The Edge of Desire

“Justin even went to Horse Guards and asked.” Her voice remained studiously uninflected. “They admitted you’d once been a serving officer, but they said you were off their books and they didn’t know where you were.”

He looked into her eyes, melded gold and green, and sensed her banked fury. His mind was reeling, his mouth dry; he moistened his lips. “I-”

“So there I was.” She spoke over him, clinging to that same, terribly even tone, as if she weren’t speaking of an event that had critically, cataclysmically, affected her. “If I agreed to marry Randall and pretended it was a love match, I could save my family from certain ruin. If I didn’t agree…”

She met his gaze, her own hard and unforgiving. “You tell me-what choice did I have? My lover, my sweetheart, my closest friend, who I thought loved me, had deserted me. Vanished from the face of the earth. Deliberately. We contacted your people-even they didn’t know how to reach you.”

Only his father’s solicitor had known whom to contact, and she hadn’t known about him. Because he hadn’t told her. He’d blithely assumed he’d be able to write to her, but once he was in deep cover in central France, it simply hadn’t been possible.

Her lips curved in a bitter, brittle smile. “So please don’t suggest that I betrayed you. I know that’s what you’ve thought all these years. Well you can wallow in self-pity as long as you choose, but don’t-please don’t-ever expect me to indulge you. I didn’t betray you.” Head rising, smile fading, she sucked in a tight breath. “If anyone was betrayed, it was me.”

He swallowed, released her, lowered his hands. Eased back a step. His gaze locked with hers, his mind was a swirling jumble of unfinished-unfinishable-thoughts. All he’d known as fact, the framework underpinning his smoldering anger, had been ripped away, his perceptions turned literally upside down. He didn’t know how to defend himself-didn’t see how he could.

He took another step back.

Fury lit her eyes and she came after him. She jabbed a finger into his chest. “I had a right to your support and consideration, even then. You gave me neither.” Her voice grew in volume and dramatic force. “You hadn’t even seen fit to speak to my father, so I couldn’t appeal to him, or to yours, for help. Couldn’t suggest that there might be another way out rather than by me marrying Randall.”

He flung his hands out to his sides. “You know why I didn’t speak-we discussed it. I might have been killed, and you were so young-you would have been tied to me, mourning me.” He held her gaze. “Christ, I would have given a king’s ransom for you-you know that.”

“Indeed? Much good did that do me.” Eyes glittering, she advanced and he gave ground. “Where were you, Christian? Where were you when I needed you?”

Raising one hand, she halted. “No, wait-don’t tell me. I believe I know.” Her eyes blazed. “‘Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.’ Isn’t that the motto you swear by? Isn’t that what you chose to do, all those years ago?”

He stopped backing away. “It wasn’t like that.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, yes it was. You chose to go and play not just soldiers but spies, to get even closer to the enemy. You left behind your friends-you left me behind-for that. For the thrill.”

She held his gaze. “You needn’t think to deny it. I know you rather well, if you recall. We aren’t so very different-you just hide all your passion behind an imperturbable mask while I let mine show. You lusted after excitement-that’s what drew us together in the first place-so when a certain gentleman crooked his finger and offered you the chance, you grabbed it-and went. For twelve years.”

“I wasn’t doing nothing all those years.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure you weren’t.” She started to pace; he was forcefully reminded of a cat lashing its tail. “I’m quite sure you were indulging your craving for excitement to the hilt. But you didn’t want me to know about that. You didn’t trust me enough to tell me about your new if temporary life. Instead, you left me here, alone, unclaimed, unspoken for, to weather whatever storms fate sent my way. As it happened, fate sent Randall.”

He dragged in a huge breath, ran a hand through his hair. His chest felt as if it had been put through a mangle. He looked into her expressive face, saw all she’d held back, all she’d felt for so long-finally saw what had built the wall he’d sensed between them-and didn’t know how to breach it, how to reach her.

Only knew he had to.

Her lashes lowered, screening her eyes. She, too, drew in a breath, and held it. He sensed her drawing back, reining her temper in, realized that-the Vaux love of drama notwithstanding-she wasn’t going to, didn’t want to, lose it. Not now, not with him.

That seemed strange. Here, surely, was a grand stage-a grand passion tailormade for her to indulge in to the very top of her bent. A matter in which she was totally in the right, and he totally in the wrong.

But rather than rail at him, she turned away. Which only made him feel even more desperate. Head rising, she walked back to her dressing table. “One thing.” Her voice was cool, clear; she didn’t glance back at him. “I will not be blamed for doing what had to be done-not by you, not by anyone.”

Reaching her dressing stool, she stepped around it and sat. With dreadful calm, she reached up to unpin her hair. “Close the door behind you.”

He looked at her, for long minutes studied her, then he walked slowly forward until he stood directly behind her. He searched the face in the mirror-a face he knew better than his own, one that had inhabited his dreams for so many years he’d lost count.

A face that now was shuttered against him.

He hadn’t realized she could do that. He was certain, would have sworn that before-before he’d left her twelve years ago-she’d never be able to hide any of her vibrant emotions from him.

But the years between-the years with Randall-had taught her how to veil her inner self, to hide her feelings-to shield her heart.

The heart that once had been his, unreservedly.

“I’m sorry.”

The words fell from him, direct from his heart.

Her eyes sparked anew. She looked up, in the mirror met his gaze. “Sorry?” Temper, disgust, and disbelief mingled in her tone; her eyes were burning disks of fury. “Sorry for all the years I lay beside that man? Sorry for all the nights I had to put up with his rutting?” Her voice changed. “Do you want to hear that he was a dreadful clod of a lover? Because he was. You at twenty-three knew far more than he ever learned.”

There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do to defend himself against the accusation in her eyes. He held her gaze, forced himself to, and hoped she could see how much he hurt, how much her words had cut him, how much he now bled, for her.

She seemed to. She drew another careful breath, again drew back from her dangerous edge. She refocused on her reflection; her face stony again, she reached up and pulled another pin from her hair. For a moment he wasn’t sure she was going to say anything more. He was floundering, trying to find some verbal way forward, when she drew in an unsteady breath and in a voice devoid of emotion stated, “You left me. You made my bed for me, and I was the one who had to lie in it-with Randall.”

He didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. They’d always-in the past-been open with each other. “Can you forgive me?”

Again she didn’t immediately answer, but continued pulling pins from her hair. Then he sensed rather than heard her sigh. “If you want the truth, I honestly don’t know.”

He heard, knew that was the truth-and it terrified him. Sent a sheet of ice-cold fear cascading through him.

To have her within his grasp and lose her again…he knew, in that instant, that he couldn’t bear that. Couldn’t live with that.

That he had to, somehow, find a way to recapture lost dreams-his, and hers.

She pulled out the last pin and her hair tumbled down, falling across her shoulders in a dark mahogany wave. The sight held him; he watched as she picked up a brush and applied it to the silky locks.

A minute ticked by, then he turned away. He knew, beyond doubt or question, that if he left her now, backed away from her revelations, he would never win her back. Stopping by a chair, he shrugged out of his coat, set it