"Whatever you think best," she said numbly. "I would love to go to the gallery and hear you in person."
"Ah, well, you know it by heart better than I do at this point."
"So long as it is all from the heart."
He took her hand to kiss it. "It is. A heart I never knew I had until you lit the way for me."
"You'll be splendid, I’m sure," she said with a timid smile, stroking his cravat.
"I’ll bring you back a present."
"I don’t need presents, my love. All I need is you," she said, hugging him tightly so he would not see her tears.
"For that you shall have two presents, and me riding back hell for leather as soon as I'm done."
She pulled away from his embrace. "If you’re going, I’d better finish the—"
He kissed her lingeringly. "Later." He swung her up into his arm and headed for their bed.
Each time he came home from his trips to London over the next two months, he had gift for Isolde. She could not help but wonder if it was truly a sign that Randall was thinking of her, or a manifestation of his guilt. She was tormented with visions of who he was seeing, what he was doing.
He did not always go by himself, though, which did relieve her. One or the other of the Rakehells usually accompanied him, and the rest of them and their wives rallied around her as soon as he had gone.
When Randall was home, he seemed to be completely uncomplicated, wanting only to be with his family all day, and to shower her with the most tempestuous passion at night and in the early mornings.
Yet she sensed a distance in him, and an underlying sadness which she did not seem to be able to do anything to dispel. He still had not resumed his painting since before the ball.
When she asked him about it, he said, "I want to make it up to you for leaving you on your own for so many days."
"That’s—"
"And we're going to go to the Duke’s soiree next week."
"Oh, no, really, we don’t have to—"
"I insist."
His expedition to London had yielded some red garters, slippers and gloves, and a new gown trimmed in red. "I would not make you a scarlet woman, as it were, but white with red trim is most suitable for a woman your age."
"Thank you, darling. I wonder you had the time," she said coolly.
"Well, some new nightrails for Mother seemed a good idea, and the modiste had just made the gown and then been left in the lurch. It just happened to be your size, so I said it was fate."
"And how did you know my size?" she asked stiffly.
He grinned. "Darling, surely you don’t think me blind. In fact, I pride myself that I would like to know everything important there is to know about you. And perhaps even the unknowable."
He insisted she model them for him, and stooped to help her with her garters and slippers. He then assisted her to rise.
"Now all you need are some jewels," Randall said as he held her arms wide to look at her. "We need to shop for some soon. I have been most remiss."
She shrugged. "I have my wedding set and all of your grandmother’s jewels. What more could I want?"
"I’m not sure. Let me think about it."
"No, really, Randall, there’s no need."
He spun her around to admire her frock, and kissed her. "I adore showering you with presents. We shan’t argue about it now, though. I have better things to do with my tongue. And as lovely as that gown is on you, I can’t wait to get you out of it."
Chapter Twelve
Isolde loved the night of passion which ensued, but she was certain there was something Randall was hiding from her. There was most certainly a distance and diffidence springing up between them, as hard as she tried to be devoted and affectionate.
She couldn’t discern anything obvious, but she was growing tired of the curious limbo she felt she had been living in ever since that fateful trip to Bath.
"I think you should go out painting today, and every day from now on, as you used to," she commented as he brushed her hair the following morning.
"I would love to, of course, but—"
"Are you happy here?"
"What?"
"It’s a simple question, dear. I know you had a great number of reservations about returning to Somerset. So my question again is, are you happy?"
He grasped her shoulders, and their eyes met in the pierglass. "I don’t know how you could ever doubt it."
"Maybe I just need to hear you say it."
"I won’t deny this place is full of memories, but we’ve created new ones which will last a lifetime, you and the children. So yes, I’m happy."
"Good. Then go be even happier. Go and paint."
"All right, if you really want to be rid of me," he grumbled.
"Not rid of you," she reassured him. "I just want to be certain you don’t feel stifled or thwarted."
"Well, there is that wonderful ruined monastery. I can’t seem to pain the same scene twice. It’s like its constantly changing."
"Good, then. Off you go and enjoy yourself. I’ll always be here when you get back. I’m not going to change."
But not everything in life was as constant as Isolde. Before she knew it, it was the first day of autumn. Isolde decided to celebrate the equinox by taking Arabella up on one of her suggestions, and taking a picnic lunch out to Millcote Forest for her husband.
She got to the low wall of the monastery, and still mounted on her mare, was able to peer over the crumbling walls easily.
Isolde saw a petite woman with long dark hair walking away from Randall. They had been standing very close, and she immediately saw red.
She swung down from the saddle fuming. Leaving the food in her panniers, she stalked over to where her husband had set up his easel, and glared at him.
"Just what sort of game do you think you’re playing with our lives, Randall?" she demanded furiously.
Randall, having just exchanged pleasantries with Eswara Jerome, who lived down the road and occasionally went for a stroll passed him as he painted, was confused at his wife’s sudden arrival and her accusatory words. "Game? What game?"
"I don’t know, you tell me! You tell me why you’ve been so distant, moody, changeable recently, ever since you resumed your trips to London. I’ve tried to be a good wife to you—"
"You are! You don’t even have to try!’
"Then why? What in the name of all the gods are you looking for? What is it that you want?" Isolde demanded tearfully, at her wits' end.
Something sparked within him. "What I want?" He laughed bitterly. "You have no idea what you’re asking, Isolde! You would run in terror if you knew."
"But I do want to know! I need to know. I hold you in my arms, Randall, even within my body, and yet I still can’t get close enough to you. I want to make all your hopes and dreams and fantasies come true, be truly one with you.
"But there’s this, this wall between us that I simply can’t seem to breach no matter how hard I try. So I keep battering against it, and end up bloody, bruised and torn."
He stared at her in horror, never suspecting his attempts to keep her safe from Howell, as well as be unselfish, not indulge his passions so often, protect her from his rampaging lusts, might make her feel so left out and unimportant in his life.
"Oh, darling, I didn’t mean to—"
"Tell me your fantasies, Randall. Let me be your everything," she pleaded, starting to strip off her day gown and rubbing against him, not caring that it was broad daylight and anyone might come along.
He gazed down at her unseeingly, lost in his own confusion. "But there isn’t anything you can do, don’t you see?"
"I can try, if you’ll let me. I know I’m not a practiced courtesan like most of your other women, but—"
"No, don’t you see? I don’t want that, darling. This hasn’t been about lovemaking! That’s never been the problem between us. The problem has always been me!"
He heaved a ragged sigh. "I don’t understand love and intimacy
. I fear it. I ruin and destroy everything I’ve ever touched. I want you unspoiled and innocent, happy and loved and safe, not damaged by being married to a murderer!"
"But—"
"You ask me what my dreams are? What I fantasize about? I’ll tell you! Impossible though it all is, I’ll tell you," he rasped. "I would give anything to take back what I did to Francis. I would almost be willing to sell my soul to have my brother Michael back. I would crawl over hot coals, travel the wide world barefoot and naked to see my mother well again, and to know that my father wasn’t the thief everyone has accused him of being.
"I want a happy family once more, all the children loved and valued for who they are, not who society wants or expects them to be. Labelled as the dregs of society because their parents weren’t married."
He reached out to stroke her cheek, and smiled down at her, his eyes glittering with unshed tears. "But my ultimate fantasy is to see you smiling up at me, happy, with eyes of love, roundly pregnant with our child. And to have a lifetime in your arms, with never any unhappiness, mistrust or want. I long to hear you say you love me no matter what, and finally be able to believe the words. Not just in here," he said, pointing to his head, "but here." He pointed to his heart.
She placed her hand on his, over his heaving chest. "Done. You have it, Randall. I do love you, no matter what. As for the rest, we can—"
He silenced her with a blistering kiss, and the dam blocking his passion finally burst. He could hear the blood roaring in his ears as she stretched up against him, stroking her hands down the length of his back until they reached his buttocks. She pulled hard, grinding herself against him, and then both their pairs of hands hurriedly stripped him bare.
Heedless of the openness of the clearing, Randall spread his jacket on the ground and lay down with Isolde on the decorated stone slab he had been painting. He entered her with one huge thrust and filled her until she gasped, driving so deep within her that he couldn’t even withdraw as her muscles rippled and fused them into one entity of pure bliss.
Randall could swear he felt the labyrinthine pattern burning into his abdomen as he pressed in ever deeper and set up a blistering rhythm which she was sure would send them spiralling off into a vortex hurtling through the universe.
"I love you, Randall. Love you. Please believe me. You don’t need anyone else to make you whole."
"I’ve waited for you a lifetime, Isolde. You’re mine now, and though I may be damned for it, by all the gods, I can’t fight you any more."
"No, no more fighting," she gasped. "Nothing but joy, and all your wishes coming true."
He climaxed with a shudder which seemed to wring the very soul from his body. Isolde never even felt the cold hard stone underneath them. In fact, she was sure they were floating, for the brilliant radiance of the sun grew closer and closer as they soared upwards on a cloud of pure joy.
Then the dark red aura formed one band, while the black within him diffused into the other six colours of the rainbow. Randall and Isolde slid up along it and back down to the treasure she had always known would be waiting for them, if only they would reach out their hands to take it.
Still she soared within the circle of his arms, and she saw the danger, the truth all in an instant. It terrified and repelled her, and she wondered why she had never seen it before.
As the images of heaven and hell warred within her, even Randall saw it at last, through her eyes as a sort of strange flickering of colour, sound and emotion, in a powerful maelstrom so fleeting he was left panting and trembling, flattened by the impact.
"Oh God, Isolde, what’s happening?"
"It’s love, Randall. You know it now."
"Yes. Yes. But—"
"It’s all right. I’ve got you now. I’ve got you. You’re safe."
He wanted to say the words, but he knew he couldn’t promise it to her. In any case the words would no longer come. The terror which gripped his soul froze him within her body and he collapsed on top of her, utterly spent, all emotions and essence torn from him.
Except that when he opened his eyes a moment later, she was on top of him, and kissed him so gently he was sure he was dreaming. Only the smell of the grass and her hair, tumbled all about his own shoulders, the feel of the rain pattering down over their bare bodies, the sensation of her alluring femininity around his manhood, the sound of a sheep bleating in the distance, told him this was all real.
And now Isolde moved against him once more, and looked at him with a new spark in her eyes which convinced him as nothing else ever had.
"I love you, Randall. Only you. Now and forever. We belong together. You can see it, feel it. And together we can push back the darkness. Let me fill the void within you, as you’ve filled mine. So much more than even this," she said, moving her hips until he threw his head back in wordless surrender.
He let her take and give, surrendering himself completely to whatever Fate had in store for him. Trying to control his love for Isolde was like trying to harness the wind and waves, and he wept at the beauty of her tenderness. "I love you. No more fighting. Whatever you want is yours. I’m yours. Now and always."
His terror was replace by the vision of a rainbow, no, three.... He blinked again, and said in awed tones, "Look, love, look at them! I’ve never seen anything like it."
She smiled at him. "Really? They’ve always been there. You just need to look harder, as I’ve learned."
He stared at her. "But I’ve been coming to this spot for —"
She stroked his cheeks and kissed him, and in an instant he was in the throes of a gut-wrenching climax which left him too weak to even groan.
The downpour now pummelled him unmercifully, and he lifted his forehead from off her fall of hair and the cold hard stone they were resting on, and looked around in confusion.
"What—"
"It’s all right, love. Everything’s going to be fine," she soothed, stroking his rain-stung back.
"I don’t understand. How did—"
She pressed her slender fingers to his lips. "Trust me. It’s going to be fine. Come, love, let’s get you home. We need to see the children, and your mother."
She kissed him gently on the cheek, and they helped each other rise as the rain dwindled to a mere mist, and a watery sunlight soon began to flood the ruins once more.
Their clothes had somehow ended up in the shelter of his easel, and Randall marvelled at the fact that they were only slightly damp.
She used her shawl to dry both their naked bodies, and yanked on his trousers and shirt, though he felt warm enough, and then began to gather his supplies.
Only when he walked around to the front of the easel did he see what damage the rain had caused. His paper was completely blank, without a drop of colour on it, though oddly enough it was dry to the touch.
Isolde stood by his shoulder. "Tabula rasa . A blank slate. Time for us to begin again?"
"I do want to try," he said, holding her close.
"Don’t just try. Do it. I’m here for you, always. I love you, Randall."
He flinched, for he had caught something odd out of the corner of his eye, and reached out for his wife with a quivering hand.
He stared into her eyes, and with his own open, bent to kiss her. He heard it, as faint as a heart beat.
I love you, Randall.
His lips throbbed against hers until her lips parted and he sucked on her tongue in a passionate frenzy born of fear. Yet still he heard it.
I love you, Randall.
He kissed her even harder, now more curious than terrified.
I love you, Randall.
He laughed and spun her around, and kissed her once more.
I love you, my darling Isolde.
He grasped her hand, and never taking his eyes from her, led her to the waiting horses.
Chapter Thirteen
After supper, Randall was exhausted by the emotions of the day, but more firmly resolved that ever to take Thomas’s advice and finish Howell
off once and for all. Find his weakness and exploit it.
The trouble was, it would mean another trip to for London. He couldn’t bear to see Isolde’s face fall as he told her the news; he was going to take the coward’s way out and leave a note.
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