His smile is warm. “They don’t rack gentry,” he says, and gathers me into his arms, with a deep gentle tenderness. He lays me down and wraps the fur rug around me, and he stretches out beside me, leaning over me, his head resting on his hand so that he can see me. He runs his hand from my wet cheek down my neck, over the curve of my breasts, my belly, my hips as if he is learning the shape of my body, as if he would read my skin with his fingers, the paragraphs, the punctuation, and remember it forever. Then he buries his face against my neck and inhales the perfume of my hair.

“This is good-bye, isn’t it?” he says, his lips against my warm skin. “You’ve decided already, you tough little northerner. You made up your mind, all on your own, and you came to say good-bye to me.”

Of course it is good-bye.

“I think I will die if you leave me,” he warns me.

“For sure, we will both die if I don’t,” I say dryly.

“Always straight to the point, Kat.”

“I don’t want to lie to you tonight. I’m going to spend the rest of my life telling lies.”

He scrutinizes my face. “You’re beautiful when you cry,” he remarks. “Especially when you cry.”

I put my hands against his chest. I feel the curve of his muscle and his dark hair under my palms. He has an old scar on one shoulder from a sword cut. I touch it gently, thinking I must remember this, I must remember every moment of this.

“Don’t ever let him see you cry,” he says. “He would like it.”

I trace the line of his collarbone, map the sinew of his shoulder. His warm skin under my hands and the scent of our lovemaking distracts me from sorrow.

“I’ve got to leave before dawn,” I say, glancing at the shuttered window. “We don’t have long.”

He knows exactly what I am thinking. “Is this the way you want to say good-bye?” Gently he presses his thigh between mine so that the hard muscle rests against the folds of soft flesh and pleasure rises slowly through my body like a blush. “Like this?”

“Country ways,” I whisper to make him laugh.