She is drunk, or possibly. The fact of her being lightheaded is not enough to go on, is never enough to go on with these things. She's often gotten altogether too lightheaded just from looking at Erik too long, studying his lips. Oh, his lips. They look as if they are not there at all, are so thin and delicate, but they are wonderful, beautiful! If she were a poet, she would write odes to those lips, sing them from the rooftops for everyone to hear! Let them all know the man she has married, his beauty, his grace, his gentleness! There is no one else in the world for her, and each time she looks at those lips, her head so empty and light, she remembers that, and her heart trembles to think that he is hers, only hers.
Her fingers brush his lips, ever so gentle, and he smiles, grasps hers fingers carefully and squeezes them. "I think, my love," he murmurs, his eyes soft, "that you may have had a little too much champagne."
He's wrong. Of course he's wrong, however lovely he looks behind his mask, and he is lovely, tonight, especially. Proud, and distinguished, and handsome, the most handsome man she has ever known whatever anyone else may say, and she raises herself on her tiptoes, and presses her lips softly to his. There was a time when she was shy to kiss him, to touch him. Shy to see him as a man she might love, but now...Now she is his, and he is hers, and this is how it has been for years, and the champagne makes her heart flutter, the way it always did in those days they were courting and before.
(The way it always does, even now, when she stops to consider him in those half-moments when he does not see her watching him.)
"I love you," she murmurs, and presses her lips against his again, those lips that she watched and loved for so long now, and they are as soft as they have ever been, as she has always thought them, and he chuckles against her, the vibrations in his chest stirring her heart. Her knees tremble, and he tightens his grip around her waist, steadies her.
"I love you, too," and he nips her lip, pulls back, the gold in his eyes shining bright enough that her heart aches to tighten her arms around him, to kiss his lips again and never stop, "but I do think, darling, that it is time we return home. You need to rest."
Silly man! It is not the champagne that made her tremble, but the thought of kissing him again, and kissing him always, and it crosses her mind to say that, but in one deft movement he scoops her into his arms, and cradles her head against his chest, and it matters not what she might protest, because however nice it is to kiss his lips, this is even nicer. Her eyes slip closed, and she leans into him, and sighs, and knows, as he brushes his lips against her forehead, that she would give anything in the world to never have to leave his arms again.