Rooftop Follies
“Every year I post a letter,” Sabina offered Roland. “I can be declared dead after ten years of silence so I post a letter every year to prove that I am alive. That way my stepfather cannot take control of my father’s affairs, which includes my inheritance.”

“I can help you, Sabina,” Roland said quietly. 

“You have my gratitude, but this is my responsibility. I have borne it for ten years, there are only a few months left before I am twenty-five. Then I will contact my lawyers and finish this.”

They finished their coffee just as the tavern became louder and drunker. 

“Time to go,” Roland said, pushing back. 

Neither of them rushed to seek a cab, enjoying the brisk walk through an oddly snowless December night. Abruptly, Sabina stopped, her head cocked.

“Oh, listen to that,” Sabina said. 

“Don’t tell me you’re interested in some second-rate musician presenting a third-rate opera?” Roland asked. 

“It’s not a third-rate opera, it’s your opera,” Sabina smiled. “Rinaldo.” Roland groaned.

“God save me from French epics. A few minutes and then we must be off. I think I smell snow in the air. Mustn’t get caught in bad weather,” Roland warned.

“Music is never a waste of time,” Sabina said. “And you actually smell horse droppings but I’ll allow you your delusions.” They moved closer to the soulful violin just as a surprisingly good soprano launched into, “Lascia ch’io pianga.”

“That violinist is quite good,” Sabina whispered to Roland. “The soprano is drowning him out. If only they had a whole symphony. Once I heard the Chevalier De St. George conduct in Paris and I was never the same. Come with me,” Sabina said abruptly and grabbed Roland’s hand. 

Roland let himself be led through some foul alleys and up some slippery steps, then through a building. Then, they exited a door onto a roof. She could pick up the thread of the music again, clear and sweet. Roland followed his lady to the edge of the roof and watched her take in the song as the notes floated upward into the fetid night air. 

“Why up here?” Roland asked her.

“The music rises and up here, you can feel like you’re alone above the clouds, carried away by waves of heaven.” Sabina tilted her head to the notes. 

“Have you been to the theater since you’ve been in town?” he asked. 

“Oh, no, the duke is not a music lover, so we do not attend, which is a shame. A good orchestra raging into a symphony is my weakness,” Sabina said. The music made her foolish 

Sabina could not understand the words but she felt the music. It did things to her, made her feel things that were unwise. 

But it was after dark in London and no one could tell her what to do. Sabina turned and looked up at Roland’s face. He was not a handsome man but he had always been so attractive to her, from that stubborn jaw to the thoughtful eyes that looked at her searchingly. 

“Would you be terribly affronted if I kissed you?” she asked.

“You didn’t ask the time before.” He grinned, reaching for her.

“Are you going to make me apologize?” Sabina responded, enjoying his hands on her. She loved his hands. He could repair her windows, handle a gun, guide a horse, hold her steady. 

“No, I beg you to do it again.”

“I’m not very good at it,” Sabina warned, placing her hands on his chest. 

“Well, then I think you should get some practice.”  Roland bent his head down to her lips. “I humbly offer myself as a test subject.”  

Sabina went up on her toes to meet his lips and smiled as they kissed. This was so right, possibly the only thing in her life that was good and hers. She opened her lips and touched her tongue to his lips, letting herself into his mouth with a delight that bordered on joy.

She heard his breathing and remembered to breathe herself as she explored the ways they could kiss. Her arms found their way around his neck and he had backed her to a stone block that she had not seen before on the roof. 

It wasn’t enough. Sabina couldn’t help the frustrated noise that came from her and she slid a hand down to cup the erection bulging the front of his breeches. 

“Lord, Sabina, have mercy, woman.” Roland broke away from her to gasp.

“I need you,” she breathed heavily. “I need this.”

“I’m not going to take you on a bloody roof,” Roland said, then pulled her in for another drugging kiss. 

“Then I’ll take you.”

 

Midnight Visitations
“When did you start drinking?” Sabina asked, pulling off her gloves. 

“When I turned ten and six,” Roland said, his eyes never leaving her.

“Tonight. When did you start drinking tonight?” Sabina clarified, coming toward him. He should stop her. He loved the sway of her hips, the schoolmarm way she corrected him. In the firelight, she glowed like a goddess, and he did not look away.

“Two hours ago. Mayhap yesterday? Did you say tonight?”

“Aria and Sage came for tea this afternoon. She mentioned that you had been in a mood since you saw Oliver yesterday afternoon. I believe that’s when you started drinking. I saw Tristan, by the way. He was asleep on the kitchen table,” Sabina said. 

“We need more brandy in the house. And wine,” he noted. With the utmost courtesy, he poured her the last of the wine on the table by the chaise. Everything was within arms’ reach so he need not even rise. She preferred dry red, he remembered. 

“Then you should tell your housekeeper.” Sabina sat on the low table in front of him, accepting the proffered glass. He had made no effort to sit upright, and had remained prone on the chaise like the drunken lord he was.

“Sage will know. Don’t have to tell that gel a thing. She will just know, like some damned clairvoyant.” Roland kept his eyes on Sabina, tracking her every movement. “How are you here?”

“I took a cab,” Sabina said. She sipped the wine politely, seated as she was on a table cluttered with empty bottles and half-smoked cheroots.

“Sabina,” he admonished.

“Roland,” she replied back with utmost decorum, as if she were not alone with a bachelor in the dead of night, in his home. “As I said, your sister informed me of your indisposition and gave me the key to the side door.”

“Indiscriminate of her,” Roland said, watching her set her empty wineglass down. “I can’t imagine her purpose.” She rose gracefully and removed her fichu, folding it neatly over the back of the chaise. He blinked. Sabina then removed her overskirt and jacket. 

“I imagine she thought I could offer some comfort in your obvious state of distress,” Sabina said, efficiently continuing her undressing efforts. She did not seem to be playing the coquette but he knew she was showing him every move.

“What are we doing, Sabina fair?” Roland asked, as he tracked the removal of her petticoat and stays with more focus than he thought he possessed at this point in his drunkenness.

“I want you to focus on me and talk to me. This seemed to the most expedient way to gain your attention,” Sabina said, removing her boots.

“I will speak to you whenever you wish. You needn’t undress for it. I love talking to you,” he said, and bit his tongue. Some things should not be said aloud. Then she smiled at him, clothed only in her chemise and stockings. Propriety could go on a long holiday.

“Perhaps I want to undress for your attention,” Sabina said. “Perhaps I’ve missed you.”

She came to him, pulling the pins from her hair, and Roland felt the knot in his chest ease in a way that no amount of spirits could do for him. 

Her hair curling freely about her shoulders, Sabina pulled the ruin of his cravat from his neck as she kissed him with more tenderness than he deserved.

“You must leave, Sabina,” Roland struggled to say. He could do this for her. “I am not in a proper state. You should leave.”

“Or you’ll do what. Hurt me?”

“And more. I feel mean tonight.”

“Oh, I am so scared,” Sabina teased, then gasped when he shot to his feet. He grasped her shoulders. 

“Last chance, Sabina,” Roland said through gritted teeth. There was a pause, an eternity in which Roland thought he might die if she left, and then she went up on tiptoes to kiss him. 

He smelled like unwashed man and spilled gin. She smelled like cleanliness and the cold London night she had traveled through to see him. She was sweet and kind and she cared enough to see him. 

Roland wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, deepening the kiss so she would know he had missed her too. Then he gathered up her chemise and pulled it over her head.