Kiss Me Forever/Love Me Forever. Rosemary Laurey

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СКАЧАТЬ namesake? Why not? Yes, I know all about Kit Marlowe.” He sighed. The past hovered like a crouching animal. He knew everything.

      She perched on the edge of the oak table, watching him. “I read him some in college. I majored in English before I went on to train as a librarian. Marlowe fascinated me. So talented and mysterious. Who was he? Did he write Shakespeare? What really happened in the tavern at Deptford? It’s as good as a soap opera.”

      “Will Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. Kit Marlowe wrote Marlowe. And there’s nothing fine about betrayal and treachery.”

      She started at his sharp words. “You have studied him then.”

      He forced his shoulders into a shrug. “You could say so.”

      She wasn’t finished. “It just seems like a mystery novel. So young and talented and dying in a brawl and such an odd injury….” She chopped her sentence off and bit her lip, looking at his face, then turning scarlet. “I’m sorry that was tactless.”

      He laid the book on the dusty tabletop and took her shoulders in his hands. “Dixie,” he whispered, “it doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.”

      Her teeth worried her lower lip. “I didn’t think. I was just running on. It’s such a coincidence.” She paused, her face tight with remorse. “I’m so tactless. I just…”

      “Forget it. People have called me a lot worse. The kids in the village call me ‘Pirate’ behind my back. It doesn’t matter.”

      “What happened?”

      She wasn’t asking about the inn at Deptford. But she was. And she’d never believe the truth. “It happened a long time ago—when I was young and playing dangerously. With one good eye, I have eighty percent of my vision. It’s little more than an inconvenience.”

      Her white teeth still pulled at her soft lip. In a minute she’d draw blood. He couldn’t let her. The scent of her blood would drive him crazy. He traced a finger over each curved eyebrow, smoothed her cheeks, tilted her chin, bent his mouth to hers and eased her lips away from her teeth.

      Warmth and sweetness. She tasted like honeysuckle nectar on a June night. She curved warm into him like sunshine on marble. Her tongue met his and she moaned like aspen trees sighing in an afternoon breeze. She was everything that life had to offer and he was four hundred years dead. He pulled away gently, brushing his lips on her heated forehead. With her, he almost felt like a man again, and that would be dangerous for both of them.

      “If we’re not careful, we’ll forget why we’re here,” he said, stepping back, just a half step.

      “Why are we here?” she asked, her eyes glinting as her mouth twitched, her lips still swollen from his kisses.

      “Flirt!” he said, still holding one hand but stepping back to arms’ length. “The men in America must be desolate without you.”

      She laughed without a trace of amusement. “It wasn’t quite like that.” She pulled back her hand, as if a memory hurt. “Now, what did you want to look for?”

      She was right. Keep it casual. He only hoped he could.

      “I’m interested in paranormal and magic.” He ignored her rising eyebrows, although his thumbs itched to smooth them. “Anything on witchcraft, magic, sightings, vampires.” He tucked the last in as an afterthought.

      “You believe in all that stuff? I thought you were kidding last night.”

      “I’m prepared to believe anything I haven’t disproved.”

      “Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll look. If you really want me to.” She made no attempt to hide her surprise. But then she never seemed to hide anything. She was open as a rose in summer and just as fragile.

      Together they searched the stacks and assembled a small mountain of books on the wide library table. “Quite a collection,” Dixie said, giving the heap an uncertain eye. “You won’t get through it all today.”

      “May I presume on your hospitality some other day?”

      She shrugged. “Whenever. I’ll be here, or at least in and out. You can’t phone I’m afraid, but the books are yours if you want them. I’m not into that stuff. I’ll get them valued.”

      He held out his hand. “Agreed.”

      “Shall we settle the deal with a cup of tea?”

      He shook his head. He’d only just absorbed the coffee. His body couldn’t handle any more. Not in daylight. “I’ll skip it.”

      She left to fix tea, and he found a corner away from the last afternoon sun. In a couple of hours it would be dusk.

      “See you tomorrow,” he said as he waved good-bye, a tall lean silhouette in the dusk. Dixie left shortly afterwards, leaving all the lights on and the shutters open. The house shone like a beacon across the village green, but it should keep unwanted visitors away. She planned a long shower to clear the grime and dust away, and then a nice quiet supper at the Barley Mow. And she’d make a point of not thinking about how Christopher kissed.

      Chapter Four

      On her way upstairs, Emily called to her, “Dixie, come in a minute, dear. I have a visitor.”

      It was a toss-up who won the prize for most uncomfortable: Emily seated by the silver teapot with a lace napkin on her lap; Dixie all too conscious of the cobwebs on her clothes and the dirt on her face; Ida Collins with her knitting on her lap and a plate of sandwiches at her elbow.

      Dixie invaded their dainty tea, feeling like an unwashed coal miner. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m in no state to sit down.” She hesitated to even offer a hand to Ida.

      Emily obviously didn’t want Dixie on her upholstery. “Oh dear,” she fussed, “and we were planning on a nice cup of tea and a cake with you. Ida brought some jam buns, they’re raspberry.”

      “I think I’d better take a rain check,” Dixie said and took a step towards the stairs.

      “No,” said Ida, quiet as a lady yet as insistent as a drill sergeant. “That isn’t necessary. Emily can give you a cup to take upstairs and you must have one of my raspberry buns.”

      There was no gracious way to refuse. Dixie took the cup and saucer in one hand, balanced the plate in the other and made it upstairs. She left the tea and bun in her room while she showered off the dirt of Orchard House. By the time she dried her hair, the tea was cold. She tipped it down the washbasin. She wasn’t hungry for the bun, not after the lunch she’d had. Not wanting to hurt Ida’s feelings, Dixie wrapped it in a wad of Kleenex and tucked it inside a paper bag in her trashcan.

      Weary, she stretched out on the bed. An evening reading appealed more than a night at the Barley Mow. By nine, she was asleep. At ten, Emily tapped on the door. Hearing no answer, she peered inside. Three quiet steps, and she removed the empty cup and plate.

      Ida waited downstairs. “Asleep?” she asked.

      Emily nodded.

      “That’s СКАЧАТЬ