“Must you depart so soon?” Summer blurted. She blushed, ducking her head, and tried to cover her confusion with another bit of Dante. “‘In that book which is My memory… On the first page That is the chapter when I first met you Appear the words… Here begins a new life.’” Delicately she slipped her hand from his. “Ah, but I am remiss; I have no right claim on your time. Yours is the business of governance.” She smiled up at him, glad to at last have found someone who shared the joys of reading and poetry with her.
“A word to my father will always find me, your grace. I’ll depart with this: ‘Bocca baciata non perde ventura, anzi rinnuova come fa la luna,’ and perhaps you can say it to me in English if we meet again,” she teased, then caught up her skirts for a quick curtsey.
Humphrey had to laugh at the suggestion. Gazing around, they were still alone in the garden. He held her hand close to his chest that pulled her closer, and looked in her eyes. “My Lady shall be mocking me…” he said, “for the message I shall send your father is but the worst messenger, he would sooner ask me to meet him in a single combat for your honor if indeed he is as good a father as he is a speaker. For my messages, they shall not be known by fathers.”
With that, he placed a kiss on her fingers. “So if the mouth that has been kissed loses not its favour, but renews it with the cycle of the moon…” he looked at her, “Tell me, sweet Summer, what happens to mouths that have not been kissed? For it seems to me that you shall let me depart without a kiss on mine, and I know not what would happen to my favour then? A lady so learned as you, shall not be so cruel, or am I wrong?”
“My lord! Certain I was you said you did not speak Italian well! I shall have to set you a harder puzzle, then, methinks.” Summer laughed with him, though a faint blush crept up her cheeks. “What will you have in trade for my kisses, my lord? I shall sell them dearly, you must know, as I have been taught. Or perhaps,” she murmured, gazing at him challengingly, “you are a thief, and steal them away. Art a thief, my lord? Thou hast captured mine hand very neatly.”
“Oh my lady is but merciless!” Humphrey said now, releasing her hand in a dramatic move. “‘One keeps me jailed who neither locks nor opens, nor keeps me for her own, nor frees the noose, Love does not kill, nor does he loose my chains, He wants me lifeless but won’t loosen me…’”
“My lady I cannot be a thief for what pleasure could be brought by such crime, and if my lady doesn’t give willingly, I must doubt my lady would have the pleasure in the kiss if taken by me. If my heart is not enough an offer, what else can a man offer? What is more than the heart of a man who gives it willingly?”
“So I shall depart from you with a longing heart, ‘thrive in pain and laugh with all my tears, I dislike death as much as I do life, Because of you, lady, I am this way.’”
Summer pressed her freed hand to his heart, smiling. “Is’t with thy heart thou wilt buy mine? ‘Tis a fair trade then my lord, for ‘Love placed me as a target for his arrow, like snow in sunlight, or wax in the fire, like a cloud in the wind … your sweet spirit from which I’ve no defence’ pierceth me.” Stretching as tall as she might, Summer brushed her mouth to Humphrey’s, then darted away.