Chapter 20: Life On Its Way

Frau Wimmer didn't notice as the days went on—turned into weeks, really—all the little things changing when she wasn't quite paying enough attention. Or at least the children assumed she wasn't, most days she simply bit her tongue. It wasn't all that much to start. Being slow to rise in the mornings, complaining that their clothes were wrinkled ahead of school. Louisa sometimes tucked her dress for the following morning under her pillow, almost crying to Frau Wimmer that she couldn't possibly wear it to school a few minutes after she pulled it out from a night beneath her pillow, tossing and turning even more than she might normally. (Frau Wimmer never pointed out that her dress was always nearly as wrinkled each day after the walk home from school.)

Louisa's tears always faded as soon as the door closed behind their governess. Frau Wimmer's comments from the hallway grew a little louder those mornings, her coughs to clear her throat sharper as she struggled to wake as well. And then, there were always her murmured pleas for them to ready themselves for school quicker. Or, on those mornings as Louisa complained, wondering how such a large household must employ maids who had never learn to iron and press a young girl's dress, her comments were well beneath her breath. And there was always a little grin on Louisa's face as she smoothed away those wrinkles herself on the walk to school. Liesl usually heard her younger sister move about through the night to undo the maids' work, her mattress squeaking as she rumpled and her own dress through the night.

As the weeks slipped away and suddenly turned into a month, their father nowhere to be seen, the children's little tricks grew harsher. While Gretl was still asleep, or at least still imprisoned between the bars of her crib, Frau Bauer sometimes walked Marta down in the morning to join them for breakfast, usually setting a napkin in the little girl's lap atop her skirt, always wary of the tiny legs swinging wildly. Frau Wimmer usually helped her settle Marta into her chair, the nurse unused to confining a set of little limbs to a chair with polite company. As the pair of them tried to shush their youngest sister, Kurt ran to the head of the table where Franz had always sat before Frau Wimmer came, a handful of salt from his pocket quickly dropped into their governess's morning coffee. She didn't complain when she came back to her own seat, only scowling at the taste before she pushed it away.

The evening was little different, though this time, it was a glug of vinegar into her wine. She still didn't complain, she simply ignored the rest of her glass and just asked one of the maids coming and going with the next course of plates for a glass of water to match the remainder of the table's. They heard Franz snort from the opposite end of the table as she complained about how sour the wine tasted—murmuring about nonsense as he busied himself with his own dinner.

The next few days went on rather the same: Frau Wimmer mostly didn't hear the children grumbling between one another, or at least she didn't say anything if she did. She didn't correct them when one of them claimed all of her attention after the school day was done or at the weekend before her day off. If she saw the scurrying in the background—the snake that Friedrich tried to sneak through her bedroom door as Louisa complained over some imaginary ache or pain, or a toad the same girl released into the schoolroom—she didn't say anything. The most the children heard were her sighs when she found some thing or another where it shouldn't be, or an occasional shriek when something moved where she didn't expect it. And as the days continued on—their father still somewhere beyond the increasingly close boundaries of their lives, now just the house and their school a short walk down the road—her silence was more and more frustrating. Some nights after she looked in on them the final time for the evening, the boys crept from their room to the girls' to plot the next day's tricks.

"Why is she still here?" Louisa asked, her hands caught in her hair, snagged around her fingers as she combed them through before she was banished to her own bed. Whenever their little councils of war went on into the night, she and Brigitta were curled together with Liesl on top of her quilt; with so many of them in such a small space, it was too warm at night to bury themselves under it. The boys always had to make do with the floor, though Kurt had tried to climb in amongst them that first night.

Sat on the carpeting, legs crossed with the bottom hems of his striped pajama trousers up around his calves, Friedrich scowled. "What do you—"

"She's not happy to be here, even Brigitta can see that much!"

"What do you mean?" Brigitta asked, her head caught on Liesl's shoulder despite the warmth brewing between them, their legs and ankles tangled up together.

"Why are you arguing?" Liesl hissed, hand running along Brigitta's shoulder. "Much louder and even…"

"What?" Brigitta's face come up from her older sister's nightgown sleeve.

"Nothing," Liesl whispered. I can't say it, that Mother and Father might hear us.

Beside the pair of them on the bed, Louisa dragged her legs up to her chest. "I know how she's acting—"

"So why are you mad at me?" Friedrich snapped from the floor.

"Because you don't make sense—"

"That's not my fault—"

"Then you can stop talking—"

"So can you!" Kurt said, his own striped pajamas drawn up around his ankles. "You aren't making sense either!"

"How would you know?"

"Can't you just be quiet?" Liesl asked again, her arm tightening around Brigitta as she started to squirm away. "Don't do that"—she clenched Brigitta's hand harder—"you'll fall onto the floor. And—then even Frau Schmidt would come wondering."

"Shouldn't she?" Louisa murmured, another knot of her hair coming apart with a rough pull. "But she's not here—"

"But she's not foolish."

"What do you mean?" Friedrich asked, one arm in the air and the other hand over his mouth as he yawned, a sudden pain running through his legs, sharp and burning. He often found himself aching, especially at night, though he remembered their mother whispering to him a few months after his tenth birthday that he would start to grow properly soon enough, that his father was a tall man...He bit down on his lip, a little hiss helping him blink the sudden tears in the corner of his eyes away. The months had all been the same, and even the last few weeks hadn't managed to be any different. You weren't even here for...Birthdays had suddenly transformed into miserable days: Kurt's at the end of September, then Liesl's and finally Brigitta's. Even his own a few weeks ago—

"She'll know we're all here at night sometimes," Liesl went on—Friedrich hoped she didn't seem him shake as he started at her voice. "She's seen all of us yawning in the morning after we're talking, especially you, Brigitta—"

"But we fall asleep while we're talking," Brigitta said, her voice more muffled than ever against Liesl's arm, a yawn of her own caught in her cotton sleeve. "Frau Schmidt never likes it. Or when she finds us with our books."

"Frau Schmidt doesn't—"

"So why can't we?" Kurt asked.

Louisa snapped her face up. "Here?"

"Yes!" Friedrich said, now turning his legs to sit up on his knees.

"It's weird, that's why—"

"Your still my sister—"

"But it is!"

The quarreling went on in the older girls' room for nearly another hour, the boys nearly falling asleep on the floor as their voices faded into the carpet.


Maria was distracted most days. Whether seated at her desk at the front of her class, sometimes with Sonja tugging on her sleeve as she sometimes still did despite her increasingly improved marks in maths—had a pile of papers to mark stacked in the far corner of the table in her room—tucked into the far corner of the orchestra hall listening to the strings rising and falling or an aria growing within some man or woman's deep chest on the stage so far away. Each moment her eyes closed—sometimes even a moment when she blinked—Georg was right there.

It really wasn't just a Sunday afternoon at the gardens anymore, but it wasn't anything...special, Maria had decided two weeks after the little trip to the lake north of Salzburg. Or at least she supposed, she couldn't quite remember how long it had been. Their time together was simply melted together. There was nothing even to remember apart from how lovely the time with him was.

An afternoon when they met between her room and where his flat must be, her fingers still sometimes covered with grey smudges from her pencils from the school day, too eager to be on the bus to wipe her fingers...or his little whispers against her ear, just his breath on her cheek leaving her with a blush. He never said anything that was quite too much for...polite company, if she believed her foster mother. "You're prettier than you think," she had whispered one of those last evenings before she left Vienna, one of the last times she had seen her uncle. "Remember that." She hadn't looked at him, then, she still remembered how he reached for her—her waist, her backside—when no one else was looking, especially his wife.

But it's nothing like that with you, Georg, she told herself that the first afternoon they said farewell after their trip to the lake despite the mess of her thoughts as she watched him walk away, almost terrified for the retreat to her little room. What would she do when she was there alone, no eyes like those women on the street to comment. She had nearly forgotten herself after her shower, her room still warm and laden with steam drifting from her washroom, the memory of his arms pulling at the oars still tormenting her just a few hours on.

She couldn't let herself think about it that Sunday after church, even as she struggled to look away from him how she knew she should. Most of that day, her fingers were tangled in the headscarf in her pocket as she wondered if God had heard her little wretched thoughts the night before. (He must have, she was certain as accepted her little bite of bread and sip of wine, her mind already wondering what the women and men around her would think if he was suddenly right here beside her.) How she couldn't decide if she wished she hadn't answered him just before he tore himself from her: would it have been better—nicer—to learn what he meant that she wouldn't be happy with herself in the morning. As she finally pulled her nightgown over her head when her hair was mostly dry and braided, she had to twist her fingers into the increasingly threadbare cotton. She knew where she was craving his touch— No, I can't! she told herself with her final retreat into bed, quilt drawn up to her chin and her hands now knotted into the hem. I know it's still so different to what I've always feared, but I know it's not right—not now. Oh, I shouldn't even think that.

But each afternoon they spent together—as the weeks went on, they rarely wandered through the Mirabell Gardens, instead staying a little closer to both of their homes—Maria's hand was more tightly wound with his, though he sometimes yanked his back. As March turned to April, the cold still ebbing away as days turned to weeks, she couldn't stand the weight of her coat, though before she decided it was too warm for it, she couldn't decide if the sweat burning against the back of her neck was just the change of season or…

Oh, she didn't know if it was the heat, even though she exchanged for a jacket her aunt could no longer wear, years out of fashion. (Maria hadn't cared even then, she had no money for anything like it.) Sometimes when her arm was tucked into Georg's, it burned—no, not really, but...She didn't quite know how to say it. Or maybe, if she was honest with herself, she simply wouldn't say it. She felt his hand against her back, sometimes—easier than ever without her coat—his fingers twitching, almost struggling to stay still. (Or she told herself that.)

Whenever they sat on a bench in the park between her room and his flat—Maria still didn't quite understand how she hadn't realized it that second time she...met him on the street—she couldn't stop herself from dropping her head against his shoulder, always wanting another breath of...Well, she didn't know what it was, just that it was a scent that always clung to him and she simply needed more. Her murmured prayers for forgiveness were growing longer and longer before she allowed herself to crawl into bed each night, even as she eagerly awaited her sordid dreams once she finally found sleep. And when Georg said farewell for a few days, perhaps even a week, it was only worse. I know you said Thursday next week, but if feels like forever.


Georg didn't understand, he truly didn't. She's just a girl, he told himself that first evening back at the villa, just to look in on how the woman—sometimes, he still lost her name—had listened to his wishes for the children. How long had it been, five or six weeks? Her latest interview earlier that day after the chauffeur had taken the battered household car back to the garage had been somewhat unimpressive when he asked about their progress. Answers that half danced around his questions, feet shuffling on the dark carpet, eyes only meeting his every now and then. I suppose you'll still do, he thought, already lost in a haze of grey smoke before she closed the door rather faster than was polite. At least I don't have to be here to listen to Frau Schmidt beg for help.

All the children had clustered around him before he called their governess to corral them and send them back to the nursery. (Well, it wasn't really a nursery anymore, he allowed himself that thought when he was alone in his study again, not when Liesl wasn't quite a child anymore.) All he knew was that he couldn't quite forget her face—almost embarrassed as he didn't even spell out what he desperately needed from her that afternoon just back from the lake, even more uncertain as she seemed almost ready to whisper, "Yes." The erection coaxed into life by those blue eyes and puffy red lips—a little bruised from his own—had nearly been painful by the time he returned to his flat. It was only his hand between his legs, tight around himself, that was able to relieve it all. But even as the shudders racked the lower half of his body, he could only see her eyes clenched shut as she moaned beneath him, her own limbs shivering and almost weak as her fingernails clawed at the muscles at the top of his naked back.

But through the days he needed to sign off for the accounts this time, quickly returning to his habit of spending every moment he could in his study with the lock snapped shut, Georg always woke to his half empty bed. The visions that haunted him through the nights often chased him as daydreams once the sun rose. It was the same ache between his legs, his wife's name nearly on his tongue even as he wanted to feel that long fair hair tangled between his fingers—almost ready to tug her head back to open her neck to his mouth. Hearing her moans in those little moments as he finally felt the pain give way, his body sated even without hers to take his every thrust, though he could imagine how warm the virgin depths between her legs must be.

I know I'll discover it someday, he thought to himself more than once, even while his fingers were only building that throbbing at the top of his thighs higher than ever one of those evenings. He didn't feel the need most of those nights he was in Aigen, whether hiding in his study with the memories that couldn't cling and shout for his attention. Walking about the lake was worse, though the water wasn't so blue—so choppy—so deep. But at least, he thought that first afternoon as he wound his way to the other side from the house, I don't have to listen to you here. Your voice, and how...He scratched at the back of his neck, one of the insects that loved the still water at the edge of the lake gnawing at his skin. How you sound like her. The first night after his escape to the far shore of the lake, Georg couldn't resist it, his hand back between his legs to release the pain.

After the days in Aigen—Georg lost track of how many passed before he finally left the villa and darkness behind, just that it was longer than it had been ever since the damned governess finally took her place—and the first few back in Salzburg behind the wheel of the household car, the dreams were somehow even worse. He found his way to Maria that first afternoon he returned: his fingers in hers the first moment he could, hand clasped around her waist almost as soon she was within arm's reach. Some days before he left for his latest banishment, even as he loved touching her, it was far easier to sit across from her at a table. Before he determined that, he sometimes felt the need to even wander into the local parish church!

You don't know, Maria, he told himself that afternoon, her eyes darting back to him after she poured the milk and dumped the sugar into her coffee. After finally finding her on that promised Thursday, it must just be right after her school day was done. Her fraying bag hung from the back of the chair beneath her godawful jacket and he suspected her legs crossed as she turned her gaze back to her coffee, both hands clutching the steaming cup as she lifted it to her mouth. Many times, now, he caught her biting back a grin when ever their feet collided beneath the table. You can't know, not really. Even if you'll embrace that burn the moment you forget about God.

Georg didn't bother with coffee for himself, simply ordering a small glass of wine, his own eyes always drifting back to her. The little blushes that kept spreading across her cheeks, her gaze somehow drifting elsewhere, her little fingers tapping along the side of the ceramic in her grasp.

His glass of wine was drained—her coffee surely gone cold despite the warmer April afternoon as she ignored it—she finally looked up. "Georg?"

"Yes, darling?"

"Couldn't we…" Her cup snagged and crumpled the tablecloth, though he was certain she hadn't noticed the little tears in the once pristinely white fabric.

It was the same little restaurant he brought her to the Sunday that felt ages ago, desperate to assuage his own guilt. Nothing was changed: everything was a little scratched, a little stained, though one time the prior week, he had insisted on bringing her for dinner, still quite not able to unable how she ate so little, almost a third of the plate left before the waiter removed it, a mess of breadcrumbs from the tartine he had ordered for her as he had that first visit, though happily more of it had vanished. When his thoughts wandered at night—always to her—he always saw her with a little more at the breasts he had never seen, a little more to hold at the hips, both what he could grasp and how wide they were set. How she sounded despite the pain as the next child—

"Georg?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered, lifting his glass for the last dregs of the wine despite the dregs he saw at the very bottom of his glass. I don't think I can spend anymore of the day here with you today.

"It wasn't much, I—"

"Maybe later." Another turn of his glass back into his mouth, his chair shoved back with no care to the scratch of the legs against the pained floor. "I can't stay anymore." He shoved his hand into his pocket, searching for his wallet and the bundle of schillings folded there. "Whatever, they don't need, keep."

"But—"

"You may not like to say it, but I know you can use it."

Releasing her coffee cup, Maria stood, hands smoothing out a few new wrinkles in her skirt. "Where are you—"

"I'll see you later. Sit down." She did, more falling back into her chair, her hands now in her lap. "Here." His wallet back in his pocket, he shoved a pile of notes across the table to her, wrinkled despite the days folded in his wallet. "Please…" Georg reached across to her, one hand under her chin. "Maria."

She shook her chin from his hand. "Do you have to go?" she asked.

Georg dropped back into his chair, pulling his arm back even as he felt her try to lean into his grasp again. "You ask that a lot, I think."

"No—"

"Well at least once." He smiled, fingers dancing across her skin as she smiled...and then he sat back down, wincing as his backside landed in his chair and already frowning.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing." You don't know how quickly I would have followed you that afternoon I left you at home, or all the ones in between then and now. If you had just truly asked. "But I think you want to ask me something."

She pulled one hand away from her wrinkled dress—reached for his—yanked it back—and he took it firmly to stop her from doing it again. "Oh, I don't know what I want to say—you'll probably think I'm being silly—"

"Well, you're not talking sense right now." With his other hand, he brushed a few of the broken strands of hair from her face, his stomach turning as he did. I can't stop seeing you in my dreams, darling, but you're nothing like he, and you never will be. "Not that I expect much different," he went on, a new rush of blood to his groin as he listened to her little sigh and felt her relax into his palm.

"What do you mean by that?"

Georg allowed himself a little laugh, his thumb running along the back of her hand. "You've come down to earth a little, but your head is still up in the mountains." Reaching across the table with his other hand, he ran a finger along her cheekbone, not missing the shiver beneath his touch. "But I don't think you could live any other way."

Maria leaned forward, wishing the table could vanish, even with the chatter and other diners around them. "Couldn't we spend some time out of Salzburg again?"

His eyebrows furrowed, and Georg felt his forehead wrinkle. "I thought you liked it here. You did choose to come here."

"Yes…"

"What is it now?"

"I can't tell you what I left behind, not...not really."

"Maria—"

"I know we can't go to the lake again, it's too far—"

"Only in your mind, I think."

"What?" Maria caught her bottom lip with her teeth. It had tumbled out of her mouth, just her words going ahead of her thoughts as they always did. I don't want to tell you all of it—I can't bear the thought of you knowing how I grew up. She tightened her fingers in his hand. You can't let me go, now that I'm here and not in Vienna.

Georg shook his head as he drew his hand back from her face. "It might have been years ago, but I've sailed around the world, Maria, it's not much of a journey to Attersee."

Her gaze dropped back to the table, and Georg thought he felt her tug against him, almost like she was trying to pull away from him. He only tightened his grasp—and heard her sharp drag of breath. "Well…" There was another, and he knew that if he had a finger against her wrist, he would have felt her pulse grow faster. "It…" Still another deep breath. "It feels a world a way, at least to me."

Beneath his ribs, his heart pounded for a moment. "Forgive me," he whispered.

"No, please don't worry about it!" Maria said, louder than she meant to, even seeing a woman at the table she could just see beyond Georg turn her head, as though she was wondering where the sound had come from. "But…" She licked her lips, eyes darting here and there: from the dimpled plaster lining the ceiling to the electric lights that flickered every now and then, accompanied by the little hums she assumed came with the tiny pulses, just like the singers in only operas she had been joined by the instruments she couldn't see. "I love Salzburg, but sometimes I wonder what there is outside of it."

"Love it, do you?" You shouldn't have said that, darling. His heart pounded again—and the space between his legs throbbed. That's a dangerous word to hear come from your mouth.

"Isn't it right that I should, even you said that I chose—"

"Yes, but what do you mean that you want to see, exactly?"

Maria sighed, finally pulling her hand from his and leaning back in her chair. "Just…" She shook her head. "Somewhere outside of Salzburg, just the countryside."

"It's about the same journey to the country as to the lake, Maria."

She crossed her arms across her chest, and without her worn coat to hide her little body, Georg couldn't quite stop himself. His eyes dropped to her breasts, pushed up by her arms...He could almost imagine her nipples pressed up against the shift that she surely had beneath her dress, nearly taste one in his mouth as even more blood rushed down. Goddamn you, girl, what have you done to me? She pulled one away, scratching at her other hand, the pale skin above the very bottom of her sleeve suddenly visible as it slipped away from her wrist. Sometimes, all I can see when I close my eyes is you shuddering beneath me, hear you moaning—

"—what I meant and you know it."

Georg shook his head, finally back in the little café rather than in the bed his flat. "Do you already dislike Salzburg that much?" he asked, now leaning back in his own chair.

"No!" Was she closer again, he had to wonder as her hands landed on the tablecloth. "Just sometimes, I miss the quiet."

Georg snorted. Yes, she was slightly closer, and he seized her hand another time. "I wouldn't think it was quieter in Vienna."

One of her elbows now on the table, Maria caught her chin on the base of her hand for a second, a little sigh escaping between her lips before she glanced away and it landed in her lap again. "In my corner it was," she whispered.

You're far away, aren't you? Georg thought as he dragged his chair closer to the table, one of the buttons on his open jacket almost catching on the fraying hem of the tablecloth. I'd rather keep you here with me, even if I can't quite know why. "And…" His own hand on the table, Georg's fingers tightened. "Do you mind where I might take you? So long as it's out of the city?"

Maria shook her head, her eyes finally coming back to him. "No."

"Not even…" He couldn't quite say it, not even as his hand loosened again as he tried to quell a sudden shake. It wasn't nearly so fine as the ocean or even Attersee, the lake just behind the villa, the water not nearly as blue or clear. I tried to show you some of my world, but it's no longer mine, being out on the ocean like that. It's all I need, sometimes.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

"What?" she asked again, her hands now up and out of her lap, caught together before her as she leaned forward.

"All I can think …" He didn't wait for her, this time simply reaching across without waiting to see if she cared to have him do it. Just with her fingers in his..."Don't worry about it, Maria."

He could almost see it—hear her chatter melting together with the chirping of the birds and gentle lapping of the small lake whenever the wind whistled down from the mountains. But...There's no way to know, Georg thought, where they will be if I do. And if somehow he saw Maria wandering about the lake, he could already hear the questions and everything else. Anger from Liesl and Louisa, possibly even Friedrich as well—and perhaps merely confusion from Kurt and Brigitta. The youngest girls, well, they would certainly still be tucked away into the nursery, not that they would even have a thought in their little heads. They wouldn't even know to be angry, he went on to himself. I can't quite take you there, even if all I would like to do is row you across that lake just like I did before. I think you would be less frightened than me, this time.

His grasp was firmer than it had been in a long time, Maria knew that much, and his eyes were almost...unfocused, she supposed. It's always one of us who just can't quite stay where we are. She bit her lip, one of her fingers tingling. "You're doing it again, Georg," she murmured as she moved back into her chair and tried to free her hand. She flexed her fingers every way she could, but he only held them closer. "Please let—"

"Don't."

"But—"

"Don't," he hissed, pulling her back toward him, so suddenly her waist nearly slammed into the edge of the table. "It's a simple enough thing, I thought you could understand it without any trouble."

Maria's mouth opened, and she heard herself take a breath. "I—I'm sorry, Georg," she whispered, her heart suddenly pounding. "But you're hurting my hand again. You haven't done that for weeks." I had already decided you weren't anything like him, please don't make me change my mind.

Georg sighed, finally releasing his hold on her, wiping his palm against the tablecloth. It was soon to be ripped away—even if the café didn't change it the moment they left—and he suspected Maria's hand was just as damp. "No, Maria, don't…" Her eyes were in her lap again, and her hands were together again, almost as though she was massaging away an ache. "Don't think like that." He couldn't stop himself, turning her face up to his...and hating how it trembled ever so slightly against him.

"I wasn't."

He bit back the irritation this time. "You don't even know what I meant."

"I know, but—"

"You can't say that—"

"Why won't you even let me say something?" she asked loudly. "You weren't doing that and now you're sounding like…" Her pulse rose again, suddenly in that small house in Vienna: broom in hand in the kitchen, the dust and sometimes leaves quickly filling the pan next to her feet. "Like him again."

"Who?"

"Please don't ask me, it doesn't matter now that—I know you."

"Do you?"

"Well, I think so—"

Georg once again didn't let them linger despite the dregs of her coffee—he sorted out the schillings for the waiter and returned the remainder to his wallet—more eager to have her to himself, even if only amongst the mob of pedestrians that cluttered up the streets more and more as the days grew longer and longer. Despite his suit coat, the bag from her schoolroom over her shoulder, and her spring jacket—as always, he ignored the frays at the seams and a stain here and there—Georg could feel the change from even an hour ago. Her muscles were stiffer than when he first had his arm around her, her gaze down at the stones to guide her every step. Most times when he had her on her own as best he could—as best as Salzburg allowed...He caught her glancing up at him whenever he chanced a look down, his chin occasionally knocking against the crown of her head.

He slowed his pace, and with his arm tight around her waist—she hadn't fought against him despite the discomfort he felt in her taut frame—she was forced to slow as well. "You'll have to forgive me, I'm just—"

"You're worried about something, aren't you? You don't come and go quite like you used to—I felt it was all the time at earlier in the year."

Georg nodded, though he didn't have an answer for her. I can't tell you, Maria, I really don't know if I can. You would despise me, and I don't think I could stand that. He refused to take another step, apart from dragging her to the very edge of the street, out of the worst of the flow of people. "It wasn't that often, darling, but I don't have to any longer." They have someone to look after them, now.

"I know—but you're just back after so long, and...it just seemed like it was so often."

Georg took her chin again, turning it up, almost smiling at her. You'll do nicely for me, someday. "So where can I take you, if you want to be out of the city?"

"You'll…" Finally, she didn't struggle against his touch as she had since he insisted they leave the café she had grown to love; she was only ever there with him. "You'll think it's silly. But I just haven't—been out like this for so long."

"This?" His brows came together again. "You told me you would rather be with me than even be in church."

"No"—her disintegrating knot of hair fell a little more at the back of her head as she shook it—"but I just wish the priest would be a little quicker toward the end. I can't imagine not being there on a Sunday, even if I do look forward to seeing you after. But that isn't what I meant."

"So what do you mean?"

"Just...a picnic, that's all."

Georg pulled her closer, hard against him, unable to stop himself from pressing a kiss to her hair, her body finally loosening against his. "That's an unusual thing to say."

"But you said...where."

He murmured his laugh into her hair. "That still isn't an answer, darling."

"Wherever you want, then—I just would like to…"

"Wherever?"

"Yes!" she nearly shouted, nodding into his chest.

Wherever...Her hand in his as they ambled about the lake, laughing and whispering about nothing at all— No, not there, it's too close. But, just a little bit more of my world, darling. "Then—I'll see you right here? Sunday?"

"After I leave—"

"I know you'll be at church, you can't quite stop talking about it. But right here?" She nodded again, finally bringing one of her arms around his back, holding herself so tightly to him, he felt her breasts pressed into his chest each time she took a breath. "Good." With her so firmly against him, it was more a rumble than a word as he scowled at an older woman who frowned as she glanced their way. "I think I'll like having you to myself." No matter how you want to see heaven someday. After the last seven months, it has no place for me—and I fear I've found hell on my own. He pulled her closer, almost stumbling into the wall himself this time. No matter how much I would like to see my wife again—

"But we're on our own right now, I suppose," she whispered, her arm even tighter, "no one else is—"

"You really don't understand, I think. On my own." He allowed himself one final kiss to the top of her head, the pain already beginning to turn to a gentle throb at his groin. Even if you won't say it, I think you understand why.

That afternoon—and later again that evening as his mind drifted to the next few days—the pressure between his legs turned a torment for Georg. God, just a few minutes with you...it might turn into ages, Maria.


A/N: Sorry, that took a little while. I love the song "It All Depends" from Bedlam Ballroom by Squirrel Nut Zippers. "Will we fall apart the way that star-crossed lovers do? Why was I a fool to ever fall in love with you?" Bonus points if you can find the almost direct quotation from a Jekyll & Hyde song.