“As I’m sure you know, Geoffrey could fend for himself with his bare hands. The boy is most resourceful.”
“A trait he shares with his mother, to be sure.”
Gratification, warm and liquid, spread through Mariana, and her mouth clamped shut. She no longer thought herself capable of easy banter.
In a move born of sudden necessity, her hand slid off his arm, and her feet stepped off the path before wandering into the heart of Marie de’ Medici’s famed elm thicket, the only sounds the crunch of mulch beneath their feet and the wind rustling the leaves in the trees.
Although she experienced a pang for the loss of him, it couldn’t be helped. Complete and rational thoughts refused to form when any part of her body touched him. And she most definitely needed to be rational when it was only he and she and the trees.
“You don’t prefer we walk together?” he called out to her back.
His words stopped her in her tracks. Within them she detected a note at once open and vulnerable. It was a note that made her insides go light.
When she turned around, she saw that she’d raced some twenty yards ahead of him. They stared across the verdant expanse at one another until she broke the silence. “No one can see us.” She paused a beat and gathered the courage to speak a truth that they both needed to hear. “Villefranche is gone. There is no need to pretend here.”
His eyes held hers another moment. The intensity within them caught her unawares. At last, he asked, “Pretend what?”
“That we’re truly man and wife.”
~ ~ ~
Across the open expanse of leaf-strewn forest floor, Mariana was the picture of a startled deer poised to flee at his slightest movement. She could very well slip through his fingers, and he could lose her, forever. He couldn’t let that happen. He must do or say something, anything to hold her in place.
From beneath the weight of his desperation slithered a possibility: the truth. He could correct a lie, the very lie that had torn them apart in the first place. No longer would it stand between them.
“Ten years ago,” he began. Her head canted to the side in curiosity. She was listening. He must make his next words count. “The opera singer was a ruse.”
Her eyes went flat. She didn’t feign ignorance and ask which opera singer. Instead, she closed herself off to him. He saw it in her face and felt it in the air. They’d never once discussed the opera singer beyond that fateful night.
At last, she broke the silence, her voice hollow and unsteady. “A ruse?” He wasn’t certain she was aware that she’d taken a step forward. He responded in kind—any excuse to close the distance between them. “And for whom was thisruse?” she continued. Bitter sarcasm laced her words and marred her lovely face. He’d done this to her.
“We needed to draw out a vicious enemy agent, and the opera singer was his lover. Among his many faults, the man also happened to be extremely jealous.”
“Ah, I see.” Her features went hard.
“I’m almost certain you don’t.” He might have just made matters worse.
“It’s an easy puzzle to sort out,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “It began as a ruse, but soon cold calculation turned into a red-hot passion that wouldn’t be denied. Am I close?”
“Not remotely.”
“It seems,” she barreled on, “last night wasn’t such an anomaly for you. Yourmétierhas certain perquisites.”
A mean left hook from Gentleman Jackson himself couldn’t have floored Nick more effectively. “I never made love to her.”
Mariana’s mouth snapped shut, her eyebrows knit together, and a heartbeat passed. “It occurs to me that you had the opportunity to explain this pertinent fact ten years ago. Or during any of the time since.”
He could walk away. There was yet time for that.
Or he could speak the truth. He wasn’t ready to walk away from her.
“I needed you to toss me out, and I needed it to be real.” As if to foreground his revelation, the wind stopped breezing through the trees, offering him a still and quiet confessional. “Your life was in danger, and I made the choice to keep you safe.”
Her eyes widened in incredulity. “Do you expect me to thank you? You made the decision alone to end our marriage—”
“Family men are vulnerable,” he cut in. “It makes their families vulnerable. I should have never brought you into that world.”
“Didn’t I deserve a choice in the matter?” she asked, betrayal and hurt quaking her voice. “I thought I meant more than that to you.”
