3
THE TONIC OF WILDNESS
WHEN I FINALLY SEE MARA, she’s no longer in sight of the chapel. She’s a small Brontë character silhouetted in black, standing in the shadow of a marble tower on top of a high hill; the mausoleum containing centuries of Shaw remains, perched between and overlooking the woods and the ruins. My absence in the chapel and presence on the grounds goes either unnoticed or undealt with, because no one stops me.
I stride alongside the man-made river that pulses through the grounds. The absence of sound vibrates inside me the farther I get from the chapel. The air is thick, and even the water seems to die beneath the spot where my girl stands.
Mara bows over the bridge, her hair cascading over her shoulders as though it’s reaching for the river. She casts a slim shadow over the water. “I didn’t think,” she says, possibly to herself.
I stand next to her, resting my elbows against the old stones. “About?”
“The horses.”
“Why would you? I didn’t. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”
Her face is in shadow—I can’t tell what she’s thinking, and I can’t hear her either—the air is unnaturally still, and my mind is as quiet now as it was loud before.
“Are they okay?” she asks.
“The horses? I’m sure they’re fine.”
“The humans?”
“I’m sure they’re fine too.”
“Are people freaking out?” A breeze ripples her curls and the water.
“The English don’t really ‘freak out.’ But I’m sure the guests are quietly aghast.”
She tilts her face to me, finally. Her eyes are impenetrable, but a slice of sun hits her shoulder, I feel her warmth through her clothes, then the softness of her skin as her fingers glance over my hand as we lean over the bridge together.
I don’t know what she’s thinking, but all I can think is that I want her against me, around me, enveloping me. I slide my hand around her waist, my fingers slipping beneath the waistband of her skirt, searching for skin.
She raises her eyebrows. “Won’t you be missed?”
I press her to me, bending so my lips graze her ear as I speak. “Probably. Ask me if I care.”
“Do you care?”
“Not even a little.”
By the time we reach the mausoleum, Mara’s breath is quick, her skin dewy. I pull her under the cold marble dome, between the columns that surround it, and press my mouth to hers, insistent, demanding. She softens against my lips, melts, and every moment is bursting—the hot slide of her tongue in my mouth, the bite of her teeth into my lower lip, and then the stiffening of her bones and muscles as her body pulls away and the tension in mine rises to a ferocious ache.
“Noah, we shouldn’t—”
“Shouldn’t . . . ?”
A resigned exhale. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“That’s precisely why we are here,” I say. I break away for one agonising moment, and the door creaks as I push it open and guide her inside.
The mausoleum is quite large, the size of a grand studio apartment in New York, perhaps. There’s a short marble altar in the centre, with Latin words and carved figures of the Four Ages of Man on each side: Infantia. Adolescentia. Virilitas. Senectas. I push her gently against Virilitas, but she pushes back.
“It’s your father’s funeral.”
“Well aware,” I say, leaning to kiss her neck. When she doesn’t move, I ask, “Do you find this inappropriate?”
“It’s . . . unusual,” she says.
“Would you like to go back?”
“Would you?”
I answer by raising her hips onto the altar and stand between her parted knees, her pleated skirt hitched up to reveal the paleness of her thighs. A slow glance slightly downward.
Her eyebrows lift as her lips part. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
She bites her lower lip. “I don’t want you to regret not being there.”
“Won’t,” I say, slipping one hand beneath her shirt.
“How do you know?”
My mind returns to my mother’s funeral, my father staring at her coffin with dead eyes. “My father died the day my mother did. A monster took his place.”
“I know, but—”
“No, there’s nothing else. No one else. He’s gone—he can’t hurt anyone anymore. There’s no one and nothing in our way.” I pause, resting my fingers on the clasp of her bra. “We should celebrate.”
A laugh escapes her throat. “Not really your style.”
“No, but it is yours.”
Wide eyes slit into a cat’s slant. She bows her head, conceding. “Has anyone ever told you you use sex as a coping mechanism?”
“Yes, why?”
“Oh, no reason.” A pause fills the air. Then Mara arcs her body toward mine, her lips toward mine, and softly flicks her tongue into my mouth.
I’m split open with desire, happiness. We smile against each other’s skin, and I inhale the salt-sweat smell of her, kiss her again, on her throat. Collarbones. Her hands thread through my hair and mine reach her chest—she gasps, and the sound alone has me spinning with heat. It’s been only hours since I’ve looked at her this way, but it could be years, centuries, for all that it matters. I’m starved for her, all the time, even now—I want every part of her, to devour her, to inhale her, but I also want her slowly; to see her, to listen to her, to listen inside of her, and so I force myself to stop. To trail my fingers slowly over the soft skin of her thighs, and pull back to see her expression.
Just looking at her face unmoors me. Cheeks flushed, skin shimmering, lips red and swollen with kissing, her head is tilted back, throat arched under the dome. But she can feel me watching her and reels her head back up, takes my hands, and pulls them onto her hips. The sound of her silk skirt sliding up against her silk skin is like silver on crystal.
Who is she? Who is this girl who would allow me to do this, here, now? And how am I allowed to have her?
I kiss the inside of each knee and up, farther, the roughness of my cheek raising redness on her skin. Then she grips each of my forearms, rocks herself back, and in one agonising, shimmering moment, one of her hands reaches beneath the hem of her dress, between her legs. Then her underwear slips to the ground.
A sharp hitch of breath. Mine. My head tilts down to kiss her skin, all of it, every bit I can reach. Just as I feel the warmth of my breath meeting the warmth of her body, my mind seizes.
I’m not looking at Mara—I’m looking at a reflection in a distant, black, stagnant puddle below me. At a reflection that isn’t mine. And then I jump to meet it.