Tangled (40 page)

And so when she finally picked him up to hold him close for the last time, her heart breaking, he merely objected loudly to having his game interrupted and squirmed to be free.

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She set him free and her arms were empty and her heart worse than empty.

"Good-bye, sweetheart," she said softly, her eyes drinking in the sight of him. But her son was shrieking with laughter as Katie bashed him on the head with a rag doll.

They were to catch the early-afternoon train back to Stedwell. She knew that. She would stay in her rooms until they had left, she decided. She had even drawn the curtains across her windows so that she would not look down on the carriage as it left. Once they had gone, everything would be all right.

No. She was not naive enough to believe that. But it would be easier with them gone. Reality would be easier to accept. Once they were gone she would be able to concentrate on her love for Julian and spend her energies on building their marriage again.

She willed time to pass quickly.

Louisa followed the maid who brought her luncheon tray into her room. Her smile for Rebecca was rather strained. This must be very difficult on the whole family, Rebecca thought. Rejoicing over the return of Julian mingled with sadness over the mess of David's marriage.

David. She wished he were gone already.

"I'll eat here with you if you have no objection," Louisa said.

They ate in semidarkness, a fact that Louisa did not comment on.

Indeed, they scarcely spoke for several minutes.

"William thinks you should come downstairs to say good-bye to him," Louisa said at last.

"No." Rebecca set down her fork.

"David said the same thing," Louisa said, "until William persuaded him that it would be best. Things left quite unfinished fester in the mind. Say good-bye to him, Rebecca. Alone. You need not feel the awkwardness of anyone else's presence.''

"It would not be seemly," Rebecca said, "without my husband present."

"Rebecca." Louisa's voice was softly reproachful.

Did they not understand? Did they not realize what it must be like after a year and a half of marriage and par-

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enthood, to find suddenly that the marriage no longer existed, that she was married and owed loyalty and obedience to another man?

No, of course they did not realize. How could they? It was something beyond imagining.

"There is nothing to say," she said.

"Perhaps a word or two of kindness," Louisa said. "You would not want to remember that you have not exchanged a word with him since walking into the library two days ago."

She wanted him gone. She wanted to be with Julian. She wanted to resume their marriage and forget the years between. But how ridiculous her desire was. Forget Charles? Forget David?

"Very well," she said. "Where? Not the library. And not here.''

"There is a fire in the drawing room," Louisa said. "Come down there with me now and then I'll go and find him and send him to you."

The drawing room was disconcertingly large and empty and chilly despite the fire. Rebecca stood gazing into it, warming her hands while she waited. She fought the urge to escape, to bolt from the room before it was too late. But Louisa was right. There must be a good-bye. And yet when the door opened and closed quietly behind her, it took every ounce of the discipline of years to turn calmly and look in his general direction. She could not look directly at him.

"The carriage is ordered to take you to the station?" she asked.

"Yes." He did not come far into the room, she noticed.

"I hope for your sake the train is not late," she said. "It is tedious waiting on platforms, especially during the winter. And Charles gets fidgety.''

"I'll make sure the carriage stays until the train comes in," he said.

"Yes," she said. "That would be wise. He was in high spirits this morning. He is going to miss Katie."

"Yes," he said.

What else was there to say? There must be a world of other things to say. Her mind reached about for just one of those things. He was walking closer to her.

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"Rebecca," he said, "I know this is hard on you. You were a good and dutiful wife to me. You have friends at Stedwell whom you will miss. And there is Charles ..." He swallowed. "But I know that your heart must be bursting with joy over the miracle of Julian's return.

He has always been your love. Once this difficult moment is past, let yourself be caught up in that miracle. Don't worry about me. I'll be happy to know that you are happy."

Her eyes shifted to his face at last. It was pale, set, harsh. Only his blue eyes suggested something different.

"I am happy to know that you did not kill him," she said. "For both your sakes."

"Yes," he said.

Yet again there was nothing to be said. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, his chin, his collar, and his neatly tied four-in-hand.

"Well," he said, "we had better have done with this, Rebecca. I'll have Charles's nanny send you reports every week. Good-bye." He did not hold out a hand to her.

"Good-bye." She watched him turn and stride across the room toward the door. And felt the most dreadful panic of her life.

"David!"

He looked back over his shoulder, his hand on the doorknob.

She wanted to go with him—more than anything in life. For one quite unreasoned moment she wanted to wipe out the last few days and be back to normal again. She wanted to go with him and Charles. Back to Stedwell. Back home. But this was good-bye.

Good-bye was forever.

"Nothing," she said lamely. And then she thought of something.

She twisted his wedding ring, easing it over her knuckle and off her finger. She held it out mutely to him.

She thought he was not going to take it. He stood looking at it for endless moments before crossing the distance between them and taking the ring from her outstretched hand. Their fingers did not touch.

"Have a safe journey," she said. "I'll pray for you
and
for Charles."

"Yes," he whispered.

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And he was gone.

Rebecca stood where she was, icy hands clasped before her while the fire roasted her back. She deliberately avoided either touching or looking down at her bare ring finger. She stood there for long minutes until Julian came to her.

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It was a great deal easier with them gone. The earl kept much to himself, claiming the press of work. Rebecca had to deliberately seek him out in order to reclaim Julian's wedding ring. Louisa spent a great deal of time with Katie or out and about, fulfilling her many duties. Rebecca had a chance to be alone with Julian most of the time.

For a whole week she gave herself up to the joy of his return. They spent almost every waking minute together, talking, laughing, reminiscing. He told her stories about Russia, outrageously funny, lighthearted stories that would have her almost believe that there had been no captivity at all. She told him nothing about her own life during the missing years, but she had always been a better listener than talker. Since Julian had always been the opposite, they suited well.

They walked outside, wrapped up warmly against the chill, though there were signs of early spring on some milder, sunnier days. They rode or took drives in the carriage. Sometimes they sat in her sitting room or in the conservatory. But it did not matter what they did or where they went. It mattered only that he was alive, that they were together again.

That she loved him.

She scarcely took her eyes off him during those days. His fair, wavy hair, his gray eyes with the laugh lines at their corners, his wide, good humored mouth and white teeth, his carefree laugh, his charm—she familiarized herself with everything again. They touched almost constantly when there was no one else in sight, and sometimes even then when she could not prevent him. They linked arms or held hands.

They wrapped their arms about each other. They kissed.

There was only one thing wrong.

She was standing before the fire in her bedroom the

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night David and Charles left, absently brushing through her hair, gazing unseeing into the flames, trying not to imagine what was happening now at this very moment at Stedwell, trying not to think of anything else either, when the door opened and Julian came inside, wearing a dressing gown over his nightshirt.

She had been half expecting him, she supposed, now that David had left. He was her husband and had been without her for four years. And he had always come to her frequently, almost nightly. She was his wife. She smiled at him and set down her brush.

She set her arms about him as he kissed her and let all her love for him flow outward. It would not be as bad as she remembered. She always loved it with D—. It would not be bad. She loved him. And all else aside, it was her duty.

"Mm, Becka," he murmured, lowering his head to nuzzle her neck.

"You're hot, love. Let's lie down."

She let him lead her to the bed and sat down on the edge of it while he removed his dressing gown. She would lie back against the pillow and he would lift her nightgown and . . . She could remember clearly how he did it—always the same way.

But she was David's. Only David had the right to . . . This was a stranger. Julian was a stranger.

She could not lie down.

"Julian," she whispered, "I can't."

He knelt on the floor before her, pushing her knees apart so that he could move closer, drawing her head down for a kiss. "Yes, you can,"

he said. "You love me. Don't you Becka?"

Of course she loved him. "Yes," she said. "You know I do, Julian."

"Lie down, then," he said, getting back onto his feet. "I'll make it quick if you would prefer, Beck. I'll not hurt you."

God. Oh, God, Oh, please dear God.

She lay down and closed her eyes. But when she felt his hands at the hem of her nightgown, she panicked and was up and fighting him like a wild thing before she knew what she was about.

"No!" she was yelling at him. "No."

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He looked white and shaken when she stopped fighting suddenly and looked at him in some horror.

"Julian," she said, "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. It's just that three days ago I was married to D-David." Three nights ago David had made love to her in his usual passionate manner—and she had made love to him in the same way. Only three nights ago. "My mind can't adjust this fast. I need time. I'm so sorry."

It felt as if she were trying to commit adultery.

"I understand, Becka," he said, breathing rather hard. "It's just that it's been so damned long. And I didn't foresee any of this. All right.

How much time?"

"A week," she said. "Give me a week, Julian. Let's spend our days together and get to know each other again and feel comfortable with each other. Let's fall in love again."

“Have we ever stopped being in love?" he asked her. "Did you stop loving me, Becka?"

"No," she said earnestly. "Not for a single moment. When I agreed to marry David, it was on the understanding that I would never be able to give him my love—or any other man either. It was agreed that I would always love you."

He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "You're so beautiful, Becka," he said. "A week then. Not a moment longer, though. You can't know how difficult this is. It's not the same for women, but men have needs that can't easily be put off for a week."

"I know," she said unhappily—though she had always needed David every bit as much as he had needed her. "Thank you, Julian.

I'm sorry." She grasped his wrist and turned her head to kiss his hand. "I love you. I love you so much it hurts."

"Good night, then, Becka," he said, turning to leave the room.

She sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, feeling utterly wretched. She knew that she had disappointed him. And she knew that for the first time in her life and in both of her marriages she had failed in the performance of her foremost marriage duty—she had refused herself to her husband. But she could not. She could not have allowed him inside her body.

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Her body was David's.

She spread her hands over her face. Her body was Julian's.
She
was Julian's. She had a week in which to adjust her mind and her body to that fact. It would not be difficult, surely. She loved him.

And so for the week following the departure of David and Charles, she spent every waking moment loving her husband, adjusting herself to the new condition of her life, preparing for the night when he would become her husband again in true fact.

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A letter came from home—from Stedwell—at the end of the week.

A letter written in the neat hand of Charles's nurse. A letter that told of his beginning to cut another tooth and being a little cross and feverish with it but of his otherwise being his usual high-spirited self.

He had been out each day for fresh air in his perambulator and had behaved very well at church on Sunday.

Rebecca read the letter with feverish haste. It was detailed but so very impersonal. There were none of the little touches that might help her feel as if she were there with him. Not a mention of his missing his mother. Surely he missed her. Oh, surely he did. He had always been closer to her than to anyone else, even David. Especially when he was tired or not feeling well. He was cutting a tooth without her being there.

Not a mention of David. She folded the letter carefully.

"Charles is cutting a tooth," she told Julian.

He set an arm about her shoulders and kissed her. "Children usually survive the ordeal," he said.

"Yes." She wondered sometimes how much interest he would have shown in his own children if she had not lost them. She wondered if he would have been as good a father as David. But it was unfair to wonder and compare. She could not expect him to show interest in a child she had had with another man.