HeartFire Page 0,29

mocking me. Don't you know this house is full of servants? I'll have you thrown out."

"Blacks lay hands on a White man?"

"We always use our servants to take out the trash."

The banter was not engaging even a tiny fraction of Calvin's attention. Instead he was using his doodlebug to explore Lady Ashworth's body. In his peregrinations with Honor‚ de Balzac, Calvin had watched the Frenchman seduce several dozen women of every social class, and because Calvin was a scientist at heart, he had used his doodlebug to note the changes in a woman's body as her lust was aroused. There were tiny organs where certain juices were made and released into the blood. It was hard to find them, but once found, they could easily be stimulated. In moments, Calvin had three different glands secreting rather strong doses of the juices of desire, and now it was his eyes, not just his doodlebug, that could see the transformation in Lady Ashworth. Her eyes grew heavy-lidded, her manner more aloof, her voice huskier. "Compared to your grace and beauty I am trash and nothing more," Calvin said. "But I am your trash, my lady, to do with as you will. Discard me and I will cease to exist. Save me and I will become whatever you want me to be. A jewel to wear upon your bosom. A fan behind which your beauty may continue unobserved. Or perhaps the glove in which your hand may stay clean and warm."

"Who would ever have guessed that such talk could come from a frontier boy from Wobbish," she said, suppressing a smile.

"What matters isn't where a man is from, but where he's going. I think that all my life was leading to this moment. To this hot day in Camelot, this porch, this jungle of living plants, this magnificent Eve who is tending the garden."

She looked down at her pruning shears. "But you said I shouldn't cut this plant."

"It would be heartless," said Calvin. "It reaches up, not to the sun, but to you. Do not despise what grows for love of you, my lady."

She blushed and breathed more rapidly. "The things you say."

"I came in search of my brother's wife, because I heard she had visited here," said Calvin. "I could have left a card with your servant to accomplish that."

"I suppose you could."

"But even on the harsh cobbles of the street, I could hear you like music, smell you like roses, see you like the light of the one star breaking through on a cloudy night. I knew that in all the world this is the place I had to be, even if it cost me my life or my honor. My lady, until this moment every day of life was a burden, without purpose or joy. Now all I long for is to stay here, looking at you, wondering at the marvels of perfection concealed by the draperies of your clothing, tied up by the pins in your hair."

She was trembling. "You shouldn't talk about such..."

He stood before her now, inches from her. As he had seen with Honor‚'s seductions, his closeness would heighten the feelings within her. He reached up and brushed his fingers gently across her cheek, then her neck, her shoulder, touching only bare skin. She gasped but did not speak, did not take her eyes from his.

"My eyes imagine," he murmured, "my lips imagine, every part of my body imagines being close to you, holding you, becoming part of you."

She staggered, barely able to walk as she led him from the porch to her bedroom.

Besides studying the women's bodies, Calvin had also studied Honor‚'s, had seen how the Frenchman tried to maintain himself on the brink of ecstacy for as long as possible without crossing over. What Honor‚ had to do with self-discipline, Calvin could do mechanically, with his doodlebug. Lady Ashworth was possessed by pleasure many times and in many ways before Calvin finally allowed himself to find release. They lay together on sheets clammy with their sweat. "If this is how the devil rewards wickedness," murmured Lady Ashworth, "I understand why God seems to be losing ground in this world." But there was sadness in her voice, for now her conscience was reawakening, ready to punish her for the pleasure she had taken.

"There was no wickedness here today," said Calvin. "Was not your body made by God? Did not these desires come from that body? What are you but the woman God made you to