Page 41 of Under a Dancing Star

The rain hammers around us, as the kiss deepens into something hungry, as if my body is starving for something that I don’t even understand, need pooling in my belly. His hand tangles in my hair, all of Hero’s carefully placed pins tumbling to the ground, and it feels as though electric currents pass between us, as though everywhere he touches me sparks and shivers. It’s greedy and urgent and it leaves me trembling.

After a moment that feels both fleeting and endless, I seem to come to myself again. I pull away and blink, the world coming slowly back into focus. The others have completely disappeared. Ben and I stand in the rain staring at each other. His pupils are wildly dilated, and we are both breathing heavily.

I try to remember the experiment, to think of this kiss as an intriguing result that needs recording, but all my usual poise has deserted me. All I can do is look at Ben, and the only relief I can find is that his expression is as stunned as mine must be.

Another crack of lightning slices through the sky and it’s that which finally jolts me out of my stupor. I am, I realize, standing in the middle of a forest during a thunderstorm, kissing a man in a bed sheet. I choke on a giggle that contains more than an edge of hysteria.

“I can’t believe it really rained,” Ben says, looking around him.

“The significant increase in humidity today made it likely,” I reply automatically.

“Or the God of thunderstorms has been appeased.” Ben’s dimples flash and just like that I’m thinking about kissing him again. His eyes drop to my mouth and I know the feeling is mutual; we lean in towards each other again, like magnets irresistibly drawn together. I can feel the warmth of his breath against my wet cheek.

“We have to go,” I manage, my voice hoarse as I take a firm grip on myself.

“Absolutely,” says Ben, blinking. “Yes.”

I swing around, wrenching myself away from him, my legs still unsteady as I march back to the house. I don’t turn to see if Ben is following me. Impossible as it seems, we arrive back at the villa only a couple of minutes after the others, who are still shrieking and shaking the rain from themselves. Only Ursula seems to notice our brief absence and the look she gives me is enigmatic.

I am shivering, a fact that I put down to the chill as the water evaporates from my skin. Filomena is already handing out towels and I wrap one around myself, welcoming the rough warmth.

“We did it! We did it!” Hero exclaims as she skips about the kitchen. She throws her arms around Ben in excitement. His eyes meet mine over the top of her head and my stomach feels as though I’m suddenly falling from a great height. What on earth is the matter with me? Perhaps I’m ill. I touch my fingers to my wrist and my pulse is certainly a little faster than usual.

“I’m going to go and get changed,” I say, longing for a moment alone to sort through my disordered thoughts and feelings.

“Yes, yes,” Filomena says, waving a hand. “Go and change into dry clothes and then we will have hot tea in the kitchen. I will not have everyone succumbing to influenza while Leo is away. I know how delicate you English are – I have read my Jane Austen.”

Closing the door of my room behind me, I lean back against the solid oak for a moment, catching my breath. My heart is still skittering. I glance at the mirror and looking back at me is a wide-eyed, bedraggled, drowned wreck of a girl. My hair stands out around my head in a sodden tangle, my face is a pale moon. My makeshift toga is soaking but, thanks to Hero’s enthusiastic wrapping, at least it is not transparent.

“It was just a kiss.” I surprise myself by saying the words aloud into the empty room. They seem to linger in the air. My voice is firm, convincing.

Still. I raise my fingers to my lips again, and the pale girl in the mirror does the same. That kiss. It was as if all that strange crackling tension between Ben and I was the gunpowder leading to that inevitable explosion. I had no idea, no idea that it would be, could be, like that. I wonder if it always is. I wonder if Ben is as startled as I am or whether that was just another kiss for him with just another girl.

Mechanically I begin to undress and change into my nightgown. I towel my hair and do my best to untangle it, scraping it up and away from my face, then I get into bed and hide under the covers like a child.

I can’t go back down there tonight. I’m too full of it all. I think if I see Ben now then I might burst. When Hero calls softly through my door I pretend to be asleep.

In the distance I can hear the revelry continuing in the kitchen, the odd squawk of laughter or shout of excitement. The rain is still drumming outside, against the earth, against the pine needles. There’s a music to it that sings through the window and I listen to it for a long, long time before I finally fall asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The next morning, I wake feeling groggy. When I throw open the shutters I am greeted by another perfect sunny day, and it’s almost hard to believe that the rain really came last night.

Almost, but not quite, because the air has that sweet, stripped-clean feeling about it, that freshness that only comes after a storm. I take a deep breath of it, enjoying the green smell of the hills. I stand for a moment, looking unseeingly at the view, thinking again of Ben’s lips on mine. I am only brought back to my senses when the sound of birdsong sends me lurching for my binoculars. I am relieved to see that the kiss hasn’t completely scrambled my brain. Again, I fail to catch a glimpse of the bird that’s been eluding me.

After a quick wash I pull on my trusty trousers and a soft shirt the colour of the bluebells that carpet the woods near Langton each spring. I grab my hat and go downstairs. Everything is quiet and there is no sight of the others. Without really knowing where I am heading I begin to wind through the gardens, following the paths that cut between the yew hedges until I reach the stone fountain in the centre.

I suppose part of me knew that I would find him there. He is sitting on the broad stone ledge that borders the fountain, a book in his hand. He looks relaxed, rumpled, his long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. I clear my throat and he glances up.

“Hello,” I say. He lays down his book and gets to his feet. I recognize the book as a mystery story full of sensational twists and turns – I have read it myself, picked it up from behind Mother’s plant pots in fact.

“I didn’t have you down for a mystery reader,” I say.

“It’s one of her best,” he says easily. His voice is warm. It feels intimate, as if the way he speaks to me is different now.

He drops back on to the stone seat, patting the space beside him companionably, but I remain standing, looking down at him, my hands clasped behind my back so that he can’t see me twisting them anxiously. “About last night…”

“Ah yes,” he says. “It’s been on my mind as well.”