by Thea Devine
"For it is still not clear if deVerville lives, nor did I see the body of Marie with my very own eyes," Jainee pointed out. "We must protect the boy."
That mandate, at least, was clear, and there was only one way Jainee could think of that met her requirements.
"We must remove them both to Southam Manor."
"No."
"You will of course reconsider."
"No."
She did not know if they had any time or if they had all the time in the world. "Mrs. Colethorp is willing."
"How could she not be?" Nicholas said bitterly.
"We will do it," Jainee said firmly, ignoring him and enlisted Mrs. Blue and Exeter to help.
It was done in a week, the whole of the house removed to Southam Manor and room made on the upper floors to in-
474
corporate all the pretty silver things he remembered from his youth.
The boy, so placid and adoring, the boy was himself thirty years earlier, and the woman, his mother, had finally come home.
******************
Her cottage burned to the ground mysteriously one night. The authorities laid it to a smoldering fire. A body was found in the ruins, burned beyond recognition.
"It is deVerville," Jainee said grimly, "trapped by his own blood-lust and misplaced loyalty. It has to be."
But she kept watching the shadows —and none of them moved. Still, it was not enough to hope that both Marie and deVerville had perished.
So they stayed on through the month of June to be certain, to sustain that hope, and so that they would not have to face what lay between them.
But everything now had changed. There was a boy in the house, and the story of his mother.
But she is not you ... he spoke to the portrait, she could never be you ......
His mother seemed to smile at him.
His mother gained strength as she became accustomed to the luxury at the Manor and the thought that all the secrets need no longer be contained.
She talked endlessly with Jainee while Nicholas and his servants roamed the woods and made sure that the paths were free from threats.
The boy bloomed as he learned to ride a horse and shoot a gun, and was taken up by Mr. Finley because of his love of horses.
The boy could have been him, Nicholas thought, he could have been the boy. And he was what he was because of the unflinching love of his beautiful lady, as the boy would be what he was because of his mother.
And so he learned that he did not have to choose,
475
that the past was over and irretrievable, and the only place he could go was forward, step by step, into his future.
******************
By July it seemed there was no longer anything to fear. And so in July they returned to London, and it came almost as a respite from the fraught and emotional weeks preceding it.
It was a relief to leave the Manor, not because Nicholas had not grown to love it, but because he needed now to find his way with Jainee, and nothing could be resolved until they were alone.
They were hardly ever alone at the Manor.
But he became increasingly aware of Jainee as the tension eased between them and they both almost literally set aside that moment of truth about Dunstan which was so painful and sought almost simultaneously to begin again.
Jainee was very good at beginning again.
******************
It wasn't as if he could identify the very moment when he understood that her looks had intensified, that her dress had become more sensual, that her words sometimes had double meanings. That her mouth ached to be kissed and there was not one private place in the whole of Southam Manor save the bedroom, and they were not as yet sharing that.
Did she brush against him once too often?
Or lean over as she was intently choosing a book from the lower shelf in the library?
Were those meaningful glances which touched the private place in him and revealed how much she remembered and how much she wanted?
Jainee—goddess of the moon; Diana, on the prowl again.
He wasn't sure a month was enough time for all the wounds to heal. On the other hand, a month was enough time to watch her in action and how she was with the woman who had borne him, and how she cared for the child, and how she treated the servants, and how everything interested her and she took great enjoyment in pursuing and knowing everything about everyone
476
she possibly could.
She was born to the Manor even if she had not been raised in one.
He felt a great stirring of need deep in his vitals. She was his, she had always been his from the first moment he saw her, and their fate was bound inextricably together.
One night, she read them the cards: his mother first, then the boy, then himself.
Such fortunes she told, all full of happy portents and good things to come. He forebore to point out she could tell the cards any way she chose.
"See here, my lord—an unexpected journey, and here a house. Oh, a woman, wonderful, everything lovely that you have ever wanted. The cards smile upon my lord tonight. But then, you will have to be patient for your dreams to be realized, but here is a pleasant surprise . . . and ... ah, my lord —a good marriage — "
"Enough of this nonsense," he decreed exasperatedly. "We will go to London."
******************
London was hot, steaming, the streets were crowded with the same number of carriages and the same number of bucks and beauties seeking recognition.
The papers were full of the same gossip, most notably the desirable connection between Lord Jeremy Waynflete and Miss Charlotte Emerlin which was being touted in every column.
"He might not have even offered for her," Nicholas commented, "but now he has no choice."
Trenholm was waiting, the door to the townhouse thrown wide.
"Blessed peace," Nicholas murmured. "Holy silence."
Jainee ran lightly up the steps ahead of him and disappeared into the house.
When he entered, she was nowhere around, and then he felt the soft drape of her perfumed shawl settle on his head.
He pulled it off and looked up to the balcony outside his bed- 477
room door and there she was, laughing, bending over the railing suggestively, mocking him. "No peace, my lord," she called down. "Not ever." And she darted into the bedroom.
Slowly, holding her shawl to his face and inhaling her scent, he mounted the steps and climbed inexorably to the point of no return.
Everything else—apologies, explanations, declarations — could wait until tomorrow. This would be his reality tonight.
She awaited him exactly the way he had always envisioned her: the goddess, naked on his bed, clad only in her stockings and a streamer of erotic blue satin, the sultry blue glow in her make me eyes challenging him to finally and irrevocably claim her passion and her love.
THEA DEVINE lives in Larchmont, New York with her husband and two sons. A fan of romance novels since childhood, she published her first historical romance with Zebra in 1986, and has been writing nonstop ever since. Her books include Angel Eyes, Ecstasy's Hostage, Montana Mistress, Relentless Passion, Shameless Ecstasy, and Southern Seduction.