and she hurried back to the hotel, sprayed with dirt thrown up by horses, battered by collision with other bodies and the press of traffic that forced her into the gaps between buildings. In her room she curled up on her bed, touched her bruised lips and held her arms tight across her breast as she thought of Didier, by now on his way to court, where he was to represent a woman at risk of being imprisoned for debt. She knew that when he pleaded his case, the taste of her mouth would be on his tongue.
    That