After he’d caught his breath, he said, “I’m sorry, Diana. I had every intention of being a good host and letting you rest from your journey. But when I saw you there . . .” He let his head fall back on his arm, his eyes shadowed.
Turning her head until her face was only inches from his, Diana said, “I’m not sorry. You have quite cured me of travel fatigue.” Though he wore most of his clothing, she was wholly naked, and she shivered as the chill air struck that portion of her damp skin that was turned from the fire. Seeing the motion, Gervase reached for her cloak and pulled it over her.
In spite of their physical nearness, he was remote from her, his expression harsh and withdrawn. Diana leaned across the short gap for a light kiss, asking softly, “Is something wrong?”
His expression was obscured, and he was silent for too long. When his words finally came they were reluctant, as if saying something he was loath to admit. “You’re like . . . an addiction. The more I have of you, the more I crave you.”
“And you dislike that?”
“I don’t want to need anyone. Ever.”
In the face of such uncompromising words, Diana wondered whether she should even try to reply. The chill of his mood dispelled her satisfied contentment and she sat up, wrapping her cloak around her. Without true intimacy, it seemed wrong to be naked in front of him.
She stared into the fire, wondering what one could say to a man who preferred aloneness, who wanted to be sufficient unto himself. “You need air to survive, and food and drink and sleep. To be fully human, one also needs other people. Why do you find that so unacceptable?”
Discussing such matters showed vulnerability, and there was a long interval before he replied. “Needing things is safe enough. One kind of food can easily replace another. To need people is dangerous because . . . it gives them power over you.”
Still looking at the fire, she drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs, folds of cloak spilling around her to the rug. “Sometimes that is true, but why do you assume that others will always use their power against you?”
With a hard, brittle laugh he said, “Experience.”
She turned then to face him. “Can you truly say that everyone you’ve ever cared about has abused your trust?”
Silence. Then, “No. The risk increases with the level of caring. If one cares only a little, there is only a little danger. The real risk is in . . . caring greatly.”
She felt pity that he couldn’t even bring himself to say the wordlove. What had happened to him, that the very thought of loving was so frightening?
She stood and said, her voice gently mocking, “Then you are in no danger from me. I can see what a bother it must be that your lust is temporarily out of control, but sex is just a ‘thing,’ like the need for food and drink. Take comfort in the fact that soon I will not be a novelty and you can easily replace me with another woman.”
Turning away, she wished he would go so she could give way to tears. Now she understood why Madeline had warned her against Gervase; it was a mistake to love a man who daren’t love in return. If he could not transcend his fears, there would be no future for the two of them.
Gervase stood also, coming behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her against the length of his body. His voice soft and sad, he asked, “Can I replace you that easily, Diana? Is that all that is between us, intemperate lust that will soon wane?”
She held her body rigid, fighting the desire to melt back against him. “I can’t answer that. Only you can.”
“But I don’t know the answer. I don’t even understand the question.”
Speaking from her own hurt, she said brittlely, “You don’t pay me enough to teach you the questions.”
His arms dropped away, and when he spoke, it was in a voice of cool irony. “Good of you to remind me what is really between us. Since it is only vulgar money, there can be no danger.”
She turned to face him, her slanting blue eyes stark with unhappiness. “You said that, not I. If that is what you choose to believe, then of course it must be the truth. The customer is always right.”
He flinched back at her words. “If only it were that simple.” With his Indian mistress Sananda, ithadbeen that simple. Only their bodies connected, never their minds and spirits. He put his hands on Diana’s shoulders and drew her to him. “But even after that spectacular sexual exchange has discharged physical desire, I still want you. And so I fear you.”
She softened then, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. “Do you really think I would ever hurt you?”
He laid his cheek against her tangled hair, the scent of lilac poignant around her, and replied so softly that she could barely hear the words. “I don’t know. I really . . . just . . . do not know. And that is what frightens me.”
His heartbeat was slow and strong beneath her ear. It was impossible to be angry with Gervase when she could feel his pain and confusion as sharply as her own. Despairingly she knew that she wanted to embark on the ultimate folly: to try to heal him with her love. She was a fool, a helpless, gullible fool. Perhaps it would be better for both of them if they ended it right now. Fighting to keep her voice level, she asked, “Do you want me to leave Aubynwood?”
His arms tightened around her. “I don’t want you to leave. I just. . . . want you. And that’s the hell of it.”
* * *
After he left Diana, Gervase went outside without stopping for a coat, hating himself both for needing Diana and for hurting her. The ground was stone hard in the cold and he found himself taking the path he had always followed as a child when he was escaping his keepers. It led upward through dark trees to the top of a hill behind the house. A stranger to the terrain would have seen nothing, but Gervase’s feet still knew the way.
There was a belvedere on the top of the hill, a charming folly built in his grandfather’s time, and it offered shelter from the biting wind. Too tense to sit on the carved stone bench inside, he stood with a hand on one of the Doric columns that framed the entrance.
