by Megan Chance
The last words faded off, a whisper of sound. In spite of her relief, Imogene said nothing. She set aside her coat and went to him, intensely aware that he watched her as she took the wooden hand from him. She had never touched him like this, had never performed such an private task, and the intimacy of it made her nervous. She had to work to keep her fingers from trembling as she settled the pad over his wrist and buckled the straps about his forearm.
She looked up when she finished, inadvertently meeting his eyes and the measuring look in them. He was testing her, she realized, and she felt the heat move into her cheeks. She looked away, wondering if she'd passed. Hoping she had.
"Your glove?" she asked.
He nodded toward the table. "Over there."
Imogene grabbed the glove quickly and handed it to him. "Are you ready?"
"No," he said. He pulled the glove slowly over his fingers, looking tired and beaten. He glanced up and met her gaze, and a strange quirk curved his lips. Almost—not quite—a smile. But it lightened his expression nonetheless, and Imogene found herself smiling back.
"It's cold out," she said. "Don't forget your coat."
He didn't, but he did forget his hat, she noticed when they finally stepped outside into the cold. She thought about sending him back inside for it. It was truly freezing. Her lungs burned with every breath. The clouds were gray and heavy, and there was a sense of expectation in the air, the kind of muted light and muffled sound that promised snow.
She saw the dullness in his eyes and decided not to worry about the hat. It was enough that he was standing out here with her, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his overcoat, his loose hair trailing over his shoulders, strands fluttering into his face. His chin was buried in his collar. He was unrelievedly black, she thought. Black hair, black coat. His pale skin merely accentuated it. The only color to him at all was his eyes, and they were such a flinty green this morning that they barely qualified.
He stood there waiting while she hailed a carriage. He said nothing as they got in, and only stared out the window when the carriage moved off toward Washington Market.
As early as it was, the market was crowded. Wagons bottlenecked the streets leading up it, clogging the entrances so the driver had to leave them more than a block away. Even then, there were so many people and horses in the streets that it was difficult to maneuver around them. Imogene tucked her arm through Jonas's, leading him through the chaos until they reached the wagons and stands of the main area. The scent of the Hudson River mixed with the odors of fresh fish and seaweed, sawdust and horses and pigs.
Imogene took a deep breath, her eyes watering in the stinging cold. "Isn't it wonderful?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I've been to the market before, Genie," he said. "Look at these people—most of them don't have a penny to their name. There's nothing but poverty here, look around you."
Obediently she did, and wondered what he was really seeing, why he didn't notice what she did—the fresh produce nearly tumbling from overfull wagons, plump, ivory-skinned chickens hanging from their feet, baskets filled with seaweed and oysters and speckled lobsters. Certainly there was evidence of poverty. Small children with dirty faces and torn clothes angling to nab an apple or a cabbage, girls in tight dresses and thin shoes, women whose worn scarves accented tired, lined faces, but she wondered why he wasn't seeing everything else, everything that made the scene before them a beautiful, vibrant painting. Yellow pumpkins from Valparaiso next to bins of dark green, leafy kale. Pale round cabbages and bright red apples. Men and women wearing burlap aprons and colorful scarves and frayed hats, their beefy hands shoving potatoes into bags, their eyes bright as they tried to convince a customer of the freshness of a whitefish.
Imogene sighed, feeling a stab of disappointment as she pulled him with her from stand to stand. He was sullen and silent as she haggled with the vendors, but at least he helped her get a better price. His very forbiddingness made the merchants think twice before cheating her, and he didn't even have to say a word.
Dejectedly she left the poultry-seller, dodging past a horse blanketed against the weather and two small children playing hide and seek. The milk merchant was her last stop. After that they could go back to the studio. She felt a tug of desperation at the thought, a sense of hopelessness. Today hadn't helped him at all, and she wondered if anything could—if she could. There had to be something more she could do. Something more than sit beside him on the bed and read to him, something to help ease his misery and despair. But she didn't know what, and she was struck with the dull knowledge that Chloe would have known what to do. Chloe would have been able to make him laugh.
Imogene tried to swallow the lump in her throat, and tightened her hold on her bag. Lord, she was so ill-equipped for this, so damned useless—
"Wait."
She was so involved in her own thoughts it took Imogene a moment to realize Jonas had pulled her to a stop, that he'd spoken. Confused, she looked up at him.
He was staring at a wagon loaded with bolts of fabric: bright velvets and satins, jewel-toned silks, sprigged muslins and pale mousselines. The peddler hovered nervously, pulling a heavy sheet of canvas over the more delicate fabrics, muttering as he looked up at the sky.
"What is it?" she asked.
In answer, Jonas strode toward the wagon, pulling her along with him, seemingly oblivious to the people in his way. He stopped at a bolt of dark green velvet, releasing her and pushing aside the gray canvas to touch it. His long fingers smoothed over the fabric, lingeringly, caressingly.
"This," he said in a low voice. "This is the color I want to see you wear."
His words sent a stab of yearning plunging through her, a sharp and dizzying pang of desire. Imogene swallowed, surprised to see how intense his eyes suddenly were, how incredibly green. Like the velvet, like they'd been the night of the salon, when they'd gone onto the roof and he'd made her laugh at his cartoons.
After so many bleak days, his expression was startling and wonderful. Imogene looked down at the fabric, mesmerized by the movement of his hand. "I—it's lovely," she managed.
"It would be lovely on you," he said, and there was a wistfulness in his voice, a longing, that seemed to pierce straight through to her heart.
"Are ya int'rested in that, sir?" The merchant pushed forward, his sharp gaze scrutinizing Jonas. "I c'n give ya a good price on it."
Jonas hesitated. "I'm sure you can," he said finally. He drew his hand away, shoving it in his pocket. "Perhaps some other time."
He moved off, away from the wagon, back into the crowd, and Imogene saw the disappointment in the vendor's eyes—the same disappointment she felt, though she didn't know why. As lush and beautiful as the fabric was, it didn't matter to her. What mattered was that look on Jonas's face, the yearning in his voice. What mattered was the way he'd looked at her and said "It would be lovely on you." She had the feeling he would have said something else, something more, if the vendor had not questioned him. She had the feeling he wanted to say something. But now she would never know what it was, because she wouldn't ask, and she knew already that the moment was gone.
He was waiting for her in the crowd, and her disappointment grew when she recognized his expression. It was uninterested, detached. The same look that had been on his face for more than three days, that had disappeared only for that one split second when green velvet had reflected itself in his eyes.
Imogene sighed. The touch of wetness on her forehead and her nose surprised her. It was beginning to snow. Soft, big flakes. It was sticking in Jonas's hair, white against black, light against dark for that brief moment before they melted into transparency.
Slowly she made her way toward him. "I suppose we should leave," she said. And then, unnecessarily, "It's snowing."
He said nothing, and she tucked her arm through his, starting back to the street. He didn't move with her.
She looked up at him, puzzled, startled to find that he was staring at her. Staring at her w
ith a softness she'd never seen on his face before. With a pang she realized that his eyes weren't expressionless, as she'd thought. They were brilliant and thoughtful and a little sad, and gently he reached out, smoothing a strand of hair back from her face.
"You've snow in your hair," he said, and then he leaned down and kissed her, a soft, brief kiss, a brush of lips that left her mouth tingling. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" she asked, confused. "Because there's snow in my hair?"
Something that might have been a smile touched his lips. But it was gone so quickly she couldn't be sure. "No. I'm sorry I couldn't dress you in green velvet. I'm sorry because I've disappointed you."
"You haven't—"
"Yes I have," he said slowly. "You wanted today to be . . . fun. Isn't that what you said?"
"Jonas—"
He pressed a finger to her lips, stopping her before he let his hand drop again to his side. "I can't make it fun for you, Genie. I wish I could. I wish I could give you everything you deserve. I wish I could thank you for trying."
"You could," she said quietly. "You could thank me."
He shook his head. "No, I—"
"You could kiss me again."
Her own words surprised her. They seemed to jump out of her mouth, and Imogene didn't realize until she'd said them how much she wanted it. A kiss to make her feel wanted and cherished.
But mostly—oh, mostly what she wanted was to keep that light shining in his eyes, to kiss away the darkness and keep it away. Forever, if she could.
He looked down at her, and she felt his hand at her waist, felt his heat through her mantle, through the cold damp air. The snow fell into her eyes, catching on her eyelashes and melting there so she saw his face in prisms.
"A kiss," he murmured, and with a sharp stab of relief she saw that radiance grow even stronger in his eyes, blinding her, dazzling her as he bent and brushed his mouth against hers. And when he pressed deeper, when he drew her closer and urged her lips apart, and she heard the soft desperation of his moan, she leaned into him and wound her fingers through his snow-wet hair, hearing the gasps around them and not caring, not caring at all as he kissed her senseless in the open air of the Washington Market, there for everyone to see.
Chapter 22
It made his heart hurt to look at her. Jonas turned back to the cold window, staring at the falling snow. He heard her moving about the room, putting a chicken on to stew, chopping onions, and he could picture her in his mind: the pale green, wine- stained skirt shifting about her feet, the stretch of satin across her shoulder blades, the strands of hair caressing her cheeks.
Ah, yes, he could picture her all too well. Just as he couldn't erase the image of her at the market this morning, staring up at him with wide brown eyes, snowflakes gilding the loose strands of her hair, drifting onto her eyelashes. She was so beautiful, and this morning had been so ordinary—
He caught himself on the thought. No, not ordinary, that was the wrong word. Normal, perhaps. Yes, this morning had been normal in a way things in his life had rarely been. He had not been able to stop watching her as she moved from vendor to vendor, so self- assured, so at ease. She had bargained and smiled and talked about inconsequential things. "Oh, see those
bananas—why, they're from Cuba," and "The oysters look good today, don't you think?" Silly things, things people talked about every day, things to fill the silence.
He had treasured them. In his life there were so few silly things, so few trips to the market, so few smiles. And he found he loved her smile. It brightened her face, lit her eyes. He loved the way it whitened that tiny scar at the top of her lip, the way it squared her jaw. Her smile made him ache for all the things he'd never had, never thought he wanted. A wife, children, a home.
Christ, it frightened him. Everything about her frightened him. He had wanted to turn her into a butterfly and she had exceeded his wildest dreams. She charmed him and soothed him. She eased the pain in his soul. She kept a door closed on the darkness. She was everything he'd ever dreamed of. And today, when he'd kissed her, he'd lost himself in her the way he'd never imagined losing himself before. He had wanted her so badly, badly enough to keep her chained by his side, to trap her with lies and caresses, with pregnancy if he had to. Anything to make sure she didn't leave him.
And that was what frightened him the most, because he destroyed whatever he touched. He had never been able to maintain a friendship—Rico was the closest he'd come to that, and even now he wondered how long that would last, how long it would take for Rico to tire of him completely enough to leave for Paris and never return. Jonas's family had disowned him long ago, had sent him off to Bloomingdale with barely a prayer for his soul. And though there'd been women, they were always temporary. A night, a week, a month, but never through the madness, or the depression. Christ, even Rico couldn't endure it more than once a year.
Genie had survived it. The thought haunted him, tormented him, surprised him. She was so strong, the strongest person he had ever known, and that strength tempted and cajoled him. She could bear it, the voice whispered in his ear. Maybe she would stay.
With effort he ignored it. It didn't matter if she could endure him or not. It was unfair to ask her to. She deserved someone who could give her a normal life. Someone who could have fun at the market. Someone who could buy her the green velvet she would look so beautiful in. Not someone like him. Not someone who had no idea how he would be from day to day. Normality eluded him. Money slipped through his fingers. What kind of life was that to promise someone? To promise her?
He should send her back to her godfather, he knew. Gosney would do his best to smooth over the scandal, and Genie was strong—stronger than Jonas had ever imagined she could be. She would endure it and go on. She would find someone who would treat her well.
The thought made his chest tight. Not seeing her again, not touching her. ... It was absurd how desperate it made him feel. But there was no choice, and he knew it. He knew what happened to the people who stayed with him, God knew he'd seen it a hundred times before. He could picture it in his mind, knew that eventually he would see a painfully familiar look in her eyes, the same look he'd seen in those of his family, of his friends. The dull expression, the fear, the pain. And finally, the good-bye.
"They say they love you and then they leave."
Well, it was true. It had always been true. And he suffered for it not just because he was losing them, but because he knew he'd beaten them down, because by leaving they were only trying to survive.
He owed her more than that, more than a life chained to a man who would eventually destroy her, who would whittle away at her strength until it was gone, who would test her every day. He owed her a life away from him. He owed her freedom.
Give it to her, the voice inside him said. Give it to her now.
He grabbed the moment before he could talk himself out of it. "Genie," he said, surprised to hear how hoarse his voice was, how rough. "Genie, come here."
The sound of chopping stopped. He heard her rinse her hands, and then her footsteps behind him, felt the air from the swish of her skirt as she came up beside him. Her presence was like a tonic, invigorating, comforting.
"What is it?" she asked, kneeling beside him, grabbing the arm of his chair for support with one hand, reaching out to touch him with the other. Her skin was cool, still damp. The perfumes of parsley and bay clung to her, mixing with that elusive scent of almond.
He couldn't look at her. It was hard enough to feel her, to smell her. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her tight. He wanted to kiss her again, to make love to her. If he looked at her he would. So he focused on the window, on the snow, until it was nothing but a blur of white and slate before him, until he felt nothing but the cold.
"Jonas," she said, and he heard the concern in her voice, the worry. She squeezed his hand. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," he said. "Much better, thanks to you."
"Much better," she repeated hesit
antly.
She withdrew her hand; his skin was suddenly cold where she'd touched him. He felt her guardedness even though he wasn't looking at her, and it hurt him —God, it seemed to pierce right through his heart.
He couldn't say anything. He wanted to tell her she should leave him, that he wanted her to go, but when it came down to it, he couldn't say the words, couldn't make the sacrifice. All his noble thoughts, and yet it came down to selfishness after all. Christ, he couldn't even do this, simple as it was.
As it turned out, he didn't have to. She released her hold on the chair and sat back on her heels in a swish of satin.
"You want me to go," she said bluntly.
He heard the detachment in her voice and the pain behind it. Pain, even though he wanted so badly to spare her from it. He squeezed his eyes shut. Felt her movement as she got to her feet.
"Of course," she said, taking a deep breath. "Of course. I expected you'd want to be alone once you felt better. I—I'll just get my things, and—"
"Don't." He surprised himself with the word. It was harsh and raw, and before he knew it he lashed out, grabbing her wrist, gripping it so tightly he heard her startled gasp. "No."
Then he made the mistake he'd told himself not to make. He twisted in his chair to look at her.
Her eyes were large, bright with tears she fought to blink away. Her jaw was clenched, and her mouth was tight, and it dawned on him that he'd seen that look on her face a dozen times before, that he knew the emotions she was trying to keep at bay, the strength she was struggling to find. She wouldn't look at him, but stared out the window the way he had done only moments before, to the snow and the empty street, to the barrenness that only accentuated pain and didn't ease it. He saw her smooth skin and her soft hair and the trembling of her mouth, and he wanted to kiss it away, to forget that he would hurt her, that she would leave. To show her the only way he could how much she meant to him. But he knew he couldn't. He had to let her go. There was no other choice. But if he could make it easier . . . Christ, he'd give his heart to make it easier.