She stepped into the bedroom. Unlike the living room, it was neat as a pin and sparsely furnished. She wished she had the time, and the right, to poke about a bit. But she moved quickly to the little closet, giving herself time only to scan the single bed with its navy cover, the tall chest of drawers that looked old and comfortably worn at the hinges, the faded rug over an age-darkened wood floor.
She found a shirt, as gray as her mood. While she changed she studied the walls. There he had indulged in his romantic side, she thought. Posters and prints of faraway places.
Street scenes of Paris and London and New York and Florence, stormy seascapes and lush islands. Towering mountains, quiet valleys, mysterious deserts. And of course, the fierce cliffs and gentle hills of his own country. They were tacked up edge to edge, like a fabulous, eccentric wallpaper.
How many of those places had he been? she wondered. Had he been to them all, or had he places still to go?
She let out a huge sigh, not caring that the sound was ripe with self-pity, and carrying her wet sweater, went back into the living room.
He was pacing, and stopped when she came in. She was dwarfed by his shirt and looked small and miserable and not nearly up to dealing with the emotions swinging around inside him. So he said nothing, not yet, merely took her sweater and carried it into the bath to hang over the shower rod and drip.
'Sit down, Jude.'
'You've every right to be angry with me, coming in this way, behaving as I did. I don't know how to begin to-'
'I wish you'd be quiet for a minute.' He snapped it at her, telling himself when she winced that he wasn't made of stone. Then he stalked into the kitchen to deal with the tea.
She'd been married, was all he could think. That was quite a detail she'd neglected to mention.
He'd thought her to have had little experience with men, and here she'd been married and divorced and was obviously still pining for the bastard.
Pining for some fancy man in Chicago who wasn't true enough to keep his vows, and all the while Aidan Gallagher had been pining for her.
If that wasn't enough to burn your ass, what was?
He poured the tea strong and black and added a healthy drop of whiskey to his own.
She was standing when he came back, the fingers of her hands twisted together. Her damp hair curled madly, and her eyes were drenched. 'I'll go downstairs and apologize to your customers.'
'For what?'
'For making a scene.'
He set the cups down and drew his brows together to study her with as much bafflement as irritation. 'What do I care about that? If we don't have a scene in Gallagher's once a week we wonder why. Will you sit down, damn it, and stop looking at me as if I was about to take a strap to you?'
He sat after she did, then picked up his own tea. Jude sipped, burned her tongue, then hastily set her cup down again.
'Why didn't you tell me you'd been married?'
'I didn't think of it.'
'Didn't think of it?' His cup clattered as he snapped it down on the table. 'Did it mean so little to you?'
'It meant a great deal to me,' she returned with a quiet dignity that had him narrowing his eyes. 'It meant considerably less to the man I married. I've been trying to learn to live with that.'
When Aidan said nothing, she picked up her tea again to give herself something to do with her hands. 'We'd known each other several years. He's a professor at the university where I taught. On the surface, we had a great deal in common. My parents liked him very much. He asked me to marry him. I said yes.'
'Were you in love with him?'
'I thought I was, yes, so that amounts to the same thing.'
No, Aidan thought, it didn't amount to the same thing at all. But he let it pass. 'And what happened?'
'We-he, I should say, planned it all out. William likes to plan carefully, considering details and possible pitfalls and their solutions. We bought a house, as it's more conducive to entertaining and he had ambitions to rise in his department. We had a very small, exclusive, and dignified wedding with all the right people involved. Meaning caterers, florists, photographers, guests.'
She breathed deep and, since her tongue was already scalded, sipped the tea again. 'Seven months later, he came to me and told me he was dissatisfied. That's the word he used. 'Jude, I'm dissatisfied with our marriage.' I think I said, 'Oh, I'm sorry.''
She closed her eyes, let the humiliation settle along with the whiskey in her stomach. 'That grates, knowing my first instinct was to apologize. He accepted it graciously, as if he'd been expecting it. No,' she corrected, looking at Aidan again. 'Because he'd been expecting it.'
It was hurt he felt from her now, quivering waves of it. 'That should tell you that you apologize too much.'
'Maybe. In any case, he explained that as he respected me and wanted to be perfectly honest, he felt he should tell me that he'd fallen in love with someone else.'
Someone younger, Jude thought now. And prettier, brighter.
'He didn't want to involve her in a sordid and adulterous affair, so he requested that I file for divorce immediately. We would sell the house, split everything fifty-fifty. As he was the instigator, he would be willing to give me first choice in any particular material possessions I might want.'
Aidan kept his eyes on her face. She was composed again, eyes quiet, hands still. Too composed, to his thinking. He decided he preferred it when she was passionate and real. 'And what did you do about it?'
'Nothing. I did nothing. He got his divorce, he remarried, and we all got on with our lives.'
'He hurt you.'
'That's what William would call an unfortunate but necessary by-product of the situation.'
'Then William is a donkey's ass.'
She smiled a little. 'Maybe. But what he did makes more sense than struggling through a marriage that makes you unhappy.'
'Were you unhappy in it?'
'No, but I don't suppose I was really happy either.' Her head ached now, and she was tired. She wished she could just curl into a ball and sleep. 'I don't think I'm given to great highs of emotions.'
He too was drained. This was the same woman who'd thrown herself lustfully into his arms, then wept bitterly in them only moments before. 'No, you're a right calm one, aren't you, Jude Frances?'
'Yes.' She whispered. 'Sensible Jude.'
'So, being such, what set you off today?'
'It's stupid.'
'Why should it be stupid if it meant something to you?'
'Because it shouldn't have. It shouldn't have meant anything.' Her head snapped up again, and the glitter that came into her eyes didn't displease him in the least. 'We're divorced, aren't we? We've been divorced for two years. Why should I care that he's going to the West Indies?'
'Well, why do you?'
'Because I wanted to go there!' she exploded. 'I wanted to go somewhere exotic and wonderful and foreign on our honeymoon. I got brochures. Paris, Florence, Bimini. All sorts of places. We could have gone to any of them, and I would have been thrilled. But all he could talk about was-was-'
She circled her hand, as words momentarily failed her. 'The language difficulties, the cultural shocks, the different germs, for God's sake.'
Furious all over again, she leaped out of the chair. 'So we went to Washington and spent hours-days- centuries-touring the Smithsonian and going to lectures.'
He'd been fairly shocked before, but this one did it. 'You went to lectures on your honeymoon?'
'Cultural bonding,' she spat out. 'That's what he called it.' She threw up her hands and began to stalk around the room. 'Most couples have impossibly high expectations for their honeymoon, according to William.'
'And why shouldn't they?' Aidan murmured.
'Exactly!' She whirled back, her face flushed with righteous fury. 'Better to meet the minds on common
