Due to my being half-asleep when I wrote the last chapter, there were a couple of fairly pivotal typos: probably resulting in not much making sense. I have updated chapter one, and you might want to read the end of it again. I can only apologise profusely for my sleepiness. Thank you for all of your reviews so far.
He did not quite know what to do next, he could only stand there, transfixed, and watch her. Though keeping perfectly still, she almost seemed to shudder as the water round the rim of her eyes slipped and a tear ghosted down her face. Her shoulders slumped slightly out of their usual upright stance as she stared at the floor, almost blankly, but at the same time as if every emotion he could put a name to raced fleetingly through her mind. Her lower lip seemed to quiver and she nipped it back by biting it. It went on for too long for him to bear, and he had to say something.
"I wouldn't have come here if I knew it would upset you," he told her, "Believe me, Isobel, that was the last thing I wanted."
She raised her head quickly, almost aggressively, and for a moment he thought he was in for a good telling off. But when she spoke and she looked him full in the eye- which she did now- there was more desperation than anger in her look. He didn't know which was worse.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do, Richard," she told him.
"Do you wish I hadn't come here?" he asked.
"Yes. I don't know," she turned away from him hurriedly, facing the whiteness of the still light window covered by net curtains, reflecting slightly against her and making her radiate white slightly, "Things would have been a lot easier if you had never said anything at all."
Her arms were crossed defensively across her waist, holding her middle for comfort. In fact, it only made her look singular and isolated. He had to actively fight the urge to simply step up close behind her and wrap his arms around her too, keeping her, holding her close to him, letting her her lean her head back against him and cry herself out of whatever tears she had. But, like she said, things weren't anywhere near that simple.
There was an awful singing silence for moments that spread itself thickly into an eternity before him; separating them. She still faced away from him, he sensed her struggling to gain her composure: one arm still resting across her stomach, the other poised against it, pressing her fist against her lips. Finally, she spoke.
"I have to go to Paris," she declared, "There is no way out. I cannot justify myself staying."
"Not even if you stayed for me?" he knew it was selfish, it was as selfish as it was possible to be, "There are higher things than war, Isobel. Better things."
She turned her head back to face him, something like incredulity in her face.
"Because I would be the only one of millions leaving better things behind," she replied sharply, "I alone am sacrificing something that I badly want. Where would we be if everyone in the same position stayed at home?"
"I didn't-..."
"You didn't think, Richard."
He could feel his face flushed with indignation, she had turned away from him once again. Now his eyes flitted towards the floor, willing them not to swim. Many times he had admired Isobel's determination- her "ill-bred ferocity" Lady Violet called it. He liked it less when he was up against it. The silence expanded again.
"None of this is fair," she finally managed, "None of it. It's all wrong."
Well, that he could agree with.
"Couldn't you-..." he began, not quite knowing where he was going with it yet, "Couldn't you say that you have reconsidered, in terms of your safety? It will be dangerous, Isobel."
"I'm hardly front line troops," she replied sharply, with a hint of an ill-humoured laugh.
"No, but you'll be as close to that as they'd allow a woman to be, knowing you," he told her, adding this last with half a smile before a much more serious thought struck him, "If anything was to happen to-... I don't know," he finished hopelessly, "I don't know."
He realised that she had turned around to look at him again, and was watching him with a considerably softer expression. She was incredibly still and gentle now.
"Richard," she told him in little more than a whisper, "Don't think about that."
He was entirely still, unable to look into her eyes, staring inertly at her throat instead. He felt truly wretched, selfish, an almighty fool, a complete swine for having put her through this, frightened, so very frightened by the thought of losing her and too much in love with her to be able to think of anything other than it. It was like an awful dream.
"Richard," he was surprised to find she had crossed back towards him, her hand wrapping tentatively and tenderly around his wrist, "Don't. Don't."
She looked close to tears again as he raised his head slowly, her face very close to his. He felt her slightly erratic breath brush against his lower lip an chin. She was so beautiful, so so beautiful, so close to him, and yet fragile, not his in the slightest, like a ghost. She would soon be gone. So bloody beautiful.
He heard her name escape his lips in a half groan, as he finally closed the distance between them.
"Isobel-..."
She did not pull away as he kissed her; softly at first, so softly that the lips barely caressed each other, slowly deepening, pushing closer together until his mouth finally engulfed hers and her lips slipped open to allow him better access.
When they pulled apart, they were both breathless. In spite of her tears, her eyes were alight once more with with the exhilaration of it. Spurred on by her obvious reaction to their kiss, by the heady intoxication it threw him into, he was willing to say anything, try anything that might keep her with him.
"Don't go," he pleaded with her once more, his hands cupping each side of her face, holding her forehead to rest against his, "I've never begged anything of anyone in my life, but I'm begging you not to go."
"Richard," her hands rested gently over his, "I have to. You know I have to," cautiously, she lifted her head away from his, "But that doesn't mean I don't want to stay. I want to stay with you more than anything."
She had moved his hands to clasp them together, partially covered by her own smaller ones, half-clasping them to her chest; looking him cleanly in the eye.
"I love you too."
He waited for a long moment, trying to convince himself that he had not drastically misheard, or misunderstood. But what was there to misunderstand in that? A half smile flitted across his face.
"I'm supposed to tell you that I love you before you say that."
"You did, without the words."
He leant in and kissed her again, not quite as deeply but still as passionately. There was still intense sadness there, the gradual tick of the clock counting down the moments they had left, but also there was an immense feeling of irrepressible joy. His hand slipped tentatively to her waist to hold her more closely to him, and she made up the rest of the distance of her own accord, leaning in and pressing her body to his.
"I love you, Isobel," he whispered against her lips.
"I know, I know."
They did not speak about moving into her bedroom, but somehow he found himself with his hand in hers, being led up to the second floor. Upon the closing of the door, they seemed to close themselves off from the rest of the world. They would make the most of their last hours together, that much was certain.
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