Reprise Part 16

and her cheeks flushed.

"With a steady diet of champagne in the interval, I will be ready and waiting."

He resumed his seat beside her on the edge of the bed. "Ready for anything, as your uncle promised?"

he asked with a challenging smile. "I refer-what better would you expect of Dammler-to your conjugal duties." "Oh, yes, ready to wear my coronet. Does it have diamonds? What better would you expect of Prudence?"

"I refer, my lady, to your more physical duties."

"Ah, the housework. I doubt I will be stout enough to hold a broom for a few decades yet," she told him promptly.

"No, Lady Dammler," he leaned over until their noses nearly met, "I do not refer to the scrubbing and laundry, but the much more arduous ch.o.r.e of this." He touched her lips lightly. Soon he had both arms around her, kissing her hungrily, with a little sound of joy or satisfaction in his throat. Holding her close with her head cradled in the crook of his neck he said in a husky voice, "I missed you so much I wanted to die, Prudence. It was as if a part of myself, the best part, had been torn from me, leaving me wide open and bleeding." Then he laughed at himself. "I'm being gross again. You will phrase it more delicately."

"No, I won't. I felt the very same," she told him. "In fact I went you a step better and tried to die. I stopped living anyway. I might as well have been dead. You were right about me, Allan, when you rattled me off in such fine style for ripping up at you. But it wasn'tjust pride. It wasn't anyone laughing at Uncle that bothered me so much as thinking I'd lose you. I was like a mother with a baby she couldn't trust, afraid to let you out of my sight, afraid I'd lose you to someone else. I wanted toown you."

"Now why couldn't you have told me so? How happy and proud it would have made me. And how foolish a fear it was, Prue. You can own me body and soul if you want to. You may have to wrestle Satan a little for the soul, but the body is all yours, I guarantee. The owning is reciprocal, mind. An exclusive joint company, with the two members holding on to each other for dear life. Only our paper characters will come between us from time to time. I fancyShilla will want a corner of my time, the demanding wench. I'm running her and the Mogul around again in my head. A reprise you might say, as she is you, and we have had another go at it."

"PoorPatience. It's well I gave her the virtue to match her name. She has been at the greengrocer for three months, only to buy a cabbage."

"She's better off thanShilla's sheik. I left him with a sword at his neck all the way here. You may imagine what gave rise to the image. I should have marooned him in a harem, shouldn't I? He wouldn't care then if I never came back to him. But I'm sure glad I came back to you. How's that for poetry?"

"It's the most beautiful sonnet you ever wrote."

"It had the best inspiration. It's the wisest thing I ever did. Virtually the only wise thing, except for proposing to you the first time. This time around I mean to be thorough as well as wise, and get you to the altar."

"Good! I havealtar ed my own position since last refusing you."

"Oh, Prudence, that's what I love about you! You make worse puns than I do. Nowdare I say it? You are, you really are, myaltar ego."

In the hallway, Mrs. Mallow heard a ripple of merry laughter, such an unusual sound in the household lately, and decided after all that Dammler would make a pretty good husband for them.

end.