“On my way,” he said warily, but then his face melted into a glowing smile.“You look like a tiger ready to spring.You look wonderful.”
Eleanor sat down abruptly, fighting an immediate reaction to his smile.“You are the most abominable man I have ever known.You planned to arrive late, knowing it would drive me to distraction!”
The smile faded.“It is only nine o’clock,” he said, control back in place.
Eleanor remembered Miss Hurstman’s advice and looked at his hands.They were clenched upon his York tan gloves like a vice.
“So it is,” she said more moderately, but coldly.“Only twenty-one earlier hours in the day.Was I supposed to stay up if you came at a minute to midnight?”
Watching her carefully, as if she were indeed an angry tiger, he moved into the room and shut the door.Then he chose a chair fairly close to the one in which she sat.
“As far as I knew you were still retiring early.”
Eleanor stiffened.“So you did come as late as possible!”
“I have my pride, too.Did you not expect something like this?”
Eleanor sighed.“No, but Miss Hurstman did.Perhaps you should have married her.”
“An attractive idea,” he said, with a glittering smile quite unlike his usual one.“But I’m married to you.”
“That’s the trouble, isn’t it?You’re tied to me and are trying to make the best of it.Thank you, but I will not live on crumbs any longer!”
Instantly he was across the room and had grasped her.He pulled her to her feet.“Eleanor, what are we doing?My God, but I must be making a worse mess of this than I thought possible.”
“So!”she hissed in rage of pain.“Once you are balked, all the vaunted restraint is gone!Am I going to be raped again?”
His hands dropped like stones.There was a deadly silence.Eleanor couldn’t even breathe.
Carefully he returned to sit in his chair.What have I done?Eleanor asked herself over and over again.She sat down with a thump and looked at him warily, her hands over her mouth.
She did not see anger in his eyes or disgust.Only a desperate concentration.
“Let’s start this again.I came late.I’m sorry if I upset you.I’m not even sure that was my intent or not.My feelings about you are not always logical.You told me to go away for three weeks, and I took the notion to do just that.I returned three weeks to the minute after you had asked me to leave.I did think of returning three days after I left the house.I gather that would not have been a good idea.”
“Not a very good one, no,” said Eleanor faintly.
“This isn’t the time for playing games.Eleanor, do you want my presence or my absence?”
He was so cool, so judicial.She remembered telling Lucien she wanted to strip him down to truth.Where was the truth in this?She spoke from her aching heart.“Do you love me?”
Color flushed his cheeks.He laughed shakily.“Do I love you?So much that I have no words to say.Let me borrow.‘For nothing this wide universe I call save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.’”
The words floated on the warm air of the room and drifted over to settle in Eleanor’s heart.
“Why do you think,” he asked, “I have tried so hard to get you back?”
“But you never lost me, Nicholas.I thought you were just trying to make something out of our marriage.”
He shook his head.“And I took you for a wise woman.Eleanor, Eleanor…” He lapsed into silence and frowned.“As I said to Miss Hurstman once, I have debased my art.All the usual endearments sound squalid to my ears.You are my life, Eleanor, I swear to you.Beside you, all other women might as well be plaster statues … May I touch you yet?”
She gazed at him, gloriously happy … and bewildered.
“What…?Oh!”
She flung herself into his arms.He met her halfway.They kissed awkwardly at first, and then with desperation, and then with satisfaction, until he broke away and guided her to the sofa.
Gently nibbling at her ear he murmured, “Do I gather I’m accepted back as your husband, or are you just going to have an affair with me?”
