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“It’s not fair for me to take pleasure and give you none,” I protested.
“Who gave you the idea that there’s no pleasure in watching you receive it?”
I considered this for a moment. “Men, mostly.” The towel had reached my breasts and felt like a bit of heaven, especially on the part of me she’d lit up like a flame.
“You’ve much to unlearn from having lived among them so long,” Sal said, putting the cloth aside.
“Where do you live? When you’re not completing dubious tasks for odd means of payment, that is?” I asked.
The crinkles at the corners of her eyes disappeared as the playful smile melted from her face. “Right here,” she said.
Outside, the wind began to howl against the panes.
“At the fortress?” My mouth cracked open with a yawn.
Sal shook her head. “I mean, in this moment.”
A profound and pleasant heaviness settled into my limbs. “It isna fair to melt my mind out of my skull and expect me to follow that kind of logic.”
Her cheeks glowed amber as she stared at the hearth. “None of us live anywhere. Not really. Not even in our own bodies. Some have them longer than others. But the earth takes us all back eventually.”
I cleared my throat. “Shyte and stardust,” I said.
Sal turned to me. “How’s that?”
“Something a friend of my father’s used to say.” I settled back against the pillows, allowing the memory to float into my mind. “He’s a tailor and came to Caisteal Abernathy to make my wedding gown. I think he could tell I wasn’t overly excited about the groom,” I explained.
“I can’t imagine why,” she said with a smirk that scored a direct hit to my loins.
“He finished the gown, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. His best work yet, he said. But no sooner than he’d put in the last stitch that he told me he hoped I’d never wear it,” I continued. “Naturally, I was a mite confused and asked him why.”
“A reasonable question,” Sal allowed.
Shifting on the bed, I stretched my legs out next to hers. “‘We’re all made of shyte and stardust, my love. That being the case, you might as well please yourself,’” I said, attempting to capture his East End accent.
A crease had appeared in the center of Sal’s forehead. “Does he live in Londinium?”
I raised an eyebrow at Sal. “He does. But, more importantly, did you just call London Londinium?” I asked.
“A slip of the tongue,” she announced with a wave.
I traced one of the lines on her forearm through the complete circuit of a swirling vortex. “Strikes me that tongue doesn’t do anything it doesn’t mean to,” I teased. “Why do you ask?”
“I think I’ve met him,” she reported.
“Alan Ede?” I asked incredulously.
“That’s him, all right. He’s the one who turned my cloak into a coat,” Sal said. “For a handsome fee, of course. He was pretty put out at my asking.”
Knowing the adorably fussy tailor as long as I had, it wasn’t hard to conjure his voice in my head.
What the ‘eww ‘ave you brought me ‘ere? You know what the Order would do to me if they found out we’ve got one of their fancy capes?
“Can you tell me why that’s such a big deal?” I asked. “My mother told me I was never to alter it but never gave me the reason why.”
“Because the very first belonged to Mother Lillith,” Sal explained. “And every cloak that is made contains a thread from hers. It is said to contain the outrage of every girl child, maid, mother, and crone who has ever lived.”
A tiny light within me flickered with pleasure at this idea. “Aye. I know a bit about that.”
