Alex looked down into the shocked elfin face, the gray eyes wide and staring. It was unbearable to think that all her honesty and warmth would be wasted on a man who kept her as a toy for idle hours. In a voice laced with anguish he asked, “Is it so much better to be his whore than my wife?”
As Christa stared at Alex in horrified paralysis, he turned away, saying with tightly controlled violence, “He may have you, but I’ll bedamnedif I’ll let him have my sister too!”
He brushed her aside to test the knob but could see the heavy metal bolt bridging the crack between the doors. A quick walk to the salon confirmed that the other door was also locked.
Someone was playing games, and it was the last fuel needed to create a murderous rage. Alex considered kicking the door open, but the thickness of the oak and the width of the bolt made that more likely to break his foot than to free him from this intolerable captivity.
He was in no mood for anticlimax, so he grabbed a heavy upholstered chair and hurled it into the lock. The bolt shattered free of the wood as the doors flew open and the chair tumbled into the foyer. Alex was almost out the door when he heard a sound that stopped him dead in his tracks. Christa was laughing.
He could not force her to love him, but it was unbearable that she mocked his agony. With the compressed violence of a tiger ready to spring, he stalked toward Christa. Her back was to the window so he could not see her face clearly, but her brittle laughter cut to the bone.
Alex stopped at a safe distance, afraid that if he went any closer he would be tempted to wring her neck. “You think it’s funny, madam?” he said in a dangerously soft tone. “Shall I cut my heart out for an encore? You should find thatreallyamusing.”
“Oh, this is already unbelievably droll,” she said as anger began to overcome pain. “You come into my home, you insult me and my entire family, and after you have destroyed some of Adams’s finest work, you have the audacity to condemn me. All because I am living in my brother’s house! You should be grateful that I am laughing. If Charles were here, he would call you out. I should myself!”
Alex was paralyzed with the same kind of shock he had felt when an almost spent musket ball had slammed into his midriff. He stammered, “Your . . . your brother?”
Her voice was icy. “My half brother. Charles, Lord Radcliffe.”
Unconsciously imitating his sister’s confusion of several weeks before, he said, “But Lord Radcliffe is surely English?”
“He is half French. His father was the Earl of Radcliffe, mine the Comte d’Estelle.”
Alex shook his head, trying to make sense of what Christa was saying. Since she was French . . . “Then you are a countess in your own right?”
She shrugged. “The Assembly abolished aristocratic titles several years ago, so there are no more French countesses. Now, if you will excuse me, I think it is time I left!”
As Christa brushed past him toward the door, the sun fell full on her and he saw the tears coursing down her face. Racked by the recognition of a pain as great as his own, Alex reached out to her in a despairing attempt to make amends. “God in heaven, Christa, forgive me!”
As his arm blocked her path, Christa turned into his embrace, blindly burying her face against his chest while she sobbed as if she would never stop. Alex’s own control shattered as he enfolded her in his arms, vainly attempting to still her frantic tears.
“Oh, Christa, Christa,” Alex said despairingly as he used physical touch to heal the mental wounds he’d inflicted on her. “I would give my life to save you from pain, and yet I have hurt you again with my own stupid jealousy and misunderstanding.”
Christa shook uncontrollably, unable to walk away even if she had wished. Scooping her up in his arms, Alex carried her to a sofa and sat with her on his lap, stroking and comforting her as if she were a child. As he rocked her gently, her sobs abated but she kept her face buried away from him.
“It’s too much to hope that you will forgive me,” he said quietly when her tears were finally stilled. “My anger came from grief, but what I said was still inexcusable.”
She wouldn’t look at him. Her voice raw, she asked, “Why were you so sure that Charles was my lover? You only heard me say his name once.”
Alex massaged her back gently, feeling the tightness of her body gradually diminish. “When you left the Orchard, I followed as soon as I could and went to Suzanne’s, hoping to find you. What I saw was your reunion with your brother.”
Christa lifted her head in surprise. “I see. If you were there, it would have been easy to reach the wrong conclusion.” She stopped a moment. “You should not have been traveling so soon! You had very nearly died the week before. You might have made yourself very ill again.”
“I did.”
She attempted a watery smile. “You appear recovered now.”
Alex was looking puzzled. “I am still trying to put the pieces together, Christa. How did you come to be a lady’s maid? Surely your family did not leave you destitute.”
She sighed and laid her head back against his chest. “It was very complicated. Charles’s uncle, who succeeded him, did not know how my fortune was tied up and told me I was penniless. He also offered for me in a manner I found . . . alarming, so I ran away. I felt alone and defenseless, and perhaps I also felt a need to start a new life. It made a great deal of sense at the time.
“Since I could not find a situation as governess, I became Lady Pomfret’s abigail. Even former countesses must eat, after all. You know the rest.” Christa knew that she should move, but the comfort of his arms and the emotional storms of the last half hour created a lassitude that made action impossible.
Alex ran his fingers through her hair, delicately stroking her ear in a way that caused shivers throughout her body. As her head lay against his chest, Christa could feel the vibrations of his deep voice as he asked softly, “Why did you run away from me?”
“Because it seemed there was no future and no comfort in staying. I had no desire to witness your wedding to Miss Debenham.”
“I asked you to marry me. Surely that deserved an answer?”
