When the service ended and the congregation rose, Mary hitched Sarah onto her arm, but before she could struggle to her feet, she felt Sarah being lifted from her and looked up in surprise as Aaron held Sarah with one arm and reached his other to her elbow, helping her to her feet. She still worried about the delicate balance of propriety. But that balance was inexorably tipped when Aaron kept Sarah on his arm as they entered the aisle, further confused when he took Mary's elbow solicitously on their way out of church. She didn't pull away although her confused mind insisted on querying, What will people think? But Aaron's lucid mind knew they would think exactly what he wanted them to-that the period of mourning was over!
In the buggy she affected a light tone, though her heart was unnecessarily jumpy. 'You mustn't be so…so polite and helpful, Aaron. People will talk.'
He just tossed his head up and laughed, undismayed. 'Didn't I tell you, you do that to a man, Mary girl?' he teased.
She didn't know what to make of it, after all the careful months of avoiding the slightest scandal. He suddenly seems to be laughing at the wind, she thought. If she didn't know better, she'd swear he'd been tippling.
He kept it up all through the day. Her heart did crazy things, and she knew she should still it, but couldn't.
Aunt Mabel commented on how good Mary looked. Seeing the girl's eyes seek out Aaron in the crowd, she realized why. At dinnertime he brought her a plate of food and took Sarah so Mary could enjoy her meal. In the afternoon he paid a young girl a half dollar to take Sarah off Mary's hands for a while so she could further enjoy her day. When the line formed for the men to kiss the bride, he was in it. But when he had kissed and paid the bride her dollar, he scanned the crowd for Mary and found her watching him. He winked at her, and she dropped her head to attend to something Aunt Mabel was saying.
They both danced with many people. Sarah was asleep by then, and Mary was free to join in the revelry. Aaron asked her to dance and kept up the gaiety, teasing her about the others she'd danced with. The quarter moon was high before the festivities ended. A heavy chill crisped the air. As the rigs left, the voices that called goodnights carried across the autumn air, ebbing away as the night ushered them home.
In Mary and Aaron's rig, it was quiet. Sarah slept on Mary's lap. She was grateful to have the baby there asleep. It seemed a plausible reason for their sudden silence with each other. There was little time for thought. The ride home was too short.
Aaron took Sarah from Mary before she could protest, and carried her upstairs to her bed. When he'd laid her in the crib he stood a moment, thinking of Mary downstairs, a pounding in his veins. He took off his jacket and hooked it with two fingers, slinging it over his shoulder. Drawing a ragged breath, he went downstairs.
Mary had lit the kitchen lamp, but she was in the pantry. He saw the hem of her skirt as he stood just inside the kitchen doorway. She moved then, knowing he stood there, and gazed at him from across the room. He still held the jacket slung over his shoulder, making no move to leave.
She became self-conscious under his steady eyes and dropped her gaze to the floor. 'I would like one more waltz with you,' he said in a dis- turbingly quiet tone. 'I…' But she couldn't finish, seemed not to know what to say.
He crossed the room slowly and reached for her hand, led her across the kitchen and into the shadowed living room. He threw his jacket across the rocker, then re- leased her hand and went to wind the graphophone. The hushed strains of the Strauss waltz glimmered in the room. She saw Aaron against the light from the doorway, saw his hand reach for her again.
She felt the silken back of his waistcoat as she placed a hand on his shoulder, then the rough texture of serge as he pulled her into his arms. They moved a few steps to the music, but it went on as they stilled.
She felt his hands at her hair, pulling the pins from it, but she stayed where she was, her temple against his chin. She heard the pins drop onto the floor behind her. Then his hands turned her face and he lowered his mouth to hers. Her arms came around him of their own volition, and her mouth slackened under his.
The kiss was as familiar to Mary as if she'd shared his kisses every day. But the surge of emotion pounding through her seemed as new as if she'd never been kissed before. Its warmth became heat. His tongue became a coal inside her, setting her afire with its insistence. He twisted his mouth over hers and clamped her body against the hard length of his own. His arm lowered from the small of her back to her hips, and he pressed his own hips against hers, lifting her to her toes.
He tore his mouth away then, and his shaking voice was at her ear. 'I meant to go slow, darling, but I've waited so long, loved you so long.'
She grasped him against her, protesting in spite of her demanding body, 'Aaron, we can't do this again.' 'Don't say it, Mary.' And he stopped her words with his mouth.
When he freed her lips again, she said unsteadily, 'I've felt so guilty about what we did to Jonathan.' 'I have, too,' he said. 'But Jonathan is dead, and we can't keep him between us forever. We're alive, Mary. You and I are alive, and it's wrong to deny it any longer.' There was pain in his voice, and hunger, and longing. And as always, he made her do what he wanted because it was what she wanted, too.
There was no denying the shivering weakness that pos- sessed her starved body as his hand slid to her breast and she leaned into his palm, groaning as he caressed her. She could no more stop what was happening than she could stop the turning of the earth. She felt him release her and begin to open the buttons of her blouse, up the back. With her lips still on his, she undid the buttons of her cuffs, behind his neck.
They parted long enough for him to pull the blouse from her shoulders. It was tucked into the waist of her skirt, but he let it drop over her hips, remain tucked in. He pulled the straps of the chemise over her shoulders and pushed the garment to her waist, his hands gliding down her warm sides.
Then he circled her waist with one arm, forcing her to kneel on the floor with him. She felt his mouth hot and wet on her breasts, and pulled his head harder against them, feeling his soft hair against her skin as he moved from one to the other. Her fingers were in his hair, and he felt them clutch and pull it as he licked a line down the center of her chest to her lowered chemise.
When he reached for the hem of her skirt, he touched her high-button shoes. Gripping her bare arms again, he pulled her to her feet, begging, 'Take your shoes off, Mary, please.' He turned her toward the kitchen, and she clutched her chemise as she went away toward the lantern light.
He heard her searching for the button hook. After a length of silence she returned barefooted and stood silhouetted in the doorway, her hair forming an aureole around her. He had taken off his vest and shirt and stood barefooted. He raised his arms to her, and she padded noiselessly across to him, making a soft, pained sound as they touched. 'I love you so much, Mary,' he whispered. 'I've loved you so long.' 'I've known it, and I'm so sorry I had to fight it,' she said softly, 'but I promise I won't fight it anymore. Aaron, oh Aaron, I love you.'
It was a kiss of rejoicing when their lips met again, magni- fied by the long wait they had both endured.
This time she tugged at him, pulling him down onto the hooked rug, taking his hands and placing them on her breasts as she knelt before him. But his hands lingered there only a short moment, then lowered to the buttons at her waist.
A pandemonium of pounding blood clamored through Mary's head and pulsed through his body. When her skirt fell and he pulled her hard against him, she could feel him, hardened with desire. 'Touch me, Mary, love me, too,' he begged in a strained, throaty whisper, and her hands made their way to the band at his waist. She felt the buttons where they strained against his lean, hard body, and they opened beneath her fingers. The muscles of his buttocks contracted as she ran her hands over their firmness, pulling his trousers away as she smoothed his skin. Then she recognized the familiar heat against her belly as he clasped her to his manhood, her hand there between them. Still holding her so, he fell, pulling her down with him onto the rug. She could feel cold hairpins touch her warm side as he rolled her over, searching with his hand along the soft, warm skin of her inner thigh.
She uttered his name in faint, muffled tones against his neck as he explored and awakened her, finding that she had come to him in a heightened state, as ready for this as he was. He murmured to her, nuzzling her bare shoulders, his joy and passion mounting with hers.
She whimpered as he worked his loving magic on her, a magic remembered from so long ago. When her body trembled and arched, he rolled over her and entered her in silken strokes, grunting as the force built, answering her in sounds only she could understand. At last, fulfillment over- took them and he collapsed onto her, arms outstretched over hers.
In those first intimate afterminutes, with his body still warm in hers, she lay thinking that this was the highest ac- colade a man and woman could give each other and that words were insignificant in its wake. She felt
