Page 65 of A Thousand Painted Hours

I closed my eyes, gripping his arms, alight. We pressed closer and closer, as if we could somehow mend the torn place inside each of us where we’d missed the other.

So much feeling rose in me, buzzing through my temples, my throat, that at last I broke away and pressed a hand to my chest. “It feels the same.”

“More,” he said.

“And yet,” I said with a small twist of my lips, “nothing at all has changed.”

He shook his head, very slightly. “No.”

A howl rose in me. “Then what is the point to—this?” I pushed against his chest, not truly pushing him away, but feeling tangled nonetheless.

“Will we go so quickly to arguing?” He glanced toward the house, music still audible. “Can we not just take these stolen moments together?”

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t breathe.

With a slight sound, he cupped his hands around my face and kissed me. I gripped his coat and opened to his hungry mouth, and then we were lost on waves of connection, weaving back what had been torn by time and distance.

He lifted his head, and we pressed our foreheads together. “All I have thought of is kissing you,” he said with some despair. “All the way across the ocean, every day and every night, kissing you. I want to kiss you ten thousand times before we are parted again.”

“It’s madness,” I breathed, but I could only look at his mouth. I felt his thumbs on my face.

“It has ever been madness.” He kissed me again, and we fell into that wilderness and might never have returned if not for a pair of lovers crying out on the other side of the hedge.

We halted, suddenly aware of the world around us. “We must return before we’re missed,” I said. “My brother is here.”

“And my father.” He gripped my hands. “How may I see you?”

“I will meet you at Hyde Park tomorrow at noon, by the bridge. Can you get there?”

His laugh, soft and warm, spilled through me. “I cannot wait. Will you show me your new paintings, Elsie?”

My heart soared. “Of course.”

He squeezed my hand and let go. “I will think of nothing else.”

Nina spied me as I came in separately. “Your brother is looking for you. Shall we find some punch?”

My body weighed less than feathers, less than sunlight. Only my hand on Nina’s arm anchored me to the world.

“You did not tell me,” she said, pressing punch into my hand. “Drink. And you must eat.”

I did as I was bid, gulping down the sweet juice, surprised I was so parched. I could not help looking over my shoulder for Tanveer, who had been swept up by a balding gentleman asking a serious question. It reminded me all too accurately that Tanveer had not come here for me, but to learn who the players were in this cat-and-mouse game of Indian independence. I must not distract him.

But even as I thought it, he caught my gaze across the room, and I felt his lips on mine in the garden, the heat of our bodies pressed together, and knew that he’d come here as much for this as for politics.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Nina asked.

“I did.”

“No, you did not tell me he is your lover. You must be more cautious,” she said, turning my body from the room, moving me toward the doors. “When you look at each other, nothing is hidden. Your brother will marry you to the highest bidder before you can whisper another word.”

“Did he see?”

“Of course he did. The whole party saw. Flames were shooting from the top of your heads.”

I closed my eyes, swooning in the memory of kissing him, and in fear of what we might have revealed. “We have been friends since we were children.”

“Mmm.” She turned toward the gathering. “Take some time to calm yourself.”