THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART FIFTY:

Marshall slipped on his silk pajama bottoms, silk in a deep, burnished gold that Eden loved. Rather than putting on her gown, Eden lay back on the pillows, watching him. It dawned on her that she was reposed on the couch very much like Rose had been in Titanic when she'd asked Jack to sketch her. She smiled, always having liked that scene, especially the intense look in Jack's eyes as they moved between her and his sketching paper. She looked up at Marshall. He couldn't do that, couldn't look at her in her repose as Jack had at Rose.

"What are you thinking?" he asked softly.

"How do you always know?"

He grinned. "It's that 'cavern of deep harmony'. It leaks out at the oddest moments."

She smiled up at him. "I did say I'd always tell you what I was thinking."

"You did."

"Ok, I was thinking about the movie, Titanic."

"I went with my friend to see that. The one who described well."

"There was a scene where Rose lies on the couch in her stateroom and Jack sketches her. I'm lying rather like she was and I was just thinking...."

"That you wish I could see you."

"How...?"

"It's a natural thing, Eden, for you to wish that."

"It's all right. I was just...."

"Shhh," he breathed, getting down on his left knee, his right still not ready for bearing pressure.

"What...?"

"Let me gaze at you."

Her arms were curled loosely around her head and he reached until he found her hands with his. He drew his hands slowly, inch by inch, down her arms, lingering where her shoulders began, his lips joining his fingertips as he wandered through her hair, up to her brow, then
beginning down again, his mouth finding her eyes, her mouth, down the line of her jaw and throat. There he began to murmur to her softly in French, a hundred small kisses marking his route from collar bone to breast. His voice was low, very deep, his words cushioned somehow
by his kisses, as he visited each breast in turn, visited each...thoroughly.

Half way down her rib cage he switched to Italian, then explored the wonders of her navel,

the more angular hardness where her hip bones lay. He moved down her legs, back up again,

the murmuring stopping as he concentrated, still slow, still delicately deliberate in each motion until her hands were clutched into the pillows and she was lifted to the last exquisite pinnacle of earth where there was no more world on which stand, and yet he took her on and still on.  And when she lay gasping, limp, his lips found hers again. There were no words that needed to be said by either her or him, and so they kissed until he lifted his head, moving it to nest his cheek between her breasts.

She lay quietly, looking at his face, listening to the crackle of the fireplace, utterly content. She hadn't given him his present yet. That could wait. This moment was too precious to disturb. After a while, a bit of tree sap burst with a loud pop and he jerked slightly, jarred from some intense place of reverie.

Touching his temple with her fingertips, she whispered, "Merry Christmas, my love."

He straightened enough to find her left hand, tracing his thumb pad around the setting on her ring. "Look for a star," he quoted, "and you will find it. It is not far. It never will be far." 

Lifting her hand, he kissed the ring. "I've always imagined what a star must look like, but now, there's one right here, right within my reach." He kissed it again. "And it's more beautiful than I'd ever dreamed."

When she had her gown on again, she led him to the main living room. "In here," she said, hoping she'd done the right thing.

"Flowers?"

"Umm hmm. Come on to the side board."  She lifted his hands. "Now...feel."

His fingers moved lightly, gracefully over the blossoms, and a smile began to spread delightedly across his face. "Daffodils! You've brought me...," his hands moved, finding pot after pot of them, "a host, a cloud of daffodils!"

"There's more," she said, guiding his hand down inside the tall stems of a particular pot, where his fingers encountered an envelope. "These are only a down payment."

He looked puzzled. "Tickets," she explained. "Two tickets for England and a reservation at a B&B near Dove Cottage."

His mouth changed shape into an 'O'.  "Early April," she added. "Your birthday handily comes when the daffodils are in bloom. I...I...wasn't sure," she stammered, "if...if...but then...the ring ...and I...."

"It's perfect!" he said. "I always thought it would be just Wadsworth and me and the lakes and the daffs...but now there's you. Will you marry me before...maybe here...and the Lake Country can be our honeymoon?"

She went into his arms. "I can't think of anything better," she sighed, then reached to pick one of the largest daffodils. "Come upstairs...now."

In their room, he sat on the bed and she let the petals of the flower move over his chest. He gasped and she smiled, "Let me gaze at you," and pushed him back on the bed.  When she was done, some while later, it was doubtful either he or she would ever think of daffodils in quite

the same way again.

ON TO PART 51

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