“Have I changed so much that you would deny my touch?”
He could not suppress his laughter. “Changed?” He shook his head. The girl he had wanted all those years ago had blossomed into a fully-fledged woman. Her hair had grown darker, her skin smooth and pale, her eyes as mysterious as a night sky, and her body as lush as a sculpted, Greek goddess. If he could, if he weren’t the nobleman his parents had raised him to be, instead of providing a verbal answer, he’d strip her down and lead her to his bed and show her how he felt.
“James.” This time her fingers slid up his arm, leaving a burning trail in their wake. “I am only returned because my father is deathly ill. As soon as I landed at the harbor, I hired a coach to bring me here. I care not about my father’s condition, he has been nothing but controlling and cruel to me, depriving me of any happiness all this time. Please, believe me.”
What hell had he slipped into? He looked around, skeptical about the reality of what he was experiencing. He had mixed wine with whiskey, a bad choice for any man. Hallucination was not an uncommon effect of drunkenness. And she, his dark-winged bird, had haunted his life for so long. That she should appear to him now, well, it did not surprise him. How many lonely nights had he prayed and begged for the power to conjure her? To behold her a last time before her memory forever slipped from his mind.
“You are not real,” he said. “You are but a figment of my imagination, a symptom of my underlying sadness. Nothing more.”
“James,” she pleaded. “You are but weak and weary—sit with me and rest. Once you have recovered from the initial shock, you will see I am as real as this house or that burning fire. I am the woman you love.”
She was as beguiling as ever—perhaps more so because he recognized her for what she was, a phantom, a nightmare come to life, a fantasy—or if he worded it more honestly, a lie.
“Be gone!” he said.
But she did not move from her place beside him, only caressed his cheek. Her fingers were warm, filled with light and life. Perhaps he was the dead one, the embers of passion that had burned within him finally gone out.
“The face of an angel,” he muttered. “But the heart of the devil.”
She covered her mouth in shock, her delicate gasp music to his ears. “Is this how you think of me?”
“Shall I give you a real taste of what I think, Raven?”
“I fought for my freedom,” she insisted. “For the right to return home. And twice I made it to Athens, only to be stopped by the authorities, humiliated, and forcibly returned to the house my father had rented to keep me prisoner in.”
He swallowed hard, nodding with understanding. “I, too, have been held prisoner.”
With a sigh, she moved to one of the wingback chairs and sat down. “I am exhausted, James.” She folded her hands on her lap, still watching him. “There was a fierce storm as we crossed the Mediterranean Sea. I thought…”
“That you would meet a watery end?” he finished for her.
“Yes.”
“Twould have been a better fate than landing at my gloomy doorstep.”
“James!” She sat forward. “Have you really changed so much? Given up on life? On me? Did I not promise to always love you? To marry you?”
“A promise made in the heat of the moment. What girl your age had any right to promise herself to a man such as I? You were an innocent, beautiful and wild. And me… I wanted to possess you at any cost.”
“I willingly pledged myself to you. You needn’t have paid anything for me, James. Your smile stole my heart, and your hands… Do you remember our first dance, our first kiss?”
Damn her for forcing him to relive those moments in front of her. Twas humiliating enough to do it alone in the dark of night. “I remember.” He would not surrender to her pretty face and mesmerizing voice so easily.
“We performed the waltz—despite the disapproval of every chaperone and matron at the ball.”
“Yes.”
“And you held me much too close, James.”
“I did.”
“And you steered us away from the dance floor and out the balcony doors.”
Into the perfect moonlit night. Yes, he remembered it even if he fought not to. Everything had been perfect that night. The gardens were the best place to take her for privacy, to explore her mind and body. It had taken but one look and smile to convince him she was the woman he wanted. “You were as determined as I,” he reminded her.
“Yes, I will not deny it.”
“So enchanting in your white gown embellished with embroidered pink roses and tiny crystals.”
