Page 57 of The Moonstone Major
“No, you pathetic thing. Would I be laughing if I were?”
“I couldn’t bear it if you were. And I cannot bear it that you are not angry as hell with me. I did not dance with you tonight because I needed to push you out of my life. It is for your own good.”
She caressed his cheek. “Since I am now flat atop you, I would say your plan did not work out quite as you hoped.”
“I will adjust my plan to make it work once I am sober.”
She kissed him softly on the lips. “Don’t bother. Nothing you do or say will ever make me stop loving you.”
“Nothing? Are you not in the least disgusted with me? I am drunk. I purposely broke my promise to you. I am a nobody with no name and no family.”
She kissed him again. “Do you think you can get up?”
“I don’t know. You are atop me.” He caressed her cheek. “Lord in heaven, you feel so good.”
“As though I was made just for you?”
He nodded.
“I am rather comfortable atop you, too. You are exquisitely muscled. But you must get up now. Let me help you.” She scrambled off him and tried to put her shoulder under his arm to haul him upright. “Goodness, you’re big.”
“And you are sweet and little, and the most beautiful girl I have ever seen…and I’ve seen plenty. Done plenty. Even when I was obscenely young and should have been tucked in bed and had bedtime stories read to me. But you…sweet heaven, you are so beautiful inside and out. Your heart. Your body. Your kindness. You are perfect. The loveliest thing in creation. My head’s still spinning. You had better not move me. I may cast up my accounts.”
“Don’t you dare. But you must get up.”
“Why?”
“Because I am not going to let you break your word to me. We are going to dance.”
He laughed. “Several problems with that idea. First, there is no orchestra. Second, even if I could stand up, I doubt my legs will move in any coordinated fashion. Third… Oh, hell.”
“What is the third issue?”
“I will do a terrible job of it and disappoint you.”
“Breaking your word is the disappointment, not the grace with which you spin me around your garden. I expect you will be incredibly ungraceful. We might even topple a time or two. But it is more important that you keep your word. I shall have my dance.”
He wanted to tell her that he loved her more than anything on this earth, but even drunk he knew this admission would trap her forever. She would never move on. Never find the happiness she deserved.
He did not know how he did it, but he managed to get to his feet and stay upright. He also managed to hold Chloe in his arms and spin her very slowly to a waltz tune he made up in his head.
After making it through what barely counted as a proper waltz, he kissed her breasts and kissed her perfect mouth, and then he toppled into oblivion.
*
He awoke thenext morning to a light mist over the water and the hint of a sun trying to break through the tendrils of gray.
The grass beneath him was damp with dew. Several ladybugs were crawling up his arms.
He sat up and clutched his head to stop the hammer pounding in it.
A bottle of brandy and an empty glass stood upright on the wrought-iron table on the terrace. Had he left it there? The chairs were all neatly aligned, as though no one had sat in them or toppled them as they rose. He was almost certain his chair had toppled as he struggled to his feet when seeing the vision of Chloe.
He rolled to his knees and then to his feet and made his way to the beach stairs. There were no telltale signs of Chloe. No little footsteps in the sand or silk ribbons trapped between rocks.
He was shirtless.
Had she been in his arms?
