To Dream Again (38 page)

He made her waltz with him, right there on the production floor, in front of everyone. "You danced very well," he told her as they walked up the stairs of Mrs. O'Brien's lodging house a few hours later. "You didn't stumble once, and you actually let me lead."

"I wish you hadn't done that," she mumbled, stepping onto the landing and into the pool of moonlight that spilled through the window at the end of the corridor. "They'll talk about us."

She walked the few steps to her door, and he came to a halt behind her as she fumbled in her reticule for her key.

"Mara, I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but they're talking about us anyway."

"They're not!" She shoved the key into the lock and turned her head to glance over one shoulder at him, giving a soft sigh. "Oh, dear."

"It's your fault. If you wouldn't wear your heart on your sleeve..."

"What?" She gasped. "Of all the ridiculous—" She broke off, seeing his grin. "You're teasing me again," she said, but he noticed the uncertainty in her voice, and he leaned closer.

"I wish you would," he murmured, placing his hands on her shoulders.

She took a sharp intake of breath. "Would what?"

He could smell the lilac scent of her hair, feel the softness of it beneath his jaw. "Wear your heart on your sleeve. Give me some idea that I'm not completely out of my head."

"You are out of your head," she retorted, not quite managing to put the proper amount of disdain in her voice. She leaned forward to grasp the door latch, trying almost desperately to free herself from his grip.

But he refused to release her. His hands tightened on her shoulders for an instant, then he turned her slowly around.

He looked into her face, loving the vulnerable tremble of her lower lip, the sign that betrayed her feelings no matter how hard she tried to hide them from him. He lifted his hands to cup her face. "I love you."

She shook her head within his hands. "No, you don't."

"Yes, I do. I want to hold you, protect you, cherish you. Forever."

He felt the change in her like the whisper of a chill wind, saw the slight twist of disbelief that touched the corner of her mouth. He could almost hear what she was thinking. Had James said these things to her?

Damn the armor she could put on at will. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss away that cynical smile. He wanted to hold her and touch her, make her soft and breathless and fluttery, make her forget James Elliot and all his broken promises. But he couldn't destroy a ghost. He drew a deep breath, and his hands fell away. "You don't believe me."

"No." A flat, unemotional, honest answer.

"Why is it so difficult for you to believe that I love you?"

"What do you know about love?" she demanded. "You've never been in love." She looked up at him, and he saw something in her face, something apprehensive and unsure. "Have you?"

"Yes," he answered swiftly. "Twice."

"Oh, forgive me, I didn't know you were such an authority on the matter." The caustic comment was meant to sound indifferent, but it didn't. It sounded jealous, and both of them knew it. He grinned down at her. She pressed her lips tightly together and fell silent.

"The first time was Rosalyn Underwood," he said, leaning one shoulder against the wall. "Beautiful girl. She had red hair and green eyes. We were married," he went on, watching the rapid changes flit across her face. Disbelief, astonishment, dismay. "We had six children. Three boys and three girls. I owned a toy factory and was very successful, we had a lovely house in the country, and we loved each other madly."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again with a sound of agitation.

"In my dreams," he added. "I was fourteen, she was twelve."

She punched him, a light, frustrated jab in the shoulder. "I asked a serious question. I'd hoped for a serious answer."

"I am serious. I was in love with her, as passionately in love as a stuttering adolescent schoolboy can be. I don't think she knew I was alive." He sighed. "Still...I couldn't help myself."

"And the second time?" Her voice was cool, but there was a quavering edge in it that told him more clearly than any words her indifference was pretense.

"Ah, the second time." He paused, thinking about the second time, long enough ago that the pain was gone, and only the distant pleasure remained, like warm coals after the fire had gone out. "Mai Lin."

Her name sounded almost unfamiliar now as he spoke it aloud.

"Who?"

"Mai Lin. She was Chinese." He met Mara's eyes. "She was my mistress for three years, from the time I was nineteen until I was twenty-two."

"Oh." She seemed at a loss for words, and he recalled the day he'd given her the abacus, the day she'd assumed mistress was what he wanted her to be. "What happened?" she finally asked.

"When I went to America, Mai Lin stayed behind. I asked her to come with me. I asked her to marry me. She refused."

"I don't believe it!"

"I'm flattered," he said, "but it's true. She said no."

"Why?"

"Several reasons. She didn't want to leave London. She said someday I would regret marrying her, that my brother would shun me and we'd never be able to make peace—as if I cared what Adrian thought!" He paused for a long moment, then he said, "But the real reason was that she just didn't love me, and she said I would never be happy with less. She was right, I suppose."

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know. Probably still living in Limehouse. I

haven't seen her since I came back, Mara." He smiled down at her. "Just in case you were wondering."

"I wasn't," she said, so indignantly that he knew it was a lie.

He moved to stand in front of her again and left Mai Lin in the past. "It seems I have a serious character flaw," he confessed. "I seem to have this habit of falling in love with women who don't love me back." He reached out and ran one finger lightly down her cheek and across her lips. "But I keep hoping."

"Don't," she said, her voice a fierce whisper. "Don't."

He stroked her jaw, felt the tiny muscle there flex beneath the tip of his finger. "I love you."

"Stop saying that!" She stepped backward through the doorway into her flat and balled her hands into fists, staring up at him, her whole body trembling. "You're not in love with me! You just think you are, with all your poetic, romantic notions. You don't love me."

She slammed the door in his face.

He was an absurd man. Charming, daft, absurd. She didn't want him to say things like that, with all that promise in his voice. She didn't want him to touch her like that, with all that open tenderness that left her standing raw and defenseless amid the pieces of her armor. She sank down into a chair, buried her face in her hands, and sat in the dark, listening to his footsteps as he went up the stairs, trying to turn her heart into ice.

She strained to remember all the times James had told her how much he loved her, all the times he'd made promises, all the times she'd felt the pain of betrayal and the wrench of loneliness. But just now, those memories refused to come, refused to fuel her bitterness.

All she could seem to remember at this moment was

Nathaniel. He came before her eyes, all tawny gold, so joyously alive, a shaft of sunlight piercing the dark prison where her heart was locked away, revealing her— what had he called it?—her dark, secret self.

Despite her denials, to him and to herself, she loved him, and that was her greatest fear: to love him, to fill her empty heart and her lonely soul with him, and to have it not be enough, to watch him walk away from her and take his light and laughter with him, leaving her alone again. She didn't want to be alone again, with only her dark, secret self for company.

***

Nathaniel heard the footsteps outside his door, and he lifted his head sharply, listening. The latch rattled, and he straightened in his chair, hopeful, tense, waiting.

Slowly, the door creaked open.

He'd drawn the shutters when he'd come in, and the room was dark except for the glowing coals in the grate, but Nathaniel knew it was her. Accustomed to the darkness, he could see her slender form as she entered the room and closed the door behind her. He could hear the soft sound of her breathing, he could smell lilacs and feel the sharp quickening of his own senses.

"'She walks in beauty, like the night.'"

His voice, sudden in the silence, startled her, and she jumped backward, her back hitting the closed door with a thump. "Nathaniel?"

"Yes." He said nothing more.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and found him. He was sitting in a chair across the room, his shirt a pale patch of white against the leather back of the chair. He made no move, and the silence lengthened.

"I decided I wasn't sleepy," she murmured, suddenly feeling ridiculous. What was she doing here? But she knew the reason.

A peculiar sound escaped him, a laugh and yet not. "I understand."

"You aren't sleepy either?"

"No."

Another silence. "Perhaps you might play your violin, then?" she suggested, ashamed that she sounded so timid.

"No." A few seconds passed. Then he spoke again. "Why did you come up here, Mara?"

Did you mean it when you said you love me
? The question hovered on the tip of her tongue, unspoken. Suddenly uncertain, afraid of rejection, she stood there with her back against the door, wishing he would take the lead, wishing he would show her what he wanted her to do. If only he would come to her, hold her, if only he would smile and tell her again that he loved her, everything would be all right. But he made no move at all. He sat, rigid in his chair, watching her and saying nothing, and she realized he was waiting.

Waiting for her to come to him. She turned her head away. She looked at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at the man watching her.

Why couldn't she just say it? Why couldn't she just walk over to him and wrap her arms around him and say the words?
Nathaniel, I love you, I trust you, I need you so. Love me
.

She finally looked at him again. He was still waiting.

Slowly, she began to walk toward him. If only she could say the right thing, do the right thing, he would make love to her. Somehow, the door would open, and all the feelings locked inside her would come tumbling out, released from the prison she had made so long ago.

With her gaze still locked with his, she came to a halt beside his chair. She opened her mouth, closed it again, and sank to her knees. With trembling fingers, she reached out and placed her hands on his chest.

He drew in a sharp breath and leaned back. Her fingers, awkward in their gloves, fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. But he gave her no help, and by the time she reached the third button, she knew this wasn’t going to work. She yanked hard and his shirt button went flying. She heard it skitter across the floor, and she knew she was making a mess of things. Her fingers faltered, her lip trembled. With an anguished cry, she wrenched back and jumped to her feet, ready to flee, her courage gone.

"Mara, don't! It's all right." He leaned forward and caught her by the waist, pulling her onto his lap. "It's all right. Don't go."

"I'm no good at this," she cried, turning her face into his shoulder. "I knew I couldn't do it."

"Of course you couldn't do it. Not alone." He entwined his fingers in the knot of her hair. He pulled out the pins to free her hair, and tossed them aside. Tangling his fingers in the long dark waves at her temples, he brushed his thumbs back and forth across her cheeks. "But I wanted you to take that first step alone. I had to see if you truly wanted this."

She lowered her head and hunched her shoulders, trying to hide in his embrace, wanting to die of embarrassment. "I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to..." A slight pause. "...seduce you."

Her choked words made him smile. Mara, always seeking perfection in an imperfect world. He leaned closer. "If you insist."

She shook her head, missing the teasing caress in his voice. "It's no good."

"It could be." He tilted her chin upward and bent his head until his lips brushed hers. "It could be, Mara," he said against her mouth, "but it has to be both of us. Together, don't you see?"

She shivered at the feel of his mouth on hers. Her hand flattened against his chest, and she ached with the longing to feel his bare skin beneath her fingers. "Love me, Nathaniel," she whispered.

"I do." He slipped one arm around her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, then rose to his feet, cradling her against him.

He carried her into the bedroom and set her down on her feet beside the bed. He lit the lamp on the bedside table, and she had to resist that temptation to run, to hide before all her inadequacies were revealed.

His gaze locked with hers for only a moment, then lowered as he lifted one of her hands in both of his. He turned her palm upward and his fingers moved to her wrist, to the row of buttons on her glove. The top button slid free, and she jerked her hand back, realizing what he intended to do. But his hands tightened, refusing to release her, and a sound escaped her, a tiny protest. She stretched her free hand toward the lamp on the bedside table, but it was just out of her reach. "Nathaniel, the light."

He shook his head and freed another button. "Only lies need the dark, Mara. Leave it on."

"No, Nathaniel, I can't," she whispered. "Please put it out."

He unfastened the last button, then his fingers slid to the tips of hers. One by one, he tugged at the ends of her glove, then pulled it off of her trembling hand and let it fall to the floor. She tried again to pull away, but his other hand closed over her wrist, capturing her naked hand, refusing to let her hide it from him.

"I don't want you to see," she mumbled, hating her scars.

"I already did. Remember?" He opened his hands, exposing her deepest vulnerability to his gaze, cradling her hand in both of his as he might hold a trembling bird, waiting to see if it would fly away. She remained perfectly still, too anguished to move.