"Oh ... aye . .." She looked down again. "There may be some chance ... But I would have you know, Alain, that it is only this night that you have begun to talk to me as yourself, Alain, not the Crown Prince. How can I know whether or not I love you yet, when we have only now met?"
"Well," Alain said softly, cradling her closer in his arm, "I will be very glad with that, Cordelia. Come, let us learn to know one another—truly, if we can."
They sat by the river, his arm about her, talking of inconsequentialities, talking of grave matters, talking of themselves and of each other, as the moon slowly rose.
But the moon had not yet risen when Geoffrey led Delilah to the little fairy garden. It rose where a little stream trickled into the river—tall, feather-soft columns in a semicircle, backing smaller flowers and ferns: anemones, poppies, spirea. They were only varying shades of gray in the starlight, of course, but the stream reflected glimmers back at many points, and the soft susurrus of the leaves of the willow that overarched the whole of the tiny garden made it seem like an undersea grotto—partly magical, and entirely alluring.
"Oh! How wonderful!" Delilah reached out to caress the slender stalks. "Scarcely have I ever seen anything so lovely!"
"We should leave a bowl of milk." Geoffrey knelt beside her. "Such a wondrous place cannot have grown by nature, and who but the elves could have tended it?"
"Fairies, say rather." Delilah looked up at him with excitement in her eyes—not of wonder, Geoffrey realized, but of anticipation, almost as though she were a hunter tracking quarry—eager, eyes dancing with mischief. "For what have you brought me to this place, sir?"
"Why," said Geoffrey, "to admire beauty."
"Then admire! Admire all you wish!" In a smooth, continuous motion, she rose to her feet, skirts belling around her as she pirouetted. "Gaze your fill—but you shall not touch!" And she fled, laughing.
Geoffrey rose, grinning; he knew the game, and understood it. He was on his feet, stalking her.
With a gay laugh, she disappeared among the trees. He echoed her laugh with a deeper tone of his own, and followed.
In and out among the trees they darted, playing at nymph and faun. Her laughter was not the pure, innocent trilling of a maiden, but the mocking taunts of a woman of experience.
Geoffrey's blood flowed hotter for hearing it, and he followed hard and close.
Several times he lunged out, grasping for a handful of cloth, but she whirled aside at the last second, and the fabric slid out from between his fingers.
Finally, she tired—or tired of the game. She tripped, and stumbled back against a huge old oak. Geoffrey was on her in a second, one hand slapping the trunk to either side of her, boxing her between his arms, his face only a few inches from hers, both of them laughing with delight—but not sheer delight. No, delight and anticipation, as his lips came closer ...
At the last second, she caught her breath and ducked out under his arm, fleeing again, but not quite so fast as she should have, and he caught her wrist. She pulled against it, but not too hard. "Oh, sir, leave off! Let me flee!"
"Why, I shall let you do whatever you please." Geoffrey stepped lightly around, circling her into the crook of his arm and pressing her close. "But what do you truly desire?"
"Why sir, for shame!" She lowered her gaze, but only as far as his doublet. She reached up as though to pluck a piece of lint from it—but her fingers ended by fumbling with the fastenings. "Have you no shame?"
"Shame?" Geoffrey wrinkled his brow, puzzled. "What is that?"
"It is something that you do not have, but should," she reproved him.
"It does come undone, you know," he said.
"Do you?" She rolled her eyes up to look at him through long lashes. "Ah, sir! You might prove my undoing!"
He loosed the fastener and began the next. "Why, so I shall. Have you never heard that you should do as you are done by?" He reached around to the nape of her neck and let his fingers trail down her back. She gasped, with a wriggle, then laughed. "You are deceived, sir! I have no fastenings of any kind; this dress is all of one piece."
"Why, then." His fingers traced under the curve of her breast, to the lacings of her kirtle. "I shall have to undo here, instead."
She laughed, twirling away, but he held onto the lace, and the bow came undone.
"Sir! How dare you!" She put her hands to the kirtle, pulling it tight, even though it had scarcely opened at all. Geoffrey let the end of the lace slip of out of his fingers. "What would you have me do?"
"Why, whatever you will." She tilted her chin up. "But my sights are set higher than yourself."
"That takes not overmuch doing," Geoffrey countered, "for my sights are set low—very low indeed."
"Nay, nay!" She stepped away with a wicked glance. "I pursue one of higher station than your own."
Geoffrey was still for a second, then gave her a wicked grin. "Why, think you I am but a squire?"
"Why, are you more?" she returned. "And is not your friend a knight?"
"Am I not knight enough for you?" he countered. "Or enough for a night?"
"I think perhaps you might be." Her voice was low and throaty, and she stepped close to him, so close that he could have sworn he had felt the touch of her body, though there was still an inch of space between them—and for a second, her eyes burned with the heat of desire.
Then she whirled away again, and when she turned back to regard him from a distance of five feet, her eyes had cooled to the chill of icebergs, and she gave him her most haughty look. "I think you are not all that you seem."
"My friend, though, is?"
She shrugged elaborately. "I think that he is more. Certainly I shall discover it."
"Will you truly?" Geoffrey grinned. "And will you discover how much of me is substance?"
She gave him a cool, appraising stare, then flashed a wicked smile. "If it pleases me—for surely, I know that I would please you."
Then she turned and fled again.
He followed her, running fast, dodging in and out among the trees. There was no laughter this time, only hot breath panting in their throats, until finally he reached out and caught her by the sleeve. She spun about, tripped, and fell to the ground. He dropped down by her side, fingers trailing fire across her cheek, down her neck, and across the swelling curve of her breast, breathing hard. "Ah, lass, pray do as you please! Fulfill your desires, and care not how base they may be! Know that I am a man for all you might wish!"
"Aye, well might you be," she sighed, and her breath was perfume, perfumed smoke from a fire where incense burns. "Yet still shall I withhold, till I have taught another man delights of which he shall never have his fill!"
"He shall cleave unto you always?" Geoffrey raised an eyebrow.
"In truth! Then may you court me to the end, to the finish! But for now, sir, I pray you—leave off!"
It cost him dearly, it required a huge effort—but Geoffrey had sworn to himself, very early, that he would never pursue a woman farther than she wished. He forced himself away with a sigh, reflecting that if she had really wanted him to continue, it was her own hard luck that she had bade him hold. She would have to pursue him more fervently, and be more open and more sincere in her flirtations, if she wished a different ending to the game. "As you wish, then. Come, sit beside me for a moment or two. I promise I shall touch naught but your hand."
"Why then should I sit beside you?" But slowly, she sat up, her eyes wary, weighing him, gauging him, not understanding, not believing.
"Why," he said softly, "to look at this fairy grotto in the moonlight. Only see!"