The Sum of All Kisses

“Tell me what to do,” she said, placing her hands near his.

He nodded jerkily and covered one of her hands with his own. “Here,” he said, directing her toward the most intransigent of the knots.

She pressed her fingers down but with not nearly enough pressure. “Is that all right?”

He used his hand to push hers down harder. “Like this.”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and tried again, this time reaching that awful spot deep in what was left of his muscle. He groaned, and she immediately let up. “Did I—”

“No,” he said, “it’s good.”

“All right.” She gave him a hesitant look and got back to work, pausing every few seconds to stretch her fingers.

“Sometimes I use my elbow,” he told her, still feeling somewhat self-conscious.

She looked at him curiously, then gave a little shrug and tried his suggestion.

“Oh, my God,” he moaned, falling back against the pillows. Why did this feel so much better when someone else did it?

“I have an idea,” she said. “Lie on your side.”

Honestly, he didn’t think he could move. He managed to lift one hand, but only for a second. He was boneless. There couldn’t possibly be another explanation.

She chuckled and rolled him herself, turning him away from her so that his injured leg was on top. “You should stretch it,” she said, and she held his knee in place as she bent his leg, bringing his ankle to his buttocks.

Or rather, halfway there.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He nodded, shaking from the pain. But it was— Well, maybe not a good pain, but a useful one. He could feel something loosening in his flesh, and when he lay again on his back and she gently massaged the aching muscle, it almost felt as if something angry was leaving him, rising through his skin and lifting away from his soul. His leg throbbed, but his heart felt lighter, and for the first time in years, the world seemed to be filled with possibility.

“I love you,” he said. And he thought to himself, That makes five. Five times he’d said it. It wasn’t nearly enough.

“And I love you.” She bent down and kissed his leg.

He touched his face and felt tears. He hadn’t realized he was crying. “I love you,” he said again.

Six.

“I love you.”

Seven.

She looked up with a perplexed smile.

He touched her nose. “I love you.”

“What are you doing?”

“Eight,” he said aloud.

“What?”

“That makes eight times I’ve said it. I love you.”

“You’re counting?”

“It’s nine now, and”—he shrugged—“I always count. You should know that by now.”

“Don’t you think you should finish the night with an even ten?”

“It was morning before you got here, but yes, you’re right. And I love you.”

“You’ve said it ten times,” she said, coming close for a soft, slow kiss. “But what I want to know is—how many times have you thought it?”

“Impossible to count,” he said against her lips.

“Even for you?”

“Infinite,” he murmured, sliding her back down to the mattress. “Or maybe . . .”

Infinity plus one.

Epilogue

Pleinsworth House

London

The following spring

Marriage or death: the only two ways to avoid conscription into the Smythe-Smith Quartet. Or perhaps more accurately: the only two ways to extricate oneself from its clutches.

Which was why no one could understand (except Iris, but more on that later) how it came to pass that in three hours the Smythe-Smith Quartet would take the “stage” for their annual musicale, and Lady Sarah Prentice, recently married and very much alive, was going to have to sit down at the pianoforte, grit her teeth, and play.

The irony, Honoria had said to Sarah, was exquisite.

No, Sarah had said to Hugh, the irony was not exquisite. The irony should have been beaten with a cricket bat and stamped into the ground.

If irony had a corporeal form, of course. Which it didn’t, much to Sarah’s disappointment. The urge to swing a cricket bat at something other than a cricket ball was positively life-altering.

But there were no bats available in the Pleinsworth music room, so she had instead appropriated the bow to Harriet’s violin and was using it in the way God had surely intended.

To threaten Daisy.

“Sarah!” Daisy shrieked.

Sarah growled. She actually growled.

Daisy ran for cover behind the pianoforte. “Iris, make her stop!”

Iris raised a brow as if to say, Do you really think I would rise from this chair to help you, my exceedingly annoying younger sister, today of all days?

And yes, Iris did know how to say all that with a quirk of the brow. It was a remarkable talent, really.

“All I did,” Daisy pouted, “was say that she could have a slightly better attitude. I mean, really.”

“In retrospect,” Iris said in a very dry voice, “that may have not been the best choice of words.”

“She’s going to make us look bad!”

“She,” Sarah said menacingly, “is the only reason you have a quartet.”

“I still find it difficult to believe that we did not have anyone available to take Sarah’s place on the pianoforte,” Daisy said.

Iris gaped at her. “You say that as if you suspect Sarah of foul play.”

“Oh, she has good reason to suspect foul play,” Sarah said, advancing with the bow.