Author's note: One-shot to tide my readers over while I work on the long 1st chapter of "Time In A Bottle". (The first bit I posted was the prologue.) Enjoy this bit of Will/Elizabeth fluff.

YOU KISS BY THE BOOK

"Are you quite finished?" I ask, watching Will jam half the tea cakes into his mouth. "I shan't take them away just because tea time is officially over, you know. You don't have to forgo manners because you expect the cakes to be swept away."

"I haven't eaten since mid-morning," Will says, crumbs escaping and sticking to his chin. "Forgive me, Elizabeth."

"I shall forgive your serious lapse in manners if you do one thing I wish," I say, tapping the thin red volume in my right hand against my left.

"I always do what you wish," Will says, wiping his mouth on his sleeve before reaching for the remaining cake.

"Not always."

"Nearly always," he amends, squinting at the book held in my hand. "What have you got there?"

"A play," I say. "By William Shakespeare. It's horribly romantic and tragic all at once. Nearly everyone dies in the end."

"How wonderful for them," Will says drolly.

I scowl at his tone. "Just because it's not all together practical does not mean it's not worth reading. Leisure reading has its uses or there would be no need for writers and playwrights."

"My mother always told me leisure reading was for people who wished to escape," Will says. "What could possibly be so horrible in your life that you wish to read of someone else's?"

"Nothing," I reply primly. "I only wish for some culture. Everyone with a grain of culture knows Shakespeare is a great writer. Would it hurt you to read some?" I narrow my eyes. "You can read, can't you?"

Will's on his feet before I realize how much my words have upset him. "Of course I can read! My mother saw to my schooling. She said I was quite a quick study."

"Shall we test her handiwork?" I ask, opening the book to one of my favorite scenes. "Come stand close so we can both view the page."

"What if I don't know the words?" Will voices his fears, reaching an arm around me to steady to left side of the book whilst I hold the right.

"I shall help," I promise.

"I don't believe you would be as patient a teacher as my mother."

I turn my head, our lips so deliciously close I am quite glad I picked a kissing scene. "I promise I shan't make fun, Will. All I ask is you try. Your mother would say the same, correct?"

He nods slowly. "I shall try."

I grin, giving him a peck on the cheek in my excitement. "Excellent! You're Romeo and I'm Juliet. He just saw her for the first time at a party and thinks she's the most fabulously beautiful girl ever. She doth teach the torches to burn bright! This scene is the first time they speak to one another." I nudge him slightly with my shoulder. "You start."

Will squints at the words, mouthing them silently to himself, before saying them out loud, voice slightly halting but picking up fluidity as he becomes more confident and comfortable. " If I profane with my unworthiest hand/This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:/My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand/To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."

"Excellent," I whisper before beginning my lines. "Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,/Which mannerly devotion shows in this;/For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,/And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss." I hold up my hand, palm facing Will. "Put your hand against mine. That's what the line means."

He obliges. "Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?" Will looks over. "Is he asking to kiss her?"

I nod. "Very poetically but, yes and she tries to fob him off a bit. No use in giving in so easily. What would her parents say? Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer."

"O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;/They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. The silly git doesn't take no for an answer and says 'our lips should touch like our hands do.'"

I laugh at his interpretation and Will grins. "Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake."

"Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take./Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged."

Will puckers and kisses me quickly, dodging back as if he expects to be hit.

I lower my gaze, watching Will through my eyelashes, not being able to help the satisfied smile spreading across my features. "Then have my lips the sin that they have took."

"Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!/Give me my sin again." Will silently mouths the words to himself a second time. "Has he asked to kiss her again?"

"More like alerted her that he's going to do it," I say. "And I wager it will hold more feeling than the first. Puckered lips are for children and relatives, not how you go at someone you truly care for." I widen my eyes, hoping he can't hear the racket my heart's decided to make just now. "Shall we try it?"

Will takes the book from my unresisting fingers and tosses it onto the low tea table. He places a hand on either side of my face, long fingers tangling in my hair as they wrap around my neck. "Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!/Give me my sin again."

Sweet Jesu! We should read plays more often!

I sag against Will once he pulls back, resting my face against his shirt. It smells of smoke and soot and him and, and, and. . . . "You kiss by the book."

Will laughs. "Sweet pilgrim, give me my sin again. . . ."