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I confess, I had taken to watching her across the table at dinner time. It had become my favorite meal of the day. Never breakfast, because—wild thing that she was—she always skipped it, and never lunch, for she ate it in the nursery with her students.
Yes, watching Jo March had become my favorite pastime.
Of course, it was still better when we talked. Somehow, she’d wheedled me into giving her German lessons. She’d come to my room in the evenings, knocking on the door and not noticing how quickly I opened it for her.
“Guten abend, Professor,” she would say, with the slightest flush on her cheeks from running up the stairs. “Are you ready for our lesson?”
“I am always ready for thee, Miss March,” I would smile, bowing slightly and opening the door wider to fit her skirts.
And so the evenings would race by, while I tried to slow them down to savor the moments. Often, her hair would fall loose in strands, curling around her face only to be pushed back by an absent-minded hand. She would bend over her work, curled by the fireplace in the armchair she’d adopted as her own, muttering in my native tongue and taking my corrections to her accent with grace and keen aptitude.
Tonight, we were working on spelling. She sat at my desk, one knee drawn up against her chest in concentration, writing the words as I gave them to her.
“Blühender,” I said, picking a word from the poem we were working through. “Dost thou remember what this means, Miss March?”
“Blühender Nebel,” she muttered, half to herself, as she quoted the Goethe. “Blossoming mist.” Leaning over her page, she scribbled the word out with her pencil before looking up at me. “Is this right?”
I bent over her shoulder to see better, and felt the heat rush to my face.
“Don’t forget the umlaut—” I reminded her, pointing gently. “The dots over the vowel.”
“Ah,” she said, and smiled at me. “You’re right. I mean, you’re German, so of course….” Stumbling over her words, she shook her head and turned back to the page, but not before I saw a blush stain her cheeks. “Umlaut.”
“Perhaps this one.” I turned my eyes back to the book, hastily. “It has the same idea. Glücklich.”
“Glücklich,” she repeated, her voice not much more than a whisper in her concentration. “Happy.” Her writing was smoother this time, with an added flourish. “Umlaut.”
A strand of hair fell out of her braid, and before I noticed what I was doing, I had reached out to tuck it back behind her ear. Hesitating, Jo looked up at me with luminous brown eyes, her hand rising softly until brushed my fingers.
“Thanks,” she said softly, and I felt the warmth of her fingers on mine. “Did I spell this one right?”
I glanced at the paper, my heart quickening.
“Yes, perfect.”
“Good,” she said, and took the book of Goethe from my hand to set it closed on the desk, not looking away from my face.
I swept my thumb against her cheekbone, murmuring and wondering at the smoothness of her skin. She’d told me that her older sister was the beauty of the family, but right now I couldn’t see how that could be true.
“Jo… Miss March—”
“I don’t mind,” she smiled, and before either of us knew any better I was kissing her.
She smelled of ink and cedar, and her lips were soft and warm. I kissed her lightly, hardly daring to push the limits of the interaction more than I already had. But mein Gott, she tasted sweet. I entwined my fingers in her hair, pulling her closer to me. I wanted her close to me, in my arms, in my bed. But she sat there, face tilted up, eyes closed, and simply kissed me back.
I can’t tell you how long we stayed there, brushing kisses. Only once did she pause, pulling away just enough to murmur into my mouth—
“How long were you going to read me poetry before kissing me, professor?”
There was a tinge of laughter in her voice, and her kisses trailed up my jawbone.