Page 35 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms (Tales from Honeysuckle Street #4)

When Florence was asleep—properly, deeply asleep—she breathed in with a little snore, then out with a little sigh.

She tucked the arm on her bad side against her chest like a shield, while the other cradled her head as she dreamt.

The previous night had brought a warm burst for the end of summer, and they’d both pushed off their halves of the coverlet some time before dawn.

The white cotton sheet draped over her body, and even though they’d spent the night naked and licking, touching and fucking, Johannes could never get his fill of her.

He inched the sheet down and kissed her nipple until it puckered.

‘If you start that, you will miss your boat,’ she mumbled.

Johannes rolled onto his back and fumbled for his pocket watch on the bedside table.

He clicked it open. ‘It is barely six. I have hours. Hours to kiss you.’ He found her bare skin with his mouth.

‘Hours to tell you how much I will miss you.’ He moved lower, tasting the salt-tinged dip of her hip.

‘And hours to make sure you don’t forget about me while I’m away. ’

‘It’s far too bright to be only six,’ she whispered, but at his nudge, she rolled slowly onto her back and parted her knees. ‘But if you are certain you have time, I will not object. I can be very forgetful.’

The weeks between their promise to love one another and the day of his departure for Italy had been filled with countless passionate nights, although there had been too few leisurely mornings like this.

Florence rarely wanted to stay at the hotel beyond dawn.

‘Think of propriety,’ she’d say, even as she slipped her hand over his trousers. ‘Think of our reputations.’

But he knew the truth. She enjoyed the sneaking. Whenever he walked her home in the dark, she took his hand and squeezed it, trembling with exhilaration. Every time they tiptoed out of the side entrance, she pushed him against the alley wall and demanded one final midnight kiss.

Yet during the day, she was the very model of propriety.

She’d become almost as steadfast as her mother in monitoring their behaviour through what was, to the world, a burgeoning courtship.

The woman who’d been denied the simple innocence of courting in her past life now relished slow walks through the park and casual conversations at garden parties.

Dear heavens, he’d even sent her poetry just to see if it would make her smile.

And it had, because she’d teased him about how terrible it was.

It was maddening, the distance by day contrasting with the almost deranged wantonness by night.

In one breath, she commented on the weather.

In the next, she declared with hedonistic specificity exactly what she desired that evening because she was having a very good day.

Her special indulgence was deciding on ever more elaborate aliases to be entered in the guest book to claim their room.

Last night, they had become Mr and Mrs Gotobedde.

He would never be boring old Mr Jones again.

‘I can’t decide’—he grazed his lips over her stomach—‘if you are a well-behaved young woman or a thoroughly debauched one.’

‘Can’t I be both?’ She slipped the bend of her knee over his shoulder.

‘If you can get your other knee up there, you can be anything you like.’

Johannes kissed her stomach just as the parish clock began to sound the hour. In one, two, three steady gongs, he had licked his way down to the apex of her thighs. Four, five, six, and she had hooked her other leg over his shoulder.

Seven…

He dragged his lips over the inside of her thigh.

Eight…

He nipped a path a little higher.

Nine…

He paused, then tilted his head, listening.

Ten…

He squeezed her lovely, lush skin with his fingers.

Eleven…

Johannes froze, then stretched over the mattress to yank his watch from the table. He clipped it open again, and just as the bell chimed out the fateful hour of twelve noon, his eyes sharpened on the minute hand. It wasn’t moving.

‘Bollocks.’ He eased himself free of Florence’s limbs and slid off the bed. ‘I forgot to wind my watch. The train leaves at one, the boat at three.’ An uneven tempo struck up a rhythm in his chest. ‘I’m going to miss them.’

He cast about the room for his clothes. Where had he thrown his smalls? Or rather, where had she thrown them? And his coat? His shirt? He scrambled about, half crawling as he gathered up each item, then began tugging and pulling them on as fast as he could. ‘Can you see my necktie?’

‘It’s right where you left it.’ Florence giggled. He looked up to find her pointing to the top rail of the cast-iron headboard. He leant over, stole a kiss, and yanked the knot loose.

‘I still need to load my trunk. I’m never going to—’

‘Will you help me dress?’ Florence heaved herself into a seated position. ‘Please? My back is tight this morning. I don’t want to get caught with my corset around my ears.’

He could never refuse her a request, even if it meant covering her nakedness, and even if it made him very late.

She threaded her arms gingerly through her chemise, and he lifted it over her head, pausing as she pulled her hair free.

It would be weeks or even months before he’d see her breasts again, before he’d nip each bump of her ribs once more.

In that time, she might well decide she was happier without him.

He might get lost in a country he had never been to before, or fumble his phrases and say something outrageous, or lose his papers, or encounter any number of travesties that befell travellers abroad…

‘Maybe I shouldn’t go! Maybe this is an omen that I am not meant to travel or take on different work. Or have adventures of any sort.’

‘I think it’s an omen that you must remember to wind your watch. And sign from the spirits or not, I still need my stockings.’

She wiggled her toes. He gathered the silk into his hands, then eased it over her heel and her calf. ‘I will miss untying these ribbons,’ he said, tightening the bow on one thigh, then the other. ‘I will miss everything about you. You won’t forget me?’

‘Have faith. In me and in yourself.’ She cupped her palm against his cheek. ‘You will never forgive yourself if you baulk and don’t go.’

She was right. Annoyingly, she was always right.

Before he could help her with her petticoats, she balanced against his shoulder to step into her skirts. ‘I can manage my blouse,’ she waved him off. ‘Do you have everything?’

‘I think so. My trunk is downstairs. My tickets…’ He opened the wallet. Closed it again. ‘They’re in here, with my travel papers. The itinerary. A book.’ He held it aloft, then slipped it into his satchel.

‘You have forgotten something.’

Johannes fixed his top button. ‘My drawing folder!’ He lunged across the room to grab it.

‘Something else,’ she said, as she shrugged on her cape.

‘My watch!’ He plucked it from the side table, turned the winder a few spins, and tucked it into his coat. He’d reset the time on his way across town.

‘Something else ,’ she insisted.

He slapped his chest, patted his pockets, opened his satchel—no, he’d checked everything. ‘What else have I forgotten?’

‘Me.’

It was only one word, but it carried a wealth of emotion. It quaked with fear and excitement, with worry and joy. When Johannes looked up, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching a small white envelope in her hands.

‘If you don’t mind my joining you. Father suggested that a trip might be good for my studies.

Elise arranged my steamer ticket, but if you’d rather I didn’t…

if you’d rather have time apart… After all, it was my idea to take our courtship slowly.

But I would very much like to see all those places.

I would love to share all of those first times with you. ’

‘You want to join me in Rome? And Venice? In Venice, I am going to talk about Ruskin. A lot.’

‘You are going to be intolerable.’

‘And there are many, many stairs.’

‘Could you bear to go slow for me?’

He did not even need a breath to consider, nor did he need the clock chiming the quarter hour to remind him of how little time they had left.

‘I will move like a snail across Italy if it means I get to have you beside me. But right now’—he scooped her up into his arms, and her shriek turned to laughter—‘we really must run.’

Thank you for joining me for another tale of love and friendship on Honeysuckle Street.

Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms is the fourth adventure to take place on Honeysuckle Street, and the second from the Hempel family. But who will be next?

You've possibly already guessed, given the introduction at Miss Delaney's musicale.

If you'd like to read the blurb and get a taste of the story to come, turn the page…