Then the last night came, the last good night, the last look across the dining table. He’d announced that tomorrow he would to return to Steynings and begin his work there.
She rose, but lingered, one hand on the back of her chair as if glued there. The final cut. She couldn’t bear it. She must.
From courtesy, he was standing too, separated from her by the wide table and a tasteful arrangement of spring flowers. She’d had plenty of time for flower arranging.
“I hoped you would change your mind,” he said quietly. “I have been tempted to force you. Perhaps I would have failed anyway, but I managed to stop myself trying. But I have words I could say, things I could show you that might make a difference.”
Maria glanced to the side and realized that Harriette had already left. Her heart rose up, beating fast. “I don’t see how.” It was weak, but it was all she could manage. Now the absolute end was here, she couldn’t quite face it.
“Things and words might not matter,” he said. “It all comes down to love. I love you, Maria, in the deepest truest way. I am sure of that. But I don’t know whether you love me enough to take the chance.”
A breaking heart was proof, wasn’t it? A breaking heart clearly wasn’t visible. “What words, what things?” she whispered from a dry mouth.
“Misty words and butterfly things. It’s the love that counts. Come to me, Maria, and speak of love, and perhaps we can fight side by side. If not, there really is no point, is there? And whatever happens, I will leave tomorrow unless you ask me to stay.”
He walked from the room then, lean, lithe, beautiful. Her beautiful, beloved young demon, whom she shouldn’t want at all, but wanted more than breath itself. She stood staring at the flowers choking back a scream of,What words? What things?
She gripped the chair harder. She mustn’t weaken now. Truths were truths. Words couldn’t wipe away the years between them. Nothingcould make her womb fertile.
But then she turned and ran upstairs. Ignoring Harriette waiting in the drawing room she ran down the corridor andflung open the door to his room. “What words? What things?” she cried. “Why are you doing this? There is no way to change what is!”
He quickly shut the door, then stood barring it. “Why? Because I’m Demon Vandeimen, of course, and you are my last forlorn hope. Do you love me, Maria? Or does the fire only burn on my side?”
She stood looking at him, fighting, fighting... “I love you, Van. But don’t you see that—”
He swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed. She melted even as she cried, “No, Van. This won’t change my mind!”
All the same, she was ready, ready to be taken in a violent storm that would sweep away reality for a brief while.
But he laid her down gently and sat beside her on the bed. “This isn’t part of the battle. Let me love you, Maria, one last time. Tell me what you want tonight.”
You, now—hot, hard, and fast. But this would be the last time, so she said, “Show me the gentle love you promised once, Van. And pay no attention if I weep.”
He smiled and began to undress her, cherishing each revelation with touch and kiss so that every inch of her body felt worshiped. The lust stirred and the fire burned, but the gentleness encircled it so she could only lie and watch as he stripped off his clothes to join her, skin to skin in the bed.
She was afraid that it wouldn’t work this way, that she’d be left softly quivering with need, that she’d disappoint, but he swept her up with tenderness, with worship, up into a slow, sweet crescendo of heaven that she’d never even known existed....
She did weep, though she did not mean to, wept deeply in his arms, against the devil on his naked chest, because gentleness, she found, went deeper into the soul than hard passion, and the thought of its loss was like ripping roots from her heart.
He stroked her hair, seeming to know these were tears that should be allowed to fall. “Say again that you love me, Maria. Please.”
Impossible to deny it now. She swallowed. “I love you, Van. But it doesn’t change anything.”
He pushed her back and smiled at her, a blissful smile that made her want to weep again, but bitterly. “Don’t try to deny facts, please,” she begged. “When I married Celestin, already somewhat on the shelf, you were a scrubby schoolboy!”
He shook his head. “Let’s look at things first.”
Chapter Ten
He slid out of the bed, picked up a leather folder from the table, and came back to sit up beside her.
Puzzled and wary, she eased up by his side. “What is it?”
“My drawings.” He undid a tie and opened the portfolio. “Are you a connoisseur? I hope not.” He began to turn sheets of paper to show rough sketches of army camps and assorted buildings. Tolerable, but nothing special.
What had this to do with their age difference?
Then as he turned the sheets, she reached out to stop him. “That’s Major Hawkinville.”
