“Yes, only this time, I got away.” A shadow flickered on the child’s face, and her eyes darkened. “It was a bad man who would not let us go, even when I told him I wanted to go home.”
Ginny bit her lip at the swift, accusing glance Steve flung at her. Herr Frederick Metz, the Swiss banker she had been involved with when she first reached London, had sent men to snatch the children from the country house while Steve was away. The hired thugs had not counted on Steve’s early return, nor anticipated that Laura would recognize her father and wave to him as their carriage passed him on the road. The result was inevitable, but for them to watch their father battle—Oh, she remembered too well how Steve fought, viciously and with no restraint. It would have been even more frightening to two small children, and it was all her fault.
Her gaze shifted from Laura to Franco’s bed across the room. He was sitting up, sleepy-eyed but observant. What must he think, as well? In the past weeks she had tried so hard to penetrate the shell he kept around him, but the boy resisted her every effort.
“I told you Papa would come,” he said now to Laura, “and he did. He always keeps us safe. Go back to sleep.”
Was there an unvoiced rebuke in that comment for his mother, perhaps? Ginny couldn’t blame him. She had not been there for them when they needed her, had not kept them safe as Steve had done.
When Laura was finally settled, Steve accompanied Ginny to her bedroom, reaching around her to open the door. A low fire eased the chill, the coals a flickering glow in the grate. Ginny draped her silk shawl over the graceful lines of a Sheraton chair and turned to watch as Steve shrugged out of his evening jacket to toss it carelessly onto the coatrack in one corner.
Lately, he left her at her door, going down the hall to his own chamber, courteous and remote, as if they were complete strangers again. No—even when they were strangers, he had never viewed her with the same dispassionate gaze of the past month.
Her resolve to draw him into an honest discussion intensified, and she was slightly surprised to find that she was nervous and on edge. Clumsily, she began to fumble with the buttons of her gown, more to gain time than anything else.
“Dismiss your maid,” he said, eyeing her, “and I’ll help you with the rest of your dress.”
“No, thank you, this dress is far too expensive to allow you to rip it,” she retorted with a faint smile, “and I recall very well your methods of removing my garments for me.”
A flash of humor glinted in his eyes, his mocking smile reminding her of the many times he had stripped away her clothes without regard for their expense, or her protests.
“Do you think I cannot buy you another gown, Ginny my love?” He tugged loose his tie, his fingers efficient and swift. “I’ve purchased more gowns from Worth than he has no doubt sold to the entire country of France.”
“Yes, but not all of them were for me.” It was an automatic response to his teasing, but she regretted it the moment the words were out. Why remind him of all the women in his life?
His dark brow lifted and his eyes narrowed slightly as he met her gaze. “They should have been,” he said quietly, leaving her momentarily speechless.
There was something so different about him. Oh, yes, he had changed. He looked the same, with his wicked eyes and smile, his air of danger and darkly lean good looks that were still a magnet for women of all ages. But there was a difference now. Beneath the outer hardness of his face and manner there was a taciturn regard that baffled her.
They had slept apart since the night when he had pulled her into the house she shared with Pierre and Tante Celine, but there had been no explanation. That night he had brought her to his house and his bed, and she had spent it in his arms, feverish kisses, caresses, hungry words of love and reunion all that was between them until the early hours of morning.
But after that, a careful distance, a polite detachment between them, as if they were still protagonists instead of husband and wife trying to find common ground again. It was awkward, a courteous fiction as transparent as morning mist.
At first, she had been so weary in body and soul, still tentative in their new relationship, that she had not wanted more from him. But now she could not help but wonder if he wanted her at all. Did he? Or had he tired of her? After all, she was nearly thirty now and had been through so much. But her mirror told her she was still firm and youthful, her skin barely showing signs of motherhood. The marks she’d gotten while carrying the twins had faded to faint silvery tracks like pale spiderwebs, barely perceptible on her belly and thighs.
A little clumsily, feeling damnably awkward, she said, “I suppose you managed to finish your business this evening? You must have, for I hardly saw you the rest of the night, not until our late supper.”
“Complaints, Ginny?”
“Questions.” She unhooked the emerald necklace circling her neck and placed it in a velvet box, then removed the matching earrings that dangled from her lobes. They clinked softly as she dropped them into the box, splashes of green against soft black velvet.
Turning to face him, she saw his eyes narrow warily at her. A mask seemed to drop over his face, as if he expected the worst, and she remembered suddenly all the times she had raged at him, screamed at him like a virago, half-wild with rage and anguish.
Inhaling deeply, she calmed herself with the reminder that he was here with her because he chose to be, and
