Behind the Mask (126 page)

Her surroundings continued to spin. Her grandfather became her father. It was only the two of them. He paced and circled her. “In this case, I must agree,” he said firmly. “When a man like this asks for my daughter’s hand, I shall not refuse him. It is your destiny. You must embrace it. You cannot resist it. You must be patient with him. He will honor you in his own way, but don’t expect him to ever admit it. His harsh nature will be compensated by the quality of life he will give you.”

Abbi continued to protest silently while no sound came out of her mouth, and she felt dizzy from the condemnation being thrust upon her. Fear and confusion tightened her chest and clenched her fists as her father spoke close to her face. “You do not refuse the Duke of Horstberg.”

He was her grandfather again, his face close to hers. “You do
not
refuse the Duke of Horstberg!”

And then it was Georg, who spoke more tenderly but just as firm, “You
must not
refuse the Duke of Horstberg. His position requires his arrogance, but his heart is good. He has asked for you in lieu of many other women. He saw you with me. You
move
him. He
wants
you.”

The library of her own home became a castle parlor. She knew where it was but felt as if she’d never been there before. The grandeur and elegance of the room were almost as intimidating as the man circling her, pacing methodically while he looked at her as if she were a prize he’d just been awarded. He was dressed richly, elegantly. His eyes held intrigue; his voice held contempt. “She’ll do nicely,” he said as if she weren’t present. “Her very reluctance to be the duchess will serve me more favorably than those simpering fools who crave the title and family jewels. She is young and naive. She can be properly trained to fill the position.” His eyes traveled over her with a savoring, lusty gaze. “Yes, she will do nicely.”

He walked behind her and then appeared again, this time wearing the uniform, the robe, the crown,
the mask.
His intense eyes peered at her with challenge and provocation, surrounded by red velvet and intricate gold embellishment. “Tell me, Miss Albrecht,” he said, “do you oppose my proposition to esteem you, body and soul?” He lowered his voice to indignance. “Would you
dare
reject the greatest honor that
any
woman of Horstberg could ever hope to gain?” He touched her face and she retracted, looking away. “You shrink from me?” he snarled. “Am I so repulsive to you, child?”

Finally words came from her mouth. “I love Cameron, only Cameron, forever Cameron.”

“He’s not
here!”
the Duke of Horstberg shouted. “Nowhere in this place will you find him. He was long ago swallowed up by duty and honor. He is forever lost. It is me and only me that you will give yourself to. It is your destiny to be the Duchess of Horstberg. Whether or not you
want
to love me is of no relevance. Your duty will be to your husband and your country. This marriage has been agreed upon, and shall be effectuated and consummated, and shall bind us for as long as we both shall live. Get used to it!”

“I love Cameron,” she murmured. “Only Cameron.”

“You will love
me!”
he hissed, and lifted her chin with his fingers. He tried to kiss her, but she turned away. They were at the altar, and still he wore the mask. His ring was on her finger, she was in his bed, his child grew inside her. And still he wore the mask. Again he stood before her while she boldly declared, “I love Cameron, only Cameron.”

“The man you seek does not exist,” he countered with anger. Again he was circling her, eying her skeptically through the mask, while disjointed phrases assaulted her.
Didn’t your mother ever tell you about Goldilocks? . . . It’s madness . . . You’re as crazy as I am . . . It’s absolute insanity . . . I wonder if you’ve ever thought to question the source of your inspiration . . . You are a thorn in my side . . . You are torturing me.

She stood in front of the mirror, staring at the crown circling her head. His masked face appeared beside her own. He whispered with hostility, “He is not capable of loving, of being loved. There is no miracle big enough to humble him sufficiently, to melt his cruel heart. He is too deeply betrayed, too mortally wounded, too sworn to duty. You waste your efforts, Mrs. du Woernig.” He turned her abruptly toward him. “Show me such a miracle, and you will be set free.” His mouth came over hers, demanding and arrogant. Against her will she responded to something alluring and sensual, even while she knew that he revealed these things against his own will. With her response she felt him soften. He drew back from her kiss, his eyes showing through the mask, frightened and vulnerable. She tore the mask from his face, and in its absence the crown, the robe, the uniform all vanished. Before her stood the man, dressed as commonly as any man she might pass on the street. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, tears streaked his face. He fell to his knees and cried with humble fervor, “Please don’t leave me. I need you.” He sat on the ground and pressed the hem of her dress to his face. And again he said it,
“Please don’t leave me. I need you.”

Abbi came awake, startled and gasping. She felt as if she’d lived a lifetime while she’d slept. But most astonishing was the realization that she didn’t even have to ponder for a moment over the dream’s meaning. She knew
exactly
what it meant. This dream had not been a glimpse into the future; it had been a vision of an alternate past, of what might have been the course of her life if circumstances had been different. She absolutely knew that she had been destined to be the wife of Cameron du Woernig. If they had not come together one way, they would have come together another. But the man she had seen in her dream was frightening and horrid, arrogant and uncaring. Images and words played over and over in her mind, and she sucked in her breath. He had changed.
She
had changed him. In truth, the man she had initially come face-to-face with had much in common with the man she might have met prior to the circumstances that had forced him to such humility. Of course, she knew the softer side of him had always existed. Her father had known that side of him, and Georg. But Georg himself had told her that the Cameron he’d once known would never put a woman before his duty. She had seen him struggle to overcome his habits—battling with the harsh side of himself that he’d grown comfortable with through his life. But what could possibly be the purpose for such a dream?

“Are you all right?” Cameron asked from out of the darkness and startled her. She didn’t answer. She was struggling to put the Cameron she knew into place in her mind, as opposed to the one she had just been exposed to in her dream. “Abbi,” he murmured, leaning on one elbow beside her. But she could only see the shadow of him in the darkness. “You’re breathing hard,” he said. “What is it? A dream?”

Cameron realized he couldn’t ask that question without his emotions responding. His heart quickened and his lungs tightened. He’d seen her dreams manifested, and he respected them. For that very reason, he had to admit that he feared them.

“Yes,” she muttered, and he had to fight to keep his own emotions from showing.

Wrapping her in his arms, he realized that she was trembling. “Abbi,” he whispered with concern as he became aware of how affected she was. That, combined with the things Elsa had said, left him especially unsettled. “Tell me.” She hesitated and he pressed, “Was it the future? Will something happen?”

“No,” she said, not knowing how to explain.

Cameron held her close, giving her time to gather her thoughts, while he did his best to offer silent reassurance. He’d heard no evidence of her dreams for months, and he wondered what might have invaded her sleep now. Her present state of mind added to his anxiety over what she was so hesitant to tell him.

“Share it with me,” he urged gently. But her recent habits of not saying much at all left him certain she would keep it to herself.

More minutes of silence passed before she said, “What do you think might have happened if you had . . .”

“What?”

“If you had not married Gwen . . . and you had seen me . . . a few years earlier, perhaps?”

Instead of answering the question, Cameron moved away long enough to light a lamp on the bedside table. He sat beside Abbi and took her hand. “Is this something to do with your dream?”

She hesitated. “Just . . . answer the question.”

Cameron was surprised at how easily he
could
answer the question. There had been a time, after he’d first met her, but before she had been snowed in with him, when he had wondered over that very thing. Different scenarios had wandered around in his mind, keeping him company through endless lonely hours. Putting together what he knew now with what he had imagined then, it wasn’t difficult to consider what might have happened. “As I see it,” he began, “there are two obvious possibilities where our lives crossed. You are like a sister to Georg, and your father worked for me. I rarely, if ever, came to Georg’s home. My life was too complicated. He would meet me other places at my convenience. But your father had told me repeatedly that his daughter was the right woman for me. If Gwen were removed from the picture . . . if I had seen you, even from a distance . . .” He hesitated, wondering how to explain it. “You would have . . . moved me.”

She took a sharp breath, looking frightened. But she only said, “And then what?”

Cameron struggled to find words to describe hazy images and feelings, combined with what he knew of his own personality and circumstances. “It’s hard to say, Abbi, but . . . I knew nothing of courting. For all that I had been strictly trained in certain social expectations and decorum, I grew up in political circles. Marriages were arranged.” He heard her breathing become strained, and she looked the other way. He tried to ignore her reaction and went on. “There was usually little or no contact until the arrangement had been agreed upon. Your father had been disowned. I probably would have gone to your grandfather to ask for your hand before I ever would have made any effort to even speak to you. I can see now how ludicrous that is, but that’s the way I’d been raised. And if I’m completely honest, I have to admit I probably would have been difficult and unkind. Even if my heart had been immediately smitten with you, Abbi, which it would have been, I was so dictated by being the ruler of a country that I did not know how to expose my heart.” He hesitated, noting tears on her face. “I’m just rambling. It’s pointless. I’m grateful that I met you when and how I did, that you were patient enough with me to reach my heart. Abbi, what is it? Tell me what you dreamed.”

She turned to look at him, tears flowing more freely now. “There’s no need,” she said. “You just did.”

“I don’t understand,” he said, wiping her tears with the edge of the sheet.

“I saw what could have been,” she said. “My grandfather told me a marriage had been arranged. My father told me he would not refuse such an offer for his daughter’s hand. Georg told me you had seen me with him, that I
moved
you.” He caught his breath as she had done when he’d used the same words only moments ago. “I told you I could only love Cameron; it was as if you were two different people. You shouted at me and told me Cameron no longer existed. And you were wearing the mask. You were harsh and unkind. You told me I would do nicely, that I would serve your purpose favorably.” She turned away, wouldn’t look at him. “You said that I could be properly trained because I was young and naive.” Cameron sighed, trying not to feel hurt when she asked, “Is that what you thought? Is that how you felt?”

“No!” He took her chin and turned her to face him. “Never!” He softened his voice. “I cannot say what kind of man you would have encountered had our paths crossed years ago, Abbi. But I know that through our time together I
never
saw you in that light. By the time I allowed myself to even consider imagining you in this position, I was deeply in love with you, and well aware that your ability to be a duchess had
nothing
to do with naiveté. You were a duchess in your soul long before you ever came into my life, Abbi.”

“Perhaps your love for me has blinded you,” she said and turned away from him again.

“No, Abbi. My love for you has saved me. It changed me, heart and soul.”

“I dreamed that as well,” she said and rolled over, turning her back to him. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Cameron sighed and stared at the ceiling, praying that his plan to get her away from here would bring her back to life. His need to have her back caused tangible pain inside of him. He loved her so much!

A few minutes later, the nanny brought Erich in to be nursed. Abbi rolled over to face Cameron again, and he became distracted by her beauty with the baby at her breast. He pressed a kiss to her brow but didn’t venture to kiss her lips, as badly as he wanted to. His every effort to do so for many weeks had been rebuffed. He couldn’t even think about the possible reasons for her lack of affection toward him, or how deeply it hurt.

Abbi’s mind hovered relentlessly with her dream long after Erich had been fed and Cameron had gone back to sleep. While she couldn’t deny the stark message of the dream—that she had changed Cameron—she felt certain its deeper meaning was simply that she’d done what she had been sent into his life to do. Yet, one aspect of the dream stuck with her, mostly because it tied so accurately into the very first dream she’d had of Cameron. She was still awake and preoccupied with her thoughts when morning came.

Cameron woke up and panicked to find Abbi not in the bed, but he turned over and saw her standing at the window. She wore a lace wrapper over her nightgown and looked almost angelic.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She didn’t even glance toward him. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said, and Cameron sat up, realizing how he’d come to hang on her every word with the hope that she might say something to indicate some tiny measure of happiness or peace.

“What is it, my love?” he asked.

“Do you remember the day we met?”

“It is one of the most profound days of my life,” he said.