Mina (25 page)

"How
oddly you put it," she commented.

He smiled. He'd expected it would take longer to put her at her
ease. "Oddly? How so?" "As if your generosity were no more than
an affectation. It makes you seem conceited somehow."

"Conceited?
Oh, I am that, But I'm also a realist. I live up to my own expectations. As
they are quite high, it can be a demanding

chore."

"Are you always so hard on yourself?" "What do you
mean?" "That you would deny your own nobility and your higher
sentiments?"

"Ah,
those!" He laughed. "I have them, but no more than any common man,
which is to say that they are most untrustworthy.

Self-conceit is a higher
emotion."

"Self-worth,"
she corrected.

"Tell me the difference, if you can. We'll discuss it over
lunch." "I'm sorry, I can't,"

"Then
tell me on a walk to the hospital. I need a tour to be certain my money is well
spent, and I cannot think of a finer person to

give it to me."

"I've
only been there once."

"Yet you call it a worthy venture and ask me for a thousand
pounds." "I believe in what they're doing, but I don't have the
constitution for nursing."

"Nonsense.
Jonathan told me all about his fever. He said you nursed him through it. A
regular Florence Nightingale, I believe he

called you."

"He is not
a child, Lord Gance. And he did not have an open wound or an amputation. Those
poor children-victims of accidents

and neglect. Wounded,
delirious . . ." Her voice trailed off.

"Bloody,"
Gance concluded, and saw from the sudden tightening of her expression that he
had hit the mark exactly.

Walking
dead. Good old Varney. He wanted to laugh. She stood and retrieved her leather
satchel from beneath her chair. "I've

taken up enough of your
time," she said. "I'll leave the decision to you."

"I've already made it." He
took an envelope from the desk drawer, walked to the door and handed it to her,
"You didn't need to come for it. You even knew that, didn't you?"
She didn't answer, which he expected, but she was not angry either. He'd hit
the mark, all right. "Toying with me is a dangerous thing, Mrs. Harker. I
suspect you already know that as well. I think the danger itself is what
brought you here."

"I've had enough of danger," she replied, her eyes
focused on the door. "May I please go?" "My time has a price.
Look at me. I mean it, look at me." She did.

"You
cannot bring yourself to say yes to my proposal, yet you cannot say no either.
What should I make of it, Mrs. Harker?

Should I assume the obvious
and kiss you again?"

She still
didn't answer, nor did she look away, though there was no invitation in her
expression.

"Not
here. Perhaps not ever. But I want you to trust me enough to come with me now
for just a little while. Consider it an

adventure, much like your one
at Rules. I promise to be a gentleman."

"I
recall your definition of gentleman far too well," Mina replied.

"I
assumed you would," He reached for his hat and cane and led her through
the door. "Mrs. Harker and I are going to lunch,

then to the children's
hospital," he said to the clerk. "Go home when you're finished."

They rode in
silence. The leather bag full of photographs and information rested on her lap.
They might have been on the way to a

business lunch, with nothing
to say to each other. Gance knew otherwise, and there would be time enough for
words later.

He found
that her presence excited him more than he'd expected. The determined set of
her head, the delicate gloved hands

folded and resting on the
dark leather bag, the pale face above the soft fringe of black fur.

When he was eleven, at an age before
shame could destroy his sensuous nature, he had lost his innocence to a cousin
eight years older. A quick afternoon away from adult supervision turned into
long, exhausting nights. She found him an enthusiastic pupil for the months
they lived under the same roof, then left him stranded with his wealth and his
needs. He soon learned what wealth could buy. Discovering that each new
conquest held all the passion of his first time had been the greatest
revelation of his life. The wonder that held had a sadder aspect as well. He
would never marry. No woman who loved him would ever tolerate his infidelities,
and he would never take a wife for convenience, not after seeing the effect of
such a marriage on his mother.

The carriage
pulled up in front of a high stone wall with an iron gate in the center. He
unlocked it and led Mina through a small

courtyard with a fountain. A
second key took them into a stone cottage that could not have more than a few
rooms.

Mina noticed the smell first, a
blend of sweet pipe tobacco, sandalwood incense and old perfume. She stood in
the shadows just inside the front door while Gance moved through the lower
level of the house, opening draperies, letting in the light. When he'd finished,
he sat on a black velvet divan close to the rear windows in the drawing room,
his body no more than a shadow against the brilliant noon sunlight. He did not
move or speak as Mina walked into the room. Instead, he acted as if she were
some wild animal exploring the house, ready to bolt should he make a move
toward her.

With the
draperies pulled back, nothing marred the winter light or the view of a gentle
slope ending at the Exe River.

Frozen
stalks of rosebushes poked through the snow just outside the windows, giving
promises of spring. Mina could see the high

wall stretching all around
the property, assuring privacy for every act that went on inside of it.

And she
could see the opulence of her surroundings. In the days when she had stayed
with the Westerna family she had lived

among such splendor. Her feet had walked on Indian carpets this
thick before, her hands had rested on pieces of Murano crystal to rival the
colorful collection arranged on the shelves of the carved oak sideboard. But
she had never seen a room so bare of silly clutter, or so tastefully arranged.
A person in this room was not lost among the draperies and knickknacks or
folding oriental screens. A person made this room complete.

She walked
through it into a slate-floored solarium, overgrown with palms and flowering
plants. In its center was an iron table on

which a Limoges tea service
waited for use.

A separate
door led to a small kitchen, suitable for nothing more than heating water or an
occasional light meal. She went

upstairs.

The second floor had two large rooms-a bathroom with brilliantly
colored mosaic tile on the floor and walls, and a raised tub close to the
lace-covered window. The single bedroom had divans, a round dining table made
for two and a bed to rival any in Westminster, though Mina doubted Victoria
would allow anything so exotic in her palace.

Its four
square posts were intricately carved with flowers and vines. They supported a
flat canopy draped in wine-colored satin,

its underside a mosaic design
in mirrored tiles.

Gance was
seducing her with what he owned, and with the temple to pleasure that he had
created. Then she glimpsed something

at odds with the rest of the
room-a portrait above the marble stones of the fireplace.

It was a portrait of a woman of late
middle age, yet the beauty in her face gave evidence of having increased over
time. Her green eyes were round with a curious blend of amusement and wisdom,
her lips were large and sensual, slightly upturned and parted as if she were
about to make some witty remark to the artist for whom she posed. The drape
over her shoulders hung low in the front so that only the tips of her breasts
were covered. She was a buxom woman. Mina thought that she would have been
pleasant, jolly, the sort of hostess who charmed everyone. All this was
portrayed so perfectly in her face. The portrait's background was of this room-the
fireplace itself, the single carved post of the bed beside her.

Mina was
conscious of the sound of Gance's feet on the stairs, of his soft entrance into
the room. "Your mistress?" she asked him

without turning.

"My
father's," he replied. "No, I never lay with her, except in the sense
that a child may sleep with his mother and dream of

something more
exciting."

"You
knew her," Mina asked incredulously.

"Quite well. She died a year after my father. I was fourteen
years old." "How did she die?"

"Though
my father willed her use of this house and funds to provide for it, his death
left her alone. By then she was older and far

larger than in the portrait.
With her beauty and his love both gone, she died of loneliness."

He paused to
let her comment. When she did not, he went on, "The house was willed to
me, maintained by a separate fund

managed by my uncle until I
turned sixteen. It has been in use ever since."

She
understood what he meant. It was foolish to remain here, when nothing would
come of it. "Thank you for a most interesting

afternoon. May we go
now?" she asked and walked past him toward the door.

"Did
you notice that when we left my office, I took pains that the hired driver
never saw your face? No one will ever know, Mrs.

Harker. Whatever we do here,
no one will ever know. And when it is over, there will be no regrets."

"I doubt that. Now I would like to leave." "Very
well, Mrs. Harker." She turned and faced him. "Why do you keep
calling me that?" she demanded.

"To
remind you of who you love and who you are. To remind you of how your husband
kisses you . . . how he loves you. To

remind you that you are here
for one simple reason, you are a woman who knows that regret is a far sadder
emotion than guilt."

"I am
strong enough to survive it," she retorted and started down the stairs.

"Mina!"
The first use of her Christian name made her hesitate, then continue on more
slowly.

"Mina,
when I kissed you that night, I knew that everything I surmised about you was
true. You are my equal in passion as well

as intelligence. Don't turn
away from what you were meant to be."

She had quick visions of the
Countess Karina in her eternal state dealing with him, of the women Jonathan
had drawn so sensuously devouring Gance together. She pictured him stretched
across the damp stone floor of their chamber, his blood red against his ivory
skin. This vision was hardly different from the dream she'd had of Jonathan,
but now the thought held no horror.

Instead it aroused her more
than this house, Gance's presence, his challenge.

Yes, she
wanted him. But if he would not take her, nothing would happen, nothing at all.
She walked slowly down the stairs, her

gloved hand brushing the
polished handrail as her bare one might brush ...

"Mina!
Have the courage to be joyful. To live."

He started
after her. Once he touched her, she would yield. If she did not display that
weakness to him, he would never know.

She turned and met him
halfway.

As she kissed him, she was amazed at
how warm he was, he with the winter complexion and the frost-colored hair. They
went downstairs. She left her coat and fur muff with the satchel and followed
him into the solarium, where he left her alone in the sunlight and went to
brew them tea. When he had brought it to her and poured their cups, he began
slowly to undress, stopping from time to time to sip his tea. By the time
she'd finished, he was naked in a light that revealed every part of him, every
tiny flaw. Though he must certainly have been conscious of this, his body
revealed no excitement. She suspected that, on a dare, he might shed his clothes
anywhere and remain as casually at ease.

She had never seen Jonathan naked,
not even by candlelight. There was always a nightshirt covering his chest, always
blankets over his body. No, she was not brave, only carefully adventurous. Had
she been brave, the demands she made would have been to her husband and she
would have had no need for the passion of a stranger. If the weeks after their
marriage had been normal ones, she might have done so gladly. Not now.

She was
thinking of Jonathan when Gance left her and went upstairs.

Mina followed, halting in the
entranceway. The door had a simple bolt. Even now, he left her no latitude for
self-deceit. Yes, these hours were what she wanted. Almost wearily, as if the
decision itself had sapped all her strength, she followed Gance upstairs.

He had
closed the curtains, red satin like the bedcovers and canopy, and the room was
bathed in deep red. She thought she

would have to undress
herself, but apparently she had done enough to prove her resolve.

Millicent was napping when Mina returned home, so Mina did not
have to deal with the suspicious woman's scrutiny. She stole upstairs,
removing her clothing far more quickly than Gance had done and prepared a bath.
When all traces of the afternoon had been washed away, she slipped on a wool
dressing gown, pulled her little journal from its hiding place and began to
write.

I tried not to think at
all as he undressed me. Yet I could not help but feel that, though he had made
it clear that I was in

control, I had lost my
senses somehow. Still the desire seemed so perfectly right.

As he unfastened the
tiny buttons down the back of my blouse, I felt his fingers brushing my flesh,
their touch spreading