Lilith turns to Bram to say good-bye and, to the astonishment of both of them, he swiftly takes her in his arms, pulls her to him, and kisses her hard, full on the lips. She pulls away, but he holds her tight, so that her face remains only inches from his own. As the wind buffets them and tugs at their clothes, and passersby exclaim or laugh, and Charlotte squeals in amazement, and a motorist blasts his horn, and a nag whinnies, and the shouts of a chestnut seller sing out above it all, Bram falls deep into Lilith’s fathomless gaze and hears himself murmur her name, over and over, like a prayer. A prayer that she will not disappear out of his life. A prayer that she will return his passion. A prayer that she knows. That she understands. That she, too, wants what he wants.

“Don’t go,” he says at last.

“I must,” she whispers, her own voice unsteady. “I must.”

Bram kisses her again, more tenderly this time, but still with unmistakable fervor. When he finally lets her go, she turns without a word and runs to the waiting cab. He watches Perry shut the door and the driver urge the bony horse into a trot as the carriage bears Lilith away. Away down the street. Away from that incomparable moment. Away from him. But as he watches a smile plays across his face and glee wells up inside him, for Bram knows, he is certain beyond the trace of a doubt, that while he held her, while he kissed her sweet mouth, she kissed him back.

Chapter 12

12.

If to be in love is to lose one’s self then I am as in love as it is possible to be, for I am utterly lost! My head is filled with thoughts of him, of the man who has so unexpectedly yet so completely claimed my heart. When I close my eyes I see him. When I dream it is of him. When I try to read a novel the words shift upon the page until they spell out his name. I am like a giddy girl, unable to be still or serious for a minute, flitting from one imagining to the next, all of him. Of us. Could there ever, truly, be an “us”? The thought is thrilling, and yet it casts me down also. For in what world do I see a future for us together? Am I to move into the Mangan household, become bohemian, live in chilly, hungry freedom, and break my mother’s heart forever? Is Bram to join me as my husband in some corner of Fitzroy Square, without purpose or title or means, humiliated by living off my inheritance, and ill at ease among the society into which he would inevitably be thrust? Both alternatives are inconceivable. I should be despairing, and yet I find that I am not. The delicious, the intoxicating state of being in love is too glorious to be squashed by such prosaic obstacles. That I can have been so quickly transported to this disturbing condition still amazes me. I have tried, these past few days, to pinpoint the moment when it happened. The instant when my view of the world shifted. Charlotte believes it occurred when Bram kissed me. She spoke of nothing else all the way home in the cab that day, and of course there has been no hiding my feelings from her. I may be expert at keeping secrets as a witch, but this is different. This business of love is new to me, and though Charlotte herself claims neither experience nor expertise, it is good to share it. I am glad she was there to see what happened. Indeed, if I did not have her to share my feelings with I believe I should go mad.