The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [432]
With a swift movement he knelt on the ground in front of her and kissed the taut skin of her distended belly. She gave an embarrassed laugh. He touched her navel. “Your belly button sticks out,” he said.
“I knew you were going to say that!”
“It used to be like a dimple—now it’s like a nipple.”
She felt shy. “Let’s bathe,” she said. She would feel less self-conscious in the water.
The pool by the waterfall was about three feet deep. Aliena slid into the water. It was deliciously cool on her hot skin, and she shivered with delight. Jack got in beside her. There was no room to swim—the pool was only a few feet across. He put his head under the waterfall and washed the stone dust out of his hair. Aliena felt good in the water: it relieved the weight of her pregnancy. She ducked her head under the surface to wash her hair.
When she came up for air, Jack kissed her.
She spluttered and laughed, breathless, rubbing the water out of her eyes. He kissed her again. She put out her arms to hold herself steady, and her hand closed on the hard rod standing upright between Jack’s loins like a flagpole. She gasped with pleasure.
“I’ve missed this,” Jack said in her ear, and his voice was hoarse with lust and some other emotion, sadness perhaps.
Aliena’s throat was dry with desire. She said: “Are we going to break our promise?”
“Now, and forevermore.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not going to live apart. We’re leaving Kingsbridge.”
“But what will you do?”
“Go to a different town and build another cathedral.”
“But you won’t be master. It won’t be your design.”
“One day I may get another chance. I’m young.”
It was possible, but the odds were against it, Aliena knew; and Jack knew it too. The sacrifice he was making for her moved her to tears. Nobody had ever loved her like this; nobody else ever would. But she was not willing to let him give up everything. “I won’t do it,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not going to leave Kingsbridge.”
He was angry. “Why not? Anywhere else, we can live as man and wife, and nobody will care. We could even get married in a church.”
She touched his face. “I love you too much to take you away from Kingsbridge Cathedral.”
“That’s for me to decide.”
“Jack, I love you for offering. The fact that you’re ready to give up your life’s work to live with me is ... it almost breaks my heart that you should love me so much. But I don’t want to be the woman who took you away from the work you loved. I’m not willing to go with you that way. It will cast a shadow over our entire lives. You may forgive me for it, but I never will.”
Jack looked sad. “I know better than to fight you once you’ve decided. But what will we do?”
“We’ll try again for the annument. We’ll live apart.”
He looked miserable.
She finished: “And we’ll come here every Sunday and break our promise.”
He pressed up against her, and she could feel him becoming aroused again. “Every Sunday?”
“Yes.”
“You might get pregnant again.”
“We’ll take that chance. And I’m going to start manufacturing cloth, as I used to. I’ve bought Philip’s unsold wool again, and I’m going to organize the townspeople to spin and weave it. Then I’ll felt it in the fulling mill.”
“How did you pay Philip?” Jack said in surprise.
“I haven’t, yet. I’m going to pay him in bales of cloth, when it’s made.”
Jack nodded. He said bitterly: “He agreed to that because he wants you to stay here so that I’ll stay.”
Aliena nodded. “But he’ll still get cheap cloth out of it.”
“Damn Philip. He always gets what he wants.”
Aliena saw that she had won. She kissed him and said: “I love you.”
He kissed her back, running his hands all over her body, greedily feeling her secret places. Then he stopped and said: “But I want to be with you every night, not just on Sundays.”
She kissed his ear. “One day we will,” she