Her mouth parted slightly to allow me to delve further, which I did. After a few seconds, I withdrew to look at her. She stared back at me with wide eyes. “Was it all right?”
“I can’t be certain.” Her face broke into a smile. “Shall we do it again to decide?”
Josephine
Kissing Phillip was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I’d enjoyed the kisses from Walter, but this glorious feeling that reached into my toes was something altogether different. The rest of the world faded away, and it was only the sensation of his mouth against mine and the woodsy smell of him. An ache for more reverberated throughout my body.
He parted from me at last. I had no idea how long we’d kissed. It could have been seconds or years.
“That was…magical,” he said.
I nodded, too breathless to speak.
“I guess kissing isn’t something one needed to practice beforehand,” he said.
“That wasn’t like the others.” Walter’s had been quick and chaste, merely a brush upon my lips. Had he not felt anything for me? No passion? And what of me toward him? Nothing he did, kissing or otherwise, had ever evoked this kind of desire. “I had no idea what it was supposed to be like, but I do now.”
“I hoped it would be this way, but having nothing to go on but the onion kiss, I wasn’t sure.”
We laughed like two children, free and without inhibition. Like two people who’d not seen the horrors of war or the loss of parents or even the embarrassment of betrayal. Was this what love did? Eradicate the past? Or at the very least push it aside to make room for a new life? “Phillip, I didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“That a man was supposed to look at me the way you do. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have wasted those years on Walter. What if you’d never come? I’d have gone my whole life not knowing what this feels like.”
“It wasn’t a waste.” He brushed his mouth against mine but didn’t linger. “If you hadn’t written Walter all those letters, I wouldn’t have known you. I wouldn’t have known to come here.”
I looked up at the sky. The light was beginning to fade into the gloaming. We would need to go if we were to get home before dark. “I’d like to stay forever in this moment, but we should get back to the house before Mama worries.”
“One kiss before we go?” He peered at me, bolder than ever before. We’d moved into a new level of intimacy. He felt more sure of himself with me and I with him. No longer would I question myself in re
gard to Phillip. This was a good man. An honest one who saw me as a gift. He was not like Walter. This was clear to me now in the fading light. I would no longer chastise myself but simply thank God that he’d granted me another chance to choose the right man this time.
“One more.” I smiled at him as I answered his request for another kiss. Had I ever known what it was to smile from my belly, as if it started there and worked its way out to my mouth?
He kissed me again, this time with one arm wrapped around my waist and pulling me close against his chest.
“There’s never been a girl like you, Josephine Barnes. Not in all the world.”
“They say no one snowflake is like the other.”
“If you were a snowflake, you’d make all the others jealous.”
“Are you sure it’s me who has a way with words?” I asked.
We laughed as he told the horses it was time to return home at last.
When we arrived back to the house, pink-cheeked from the cold and warm from our kisses, I was surprised and overjoyed to hear the sound of Poppy’s voice coming from the sitting room. I quickly took the pins from my hat. “Poppy’s here,” I said to Phillip. “Come meet her.”
“You go and say your hellos first,” he said. “I’ll hang up our coats.”
I thanked him and then ran into the sitting room. The moment I saw Poppy, sitting between Fiona and Cymbeline on one of the couches, I froze. Her hair. She’d chopped her long brown hair into a bob that fell just below her jawline. “Poppy, what have you done?”
“She cut her hair off.” Cymbeline’s eyes shone with obvious delight. “Doesn’t she look modern?”
I rushed across the room as Poppy rose from the couch. “It’s…it’s all gone.” My hands covered my mouth as I tried not to cry.
Poppy put her hands out in a gesture of peace. “Jo, don’t be mad. A lot of the girls in the city are bobbing their hair. It’s very Parisian.”