Silence Is Golden (Storm and Silence 3)

‘Yes?’ I prompted.

‘Well…do you think there should be any of that before marriage?’

‘Kissing where exactly? The hand?’

‘Well…no.’

‘The cheek?’

‘Not really, no.’ Ella’s voice was nothing more than a soft squeak by now, hardly audible out of the darkness. ‘I was thinking more of on the…you know…’

‘No, I don’t actually.’

‘On the l…li…lips.’

‘Ah.’

‘Not that I intend to do anything of the sort, Lill! I mean, haha, who would I do it with? I mean, I don’t know any young men, and certainly not well enough to go around kissing them or letting them kiss me, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. It’s merely hypothetical, you understand? Completely hypothetical. I would never contemplate doing something like that in real life! Never, for one moment!’

Up until that moment, I had never been a great fan of Shakespeare. But I had to admit that with his phrase ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’, he had pretty much hit the nail on the head.

‘So, as a purely academic exercise,’ I enquired, ‘you would like my opinion on whether or not a hypothetical lady should give a theoretical kiss to her imaginary lover before they enter into a stochastic marriage?’

‘Yes!’ Ella breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Exactly!’

‘Well…’

‘Yes? Yes?’

‘I have no experience on the subject myself, of course,’ I lied.

‘Of course.’

‘And I would never consider marrying, myself, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘But…’

‘Yes?’

‘I heard that the Queen kissed Prince Albert before their marriage.’

Ella’s first gasp had been nothing in comparison to the one that escaped her now. It was the queen bee of all gasps. ‘No!’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Really? Pinky swear?’[6]

‘Pinky swear with bells on!’

‘How do you know this? How would you know anything about Queen Victoria?’

‘Trust me,’ I told her, ‘I have it from a good source.’

Ella was silent for a while.

Then: ‘The Queen.’