"I have read Aristotle and Plato in Arabic," he said. "And I have no doubt our Persian poets sing as gloriously as your Greeks and Latins. And for licentious tales, those told in our bazaars would turn your cheeks bright red."
Those cheeks were a smooth cream color, he observed. He looked about him. There was no one but himself and Sophia in the atrium. A multistoried gallery lined with columns and arches ran around all four sides of the central courtyard. There might be servants, spies for the cardinal, watching them, but he could see no one on any of the levels.
To the devil with them all.
For weeks he had been wanting to reach out and touch that unveiled beauty, that ivory skin. Now he did it. Very lightly his fingers traveled from her cheekbone to her jaw.
She reached up and took his hand—not to remove it, as he had momentarily thought she might, but to hold it briefly against her cheek, then let it go.
They sat silently looking at each other. She was so still that she seemed not even to breathe, while he discovered that his heart was beating fast and hard. He wanted to kiss her, but not here, where hidden eyes might be watching.
But kissing her at all would be a mistake.
The thought shook him—the realization that he must not get any closer to her. He felt as if a rope were tied around his neck and a cruel slave master had jerked on it.
She is not for me. She is for my mission.
He turned away from her.