Outdoors; everything one might dream. The fairy-gray clouded sky and the fairy-green misted wood. Her tall horse shying at a sparkling brook. All dreams.

He laughed and came forward impulsively to kiss her—his affection a potent thing, a flourish of light. She was smiling, her tears feeling fresh on her face. He smelled of sweat and roses. She felt it in the palms of her hands, in her loins. It was right. It was Southampton she had wanted all along.

Sweet wine from Spain and gossip from France; the sun in the windows dimmed, sorrowed prettily as the day declined, until the candles' light was mirrored in the glass. Their dabbling flames were like guesses at a feeling, the hearth's fire like the feeling itself. It was a beautiful pastime she had missed; hours that had stepped light-footed on Emilia's memory and passed on.

It was night, and the sky spreading into a rain that fell like darkness visible, a glistering where there was no light.