oddly exhilarated and shamed at once. 'Shhh…it's okay. Let me show you.'
And for the first time in her life she looked down from above on the act of love, and with sensual delight felt new- found freedom as her body was given free rein. But she was unskilled at this rhythmic caprice, so he murmured to her and guided her and his hands were there on her hips to en- courage when she faltered. Her hair swayed across her back sometimes. Other times it fell onto his face and chest. Its silken skeins fell into his open mouth as his head arched back, and she learned from him a new kind of gift, one she could give him. And she gave it as she'd never given before.
Lying once again quietly, only their hands touching, there came the sound of a growling stomach, and Aaron suddenly slapped his belly with an open hand, making a loud clap in the silence. Then he curled his body and rocked up and off the side of the bed in a single action. He felt for their clothes on the floor beside the bed, and when he'd found them, said, 'Come here, wench, and let me make a decent woman of you.' He reached out in the dark, found an arm, and pulled it until she was kneeling on the edge of the bed in front of him. 'Put your arms up,' he commanded, and she did as she was bid. He dropped the partially but toned nightgown over her head. Then he buttoned up each button, right up to the high, eyelet-trimmed neck, before he said, 'You've escaped the eye of the dragon this time, but I warn you, you won't for long.' And he put his own pajamas back on, then asked, 'Now can I light the lantern?' 'Whenever my lord wishes.'
He struck a match, and the room sprang into brightness. 'Your lord wishes some food. He is hungry as a dragon.' 'Indeed, I heard the dragon within him roar a minute ago.' She couldn't help the giggle that escaped her.
He picked up the lantern, laughing, too, and held out a hand to her. But before leading her out and down the stairs, he took the time to kiss her in the bright glow, holding the lantern aloft. 'C'mon, wench,' he said, and she followed him, smiling.
They sliced thick slabs of bread, layered them with butter and gooseberry jam, and drank the fresh milk they'd gotten that night, rich with the cream that had not yet separated to its top. He licked the gooseberry jam from her outstretched fingers, and she thanked him with a hesitant kiss that cleared his upper lip of milk froth. Standing in the pantry slicing their second pieces of bread, she curled her bare toes, and he came up behind her, putting his chin on her shoulder, and told her no wench could run from a dragon with toes like that. When his hands strayed upward, she threatened to do them injury with the bread knife. He admonished her lest she injure instead what lay beneath his fondling fingers, and they ate more bread and jam with laughter in their eyes and finally sat, with sleeves in the bread crumbs, holding hands across the tabletop. 'We have to go to bed now, don't we?' she asked. 'Yes. Even dragons and wenches need sleep.' 'Even when they don't want to?' 'Even when they don't want to. Especially when there's corn to plant tomorrow morning.'
They got up then and brushed the crumbs from their el- bows, leaving more on the tabletop unnoticed, each one a beautiful blot on the kitchen Mary had always left in meticu- lous order. They went up with arms around each other, the lantern in Aaron's free hand. At the door to the front bed- room they stopped, and he set the lantern on the floor at their feet. The light, rising to their faces from that low angle, highlighted their lips, leaving their eyes in shadow.
Aaron reached out and touched Mary's gilded lips with his fingertips. 'I would never sleep with you beside me all night long, and I wouldn't let you sleep, either. If it weren't for that corn, neither of us would care. But I'd better leave you here.'
Then the exaggerated shadows of the two became one on the opposite landing wall before he leaned to pick up the lantern and hand it to her. He went down the hall to the other door, but when he reached it, turned to look back at her. They both stood just so for a long time.
And they opened both doors at once, each turning into a separate room. But they left the doors open, as if the essence of one another might drift through the hall to help ease them into sleep.
When Aaron awoke, it was first light. He came awake as if an alarm had sounded, but none had. He'd slept like something hibernating, after the wearying release his body had needed so badly. The memory of it swept over him now as he got out of bed silently. Before changing clothes, he crept to the open doorway of the room up the hall.
Mary was still asleep, lying on her back, with both hands palms-up on the pillow like a child. Her hair was strewn all over the pillow, and the quilts covered her nearly to her chin. The only parts of her nightgown that showed were the eyelet ruffles at wrists and neck. He went a few steps farther into the room so he could see her features more clearly in the dim, dawn light. Her childlike face looked open, even in sleep, just as it had the night she'd combed her hair back for the dance. He wished she would awaken and raise her arms to him, but she didn't, so he gazed at her, contenting himself with memory.
But the day lay ahead with much to be done, so he went back to his own room, dressed, then crept as quietly as he could down the creaking steps toward the morning chores.
When Mary awoke, it was slowly, luxuriously, slipping into consciousness to test it, then slipping back out after finding she wasn't ready for it yet. When it finally suited her and she opened her eyes to it, her first thought was that something was wrong. The sun was bright and high and Jonathan had not yet clanged the household awake with the stove lids. Looking quickly down at the clock, she found it had stopped at a quarter to three…then she remembered why.
Aaron.
And all the memory of last night followed his name.
How had she ever slept so late? It must be midmorning already! Like a thunderbolt it struck her that she'd forgotten to pump the wash water last night to lose its chill…and she'd promised Jonathan to help Aaron plant the corn. How in blazes was she ever going to do all that after getting started so late in the day?
She tore into her clothes, tore the sheets off her bed, and dropped them over the railing in the hall. Before they hit bottom she had already attacked Aaron's bed, ripping its sheets off. Her hair was still flying free, but she didn't stop to put it up now. Instead, she grabbed her brush from the bedside stand where Aaron had left it the night before, and ran downstairs with it. She could do her hair after the boiler was filled and heating. She scooped up the mound of sheets at the bottom of the stairs and turned the corner into the kitchen with her feet tangled in their trailing folds.
There she stopped in surprise. Simmering on the range was the copper boiler, all filled with steaming water. A smile broke across her face, and she hugged the sheets to her, hanging her head back as she whirled in a circle with her feet twisting into the sheets and her hair flying out behind. Just one happy name filled her being.
He had pumped and filled the boiler for her, and now into his favor she read the compliment of his lover's gift. All the years he'd helped her, doing small favors, all the considera- tions that were so typically Aaron, now found new and un- told value in Mary's eyes. She looked at the simmering wash water, and its warmth was nearly hers.
Standing among the sheets, she brushed her hair and, when it was smooth, went into the pantry where there were clean rags on the shelf. Tearing a strip from one, she caught her hair back with it and tied it behind her neck, then began her washday preparations.
During the warm months the washing was done on the concrete porch where the wooden washer was kept. The hot water had to be bailed from the boiler and carried outside. Two tubs for rinsing were set on a wooden bench beside the washer. These were filled with cold water, pumped from the cistern. The first step in washing clothes was always to boil the white clothes in the boiler on top of the stove before turning them into the washer. But today, getting a late start even in spite of Aaron's favor, Mary procrastinated and scarcely felt guilty when she deferred the boiling till next week. Something had to be skipped to save time if she were to help Aaron at all in the fields today.
Standing on the porch in the sun, Mary worked the handle that made the agitator churn the clothes inside the washer. She looked down past the vegetable garden into the east field, but knew Aaron wouldn't be there. It had already been seeded with small grain. He would be out in the south ten, which was hidden from view by the woods. She looked out toward the south and thought of him there and hurried the day toward him. Through the sorting, soaking, agitating, dipping, wringing, and hanging she worked toward him, breaking only long enough to go into the buttery and dip some fried-down pork out of the crock and put it on the back of the stove to begin warming for their dinner.
The sheets were slapping in the noon wind, the shirts and pants dancing an inverted jig to their own beat. Coming up the field lane beside the woods, Aaron saw the clothes basket turned upside down in the yard and
