Wanderlust (29 page)

So do I. His eyes met hers, and he loved her just as much as he had before, perhaps more, and seeing her with the baby did something to him. He ached for her even more, and they had to tear themselves away to join her grandfather again. They gave him a full report on Molly's antics and everything she'd been doing, and he grinned delightedly and bragged of her accomplishments to Charlie. One would never have suspected that he had been shocked when she first arrived. To listen to him, one would have thought that the baby was the prize of his own bloodline.

She's the best little girl in the world. And then he smiled at Audrey. This one wasn't bad either, but it's been a while ' . He gazed fondly at her, and eventually they stood up, and Charles told him how happy he had been to meet him. They had dinner reservations at the Blue Fox, but neither of them seemed interested in where they ate. Suddenly, she was filling him in on everything, all her last moments in Harbin, Molly's birth, even the appearance of the Mongolian general.

Good God, you could have been raped. Or murdered. But he didn't say it.

Looking back at those eight months, I suppose I could have been a lot of things ' but I don't know, Charlie ' it seemed the right thing to do at the time. And I got Molly out of it. He smiled. It had touched him to see her with a child, and it made him hungry for all he had once dreamed of with her.

And now, Aud? What are you going to do with the rest of your life?

I don't know. Stay here. As long as Grampa is alive anyway.

He's a wonderful man. He said it almost sorrowfully and she smiled.

I know ' that's why I came home to him. I owe him everything.

Even your future, Audrey? Somehow that doesn't seem right.

My present in any case.

And Annabelle? What does she feel she owes him?

She doesn't think that way, I'm afraid.

Charlie smiled ruefully at her. My luck I'd fall in love with the dutiful one. And then, over dessert, he took his courage in both hands. Can I tear you away for a while, Aud?

Like how long? A weekend in Carmel, or a year in the Far East? They both smiled. It was quite a contrast between the two. She would have preferred to go to the ends of the earth with him, but it was impossible. She couldn't leave for more than a few days.

I've just come back from India, doing research for the next book.

It sounds interesting. But she knew there was more to it than that.

' and I'm going to Egypt next. He paused, and reached for her hand. Will you come with me? Her heart stopped just listening to him. She wanted to do that more than anything. She would have gone anywhere with him. But Egypt would have been fabulous.

When do you go?

By the end of the year, or perhaps in the spring. Does it make any difference when I go?

She sighed. Probably not. I can't imagine Grandfather sitting still for another trip, especially after what happened last time, with my extending it by eight months in Harbin. He was suddenly annoyed at her again for doing that, if it meant she couldn't go away with him. I don't know, Charles ' I just don't see how I can ' and I have Molly to think of now.

Bring her along. He sounded as though he meant it, and Audrey smiled and kissed his cheek.

I will always love you, Charles. Do you know that?

It's difficult to believe sometimes. He sat back in his chair and looked at her. And I don't want you to give me an answer tonight. Just think about it ' think about Egypt in the spring. Can you think of anything more romantic than that? She shook her head and smiled.

You don't have to sell it to me, Charles. That has nothing to do with it. I would be happy in a cow pasture in Oklahoma with you.

Now there's a thought. He laughed, and their mood lightened suddenly, and he suggested that they go dancing in his hotel, and the moment their bodies met, she felt all the same magic happening again. Their lips met, and their bodies touched, and she wanted him just as she had for the past year. It was more than she could bear just being this close to him again, and when he looked down at her she smiled up at him.

I don't think I'm ever going to be able to resist you, Charles. It's going to be very awkward if you marry someone else one day.

There are ways of preventing that, he said seriously in her ear, and then led her quietly from the room. They spoke for a moment in a corridor. He didn't want to do anything foolish with her, and yet their hearts always seemed to be on the line. But as she nodded, he quietly slipped his room key into her hand, and then walked to the desk and asked for another one, as she took the elevator upstairs, looking terribly sedate and very beautiful as the elevator operator admired her. It would never have occurred to him that she wasn't someone's wife, and she thanked him as she got out, her heart pounding again, and let herself in Charles's room just as he arrived on the floor and followed her to the room. He opened the door and found her standing there, in her elegant black dress and a sheepish smile.

Imagine if someone saw me doing this! I'd be tarred and feathered and thrown out of town!

I suspect you're not the first, you know. But as I said before, there are ways of preventing this ' . And there was specifically one he had in mind, but they both forgot everything as he took her in his arms, and a moment later, their clothes lay in a heap on the floor and she was clinging to him. It had been a lifetime and a year and several oceans and continents since they'd met, and suddenly she couldn't remember how she had managed to live without him for all this time. And he knew all too well how empty his life had been without her. It was four o'clock before she was able to pull away from him again, and glancing at his watch on the bedtable, she murmured unhappily.

Dammit ' I have to go home ' . It wasn't like their life in China, where they had existed as man and wife for months. This was pretense and appearances and propriety, and it seemed very strange to them. But he watched her get dressed as he smoked a cigarette and then hastily put on his own clothes to take her home in a taxi, and once there, he kissed her in the cab, and then watched her slip into the house with her key. And then he watched the light go on in her room upstairs and she pulled back the lace curtain to wave to him, and as he rode back to his hotel he felt desperately lonely, not having her beside him.

The bed still smelled of her perfume and their flesh, and he found a strand of long red hair cast over his pillow, like a gift she had left him. He wanted to call her, to bring her back, to lie next to her again, but that didn't happen until the following afternoon when he met her again and they went back to his hotel room as discreetly as they could. They lay there until ten o'clock that night, and then ordered room service as she sat wearing his robe and sharing a cigarette with him. It felt good just being there with him, but there was something very serious in his eyes tonight, and as he turned to her when the waiter left, she knew something was wrong. She knew him too well for him to fool her for very long.

What's the matter, Charles? Her voice was as gentle as it had always been.

There's something I have to say to you.

It can't be as bad as all that. She reached out a hand for his, but he was too nervous to leave his hand in hers, and he suddenly stood up and began walking around the room, looking at her, and then finally he sat down and looked into the blue eyes that had haunted him for so long.

I have to go to New York tomorrow afternoon. The words sliced through her like a knife.

I see.

I have meetings to attend with an American publisher, and they moved them up by a week. She wondered if he was going to ask her to go with him, but it was much worse than that. And I think we should both know where we stand when I go. We can't go on like this, Aud ' . The last year, without you, was the most difficult year of my life, except the year after Sean died. He was being honest with her. And it won't be easy now, leaving you again. We can't keep doing this. She wanted to ask him why not, why they couldn't just let it go on this way for a while, until she felt she could leave her grandfather ' until ' until what, she asked herself. There was no easy answer to the problem. I want to marry you. I want you to come to England with me. I understand that it could take a while ' a month, maybe even two. I could live with that. But I want to marry you, Aud. I love you with everything I have to give. It was everything she had always dreamed and she knew he was the only man she would ever love. But she couldn't do what he asked ' couldn't ' why couldn't he understand that, and let it go for a while?

Her eyes rapidly filled with tears as she shook the copper mane, and gently touched his cheek with her fingertips. Don't you know how much I love you, Charles? ' how badly I want exactly the same things you do? ' but I can't ' I can't! She stood up and walked across the room, staring blindly out the window at Union Square far below. I can't leave Grandfather, don't you understand that?

Do you really think he expects that of you? He's not that unreasonable, Aud. You can't give up your life for him.

It would break his heart.

And mine? Charles's voice was soft, his eyes bright with unshed tears. She couldn't answer him.

I love you. Her eyes begged him to understand as her lips said the words, but he only shook his head.

That's not enough. It'll kill us both. Will you marry me? There was no dodging him, and she couldn't give him the answer he wanted. It was a sacrifice she had to make ' just like staying in Harbin for eight months, only much, much worse ' . Audrey, answer me. He stood staring at her with a terrifying look on his face. It was a look that said he meant what he was asking her, that there wouldn't be another chance ' that this was the last time ' . Audrey? They stood there across the room from each other now, with a universe separating them, or it might as well have been.

Charlie, I can't ' not right now ' .

Then when? Next month? Next year? I've never wanted to marry anyone ' until you ' and now I will offer you everything I have to give ' my life ' my home ' my heart ' whatever fortune I have ' my royalties ' everything I have to give is yours ' but I won't wait another ten years ' I won't waste my life and yours, waiting for that man to die. Somehow I have to believe that he would want better than that for you. Do you want me to ask him myself? I'd be happy to do that too. But she shook her head.

I can't do that to him, Charles. He would tell me to go. And then he would die. I'm all he has.

You're all I have.

And you are the only man I'll ever love.

Then marry me.

She stood there watching him interminably, but she shook her head and then quietly sat down and began to cry. Charlie, I can't. He turned away from her, and stood looking out the window at Union Square.

Then it's over for us, when I leave. I don't ever want to see you again. I won't play this game with you.

It's not a game, Charlie. It's my life ' and yours ' think of that before you shut me out like that. She was talking to his back, and he only shook his head, and then finally, he turned to look at her again and there was grief in his eyes.

To leave you in my life, on the edge, taunting me, will torture us both, and what will we have? Emptiness ' promises ' lies ' you said you wished Molly were mine, well so do I ' and one day I want children of my own and so do you ' we won't have them like this, or we shouldn't anyway. I want a real life, with a real wife, and children when that seems right ' just like James and Vi. It all made perfect sense to her.

Then come to live in San Francisco with me.

And do what? Work on the local newspaper? Sell shoes? I'm a travel writer, Audrey. You know what my life is like. I can't do what I do, just living here. One of us is going to have to make a sacrifice, and this time it has to be you. You have to come with me.

Charlie, I can't. Audrey could barely speak she was crying so hard.

Think about it. I'll be here until four o'clock. My plane leaves at six. It was less than twenty-four hours and nothing drastic was going to change in twenty-four hours.

That's not going to change anything. You're being unreasonable.

I'm doing the best thing for both of us. You have to make up your mind.

You act as though it's a choice I have, when I don't ' as though I were being capricious or whimsical ' when all I'm doing is facing my responsibilities here.

What about your responsibilities to me? ' to yourself ' even to that child? Don't you owe each of us something more, the guts to go after what you want ' if it really is what you want.

You know it is.

Then come with me. Or at least promise you'll come soon.

I can't promise that. She covered her face with her hands, thinking of the dilemma she was in. I can't promise you anything.

He nodded. He had understood the risk when he'd come. But at least it would be over now. She would either agree to marry him, or he would close the door on everything he felt for her. He wasn't going to play games with her anymore, or with himself. He owed himself that much.

There was silence in the cab when he took her home, and he touched her face very gently before he kissed her good night. I'm not doing it to be cruel ' but we have to make a clean break, if that's what it's going to be ' for both our sakes.

Why? She didn't understand. Why now? Is there someone else? That possibility hadn't even occurred to her until that point, but he shook his head.

I'm doing it because I can't live without you, and if I have to, then I'd better get used to it. Starting now.

You're being unfair. But she had thought that when he refused to write to her when she had turned down the proposal he had cabled to Harbin. Look at the responsibilities I have.

There will always be something, Aud. You have to make a choice now.

She shook her head, looking grief-stricken and he followed her out of the cab and kissed her on the front steps. I love you.

I love you too. But there was nothing she could do. And when she went to her room, she took the sleeping baby in her arms, feeling her warmth next to her, and listened to the little purring sounds of her breath. She was thinking of everything he had said, about wanting to many her ' about the children he wanted to have ' it was just rotten luck that he wanted everything now, and she sat at the breakfast table the next morning, staring woodenly at her plate, having slept barely at all, and her grandfather stared at her with a fierce frown to mask his own worry. He sensed that she was very unhappy.