With One Look (47 page)

her life. Again. A half-devoured cow thigh bone laid next to him—Sebastian's present. Murray had patched and stitched the dog's numerous wounds, and still it seemed a miracle the dog was alive.

Victor knelt by the dog's side, petting his head gently so as not to rouse him. "He saved her again," Victor said with deeply felt emotion. "Twice he has saved her life."

"How is she now?" Father Nolte asked.

Victor looked up, his eyes filled with worry, an emotion that defied his next words. "She seems fine now, trying to sleep."

"Tell him, Sebastian," Murray said.

Victor's gaze turned to Sebastian. He knew, of course.

"Luke, Robert and the others just returned. They searched on foot five square miles surrounding the place. Nothing. No tree stumps, no trampled grass, no blood beyond that of the dogs where we found her. No snakes. Nothing." In a whisper, he added, "She must have imagined it."

"I thought as much."

Murray knelt down to touch the dog. Not looking at Victor, he said, "The lass probably had a nightmare when she fell. Exhaustion, no doubt. Lord"—he sighed, wiping his brow—"she had been out goin' on twenty-four hours...."

Imagined. Dreaming. Victor watched as his father nodded at Murray's conclusion, and yet he felt the probing scrutiny of his father's gaze, indeed all of their gazes, as they watched him, measuring his reaction to this setback. They were being kind, he realized. Did they avoid the obvious conclusion for themselves, or to spare him?

He supposed it didn't matter.

"It seems fairly obvious," Victor said. "Jade Terese is still not well."

"That poor lass. That poor, poor lass," Murray said with a shake of his graying head. "Snake women, voodoo ceremonies, naked people in the dark night, the stuff of madness and nightmares..."

Victor did not want to think of the rest of the conversation that night as he climbed the stairs. Swiss sanitariums and London doctors mentioned but briefly. Before he could even collect the words to level an adamant refusal, Sebastian did it for him. "Absolutely out of the question. Mercedes would never hear of it. I daresay I could not even mention it. None of us could. If Jade

needs rest and care her entire life long, she will get it under this roof and get it with the wealth and blessing of our love."

He opened the door. The bright light of a full moon streamed in through the open balcony doors. A single lantern lit the space, bathing the room in a soothing gold color. He crossed to the table and chairs, where he began undressing, his thoughts troubled and his heart weary, heavy with this frightening turn of events.

He got up to pour himself a drink....

With brandy snifter in hand, he stepped to the balcony, staring off into the moonlit garden and the forest beyond. His gaze rested on this darkened space and it might have been his heart. He never heard her enter the room—Jade could move more quietly than a cat crossing a starlit field.

For a long time she stood nervously behind him. He wore only breeches, his tall form bathed in shadows and moonlight. Her eyes traveled up the tight narrowing of his lower back to the width of his shoulders, his long hair tied neatly behind him.

She closed her eyes a moment, feeling the heaviness of his heart. Because he loved her so dearly, she knew. Because he felt she had slipped ever so far from him. Because he felt the bright spring of their love—the days of laughter and joy and passion—would be only a memory. ...

"Victor ..."

His back stiffened, the huge muscles flexing as if with alarm. He turned to see her there. He drew a sharp breath. The moonlight caressed her lovely features, bathing her in a haunting light.

She presented an illusory picture of angelic innocence dressed in the thin white gown. Her eyes were wide, misty, filled with emotion and uncertainty. Her long hair tumbled over bare shoulders down her back and hid the two thin strings that held her gown. Strings that would require but a slight tug to snap and break. He didn't wonder why she seemed more beautiful and desirable than ever before. The reason was obvious.

His heart and pulse quickened as he stood staring; he felt the rush of heat to his groin and he closed his eyes for but a moment, trying to gain some measure of control. His next breath brought to him the faintest trace of her lavender perfume. He opened his eyes. He tried to sound casual. "Jade. I thought you were sleeping."

The huskiness in his voice reached her. She drew a deep uneven breath, looking away. She knew what she would say. She had no idea how he would react or what he would reply. "I ... I need something...."

"Oh?" He put the drink on the wood railing, his gaze settling on her eyes, dark now in the moonlight and yet sparkling with an intensity of emotion he didn't understand. A breeze stirred the length of her nightdress, lifting it over her bare ankles. Somehow the brief glimpse of those thin delicate ankles made him aware of her fragility. Softly he asked, "What is it, sweetheart?"

"I need you to believe me. I need it very badly."

She waited for his response. She saw he was surprised, perhaps alarmed by this, for he didn't understand what it meant to her.

She turned away suddenly, stepping to the bedpost, which she clasped as if needing support for these next words. "You see, I didn't tell you everything that happened," she said softly. "Before I came across those people in the forest, I had closed my eyes and prayed for help. I was so scared and alone, hungry and-—dear Lord—so very tired. So very tired," she repeated softly. "And you came to me. Like a vision, I saw you so clearly in my mind. You were torn with worry for me, calling for me over and over. I felt my heart lurch. All my buried emotions burst inside of me. I wanted you! I said your name...."

On the heels of a pause, her tone changed, filling now with confusion and doubt. 'Then I felt angry ... at myself for it. I told myself I didn't need you, that I didn't want you. I could never forgive you. Again and again I say that to myself. And so I banished your image from my mind.... And when I opened my eyes, I saw their strange and awful light through the forest."

He had come into the room to stand near her as she told this tale. "Jade ... what are you trying to say?"

She sent the long hair tumbling about her shoulders as she brought one hand to her forehead. "I don't know!"

That was a lie. She did know. "Those people, that snake woman, 'twas all so hideous and terrifying. 'Twas the opposite of all things good, 'twas the absence of joy and laughter, tenderness and love. Victor"—she swung around to face him—" 'twas evil I saw. I know you think I was dreaming or imagining it or mad. Maybe you're right. Maybe I am mad enough to imagine such a terror. But you see, it showed me something."

"Jade ..."

"Your father once said the deepest truth lies in metaphors. This afternoon as he sat at my bedside and I asked him if he believed me, he asked whether it mattered whether it happened in my mind or in fact, for it happened. Because, you see, it was showing me a choice." She clasped the

bedpost behind her, staring up at him. His hand reached out to brush back her hair. She closed her eyes to slow the wild gallop of her heart. She had to say the rest. She looked back to search his eyes, eyes that were intense and probing. "The choice, Victor, was life with the blessing of your love, or life without it."

His heart pounded hard and loud in his ears. A grown man in his thirty-second year, and he felt afraid. "Jade ..." His fingers lightly grazed her cheek and she closed her eyes and held his hand there. "Jade, don't do this to me. Don't lead me here if you can still turn away."

She shook her head, holding his large warm hand against her cheek as she studied the intensity of his gaze. His strength and warmth threatened to overwhelm her. If she but leaned forward she'd fall into his arms.

He released his breath with the sound of her name. "Jade," he whispered, afraid, so very afraid, of this, of coming so close again. "This fear of yours? When I draw close—"

"I used it; I used it badly. It was to stop myself from forgiving you. Because forgiving you meant accepting. Accepting the very painful idea that I had made myself blind, that I had caused myself so much pain because I wasn't strong enough to face the terrible reality."

"Jade—" He stopped as she shook her head again.

"You can neither save me nor spare me from the understanding. And, you see, all of sudden, after this thing that happened, nothing seems more frightening to me than the idea of a life without your love.

"Victor," she said as tears filled her eyes, "just now I was wakened from a dream. In this dream you stood in a dark room. You took my hand to lead me to something. There was such joy "on your face. Then I saw it. Shining like a beacon in the night. A large beautiful circle. A magical sphere made of transparent rainbow light ..."

She did not have to say the words out loud. "I love you. I need you to love me again." "Jade ..." The name sounded like a prayer over and over as his arms went around her, and

he closed his eyes, lifting her off her feet, letting the feel of her slender form molded against him resonate through his mind, body and soul.

"Jade, I love you " The words were simple and inadequate, and yet they had the magical power to transport him from a cold, dark and lonely place to stand beneath the warmth of a summer sun. "Jade, I love you...."

He was holding her up, tightly, as if he might not ever let her go, and she might have fallen if he had not held her, because the shock of the embrace at last had obliterated her very will.

Obliterated the pain and agony and madness. Obliterated the entire world outside the reach of his arms.

And then he was kissing her. There was no place for fear, not the way that first kiss, the touch of his body, brought desire sweeping into her limbs, consuming her to the depth of her being, causing her to swoon almost violently in his arms.

He could barley control what was overwhelming him, and he broke off the kiss with a shudder, though his lips never left the lavender sweetness of her skin. He felt her trembling and tasted the tears escaping from her closed eyes.

Pain, hurt, anguish were released in their passion. He was kissing her, dissolving her tears as he hungrily took her mouth, the unleashing of the emotional intensity in the joining of their lips, and he lowered her feet to the carpet only to get a better hold of her. A kiss without end.

The pleasure felt sharp. Love and desire, so long denied, flowed through her. She couldn't think to know that her feet had touched the floor, that her nightgown had fallen around her feet, or that her head was held back as his mouth dragged from her pliant lips to her neck, over the hollow of her throat and lower still, seeking and finding her breasts. She swooned beneath a pleasure too great to describe as his tongue flicked over and around the straining peaks.

The music of her heart sang against his whisper of her name. A tingling pleasure stole every last thought, and her arms circled his waist before climbing up the hard muscles of his back, desperately searching for a lifeline as her knees collapsed. Yet he was holding her up again as his mouth found hers, and he was kissing her with all the passion and tenderness of his being.

He broke the kiss and swept her up in his arms only to carry her the short distance to the bed. Moonlight bathed her nude beauty. Her dark hair, darker than the night, spilled over the pillows, and her arms beckoned impatiently, unnecessarily, for her eyes sparkled with the bounty of love and desire reborn.

Reborn. He had never wanted anything as much. It was like a dream. He shrugged out of his breeches and went to her opened arms, his hand brushing through the silky gloss of her hair. His lips gently kissed the spot on her neck where her pulse fluttered wildly. "Again, Jade Terese. I would hear it again."

She felt the rage of emotions adding to the tumult of desire coursing through her. "I love you." Tears blinded her. "Now and forever, I love you."

She could not think, not as he kissed her again, so tenderly at first. His hand played over her, drawing up her softness through his fingertips, brushing her skin with fire as the kiss became wild and hungry, the enormity of his desire flooding into her. He was devouring her; she was drowning, until she felt the shudder pass through his huge body and he broke the kiss. "Jade, Jade," he whispered huskily against her skin, "I want you so badly. I am afraid—"

He never finished. He didn't have to. His hands and mouth moved over her, causing and celebrating a crescendo of need. His tongue found her breasts again, and she tensed, feeling flushed, feverish, as he drew them softly, then urgently, into his mouth. The hot swirling patterns made her breathless, then dizzy, helplessly wanton with yearning, increasing as his hand stroked the dampness of her desire. Her creamy breasts swelled with passion. A sheen of moisture appeared on her silken skin as she arched against this pleasure.

All she knew was the pleasure spilling into her body. Soft cries escaped her. Her hands grazed the muscles of his back and arms, a touch part clinging, part urging, before circling his dark curls, as softly, shakily, she was kissing him again.

He answered the sound of his name and moved over her. He cradled her head lovingly, staring down at her passion-flushed face, her closed eyes. He felt the impatient writhing of her small form beneath him. "Victor…"

He smiled as kissed her lips, a tenderly erotic kiss able to draw hot serums from her anxious body. He broke the kiss with the sound of her name. "Jade." He did not move. "Look at me, Jade. I want you to see me."

She opened her eyes, lovely eyes darkened with passion and filled with the intensity of yearning brought by her love. She locked her feverish gaze to his as he joined her to him. And the blessing of love manifest in a physical pleasure that was ecstasy and rainbows ...

Dawn's light poured through the open balcony doors and drawn drapes when sleep at last claimed them. Wrapped in each other's arms, they drifted into the world of dreams. By mid- morning dark clouds covered the sky and threatened rain.

Worried about her friend, Mercedes first checked Jade's room only to discover she was not there. Peering quietly through the adjoining door she beheld her wrapped in the warmth of her