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A Stroke Of Midnight :: Гамильтон Лорел
Страница: 17 из 293Sidhe skin just doesn’t flush the way human skin tones do. Of course, keeping my face away from the cameras meant that Galen could see me. Some days it’s only a choice of embarrassments, not an escape from them.
Madeline was saying, “Princess Meredith is getting a little tired. We may have to cut this short, guys, sorry.”
There was a general outcry, and a renewed flash of cameras, which was bad, because Galen came to me. He knelt in front of me, beside my chair, and was tall enough that, from the shoulders up, he was still clearly visible to them. He touched my chin, so gently, with just the tips of his fingers. It made me look at him. It made me forget that we were both in profile to the cameras. He leaned his face closer to me, making me forget that we were onstage. I leaned in toward him, and his hand cupped the side of my face. That made me forget everything else. I have no explanation for it. We’d shared a bed for months. He was a disaster politically, and showing him this much favor in front of everyone could endanger him, but I wasn’t thinking that when we kissed. I wasn’t thinking anything, and all I could see was the pleased look on his face, the look in his eyes. He’d loved me since I was seventeen, and that was, in his eyes, as if nothing had changed and no time had passed.
The queen had ordered me not to show favoritism. She was going to be angry with me, with him, with us, but after Frost’s little incident, as Madeline called it, what was one more? It was bad, and still I kissed him. Still I wanted to kiss him. Still, for just a moment, the world narrowed down to Galen’s face, his hand against my skin, and his mouth on mine.
It was a soft, chaste kiss, I think because he knew if he kissed me too hard, I’d lose my hold on the glamour that kept Frost and me from looking like lipstick casualties. Galen drew back, and his eyes held that soft surprise that they did sometimes, as if he still couldn’t believe he was allowed to kiss me, allowed to touch me. I’d caught the same look on my face in the bedroom mirror a time or two.
“Do we all get a kiss?” The voice was deep and held the rough sloughing of the sea. Barinthus moved toward us in a swirl of his hair, the color of oceans. The turquoise of the Mediterranean; the deeper medium blue of the Pacific; a grey-blue like the ocean before a storm, sliding into a blue that was nearly black, where the water runs deep and thick like the blood of sleeping giants. The colors moved and flowed into one another so that the actual where and what his hair looked like was ever-changing, like the ocean itself. He’d once been a god of the sea.
Madeline was saying, “Princess Meredith is getting a little tired. We may have to cut this short, guys, sorry.”
There was a general outcry, and a renewed flash of cameras, which was bad, because Galen came to me. He knelt in front of me, beside my chair, and was tall enough that, from the shoulders up, he was still clearly visible to them. He touched my chin, so gently, with just the tips of his fingers. It made me look at him. It made me forget that we were both in profile to the cameras. He leaned his face closer to me, making me forget that we were onstage. I leaned in toward him, and his hand cupped the side of my face. That made me forget everything else. I have no explanation for it. We’d shared a bed for months. He was a disaster politically, and showing him this much favor in front of everyone could endanger him, but I wasn’t thinking that when we kissed. I wasn’t thinking anything, and all I could see was the pleased look on his face, the look in his eyes. He’d loved me since I was seventeen, and that was, in his eyes, as if nothing had changed and no time had passed.
The queen had ordered me not to show favoritism. She was going to be angry with me, with him, with us, but after Frost’s little incident, as Madeline called it, what was one more? It was bad, and still I kissed him. Still I wanted to kiss him. Still, for just a moment, the world narrowed down to Galen’s face, his hand against my skin, and his mouth on mine.
It was a soft, chaste kiss, I think because he knew if he kissed me too hard, I’d lose my hold on the glamour that kept Frost and me from looking like lipstick casualties. Galen drew back, and his eyes held that soft surprise that they did sometimes, as if he still couldn’t believe he was allowed to kiss me, allowed to touch me. I’d caught the same look on my face in the bedroom mirror a time or two.
“Do we all get a kiss?” The voice was deep and held the rough sloughing of the sea. Barinthus moved toward us in a swirl of his hair, the color of oceans. The turquoise of the Mediterranean; the deeper medium blue of the Pacific; a grey-blue like the ocean before a storm, sliding into a blue that was nearly black, where the water runs deep and thick like the blood of sleeping giants. The colors moved and flowed into one another so that the actual where and what his hair looked like was ever-changing, like the ocean itself. He’d once been a god of the sea.