without waking her, and he was not sure whether he regretted his entrapment or not.
Eventually, he would have to get up. He would have to search for her battered, little suitcase and copy her old telephone number from the dangling identification tag. He would have to phone her father from the shop and arrange their confrontation.
Nicholas would keep the appointment Trissa had confessed her father had coerced her into making with his threats. The sooner he pushed himself to perform these tasks, the sooner he could make this pleasant illusion of safety a reality. He knew this. He had been willing himself to leave her side for the past half hour, but he had not summoned the courage to do it. He could not bring himself to relinquish the warmth of this dream for the uncertainty of fate.
Trissa stirred slightly and murmured, "Good morning, husband." She raised her face for a kiss, not stolen as on other mornings when they slept on separate layers of their bed clothes, protected by barriers of flannel, terry cloth, and wool, but offered and taken with no walls standing, no shields remaining, no rules unbroken. She was, indeed, the master now.
"Good morning, wife. How do you feel?"
"Cherished," she said.
"That you are," he stroked her back and she hummed like a contented kitten. "But otherwise? No aches or soreness?"
"No. Ummm, well... my feet," she admitted hesitantly.
"Your feet?"
"It gives me cramps. In my arches."
"It does?" he chuckled. He dove under the blanket and stoically resisted all the temptation between to kiss the arches of her feet and the tips of her toes. "Better?"
She giggled and lifted the blankets to peek down at him. "Come out of there!"
"I'll try. But it's very dark and I'll have to feel my way."
"Stop!" she said as he began his journey.
"Really?"
"No," she sighed.
Following a circuitous path with many pleasant detours, his lips found their way back to hers, and he sought his true home inside her again. With a gentle, stroking caress from her knees to her toes, he guided her legs to wrap around his hips.
"Tell me when it happens. We may be able to find a remedy to this foot cramping problem." His eyes shone with secret power as he began to take them both slowly toward that moment. She hooked her arm around his neck and pulled herself up to place her palm on the center of his chest to feel the strong hammer of his heart as he drove harder, forcing her to whimper with delight at each thrust. Then for a while they teetered, suspended, like a tossed coin wavering on its edge.
"Now, Nicholas, now!" she cried, but he did not need to be told.
"Ballet lessons," he said later as she cuddled against him.
"What?"
"We should get you ballet lessons. To limber up those arches. That will cure it."
She made a soft, round fist and jabbed him playfully in the stomach.
He let her drift to sleep again, neither had had much chance for it overnight. He touched his fingertip to her opposite cheek and she turned toward it, curling into the tight, little ball that was her usual sleeping position. He crept from the bed, pulling the blankets up to her ears. She was still sleeping when he finished dressing. He knelt beside the bed and leaned in to kiss her brow.
"Trissa? I have to leave for work now," he whispered. "I may be a little late. Don't worry about me."
"Hmmmmm?"
"You're to stay home and help Augusta."
"I know," she said, not really waking.
"I love you, Trissa."
"I love you, Nicholas," she murmured and smiled in her sleep.
*****
Nicholas did not identify himself to the artificially cordial Edie Kirk when she answered the phone. He asked to speak to her husband.
"He's not in," she said, her voice going instantly cold. "I suggest you try his work."
"Do you have that number?"
"It's in the book. Cromwell Manufacturing."
"Thank you."
When he did not reach Bob Kirk at work either, and they had no idea when or if he would be in, he called Edie back and left the same message he had with his secretary. "Tell Mr. Kirk that the appointment he made for this afternoon will be kept. There is no need to pursue the matter any further."
She tried to protest that she was not likely to see him.
"Well, if you do, give him the message."
"Who did you say this was?"
"I didn't. It's not important. Goodbye."
An hour later he checked both places to see if the message was delivered. The secretary gave a