Tender the Storm (40 page)

"Because of my walking cane?"

Zoë nodded, relieved at
Rolfe's quick understanding
. "Yes. And because you are fair skinned and have blond hair."

"Kitten?"
Rolfe's smile was deceptively lazy. "What the devil are we talking about?"

"My card," said Zoë. "Salome read my future from the Tarot cards."

"And what exactly is your card?"

"A knight with a wand.
Salome gave it into my hand some weeks since. Of course, it's just a piece of nonsense. Intelligent people don't put any stock in it."

There was an arrested expression on Rolfe's face. "No?"

"No," averred Zoë, frowning.

"What did you do with the card, kitten?"

Without thinking, Zoë answered, "It's upstairs in my dresser." Catching the gleam of satisfaction in Rolfe's eyes, she said
deflatingly
, "It would have been unkind to throw it away."

"Quite."

Rolfe chose that moment to seat himself on the sofa beside Zoë. She was aware of a relaxation in his manner towards her. By degrees,
her own
guard relaxed. She was beginning to see the humor in the situation. A little giggle escaped her. Rolfe's brows rose.

Shaking her head at the recollection, she said in answer to his questioning look, "If you could only have seen yourself — waving that cane in the air, bellowing, and my maid on her knees, prostrating herself before you as if you were," more giggles escaped before she finally got out, "as if you were the angel Gabriel."

Perfectly serious, Rolfe replied, "And if you could only have
heard
yourself
. '
A w-wig,'
" he
mimicked. 'He was wearing a w-wig!' He thought about it for a moment, and his shoulders began to heave. His eyes brushed Zoë's, and he sobered.

For several seconds, each tried to stare the other down, an impossible feat when their lips were twitching. It was Rolfe who gave in first. He threw back his head and hooted with laughter. Zoë soon followed.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, she said, "And that
wretched
maid of mine now thinks it perfectly proper to leave me
unchaperoned
with you simply because she sees you as my fate. Can you believe that?"

It was a moment before she realized that Rolfe had gone perfectly still. In some uneasiness, she forced herself to look at him.

Very softly, his eyes holding hers, he said, "In a sense, I thought I was your fate. What happened, Zoë? Why did you leave me? Why did you divorce me?"

She regarded him steadily for a long moment. It would be so very easy, she thought, to give in to the dictates of her foolish heart and fall in love with him all over again. What woman could resist those beautiful eyes and that bone-melting smile? It was a salutary thought, reminding her that while he would be everything to her, she could only hope to be one among many. Her eyes dropped to her hands and she said quietly, "Our marriage was doomed from the beginning. We are too dissimilar.
Like should marry like.
Evidently, we want different things from life."

Smiling whimsically, he asked, "How can I possibly know what you want, kitten? Did you ever tell me?"

A pervasive sadness had taken hold of Zoë. She ached with weariness. Thoughts of her brother pressed on her mind. She'd had the fright of her life when she'd first found Rolfe in her chamber. And now she was forced to think back on one of the most humiliating episodes of her young life.

It would have helped if she could hate him. When she put her mind to it, she could manage it for two or three minutes together. At this moment, she did not hate him. Her eyes drank him in, the graceful
manliness ,
of everything that was Rolfe, and she felt only a deep regret.

With no idea of annoying him, she said, "Once
. . . a
long time ago, I wanted what my mother and father had. Our home was a happy one. My parents loved each other. They respected each other. Those days were . . . precious. I wish I had known it then." Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. "Since I don't have what my parents had, I've learned to compromise. I'm content.
'Tis enough."

Somehow, he had managed to capture her hands. He squeezed them gently, and the gesture was almost more that Zoë could bear.

In a voice that strained to remain steady he murmured, "Don't you think that I could want the same things, too, kitten?"

She looked at him carefully. "How can you want the same things I want?" she asked. She thought of his mother and quickly suppressed a shudder of revulsion. "Your family is nothing like mine," she told him. "You can't possibly know what I mean."

When he answered, his voice was very low and very earnest. "You are right in this: our families, our backgrounds, are very dissimilar. But the last thing I want is to make my own marriage a replica
of what my parents had." He turned over one of her hands, and traced the palm with the pads of his fingers. "You see, Zoë, I want my children to be happier than I was."

Hearing his own words, Rolfe stilled as the truth of them registered. His home had never been a happy one. Like most of their class, his parents had married for expediency, not for love. It was the way of their world. And while gentlemen pursued their pleasures, their wives learned to turn a blind eye to what must be endured. They had no other recourse. A husband's authority was inviolable.

Nevertheless, wronged wives had their own way of exacting justice, of a sort. They had their children. And children could sometimes be taught to hate the object of their mother's scorn.

As a young child, he had both feared and hated his father, repulsing every overture of friendship. His mother had taught her sons well. And if there was a lessening of antipathy as the years passed, it was because he was outside the sphere of his mother's influence. Boys of his class were sent off to school at a very tender age. It was then, as he remembered, that his mother had become something of an invalid.

He had a vivid impression of his first school holidays, when he and his brother, Edward, had returned to the Abbey. They had found their mother in her bedchamber, propped up in bed. It was the first of many such scenes: their mother tearful and sickly, their father intolerant and taking no pains to hide it. Rolfe and his brother had taken their mother's part.

It was his turn to suppress a shudder of revul
sion. No. The last thing he wanted was his own marriage to be a replica of his parents' one.

Choosing his words with care, he said, "I'm willing to make a fresh start if you are."

Zoë was assailed with the sudden unwanted memory of Roberta Ashton's silky voice as she had described in minute detail the sordid amorous adventures and peccadilloes of the man who had once been her hero. Well, he was her hero no longer. "I divorced you," she reminded him, "and with good reason.

In an amused tone, eyes mocking, he carefully enumerated, "Roberta Ashton, Rosamund, Mimi and Fifi? Kitten, is that why you ran away? Were you jealous of those other women?" This, decided Rolfe, was going to be easier than he thought. Little Zoë must surely love him.

"Shouldn't a wife be jealous of the women in her husband's life?"

"Ah, but you weren't my wife then, were you? Not really. You were a wife in name only."

Resentment flared in her. He was lying in his teeth. She herself had witnessed the public spectacle of her husband locked in an embrace with another woman, and that was after she, Zoë, had so stupidly taken matters into her own hands to ensure that she was no longer a wife in name only. She wanted to fling the accusation in his face, but pride kept her silent. He would have proof, then, that she was, in very truth, a jealous woman. In point of fact, she hadn't been jealous. She had been . . . crushed.

Forcing
herself
to be calm, she said, "And now I am not even a wife in name only. And there is no point to this conversation."

She rose gracefully to her feet indicating that the interview was at an end. Rolfe stretched his arms along the back of the sofa and struck a negligent pose.

"What would you say,"
he
asked softly, "if I told you that our divorce could be overturned?"

Shock held her speechless.

His voice took on a caressing quality. "Kitten, I'm serious. We could start over."

"Are you mad?"

"What?"

"Marriage to you?"
Calm deserted her as indignation rushed in. Her voice became agitated. "Don't you understand anything? I hated everything about being married to you. I hated the life I was forced to follow in England"

"Ah, but you didn't hate
me,
did you, kitten?" With slow, leisurely movements, he rose to his feet. A smile of amused tolerance played about his lips.

Zoë threw back her head and stared doggedly into his face. "What does that mean, pray tell?"

His hands cupped her shoulders. Laughing softly, he said, "I could keep a whole
stableful
of women, and it wouldn't make a jot of difference. I have only to touch you, and you melt for me."

Eyes snapping, she hissed, "I think your conquests must have mounted to your head." Zoë's eyes narrowed on the disbelieving smile and her anger boiled over. Not a quick-tempered girl, nevertheless, when roused, the little kitten could turn into a jungle cat. She unsheathed her claws and drew blood. "Frankly," she purred, "I have no desire for your touch." And to make sure that he got the message,
she threw in gratuitously, "When you make love to me, I don't like it."

The smile left Rolfe's face. He administered a rough shake. "You liked my touch well enough a little while ago. If your servants hadn't burst in when they did, I would have finished what you started, and very thoroughly too, let me tell you."

"What I started?" Zoë's mouth opened and closed. "What / started? I didn't start anything!"

"God, you were crawling all over me. And
those pleasure
sounds you made? They nearly drove me over the edge."

"I was frightened. I didn't know what I was doing," she cried out. "I had a bad dream."