No Brighter Dream: The Pascal Trilogy - Book 3 (35 page)

“Pity, isn’t it?” Pascal said, amused. “It must be dreadful for you to be saddled with squeamish men.” He walked over to the bed and looked down at Ali, checking her pulse, then pulled the covers back and cast a glance at the white bandage that covered her abdomen, Andre watching him anxiously.

“Good,” he said. “Perfectly clean.” He covered her up, then smoothed a hand over her brow. “Hello, Ali,” he said. “I think it’s time to wake up. Andre looks as if he’s about to expire from worry.”

Her eyelids fluttered slightly, and her tongue flickered over her lips. And then her eyes slowly opened and she blinked. “Andre?” she whispered.

“Right here, sweetheart,” he said, squeezing her hand, relief and thankfulness nearly overwhelming him.

“Do you believe now?” she asked, and he had to lean down to hear her. “Do you?”

He placed a gentle kiss on her cheek. “Yes, I believe now,” he murmured hoarsely. “I believe. Thank God, Ali. Thank God.”

“I did,” she said, a mischievous smile playing around the comers of her mouth. Then she turned her head. “Pascal. You’re here. You fixed me, didn’t you? Thank you.”

Pascal brushed a hand over her hair. “You made a most dramatic entrance as usual,” he said. “Although this time you managed to scare me half to death.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, attempting a smile. She lifted her gaze. “And Lily,” she said. “You’re here too. How wonderful.”

“Hello, my darling. How do you feel?”

“Happy,” Ali said softly, sleepily. “So happy to be here. And happy too because I had the most beautiful dream imaginable.”

“What was that?” Pascal asked, stroking her hair again.

“Do you know the little angel Gabriel you sent with Jo-Jean for my wedding day?”

Andre glanced at his father in surprise. He’d had no idea that the necklace Ali always wore had been a wedding present from him. He felt even more ashamed of himself, if that was possible.

“Yes, of course,” Pascal said.

She moistened her lips. “Well, I dreamed I was in heaven, and I met Gabriel, who gave me a lily.”

Pascal smiled softly. “Did you?”

“Pascal, did you … will I ever be able to have a child?” she asked, her brow furrowing.

“I don’t see any reason why not. As a matter of fact, I found some adhesions which might have made it difficult for you to conceive before this, but that’s all sorted out now.”

Ali’s face lit up in a brilliant smile. “Thank you. Oh, thank you. My angel told me you would fix it all.” She sighed. “I think I have to sleep again.” She moved her fingers in Andre’s hand. “Will you stay with me for a while, Andre?”

“Of course I will,” he said, his heart nearly breaking with love. Ali. Sweet, sweet Ali. He was so damned lucky. And so very, very grateful.

He waited until she’d fallen into a deep sleep, then went straight to the chapel to offer up a fervent prayer of thanks.

Believe?
he thought, kneeling at the little altar, bowing his head.
Oh, yes. He believed. He believed as he’d never believed before. He believed in grace. In forgiveness. And most of all, he believed in the power of love.

Andre lifted his head and gazed at the Cross. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for healing Ali. And thank you for healing me.”

Ali thought a month had been entirely too long to have to wait to be with Andre, but she planned to make up for that tonight, now that Pascal had told her it was safe. She hugged Pascal in sheer glee at the news, causing him to make a ribald comment about his son’s apparent prowess.

Andre still had no idea, she thought wickedly, watching him celebrate the successful harvest in the annual fete in the village square. Wouldn’t he be surprised?

He’d had a wonderful time, taking pleasure in simply being home again, helping to bring in the harvest, reacquainting himself with his friends, spending hours with his parents trying to make up for lost time. He was a far cry from the Andre of old, even from the one she had married, or the one who had come to Turkey to bring her home.

There was something different about this Andre, she thought, laughing as he and Jo-Jean danced a wild country jig on top of one of the long tables. It was as if he had grown wings and taken flight. She loved seeing the light in his eyes, the softening of his face when he spoke to his father or mother, the laughter that echoed from one end of the chateau to the other and out into the fields. And interestingly enough, he no longer felt the cold.

It was obvious to anyone who watched that Andre was where he belonged, that he loved Saint-Simon and its people with everything in him, that he belonged to them as much as they belonged to him, that his heart was wide open.

It saddened her that she would never belong in his heart in the same way. But at least she could give him children who would, children born into the same heritage. And tonight she planned to try.

“Ali? What has put such a dreamy look on your face?” Andre asked, coming into the bedroom to say good night, as he did every night. “You’ve been wearing it since this afternoon.”

Ali smiled at him from under the covers. “Would you like to see my scar?” she asked. She lifted the sheets.

“Your
scar
? If you’d like, but what the devil would…” A wicked grin flashed across his face. “Yes,” he said. “I think I’d like to see your scar very, very much.”

“It’s not terribly impressive,” she said. “Your father was very neat.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, falling onto the bed and pulling her into his arms, then sitting up and tucking her back against his chest. He inched her nightdress up over her thighs, his fingers lightly caressing her skin as he went. “Now where is this magnificent piece of work?” he asked.

“Higher,” she said with a laugh. “You’ll never find it if you stop there.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” he said, brushing his fingers over her downy curls. But he pulled the linen up to her waist obligingly enough and peered down at the thin red line. “Hmm. Very handy.” He brushed a finger over it. “Do you have anything else you’d like to show me?”

Ali shifted her weight on the hard bulge that pressed against her buttocks. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Thank God,” he said, his hands cupping her breasts, his thumbs toying with her nipples through the thin fabric. “Celibacy has been torture. But are you sure it’s all right, sweetheart?”

Ali tilted her head back against his hard shoulder in answer, and he accepted her invitation, bringing his mouth down to hers, stroking his tongue over her lips. “Mmm. Sweet,” he said, then deepened his kiss. And then he twisted her around to face him, settling her naked flesh over his hips. He pulled her nightdress over her head and tossed it on the floor.

“It’s been hell sleeping in the next room too, thinking of you, all alone in this big bed.” He bent his head to her breast, pulling it into his mouth, milking her rosy nipple until she writhed against him, rubbing her hips against his erection.

“That’s enough of that, or it will all be over before we’ve even started,” he said, rolling her off him. “I’m determined to take this very slowly and carefully.” But despite his words, it took him only a minute to strip and come back to her.

He lay down on his side, his full length stretched out next to her and he cupped her face between his hands. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you? I mean really, really missed you? You’ve been busy lying about recovering in luxury while I’ve been in a fully healthy state of rampant desire, having to lust for you from afar.”

“Trust me, you haven’t been the only one,” she said, stroking her mouth against his warm cheek, her hands exploring the hard curves of his back, the valley of his spine.

“Mmm,” he murmured, cupping her buttocks, his erection pressing against her belly. “It occurred to me in one black moment that my father was paying me back for my idiocy by putting a prohibition on you.”

Ali smiled and nipped his shoulder with her teeth. “It would have served you right. You can’t imagine what happiness it gives me to see you with them, to see you here.”

Andre rolled her onto her back and gazed down at her, his hands smoothing the hair off her face. “Ali.” He kissed her again, his mouth caressing, gentle, but his control didn’t last long, and the intensity with which he kissed left her breathless.

She shuddered as he ran his mouth down her neck, over her breasts, tracing the underswelling with his tongue, his hands smoothing over her ribs, her hips, stroking the delicate flesh of her inner thighs as his thumbs found her cleft and moved on it.

“Andre,” she moaned, rising up to meet his intimate touch. And then she felt the blunt pressure of his erection pushing against her entrance, and she opened to welcome him, reveling in the feel of him sliding into her, filling her with his length.

“God, that’s good,” he whispered, his breath hot against her cheek. He began to move in her, each smooth stroke gentle and controlled, yet powerful. “Ali … you’re so full of life. You are life. My life.”

She opened her eyes to find him gazing down at her, and she caught her breath, astonished by what she saw. His eyes, the color of pure smoke, blazed into hers, and his face was filled with a fierce joy she’d never seen before. She felt as if he were looking inside her, straight into her heart, as if each thrust he made in her body was directed toward the same place.

She felt as if they were one entity, one thought, one heartbeat. She felt as if she were back in heaven. And in that moment, heaven came down to her as his body erupted in hers, and hers shattered around his, one life, one shared piece of eternity.

When her heart finally stopped pounding, she realized that warm tears were sliding down her cheeks. She wasn’t sure if they were her own or Andre’s, for when she opened her eyes, she saw that his face was streaked with tears too. She reached up to wipe them away.

“How I love you,” he whispered. “Oh,
God
how I love you.”

Ali’s hand stilled in shock. “Andre…”

“I’ve been wanting to tell you all this last month, but I knew that if I tried, I’d probably end up doing things I shouldn’t. So I waited,” he said, kissing her forehead. “And I’m glad. It wouldn’t have been the same without showing you how damned much.”

“But I—but I thought…”

“Sweetheart. As much of an idiot as I was about my parents, I was even a bigger one about you. I love you with everything I have in me, and maybe more than that.”

She mutely shook her head, unable to believe her ears, that he was actually speaking the words she had thought she’d never hear. “I can’t…” She stopped, knowing there were no words for the enormity of what she was feeling.

“I’ve loved you for a long time,” he said. “A very long time, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself.”

“But what about Genevieve?” she asked in a small voice.

“Oh, Ali,” he said tenderly, stroking her face, “there’s a part of me that will always love Genevieve. But I’m no longer that same boy who fell in love one fine spring, or even the young man who grieved her death. I’m a man deeply and irrevocably in love with his extraordinary wife.”

“But Genevieve was your fairy-child,” Ali said, blinking away a fresh rush of tears.

He smiled and stroked his thumbs over her eyes. “No. She was
your
fairy-child. I don’t want a fairy-child, my love. I want you, just as you are. Exactly as you are in every way.”

Ali smiled up at him mistily. “Are you sure? Really, really sure?”

“Perfectly. If I hadn’t been so damned frightened of the depth of my feelings for you, I would have realized the truth a long time ago.” He exhaled. “I’m sorry. I know I hurt you.”

Ali pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. “No. Don’t be sorry. Please don’t be sorry. There isn’t any room for sorrow in all this happiness.”

“You know,” he said, “if I had never loved Genevieve, I don’t think I’d have known how to love you so well. Does that make sense?”

Ali nodded. “Yes,” she said, her heart aching with her limitless love for him. “I understand. I really do understand.”

He has learned the lessons put before him.

Joy joined the love in her heart.

“Good. And I intend to prove it to you every single day for the rest of my life. In England, in France, in Turkey, wherever we happen to be, you’re going to be the most adored wife ever.”

“Oh, I do like the sound of that,” Ali said, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her cheek to his bare chest. “I really, really do.”

He chuckled. “And now I’m going to give you a nice wash. Standard procedure for recuperating patients, not to mention thoroughly ravished and beloved wives.” Andre kissed her again, then slipped out of bed, going across the room to fetch a basin of water and a cloth.

Ali smiled to herself in incredible happiness. Andre loved her. Had always loved her. It was a dream finally come true. And she had the most extraordinary feeling that there was another dream that had finally come true as well.

She rolled onto her side, her hands pressed low against her abdomen, not in pain, but in wonder, for she felt certain that they had just conceived a child.

She felt Andre’s weight on the mattress, and the sound of water dripping as he wrung the cloth out in the basin. And then she heard the slow intake of his breath.

“Ali,” he said, and she heard quiet astonishment in his voice.

“What?” she asked lazily.

“The scars … the scars on your back. Where the hell have they gone to?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, puzzled.

“I mean they’ve damned well disappeared. There’s not a trace of them! Scars just don’t disappear. Dear God…”

She reached her hand around and felt, her fingers moving over her skin. He was right. The ridges were gone. “But how…?” she started to say.

“I don’t bloody well know. You don’t think it was my father working one of his miracles, do you? But what else could it be?”

Ali shook her head, a huge smile on her face, as the faint echo of the angel’s words came back to her.

Your pain is over, sweet one. The only traces are the ones lodged in your heart, those that have brought you wisdom.

She turned over and looked up at Andre, her eyes shilling. “No. I don’t think that particular miracle was your father’s doing. But what I do think is that every last one of my dreams has been made into truth,” she said, smoothing her hands over his cheeks. “And I also think I’m the luckiest woman alive.”