that ran up the house’s facade. “Come to the front door!”
“Too late,” he called up, and it was true—he was climbing quickly. Halfway up his foot slipped. The drainpipe creaked ominously, and her heart was in her throat, but he found a foothold in the roots of the ivy that covered the upper story and kept going.
When he was nearly there, she took his hand—wet, slippery—and pulled him toward her. Then he was climbing over the sill and pulling off his hat, his eyes never leaving her. “You ignored the pebbles I was throwing for a very long time.”
“I was sleeping! There is a front door, you know.”
“I was in no mood for maids and footmen,” he said. “Not when I only wished to see you.” He ran his hand through his hair; water streamed down his wrists and into the sleeves of his coat.
“What has happened?”
“Lafayette offered to send me by coach tomorrow, but I could not wait. So I rode in the back of a cart all the way from Pontoise. Dieu, I’m exhausted.”
“And very wet.”
Smiling ruefully, he shook his head so that tiny droplets of water spattered everywhere.
“Stop!” But she didn’t mind.
He peeled off his dripping coat and draped it over a painted Chinese screen that stood near the fire. The rain had soaked even his waistcoat and chemise. “I’m afraid I’m too wet to even sit down. Mind if I—?” He gestured at his waistcoat.
Camille shook her head and he quickly unbuttoned his wet garments and hung them on the screen. She was having some difficulty speaking. The fine fabric of his chemise had become translucent and clung to his skin, revealing the planes of his shoulders, arms, chest. Tenderly, she pushed back a lock of his inky hair so she could see his face. Fatigue had painted shadows in the hollows of his face, and his warm brown skin had gone dull and worn.
But what mattered was that he was safe. She touched him along the muscled slant of his neck, where his shirt had fallen open.
“I cannot tell if you are real, or something I dreamed.”
“Do appearances so deceive?” He looped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?”
She rose on her toes. “You seem real,” she said. “But in my experience, appearances can be deceiving.”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Around them, in the almost dark, the old house creaked and shifted. Outside, the rain fell restlessly. Camille thought of the spring, when they had kept so many secrets from each other, pretending at being someone else, trying to stay safe. But now she wondered if they’d been trying to protect each other.
“Camille,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m sorry about the things I said at the dinner. I felt like everything was slipping away. Nothing seemed right, especially me. All the time I was gone I thought of you, wishing I had been different, said something different.” His brows drew together in a regretful line. “I’m a fool.”
“You are not.”
“I am. But we are all fools in love, n’est-ce pas?”
Perhaps, she thought, gently wiping a few drops of water from his cheekbone. “Besides, can we not withstand a little separation if our paths take us away?” She wanted so much for it to be true.
Reassuringly, he said, “Love is what matters. All the rest of it is—”
“It’s important, though, isn’t it? The work we do?” Once again, she felt on the verge of telling him about the magic in the pamphlets.
Outside, thunder rumbled.
He raised a curving eyebrow. “The rest does not feel important when I am with you.”
She felt it then, a rising certainty, that this was true. Her worries about them growing apart and their different paths—this was what mattered, that they wished to be together. “And now,” she said, “you are with me.”
The floor dropped out from under her as he kissed her.
It felt new, different now. His mouth on hers, his hands at her waist, bringing her close. He kissed her throat, lingering at the spot beneath her collarbone where her dressing gown had fallen open. She hadn’t known she could feel like this, the edges of her self dissolving until there was only the press of his body against hers. She caught his lower lip between her teeth, and he groaned. Slowly, his hot kisses drove her backward and it was as if she were walking through honey, deliriously sweet and treacherous—until she felt the solid bulk of