Page 80

“We were in Misiones, in northern Argentina, camped for the night. We should have stayed by the fire, but it was hot, and we could hear the river, and I had one of my raving-mad impulses, jumped up, said I’d be the first one in the water.”

He realized he’d gripped her back, too hard. He was mashing her fingers. He risked a glance at her, was staggered by the receptivity he saw in her eyes. She was ready to hear anything he had to say.

He turned his gaze back to the rolling green grounds. He’d lived with the regret, the remorse, for too long now.

“I said I’d race James to the bank. I knew he couldn’t ever resist a challenge. I didn’t know he’d taken off his boots. I started running, and he followed, and—

His throat closed and she kissed his bruised knuckles as he watched the sunlight dazzle on glass.

“He stepped on a viper.” He tried to say it without transporting back to that night, but the memory was too vivid. He was there in the jungle, enclosed by dense vegetation that all but swallowed James’s shout.

“It bit him on the foot. We were too far from Posadas. I knew it, but I got him on the horse anyway. We rode until he begged me to stop. I’d wrapped his ankle as tight as I could to slow the venom, but he tore off the wrapping. His leg was so swollen he couldn’t bend his knee. He was bleeding from his gums. His nose.”

“Neal,” she whispered, and he realized she was calling him back to himself. He fixed his eyes on her face.

“I should have let him stay there, talked to him while he could still hear me. But I dragged him back onto the horse. He was in agony but we rode all night. For what? He wasn’t breathing when we reached Posadas.”

“You had to try.” Her eyes were too bright. Her insistence moved him. He swallowed.

“He’s buried there. All those cases of flowers I sent across the ocean to Varnham . . .” He could hear his voice getting huskier. “And I left James behind in that red dirt.”

She pressed closer to him, pulling their clasped hands onto her lap, the silk cool against his skin. They listened for a moment to the fountain.

“It worked out well for me. That’s what some people say.” His shoulders tightened. Why was he telling her this? The rumors had salted the wound. Within two weeks of accepting Charles’s offer, he’d tried to resign. “Here I am, head of Varnham. A usurper, if not a murderer.”

She didn’t gasp. Her gaze held steady. “People will say anything. You know the truth, and Charles knows the truth.” She hesitated. “I know the truth.”

Slowly, his muscles were loosening. Christ, he’d been maudlin. Embarrassment mingled with relief. As bizarre as anything else: the confidences she could elicit from him, and the easement she offered with a few words, a look from those bluebell-blue eyes. Jacinthe de bois eyes.

He almost smiled, managed a nod, dismissing the subject. “It was just idle talk.” And it had been. Painful, but short-lived. He’d developed solid relationships with old and new clients, worked like a dog to prove himself to the gardeners, laid most, if not all, of the rumors to rest. But she was still looking steadily. Not fooled by his casual tone.

“Charles Varnham was right to trust you,” she said, and smiled at him, a smile of such loveliness his breath caught. “You’re devoted to this place, to his legacy. To James.”

He itched to wrap his arms around her. Was he really going to put her on a steamer, wave once from the dock, and return to his life as though this whole episode had been a fairy-dusted dream?

“You said I can’t be trusted,” he reminded her.

Her hand turned in his, and her gaze wavered. He put a finger under her chin, tipped her head up.

“I should have said I can’t trust you.” She breathed the words, and they stared at each other. He’d seen her features blurred with pleasure, heard her breath break, felt her clutch around him, but this look was somehow more intimate. “You are different from . . .” Her voice dipped. “George.”

He was holding his breath, willing her to say more.

“You’re capable of the kind of love I used to dream about.” The sadness in her eyes seemed to tinge the sunlight blue.

The growl in his chest escaped. Dammit, she denied him too much to speak of love. Every particular of her history.

“Tell me who you are.” He forced her chin higher. “Give me more than just Lavinia, betrayed by George. What of your family? Your friends?”

He felt her chin trembling, caught her whole face in his hands.

“If you can trust me, if you can tell me the worst, I can face it with you, whatever it is.”

She ducked her head, breaking his hold.

“Why are you running?” He spoke to her hair, the tip of her nose, the curve of her bottom lip.

Her chest heaved. At first, he thought it the prelude to a sob. Then he realized it heralded decision.