by Lara Temple
She began pulling off her gloves and did not appear to be listening to him, so he pulled the reins on his own confusion. He looked about the room. The parlour was decorated in colours of wood and sky. It suited Sam so much better than Greybourne’s heavy colours. They would not suit Sam in the least. He did not suit her in the least.
It wasn’t his fault. She’d inserted herself into his life and he had hardly any time to consider the benefits or the costs of marrying her. He’d acted on pure impulse. Greed.
Lust.
Need.
Eight years of bottled-up, unsatisfied, unspoken, hardly admitted lust and a need he didn’t even understand.
He’d wanted her eight years ago and that want tainted his marriage from the very beginning. And he’d wanted her again the moment he saw her howling at the skies above Bab el-Nur.
And that was all he’d thought when he accepted her proposal. Little more than: ‘Finally!’
Impulse. Nothing good happened when he acted on impulse.
He’d offered for Dora on impulse, because she’d represented a world that was the opposite of the war-ravaged hell he’d been desperate to put behind him—Dora had been light-hearted, carefree, she’d grasped pleasure with both hands and pushed aside unpleasantness. She’d been everything he thought he wanted to become. But it was precisely those characteristics he’d come to resent, and when they hurt Jacob, he’d come to hate them and Dora.
Now he’d married Sam on impulse as well because...because he wanted her. Because the moment the possibility of her marrying someone else was raised every nerve and muscle in his body protested at the thought of another man having her. It had been as fierce as grief and it scared him enough to say yes without thinking it through and now he was paying the price, but what was worse—so was Sam. He hated seeing her like this, hated being the cause of it.
‘Sam...’
‘You lied to me, Edge.’
‘I didn’t lie...’
She held up her hand and it was more powerful than a blast of wrath because he would have preferred that she be Sam and yell at him.
‘You lied. I thought...of all the people, I thought I could trust you, Edge. I always knew there were limits to this union, but I never thought I would not be able to trust your word.’
‘Sam.’
‘Leave me be. Go talk to your lawyers and see if they have learned anything more about Rafe. That is what matters most now, no? We can talk...later. I’m tired.’
She sounded exhausted and he felt it. He felt beaten.
He turned and left as he was bid.
Chapter Twelve
The temple gates groaned and heaved like a wounded beast trying to rise.
Khonsu placed a hand between Gabriel’s shoulder blades and shoved him forward. ‘Don’t believe anything you see inside, young Gabriel. Remember Seth tricked Osiris himself. A dung beetle stands a better chance than you.’
—Lost in the Valley of the Moon,
Desert Boy Book Three
Sam turned over in the darkness, wishing she could sleep, but her thoughts were pounding away like Ayisha smashing chickpeas and sorghum in her pestle. Smash, smash, smash. The same thoughts over and over and going nowhere, catapulting her between fury and despair.
She didn’t know where Edge had gone or when he would return. If he would return. Perhaps she should not have sent him away. Twice.
But his lie burned and burned.
Edge is Mr Bunny.
Edge is a liar. By omission, but a liar. The worst kind of liar—a stupid liar who didn’t even have enough respect for her to realise she would find out. She almost wished she had discovered he had a mistress...
She turned over again, grinding her teeth. No, that wasn’t true. But it felt equally a betrayal.
The bastard! The son of a flea-bitten, mangy cur of a... No that wasn’t fair. Dogs were far more reliable and faithful.
And loving.
What a fool she was to trust him—fool that she was, she’d read into his quiet and calm all manner of depths that he did not possess in the least. She’d truly believed Edge would never betray her. Her world had always stood on shaky ground. Growing up, she’d never known where they might be the next year, whether her mother would succeed in pushing back the veil of pain or whether she and her brothers would be mostly left to their own devices.
Like the desert of ever-changing dunes, she could never know from year to year what the landscape would look like, but even in a world built upon shifting sands there were some constants. Or so she’d thought. Her sense of stability should not depend on him, but losing that bedrock that was Edge... It left her adrift. Threw her back years and years to when they’d been plucked from England without explanation and then not long after she began to understand Venice they’d been plucked up again and taken to Egypt like so many sheep. She and her brothers and Edge had come together in that unpredictable adult world.
She’d believed without question that Lucas and Chase would defend her up to and through the very gates of hell. She believed Edge would take her seriously even when he wanted to strangle her, would watch over her even when they wished each other at the devil and would never ever lie to her, even when she’d wanted him to. Ever since she could think rationally she’d concluded he and her brothers were the only beings on this earth she truly trusted.
Had trusted.
She’d needed to trust him and he’d taken that away from her as well. She didn’t know where that left her world.
She could kick herself for being such a fool. No. She’d rather kick him. He was a sneaksby, a coward, an inconsiderate lump of cloddish muck you scraped from a camel’s hoof. She wished she could push him off a thousand temple roofs and he would land on a bed of spiky sabaar...
She froze as the connecting door between their rooms opened slowly and the wall glowed with candlelight from the dressing room.
She had not even heard him return, damn the man for moving so stealthily.
She closed her eyes very slowly, as if the mere motion of her eyelids could be detected. There was nothing she could do to relax the tension in her body without being obvious, but she hoped he understood the silent message and went away. If he thought he could waltz into her bedroom as if he’d done nothing worse than returning late from his club...
Did Edge belong to any clubs before he left London? She didn’t even know. There were so many things she didn’t know about him...
She stiffened further as she sensed rather than heard him move towards the bed.
Blast it, she couldn’t keep up the pretence of being asleep. Her whole body was itching to jump up and yell at him.
The bed sank under his weight as he sat and his fingers rested gently on her shoulder. A wail of hurt welled up in her and the words burst from her.
‘I don’t want you here.’
‘I’m so sorry, Sam.’ He withdrew his hand and his voice was flat, utterly Edge, but she thought she heard true regret there, though perhaps it was merely because he wished to put this confrontation behind him. She wished she could tell.
‘So am I, Edge.’
‘I was wrong.’
‘I’m tired, Edge.’
‘You cannot ignore me for ever, Sam. We are married.’
‘So we are.’ She turned her back to him, pulling the cover higher.
‘Damn it, get angry, throw something. This isn’t like you!’
‘I’ve changed. You always wanted me to change, didn’t you? You should be happy. Now go away.’
‘No. Turn around and talk to me.’
‘No. Go away.’
‘What are you most angry at—that I am the author of that I did not tell you?’
‘That you didn’t trust me.’
He fell silent. She could hear the strain of his breath and the image of that looming bear rose over her again and she sp
oke before she thought. ‘I’m scared.’
‘Scared?’
‘I had two things in my life—my brothers and my...your books. And now this marriage and you. Except now you are the books and I don’t... I haven’t... I’m not making any sense, am I?’
‘I...a little?’
‘Everything has always moved in my life. There was no home, I never knew where we would be next year or the year after that. My father disappeared before I even truly remembered him. One moment he was the most wonderful man and the next he was a terrible one. I never knew if my mother would be happy when I woke in the morning or back on her island of grief, betrayed and abandoned. When I met Ricki I thought...at least he was so open, so present, there would be no horrible surprises, but then I discovered he had a daughter no one ever mentioned.’
His indrawn breath was a hiss like water striking the fire. She tensed as well and almost stopped. Discussing children was clearly dangerous territory for Edge and discussing Maria... But she didn’t want Edge to believe she’d resented another man’s child. She rubbed her forehead and forced herself forward.
‘I wouldn’t have cared if he’d told me. Maria was the most marvellous little girl you could imagine, I would... I did welcome her into our home. Even if she was not mine, she would be our children’s big sister and I wanted her to be part of the family we would have. I didn’t even have to try to be kind to her—she made it so easy to love her...’
Her voice cracked and his hand curved around her arm, and she could feel her pulse leaping against his fingertips.
‘Perhaps...perhaps he was afraid of disappointing you?’ he asked. His voice was as tentative as his touch.
‘No, Edge. I would have understood and forgiven that, believe me. It wasn’t it at all—Ricki just never thought it was important enough to tell me. He had paid off her mother and forgotten all about her. At least until he wanted to use her against me.’
‘God, Sam...that is...despicable. Surely you cannot believe...there is no comparison between his secret and mine. And I would never use this against you.’
‘I know that, Edge. I asked you to marry me because you are nothing like him, because I trust... I trusted you wholly. But can’t you see? It wasn’t the essence of Ricki’s lie, but the way it peeled everything back—it showed me...both of us. We were too different to be happy together. I know you aren’t like him; you would never, ever use a child to try to coerce or hurt anyone. But... I’m afraid. What else don’t I know about you? I never had a home so I don’t know how one builds a foundation for one, but I thought trusting you was almost as good, and I’d hoped you trusted me enough to... Oh, I can’t explain!’
She thumped the mattress and his hand tightened on her arm.
‘Sam, turn to me. Please.’
‘No. I don’t know what to do if there is no trust between us, Edge. How can we build anything on that?’
He let her go and there was a rasp and groan, as if he’d scraped his hands over his face, and her eyes burned in the dark. She was driving him even further away. She began to turn to him, but he spoke first.
‘I failed you, Sam, but it isn’t because I don’t trust you. I don’t trust myself. I feel safer in...compartments. It seems mad now, but I honestly thought I could keep everything separate. Clean. I’ve forgotten how to think of other people in my life. If I ever knew.’
She wasn’t imagining the bleak viciousness in his voice and her resentment stumbled. She groped in the dark and found his hand, braced on the bed.
‘You did. You do. But you’re not just in my life, I’m in yours now. Even if this isn’t a marriage that began...like yours with Dora, we must live together. And work together, it seems. I don’t expect you to tell me everything, Edge. But this... Being the author of those books is at the heart of who you are. Who we are.’
‘I know that. That is the problem, Sam.’
‘Tell me how. Talk to me, Edge.’
His hand was tense under hers, then it turned, skimming up her arm, sliding under the thin cotton of her nightgown. Her body lit like a firefly, so hot and ready she had to stop herself from jerking away from his touch.
‘Those books are all I have left. A man in the middle of the ocean on a dinghy doesn’t risk his one safe haven to go for a swim.’
All I have left...
His words sheared through her as viciously as the heat.
You have me now.
She was so tempted to say the words, but did not want them handed back to her, by word or by deed. She was too lonely to weather that rejection.
She also wanted to throw it back at him—those books were all I had left of myself, too. They were the one corner of the world that was mine and filled with pleasure and anticipation and vivid life, and now...
And now I don’t know what to think.
She was torn between turning her back on him and holding him to her so fiercely he couldn’t try to keep secrets from her. But those desires were from old Sam and older Sam. She didn’t want to be either at the moment.
So she turned over her arm, laying it open to his caressing fingers. It amazed her how lightly he could touch and how potently. As if all those years treating precious antiquities under Poppy’s tutelage were embedded in his hands. Ricki had been rough and boisterous, his hands everywhere at once, his body heavy on hers. But Edge could send her body heavenwards merely by exploring her arm.
A shiver ran through her, her legs stretching under its force. She reached for him, but he caught her wrists, pressing them down by her head, his thumbs brushing the sensitive cores of her palms. He bent and pressed his mouth to the crook of her elbow, his breath warm, his touch like moonlight on water, but his next words were rough and angry.
‘I don’t like needing anything.’
More of her anger faded into mist at this admission. This was Edge—poor Edge, whom she’d manoeuvred into marrying her. And he was trying to be honest.
‘I’m scared, too, but we are tied together now, Edge.’
* * *
Tied together. For life.
He waited for panic and felt only regret that he’d already tarnished what they’d barely begun to build. Again and again. He’d punished her on the Lark, abandoned her at Sinclair House with hardly a word and now this, the worst blow of all. He’d acted on lust and a barely understood impulse when he accepted her proposal, but that did not excuse his behaviour since.
‘I am so sorry I hurt you, Sam.’
‘I know you are.’ It didn’t sound like forgiveness, it sounded like defeat and he couldn’t bear it. He needed her to understand, but he didn’t understand it himself.
‘Trust is...hard.’ He put the words out like a chess piece. He could almost hear the click of ivory on ivory.
‘Do you trust anyone at all, Edge?’
A hand closed on his throat, a great, burning giant’s hand. It was an effort to breathe past it and words weren’t even an option.
‘Do you trust Poppy and Janet?’
He closed his eyes. He owed them an affirmative. Nothing came.
Her hand shifted and touched his.
‘Do you know they would give their lives for you?’
He shook his head, not denying, but not accepting.
‘They lived in as much uncertainty as I did all those years,’ he said. ‘There weren’t many letters from Greybourne, but every time one came I saw them prepare. Maybe this time I would be summoned back and there was nothing any of us could do about it. The worst was I never knew what I wanted.’ A sharp pain speared his temple, just above his brow, and he touched his palm to it. It was a warning, but he knew he had to explain to her so she would know the fault lay in him, not her. ‘Each time I realised it wasn’t happening I would be as relieved as hell, but at the same time I would think—they have Rafe so they don’t need me. But what I knew was that if one day that letter
came and said I was to return, perhaps if they lost Rafe and needed to replace him, Poppy and Janet would have no choice. So, no, I don’t know they would give their lives for me, nor would I have expected it. It wasn’t the way the world worked. The only person I ever trusted absolutely was Jacob, but I certainly never expected him to trust me. Which was proven correct. I couldn’t protect him—not from illness or pain or death or even from a mother who was afraid to love him or his grandparents who were terrified of his imperfections. You are right not to trust me, Sam. It is safer that way. You see? I am only hurting you as well...’
Her hand tucked under his so that his weight was on it, pressing it into the softness of the mattress. The fist was coiled tight around his throat and ribs, that ragged, matted giant bear wrapped around him and squeezing...
‘I was too young to see any of that when we came to Egypt,’ Sam said. ‘All I saw was a very serious, very smart boy who I wished would like me, as I knew he liked Lucas and Chase. I wish I’d understood you better.’
‘You were a child. You weren’t meant to understand. I didn’t understand. And none of this excuses how I’ve treated you.’
She sighed, slipping her fingers through his.
‘I’m not looking for excuses, Edge. I may not understand you, but I know you. I know you aren’t cruel. I only need you to try to trust me a little.’
‘I do trust you,’ he said the words before he even thought them through and if he could have snatched them back he would have. They hung in the darkness like a sword hovering above his exposed neck and he waited for her to expose them for the lie they were.
But she merely squeezed his hand.
‘You look tired.’
He almost dismissed her words, but decided to try out his new resolution of honesty.
‘I’m exhausted.’
‘Lie down. We can talk tomorrow.’
His disappointment was so severe he pushed to his feet so swiftly he almost stumbled.
‘Edge? Where are you going?’
‘You said...we should sleep.’
She twitched back the blanket.