Fervently, Brim completed the stanza, written more than a thousand years in the past by the ancient composer Giulietta. "'Cycles fly, and ne'er return,/Our joys, Alas! are fleeting. /OnIy memory's flame will burn/For spells that ne'er return.'"
Avalon seemed to fade completely, the half-heard orchestra now played from at least a galaxy away, and the gentle rush of the fountain wrapped them in a warbling cloak of privacy. Above the dark gables of Lordglen, Avalon's twin moons—both glowing at full disk—flooded the plaza with a golden shadow of magic. They stood silently for a moment before he drew her toward him—eyes closed and arms around his neck. And his whole Universe became two wet and pouted lips. Brim felt his body trembling as he held her and breathed in the sensuous fragrance of her perfume. He opened his eyes. Hers were open, too, and he read in them all he needed to know. "Margot," he whispered while their lips still touched. "I want..." He swallowed and shook his head. "No," he said, "I need to make love to you. And I need to now."
Her eyes continued to look into his, but the heavy lids became heavier still. "Finally," she breathed with a sleepy smile. "For a moment, I was afraid I might have to ask you." Then her eyes closed and she covered his lips with hers, pressing herself against him for a long time before, arm in arm, they made their way back indoors again.
"I have a room upstairs," Brim suggested in the privacy of the music-filled room. "We could be alone there in a matter of cycles."
She laughed quietly as they made their way through the dancers to the great ebony doors. "Nothing would give my dear cousin Onrad more pleasure than to watch me rutting in bed with you," she said in a low voice. "Which he surely would—from all angles—were we to make our tryst here in Lordglen." She shook her head. "No, Wilf, I think we shall take our pleasure elsewhere—where no one will dare invade our privacy."
Brim raised an eyebrow.
"At the Effer'ian Embassy," Margot said firmly. "I live there now. And believe me, Wilf, no recorders invade the privacy of Princess Effer'wyck, at least not in her own bedroom."
Aboard Margot's chauffeured limousine skimmer, Brim struggled to maintain his decorum. It was evident she was troubled by problems of the same nature, for she shifted position every few ticks and squeezed his hand nervously a number of times. At last, the great vehicle glided to a halt beneath a small, dimly lighted portico. "The servants' entrance, Wilf," she explained with a wry smile as a huge green-livened footman with eyes politely averted opened the door of the limousine. "I hope you understand."
Brim laughed quietly. "I know any man at the ball would gladly kill if he could trade places with me at this servants' door right now," he said, kissing her hand. He helped her to the pavement, then followed as she led through the portico doorway, along a narrow corridor (also clearly made for servants—Brim knew that part of the Empire well!), and into a service lift. Less than a cycle later, he stood inside her softly lighted bedroom. Peripherally, he could sense an aura of incredible luxury, but none of it held any importance—only Margot mattered now. With his pulse thundering in his ears, he half heard the door latch shut—and she was in his arms, her breathing as rapid and urgent as his own. She teased his mouth with her lips and tongue.
And suddenly her arms were no longer around him. He opened his eyes just in time to watch her reach for something behind her neck. She smiled happily, gently arched her back, then drew the crossed halves of her bodice from the pointed whiteness of her breasts. A moment later, the skirt and sash too lay in a heap around her ankles. She wore nothing underneath. Heart pounding all out of control, Brim stared down at the knobby pink aureoles of her swollen nipples, the half-sensed network of delicate veins in the creamy skin beyond. He felt his arms begin to shake uncontrollably, looked deeply in her heavy eyes.
"Hurry, Wilf," she whispered as he fumbled out of his own clothes. "Please..."
Naked, he pulled her trembling shoulders close to him again, gently kissed her open lips while his thoughts went whirling to all corners of the Universe. Then they stumbled off toward the huge canopied bed.
Long before dawn, Brim sat on the edge of the bed, breathing her pungent scent on his face and stroking the damp golden thatch beneath her stomach. She sighed and shivered as his fingers moved upward over the firm mound of her abdomen, strayed for a moment at her buried navel.
And he thought of his hands. They were soft—Helmsmen didn't dare grow calluses. But nine or ten years earlier, they wouldn't have pleasured her so. Then, those same hands were hard as any other Carescrian miner's. He forced himself to dwell on them for a moment—it never hurt to remember one's origins, especially in the middle of such unbelievable luxury and intense pleasure.
"Wilf," she whispered at length, guiding his face down to her own. "What am I going to do about Rogan?"
Brim shrugged and bit his lip. "I suppose I should feel a little guilty about him," he said tonelessly. "I know you two are in love."
She shook her head. "'We seldom are as that we seem,'" she recited pensively; "'Truth has its little masquerades./Appearance doth protect the dream.'"
He moved closer to her on the bed and sat quietly while she sorted her thoughts.
"What the Empire can't know—what you can't know," she continued after a considerable lapse of time, "is that I never have loved him." She looked at him and smiled in resignation. "Oh, he comes here with me. I'm not fool enough to hope you'd believe he doesn't. Not after what you've seen of me tonight.
But aside from that, we're little more than close friends—locked into a rather dismal little courtship based on nothing more interesting than political necessity." She smiled ironically at him. "Our child will eventually rule both the whole Effer Cluster and the five industrial centers of the Torond." She laughed. "Shrewd old Greyffin IV saw that quickly enough—soon as my father produced a female. He set the whole thing up on the day of my birth. When Rogan had passed fifteen natal anniversaries."
"Does LaKarn love you?" Wilf asked when she was finished, suddenly afraid of her answer.
She smiled and shook her head, staring up at the ceiling.
"Sometimes when we are here, be says he does—for a few cycles. But aside from those moments, he appears to be much more interested in his career at the Admiralty."
Brim laughed quietly. "I seem to remember recently bleating earnest protestations of love myself," he said. "Probably at about the same emotional juncture as he."
"Did you mean them?" she asked, suddenly sitting up to face him.
He met her gaze evenly. "I meant every word I said, Margot," he pronounced carefully. "Then and now."
She drew his face to hers, kissed him lightly on the lips.
"I believe you, Wilf," she said. "As I believed you then."
"And?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said. "Honestly."
'Brim snorted. "In any case," be pronounced in mock seriousness, "1 now have an everlasting quarrel with my Emperor."
"You needn't," she said with unexpected concern. "I told you Rogan is usually a great deal more concerned about his career than anything I have to offer." She closed her eyes for a moment.
"Sometimes, it gets pretty lonely."
Brim shook his head helplessly. "I'm sorry," he said. Surprisingly, he found he actually meant it.
"Don't be sorry," she said. "It's helped bring us together, I suppose."
"Us?"
"Well," she said, her eyes sparkling with impish humor, you've probably guessed I have little desire to exist as a blushing virgin."