Try as he might, he couldn’t find the answer.
“Please,” she entreated softly. “Tell me of it.”
He cocked his brows uncertainly.
Inconceivably, there was no condemnation in her voice, no loathing in her eyes. God, it felt so good to reveal himself to her. A strange calm threatened to steal over him, and for the first time in his life he felt he could trust, truly trust, another human being.
Plucking a grape from the platter before them, he pitched it at her. It fell halfway between them, and he retrieved it, pitching it again. “There’s isn’t much to the tale... nothing sensational to speak of.” He went still, remembering. “I simply looked into his eyes and knew the truth.”
He shook his head and reached out to pluck another grape, placing it within his mouth. Plucking another, he fed it to Jessie. She accepted his offering with a sad smile, urging him, with her silence and her persuasive green gaze, to continue. Her eyes... God... how they seemed to reach into his soul and draw out the words, never mind that they’d never been spoken before now.
Uncomfortable with her scrutiny, he lay back upon the blanket, locking his hands behind his head, and peered into the treetops as he continued, “It was the strangest thing,” he said, “but for the space of an instant, the years were stripped away... and it was as though I were left gazing into a looking glass at my own reflection, blue eyes and all. I just knew.”
Staring past the lush greenery into the clear azure sky, Christian waited for her to speak—to say something, anything—words that would give him some small hint of how she felt about his shocking disclosure. When she said nothing for a long moment, he rolled to face her. Propping his head upon his hand, he stared into her eyes, hoping to see into her heart. What he saw there in the shimmering depth of her eyes gave root to his burgeoning sense of peace. Once again he felt compelled to go on; the need to purge himself of the blackness was strong, and it seemed that she, and she alone, had the ability to absolve him with her soul-cleansing gaze.
“My brother has gray eyes,” he told her softly, “as did our father. My mother has beautiful brown eyes, so deep and dark, they seem almost fathomless. And I, well, I was the only one in the brood with eyes of blue—and God... at that moment, Jessie... looking into Jean Paul’s face... his eyes... so many things became comprehensible at last.”
“What sort of things?” Taking a grape for herself, she offered another to Christian, as he had done for her. He repaid her gesture with a lopsided grin.
“For one...” He took it, but placed it against her own lips, and smiled when she accepted it so easily. This ease between them felt good—better than anything had in all his years. “Jean Paul appointed himself guardian over my mother and me when first we took up residence with my grandparents in France—a fact that always bedeviled me, that this man, so in love with the sea, would bind himself to a woman and child not his own. It made no sense at all.”
“Do you think, perhaps, he did so out of guilt for his part in your mother’s... predicament? She left England, I know. Only it was never known precisely why.”
“She was banished by my father, actually—we both were.” He glanced away, uncomfortable with the emotions that surfaced in that instant. “She was glad enough to go, I think. I always believed she was in love with Jean Paul, though for my sake she masked it well.”
His gaze returned to her, gauging her expression. Nothing. He could discern nothing.
“For her parents, as well, of course; she would have spared them any injury.”
He plucked another grape, squeezing it gently, anticipating her reaction; veiled disgust, revulsion perhaps.
He was unprepared for sympathy. “How very sad. I’m so sorry for you,” she whispered.
The grape burst, spurting juice everywhere. She cried softly, wincing as it sprayed her face. Wiping a droplet from her lip with a fingertip, she held his gaze, smiling wanly. Christian tossed the grape over his shoulder. Sympathy was not precisely the emotion he’d sought from her.
“Don’t be. I was rendered quite speechless by the discovery at the time, but I’ve no contention in my soul over it a’tall. I welcomed the knowledge of Jean Paul as my fatherwholeheartedly, embraced it even, for it made so many things bearable.”
“Truly?”
Their gazes met and held; stark blue and healing green.
Jessie’s look was so compassionate, her eyes so luminous with concern, that Christian experienced the sudden inexorable urge to kiss her distress away, to assure her that he’d come away from it all unscathed. Years of mistrust compelled him to say instead, “You must swear to me, Jessamine, that you will never repeat a word of what I have revealed to you. I only wanted you to understand that I’m not the exemplary man you think me.” He lifted her delicate chin with a finger. “Every time you look at me,ma belle vie, I see... I see reverence. Trust me when I tell you I’m the last soul upon this earth to deserve it.”
“Nay! Never say so! You are?—”
He lifted a finger to her lips. “Hush, my love,” he commanded her.
He brushed a wayward curl from her face. His fingers caressed her sun-flushed cheek, moving to the silky thickness of her hair, gliding through it reverently, catching finally at the blue satin binding that kept her wild curls so neat and tidy. He drew the ribbon free, releasing her glorious hair.
Without warning, he drew her down beside him and rolled atop her, pinning her beneath him in one easy movement. She didn’t protest. Her breath caught and she cried out.
There was no fear in her lovely eyes, none at all, and relief surged through him. God help him, he doubted he could restrain himself much longer. And this moment, he wanted more than merely to soothe his troubled spirit. He needed to appease his body’s beastly hunger. He went about each day in a semi aroused state, and in her presence it became unbearable. What manner of hold did she have upon him that he would subject himself to such monstrous torture? That he would feel driven to protecther from himself? He wanted her so desperately that he actually ached with his need of her, and still he restrained himself.
Jessie knew she should object—indeed, knew shemust! But Lord, how she wanted him to kiss her again!
Her soul ached for it.
Her mouth craved the feel of him.
