“Malcolm.” Her brows had drawn together, and as he watched, her mouth worked, trying to hold something back. And then she gave in, a torrent of agonized speech. “Why?” she demanded. “Why would you say that? You could have anyone you wanted. You smile and the whole world falls at your feet, and meanwhile—”
“Ruby—”
“And meanwhile,” she said again, her voice thick, her eyes wet and gray, “no one haseverchosen me.”
He stared at her. Everything inside him felt churned-up, boiling and icy cold at the same time. He could not tamp down his want and his fear; his emotions felt as though they might burst through the paper-thin barrier of his skin.
He was still holding her shoulders, and so it was easy to spin her around. To make her face, not the window, but the inside of the conservatory. “Look,” he said, and it was an order, an officer’s command. “Look at this room.”
“I don’t—”
“Look around,” he snapped, “and tell me what you see.”
“Glass. Plants. Some—pots.” Her voice shook.
“You.” He shook her, just a little, because he could not be easy or gentle right now. He was furious with her father, and guilty and desperate, and he wanted and hehoped, and wanting and hoping hurt too. “You, Ruby. That’s what I see when I look around this room. When I look around every inch of this house. When I look—bloody fucking Christ, when I look at myself in the mirror. It’s all you.”
“I only—”
“No. You didn’t ‘only’ anything. You scrubbed these goddamned windows by hand. I saw you. You clipped the plants and made Gerry haul up better soil, and you painted every single one of these blasted pots with some pretty pattern that only you know the name of—”
“Rectilinear meander,” she said in a smothered voice.
“Right. The rectilinear meander. Of course.” He stared down at her: her blond curls escaping from her pins, her dress crumpled, her eyes devouring him as if to discern whether or not he spoke the truth.
“Damn it, Ruby,” he muttered. “It’s not just here. It’s everywhere.” He pushed her toward the threshold, where they could see out into the corridor, the library, the yellow parlor. “Every inch of this house bears your stamp. And it’s not only that you made everything beautiful, though by God, you did. You made it whole. You made ithome. You made this place—where we were merely existing, merely scrabbling for another day—into something good and generous and safe.” His hand was on her waist, and he caught his thumb beneath the ribbon there and held on. “You think I don’t see how much your Alice has changed since you came here? She says the things she truly means now, not whatever nonsense she most imagines will please. Do you think—”
He broke off. He was breathing hard, and so was she, and he caught her chin with his hand. “Do you think I don’t see how you have changed?”
She moistened her lips. He felt the cool intake of her breath over his fingers. Slowly—so slowly—he moved behind her, angling her by the waist so that they both faced the window once more.
It was full dark now. He could see their reflections clearly. His own form, a head taller, his expression desperate and grave. And Ruby in front, her body a bounty of soft heat, every inch of her clad in white: an iced cake, waiting to be devoured.
He pressed his palm to her chest. The tip of his finger caught in the place where her top button was unfastened, and he let it linger there, a tiny stroke that he felt in the uneven rise and fall of her breath.
“Not here,” he said. “You haven’t changed where it matters. Not in your heart nor your head.” He lifted his other hand, dragged it up her throat, and watched in their reflection as his thumb coasted over her parted lips. “Here. Here is where you’ve changed.”
God. He had not meant this for seduction. But the position was almost painfully erotic: one palm on her chest, the other across the vulnerable column of her throat. He watched her, watched himself—felt almost out of his own body as his finger worked another button free.
Helplessly, he drank in the small revelation of her skin. The shadowed indentation where his thumb pressed into her lips. The heat of her body.
“You smile more,” he said. His voice was rough. “More freely. You no longer look as though someone might steal it back.”
“Steal what back?” she whispered. Her mouth moved against his fingers, and he felt the damp heat of her breath.
His cock had hardened as they stood before the glass, and he resisted—sweet, agonizing restraint—the urge to press himself into her body. He stood an inch behind her, smelling amber and herbs, spicy licorice and her skin.
He rubbed his thumb across her mouth and ached.
“Your joy,” he said very softly. “It’s yours. You aren’t asking for permission or waiting for someone else to give it to you. I’ve spent all my life playing a dozen different roles, and I have never—not once—been as true to myself as you are every single day, and I... God, Ruby. I think you are extraordinary.”
He had the words ready. He’d shaped them in his mouth, sometimes, just for the pleasure of it. He meant every one.
“I have never in my life,” he murmured, “felt as happy as I do when you smile back at me.”
She trembled beneath his touch. Her eyes were locked with his in their reflection, and she stood very still for a long moment.
And then she reached up and unfastened the buttons of her bodice.
