"Dance with me," he said.
As if in a dream she circled the floor with him, feeling the movement of his legs, the closeness of his body to hers, and knowing that she had been waiting for this all day.
She had expected him to talk, trying to dazzle her with words again, but instead he looked at her tenderly, in silence, until she could sense that he was caught in the same dream.
Then there was a small commotion. Marco and Harriet were dancing together, absorbed in each other as she hadn't seen them before.
Justine remembered Dulcie's prediction that they were more in love than they thought, and reckoned it might be true. Everyone else thought so, too, because suddenly they were crowding around them, demanding that they set the date for their own wedding.
Justine didn't stay to hear what happened. Riccardo had clasped her hand and was drawing her out into the garden.
Chapter Fifteen
The garden was flooded with light from the colored lamps hung between the trees. Guests milled everywhere.
"Let us escape them," Riccardo said, drawing Justine beneath the trees, and not stopping until they had reached the furthest part of the garden.
Once there he wasted no time before taking her into his arms. Justine went willingly. It was no use pretending to herself that she didn't want to kiss him. She wanted it passionately.
He had said he'd thought of nothing but her, and she knew now that everything that had happened to her in those few days, everything she'd seen or heard or done, had simply been another way of waiting for him.
Once before she had come alive in his arms, high on the roof, under the stars. Some part of her was still living in that moment, ready and eager for his touch.
The words he wanted to hear were hard for her, but her mouth spoke to him just the same, caressing his with skill and joy, saying things that could not be said aloud, and eliciting a response that thrilled her. She could feel the excitement mounting but was no longer sure whether it was his or her own. Where did he end and she begin?