The Memory of Your Kiss by Wilma Counts Read Free Book Online Page B

Thank God that description did not apply to his friend Miss Sydney Waverly.
    His friend. Yes. She had become that. But he often found himself wanting more. Hold on! he told himself. Stop right there. You have no right to “more” from any woman at this point. The war is likely to go for a long while yet — a year or probably longer. Nor can you violate the “rules” by intruding into Sydney’s personal life.
    Nevertheless, he treasured what he did know of her personal life. He knew that her mother was dead and that, since leaving school,Sydney was in charge of her father’s household. She was fond of her younger brother and sister and talked of them much more often than of herself. Her father, a clergyman in Devonshire, was something of a scholar and had encouraged her in similar pursuits. Had her father actually encouraged those unorthodox ideas about the role of women? Well, never mind. Once she was a wife and mother, that nonsense would fade away.
    For some reason that she had not shared, Sydney seemed worried about her father. And, yes, he thought of her—as Sydney —for they had agreed early on that they would be “Sydney” and “Zachary” in private. Zachary did not feel she was deliberately hiding information from him, but he sensed that the future weighed heavily on her mind and he was determined to honor her wishes in putting off facing it just yet. God knew he felt the same way about his own immediate future.
    So they would go along as they had been. Enjoying this time and this place, tacitly agreeing to concentrate on the here and now.
    Then he kissed her.
    Well, to be honest, they kissed each other.
    It happened just the day before she was scheduled to leave Bath. Zachary had called alone and invited Sydney for a stroll in the small park that formed the center of Queen Square. It was one of those crisp September days when the temperature lets one know winter is knocking at the door, but summer is not yet giving way. There were only a few other people in the park, mostly older people sitting on the benches, feeding birds or dozing in the sun. Sydney and Zachary paused within a grouping of young trees that seemed to be trying to shed the leaves of summer.
    “This is my favorite time of the year,” Sydney said. “Don’t you just love the colors?”
    He smiled, thinking that at the moment the colors he admired most were in her cheeks and eyes, but what he said was, “Right now the trees are putting on quite a show for us, but soon enough they will become ‘bare ruined choirs.’”
    “ ‘Where late the sweet birds sang.’” She finished the line. “I love that sonnet, though it does have a sad, melancholy tone.”
    “Yes. Well, it is about parting.” Recalling the last line, he was sorry he had alluded to this particular Shakespearean sonnet.
    Just as though she had read his mind, the words came tumblingfrom her lips. “‘To love that well which thou must leave ere long.’ Oh, Zachary—” She turned to him, her eyes suddenly filled with despair.
    And that’s when he kissed her.
    He simply drew her gently into his arms and settled his lips on hers. She’d had time to protest, to withdraw. But she did not do so. No. She had hesitated for the barest moment, and then her lips were responding to his with equal passion. It was the sweetest, most earth-shattering such experience of his entire life. He felt a fierce surge of desire and sought to deepen the kiss, but she pulled away slightly and lifted her hand to caress his cheek.
    “Please, Zachary. We must not—I must not—I am so sorry.”
    “No. No. It was my fault. ‘Had we but world enough and time.’”
    She smiled weakly. “More poetry?”
    He shrugged. “Why not? The poets always seem to have something for every situation.”
    “Even ours.”
    He thrilled at the word ours . It told him, as a thousand others could not, that she shared his longing, the fervent wish for circumstances to be otherwise.
    He still had his arms