Bitter Oath (New Atlantis)(23)

‘It hurts a little the first time, but the pleasure makes you forget the pain pretty quickly. The important thing to remember is that you take it at your own pace. Don’t try to go faster than you are ready for. Rene won’t try to force you to do anything you don’t feel comfortable doing. He will take his time. Forget any talk you’ve heard about sex being dirty or sinful or bad. Nothing you and Rene do together, that gives you both pleasure, is wrong. Just trust your body. We are animals, after all, and sex is instinctual. Let your instincts guide you… I knew the theory – I’d studied sex education at school. But the reality was nothing like what I expected. It was much, much better. Rene loves you more than life. Trust him.’

‘Do you think we are doing the right thing? We have known each other for such a short time, and we will only have a few months, maybe as much as a year together. Maybe making vows about loving each other until death us do part is wrong, when we know we must part so soon.’

‘You might part, but you won’t stop loving each other. That’s going to be the hard part. I don’t know how I would have reacted if I’d known I would only have Julio for a short time, and then I would have to live the rest of my life without him. I don’t know if I could do it. But I do know that I would take everything I was offered, every last drop of love and pleasure I could squeeze from the time I had. I would make days feel like weeks, and weeks feel like years. It’s not how long you love, but how deeply.’

‘Then we will have had an eternity, if it is measured in depth. I cannot remember my life before I met him. I cannot imagine life without him now. My every sense is attuned to him. I can feel him, even though he’s in another room. Sometimes I think I know exactly when he’s thinking about me. It’s like I can read his mind. Does that sound fanciful?’

‘Oh no, I know exactly what you mean. That’s how I feel about Julio. He is every breath I take.

‘I’m so glad Rene has found you. He’s truly a good man, and his life has been such a long and lonely one. No one has carried the burden of humanity on his shoulders as much as he has. He deserves this time with you.’ Jane leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek.

‘Thank you, Jane. I feel as if I have found another sister in you.’

‘You have. I had no brothers and sisters when I was growing up, but I’ve found them here. Maggie, Faith and you. And Cara is like the mother I would liked to have had.’

Liv beamed her pleasure. ‘Well sister, I think I will retire, as I will need my beauty sleep if I am to be at my best tomorrow morning.’

‘Sweet dreams, sister.’

‘Sweet dreams.’



The sun was several inches over the horizon, creating a glittering path across the ocean to the patio where the assembled guests now stood. Morning’s colours were muted and soft, and the air was crisp and new, smelling of the sea. The sound of waves crashing against the rocks below was a rhythmic heartbeat in the background of their activities.

Jane had strung coloured ribbons between the posts of the portico, and allowed the ends to dangle in pleasing ringlets. The guest, all twenty of them, including the minister, were dressed in the white gowns and tunics of New Atlantis. There was a soft buzz of voices as they waited.

Rene felt sick with anxiety. At his side, Julio nodded his reassurance. It would be fine. It would be just right. This was the crowning moment of his endless life. This was the moment when his heart found its true home.

He hoped he didn’t look too drawn. He hadn’t slept at all last night. His last minute background search had fielded no new information on Liv’s life. There had been no startling changes to the time line. Her death remained as it had been recorded previously. She had never married.

Well, it just showed how historical data could be wrong. She did marry. And she was loved, as few people were ever loved. He hoped it would be enough, when the time came for her to breathe her last. The idea that she might regret even one moment of their time together broke his heart.

At that moment, a hush fell over the guests, and they turned to the glass door that led back into the living room. With a quick, last minute glance at Karl Brandenburg, who was currently a man in his sixties, his face lined and leathered from years in the middle eastern sun, he turned back to see Jane coming through the glass door.

The music on the home system changed to the bridal anthem played by the Boston Philharmonic. Jane, hair woven around a crown of flowers, a bouquet clutched in her hands, bare footed on the ochre tiles, began to making her slow way toward Rene, down the informal gap that had formed between the guests. He could see Jac towering over everyone, his arm resting lightly across Cara’s shoulders. Cara had stars in her eyes, and when she glanced up at her man, the look they exchanged was magic. If only he and Liv could have even a fraction of that love…

His eyes were once more drawn to the doorway and, for a moment, his heart missed a beat. Coming toward him was a vision. Livianna wore the ubiquitous gown that all the women in this world wore. But hers was floor length and drawn in under the bust by a delicate, gold-linked belt. Her long honey blonde hair hung around her shoulders in glossy, abundant curls. And on the top of her head was perched a wreath of white roses, which Cara had brought with her this morning, over the transparent gauze of the floor length veil. In her hands she carried the bouquet of white roses and gold tinged fuchsias. Her upturned nose, with its light dusting of freckles, was sun kissed from her two days in the New Atlantean sun. Her brown eyes gleamed with unshed tears of joy.

Thank you Jane, he thought, as his love walked toward him on unsteady legs. I would never have had this moment if you had not encouraged me to follow my heart. If every day, from this time on, is a living hell, at least he would have had this moment. His heart was so full it threatened to overflow with joy, and he felt the tears sting his eyes.

After timeless minutes had passed, Liv finally reached his side. Karl cleared his throat, and began to speak the words that had been spoken untold times before, over the millennia. ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the joining of these two people in the bonds of holy matrimony…’

While he stared down into Liv’s upturned face, he was reminded of that first day he had met her – it now felt like a thousand years ago. He had known it then; had known that she was part of him, and would always be part of him. Not even death would ever keep them apart.

Julio was nudging him, and with a little start he realised everyone was waiting for him to say his vows.

‘ I, Rene York, take you, Livianna Patience Mulgrave, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.’

He took a gold ring, which he had ordered the night before, from his pocket, and slid it onto Liv’s long, white finger. His dark hands seemed too large and clumsy to touch such fragile beauty.

He finished his vows. ‘With this ring, I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with my heart I thee love for all the days of my life.’

The catch in his throat as he said the final ad-libbed addition did not go unnoticed. Liv looked up at him like a cornered fawn. She knew how long that life could be.

Then she began to recite her vows, produced a ring, and placed it on his finger. She included the same additional line that he had. And he was almost unmanned by the knowledge that all the days of her life would be so short.

Then she was standing on tip-toe, and he was bending down to kiss her tenderly on the lips.

‘I now pronounce you man and wife,’ Karl said with a flourish and a smile.

The guests began to clap and cheer, as Rene, blinking back the tears, pulled his wife against his side, and wrapped his arm firmly around her trembling shoulders.

Then they were walking down the pathway formed by the guests toward the living room. The guests followed on behind like a flowing tide of white.

The next hour passed in a kind of blur. He drank a dozen toasts, ate more food than he was comfortable with, at that time of the morning, and never let Liv out of his sight. Eventually, after the last kiss on the cheek was given, the last well wishes said, they shut the front door on the final guest.

Now the house was theirs. They surveyed the half cleared mess and grimaced.

‘Maggie and Cara wanted to finish the clean up before they went,’ Liv said, picking up an empty glass.

‘I know, but that would have meant another half an hour or more before I could get you alone. The mess can wait. Come to bed, wife. I need you.’

With the entertainment system still playing soft music in the background, Rene swept his bride into his arms, and carried her down the hall.

He gently lowered her onto the bed, and she scrambled to sit up to remove the floral headdress and veil before they were crushed.

‘Don’t worry about them…’ he said with a growl, and cast them off the end of the bed. Then he leaned over her, and began to kiss her in earnest.