It was quarter past two, and Marisa was early. Lord Asriel was already there, sitting on the bench and trying to read, and she had found a grove of trees where she could see without being seen. The trees were close enough together that she would not be spotted by anyone who wasn't specifically looking for her.
And, golden monkey clinging to a branch just above Marisa's head, they watched him. It felt like breaking some kind of unspoken rule to spy on him like this, but Marisa had always secretly loved breaking rules, subtly, when she wouldn't be caught.
She smiled as she watched his every move.
He was reading a book, or trying to, but she could tell even from a distance that his heart wasn't in it and he was barely taking in a word: sometimes he'd take a minute to turn a page, sometimes only a second. It was just an act, so that when she arrived, she would not see that he'd been waiting for her.
She'd pretend she didn't know, at least for now. She stood and watched him, because she would never tire of watching him, and watched the time tick by until their agreed meeting time – and then another fifteen minutes, because being late would annoy him. And even if she wanted to carry on with him, she would still enjoy making him suffer.
Finally, at quarter to three, she extracted herself from the grove and strolled leisurely down to the bench on which he was sitting. She'd thought about how best to introduce herself to him and decided to act the part of someone who didn't even know him at all.
"May I sit here?" she asked.
"You may… I'm sorry, have we met?"
She bit back a rush of some emotion she couldn't quite pin down, and mimicked his words as he had mimicked hers: "No, I believe not. My name is Marisa Delamare." She hadn't originally planned to use her maiden name, but it felt so fitting now that she had decided to be free.
"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Delamare. I am Lord Asriel."
…but was he really? Or was it all just some kind of act to him? She felt as if she was losing control, had been ever since she'd first met him. Still, wondering what on earth was possessing her to do this, she took the hand he offered in her white glove.
"Will you walk with me?" he asked.
"I will," replied Marisa. The two stood up and walked across the park, until he suddenly stopped and looked at her.
"Stay with me," he said. "I have a manor house near Oxford. Come and live with me, just for a week. Now that you're free."
"No," she said without stopping to think, knowing that it would be a step too far. "I can't."
"Can't you? Whatever happened to being able to do whatever you wanted if you set your mind to it?"
"This is different," said Marisa. She couldn't help imagining what it would have been like if she'd met him before marrying Edward. If she had truly been free. "You wouldn't understand."
"I do understand," he said quietly. "Much more than you would ever think. You can join me, but you believe that you can't. That is the difference between us: you have never had the courage to work outside the system, the Magisterium. I have never seen the need to confine myself to work within it."
Marisa had never heard such nonsense in her life, but there was a little niggling voice in her head saying that maybe, just maybe, he was right. She said nothing.
"If you won't come with me… at least give me one night. You must want to keep this going, if you sent a message. What do you want? Eager to come and find me as soon as your husband's outside of the country, and then too afraid to take a chance and do what your heart tells you?"
If she'd had to tell the truth, Marisa would have said that she didn't know what she wanted. "I – I'm not afraid, Asriel, I'm not a coward, but there are limits, not everyone can just push straight through as if they're not there…" but he could, couldn't he? "One of these days it'll catch up with you, you won't be able to just keep ignoring the rules like that, they do exist and the Magisterium, or the CCD or whoever, they'll find you and they'll…"
He smiled. "If that was going to happen, it would have done by now. I'm not afraid. Are you coming? Just for one night?"
Marisa hesitated, but she knew she couldn't refuse. "All right. But we have to be careful, we mustn't do anything stupid – "
"Marisa, I am never stupid. I'm surprised you could think that of me."
"I never said that you were stupid, I said that you could do stupid things. And I'm sure you've done a lot of things you later regretted."
The look in his eyes told Marisa that he definitely had done things he'd regretted, and it was painful for him to think about it. "Maybe I have. Maybe those are things I'll never, ever tell you about."
"Won't you?" asked Marisa, just as determined as ever to find out his secrets. "I can be very persuasive."
"I'm sure you can," he replied in the tone of someone talking to a young child far below their own intellectual level, who was overconfident of succeeding. "I'm sure you can."
If there was one thing that Marisa hated, it was being patronised. I'll prove you wrong one day, she vowed to herself. Just you wait.
She was right – but it would take twelve long years. And the path to their destiny would begin that very night: a night she would regret for many years, and for many more treasure as the most important thing she had ever done.