"I left a note for Cason to give to you."
"One page to tell me you were leaving me behind in Vienna. And not another word for fifteen months."
"I couldn't write to you. I didn't dare."
"Why not?"
"Meredith had spies waiting for me to contact you." He raked his fingers through his hair. "I was afraid for you. But I knew everything that was happening to you. I was trying to protect you, sweetheart. I didn't want to cause you any more grief. I didn't write because I didn't want Meredith to know where you were. I hired a firm who hired a firm who hired a firm who hired your father's firm to handle some investments for me so I would have some means of keeping in touch. I sent letters to your father that way and in diplomatic pouches. I wrote to him regularly under the guise of business. I asked about you in every letter. I'm sorry it took me so long to get here, Cristina. I'm sorry it took so long to come to you, but I couldn't risk you again. After Nicholas, I couldn't take the chance." Blake continued to gaze out the window as he recited the facts almost as if he had rehearsed the words many times. He made no attempt to convince her. He let the words speak for themselves and when she didn't say anything, he exhaled deeply and turned to face her in all his naked splendor. "I don't expect you to believe me, Cristina. I don't know if I would even believe me in your place, but I wore the medallion because I loved you and I continue to wear it because I still do." Blake bowed his head and waited.
He had finally said the words that had haunted him for nearly two years and he couldn't help but wonder if he was two years too late. He turned back to the window, unable to bear the derision he was afraid he would find in her face.
Cristina's heart seemed to pound in her throat as she stealthily left the bed and moved to stand behind him. She encircled his waist from behind and pressed her cheek against his broad back, then she began to explore his body at will, lighting white-hot brushfires along the way. Blake's desire rose with every caress until he found it almost impossible to maintain control.
"My love," he managed between clenched teeth, "you're playing with fire. You don't know what you're doing to me...."
Cristina laughed softly as she let her hand snake lower to caress him. "You silly, silly, man. I know exactly what I'm doing to you. I'm working very hard at seducing you again. I'm trying to tell you that I love you very much."
"You what?" Blake turned around, his dark eyes intently searching her face for the answer he required.
"I love you."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes." She nodded and a wide grin spread across her face. "I love you, Blake. I think I've loved you from the very beginning. But I was afraid to follow in my parents' footsteps. I wanted marriage, but I never wanted love until I met you and even then I didn't trust you not to use my love for you as a weapon against me the way my mother used my father's love against him. I sent you away in Vienna because I was hurt and so very afraid of losing you. I was wrong to blame you when I should have blamed Meredith. You were only trying to make the best of an impossible situation. But when I tried to tell you how wrong I was and that I'd realized you were as hurt and afraid of losing me as I was of losing you, I was caught up in the bombing. So I want you to know that I love you without strings. You don't have to marry me again. I don't care about the divorce. I'll be happy as long as I know you love me."
Blake enfolded her in his arms and held her there with her ear against his heart as he repeated the magical words. "I love you, Cristina. I don't know how it happened or why, but I love you with all my heart." He pressed his lips against her forehead and placed a kiss there. "I never thought I'd say those words again and mean them, but I do." His voice was low, husky with emotion and full of firm conviction, and the way he held her against his chest was every bit as gentle as his words and just as convincing.
Cristina listened to the steady beating of his heart, then gently pushed back to look up at him, teasing provocatively, "I love to hear you say it, but I'll be a complete failure as a seductress if you don't take me back to the bed and show me how much you love me."
Happy laughter rumbled from the depths of Blake's chest and echoed around the room. "You are eager. Well, never let it be said that I failed to help further the promising career of a budding, young seductress." And with those words he leaped back into bed and allowed Cristina to seduce him.
They stayed in bed for two entire days, alternately making love and talking. They stopped only when the need for food or sleep overcame them. It was a wonderful two days, a time of learning and exploring new territory; of loving and trusting and finding that love and trust mirrored in the other's eyes. But it wasn't enough.
Blake awoke the morning of the third day with niggling doubts. He didn't want to feel them, but he knew that stolen kisses and rendezvous in hotel rooms would never be enough to satisfy him. He wanted Cristina by his side. He wanted what they had had in Vienna before Meredith reappeared. He wanted to marry her again. He had to marry her again. He couldn't settle for anything less.
Blake didn't want the gossip, the ugly whispering behind their backs, or the public scorn of Cristina being labeled a mistress to ruin the love they shared. He had witnessed the results of Roderick Baker's cruel sneers and Blake had promised himself that he would never let her be hurt like that again.
He slipped out of bed and began dressing, moving quietly to avoid waking Cristina. She stirred restlessly as his warmth left her side and Blake leaned over to kiss her hair and whisper, "It's early yet. Go back to sleep, Countess."
Her eyes fluttered open and Cristina gazed up at him sleepily. "Come back to bed with me. I miss you."
"I can't. I have some business to take care of today."
"What business?"
"Today's my last day in New York, Cristina. You knew I couldn't stay indefinitely without first returning to London. My court hearing is a fortnight away. I've got to go back to London."
"Can't you stay with me? Please, just one more day...."
"I'd like to, sweetheart, you know that, but this can't wait any longer. I must be there. And if I stay with you today, I'll stay tomorrow, and the next day and the next and nothing will be done. I'm sorry, Cris, but it must be today."
Cristina bolted out of bed. Tears filled her eyes and threatened to spill out. "Weren't you going to tell me?"
He nodded.
"When?" she demanded. "On your way out the door?"
"When I figured out the best way."
"There is no best way, Blake. I don't want you to leave me again. I told you that I don't care about a divorce. I don't care if you're married to Meredith. It doesn't matter to me."
"Well, my love, my dearest heart," Blake said, sadly, "it matters to me. It matters a great deal. I want you beside me, Cristina. And I don't want to watch you endure ugly whispers and slurs and vicious gossip. I want us to be together. I want the kind of marriage we had in Vienna before the nightmare with Meredith began."
"We can be happy without being married."
"For how long, love?" Blake asked her. "What if you should have another baby? Do you really want another child born out of wedlock? Is that what you would want for our children? To be bastards? To never quite fit into polite society no matter what you do? To never quite be good enough simply because their parents weren't married?"
"Damn society," Cristina muttered, "we would be together. We love each other, Blake. We can give our children enough love to make things good enough."
"Oh, sweetheart, I wish we could. But you can't isolate them forever. And is it fair to them, Cristina?" Blake asked. "Would it really be fair to them? We're legitimate. We were born that way. Is it right for us to punish our children for our passion and our mistakes?"
"You could adopt them, Blake. You and Meredith have no children. You could adopt our children and make them legal." The fact that she offered to give any children she might have solely
into Blake's keeping was a measure of her faith in him and of her love. "You're an earl, for godsakes, couldn't you do that?"
"What about you, Cristina?"
"I don't care about me."
"I do, sweetheart. I love you very much. And I told you once before that I would never take a child of ours away from its mother."
"Then they would live with me. That would be perfect."
"Would it? Think, Cristina. Children of the earl of Lawrence living with his mistress?"
"But I'd be their mother...."
"If I adopted them, the law would recognize Meredith as their mother and so would everyone else. As they grew up, even the children--your children--would recognize Meredith. You'd be my mistress. Nothing more. Do you want Meredith to be the legal mother of our children, Cristina? Could you live in the background while someone else had control of your children?"
"I could if you were with me."
"I won't live forever."
"Please, my love, don't say things like that. Don't think like that."
"We have to think like that, Cris, because Meredith is ruthless."
"But it's all speculation, Blake. There aren't any children. There may never be any more children," Cristina reminded him.
Blake looked at the bed they had recently vacated and then turned back to Cristina with a wry expression on his face. "After two days of mad, passionate love? It didn't take that much for you to get pregnant last time, Countess."
"Blake, I don't want you to leave me again. I don't want you to go to London. I want you to stay here."
"And I don't want to leave you, either, love."
"Then don't."
"I've got to. You know that. Cristina, I love you and I love what we have together. Together. I wish it were a simple matter of taking you to the nearest minister and making you my wife like we did before, but it isn't. There's Meredith and while I wish she'd stayed dead, she didn't. And while I wish with all my heart that I'd never married her, I did. I can't pretend she doesn't exist anymore. I can't sneak around, meeting you in hotel rooms all over the world, Cristina. What we share is good and clean and right. We love each other and we made promises to each other. I can't live a half life with you. I can't live with you in private and share my public life with Meredith. Some men might be able to do it, but I can't. I love you and I am proud of you and I want to share you with my friends and family and associates, openly. I want you to walk into a room on my arm and be Countess Lawrence with all the respect and privileges you're entitled to. I want that with all my heart, Cris, for both of us. And if I have to endure another painful separation now in order to have the rest of our lives together, I will, Cristina. And so will you. I've got to go back to London and I've got to see Meredith, but I'm coming back to you as soon as I can. In the meantime, I want you to stay here in New York, where you'll be safe."
"Blake, please...." Cristina choked back the sobs that burned in her throat. "I'm afraid that if you leave something will happen and I'll never see you again."
"Ssh, Cris, don't. I promise I'll be back as soon as I can. Have faith in our love. Believe in it. Trust it. Trust me."
Cristina brushed away her tears, straightened her shoulders, and lifted her chin slightly. "How long will it take?"
"It shouldn't take more than two months at most," Blake assured her. "All I want is to get this over with and to come back to you."
"I'll give you exactly two months," she said.
"What?"
"Two months before I go to London and get you and we try it my way."
"Fair enough," he said. "Now give me a kiss and help me dress. This is for the best, my love."
"I know." Cristina nodded as she slowly helped Blake dress and pack.
Blake kissed her lips. "Don't be sad. This is our path to a future together. When I return, I'll be legally free of Meredith. We can be married. Remember that while I'm gone I'll be thinking of you every minute. No more misunderstandings. I am not now, nor will I ever abandon you."
"Just you remember that I'll be counting the days. No more delays."
"Understood," he said.
Cristina nearly choked on the word, but she managed to smile in spite of it. "Understood."
"Good. Now don't worry. I'll be back before you know it. Remember, Cristina, I love you. Always."
The heart has its reasons which
reason does not know.
--BLAISE PASCAL 1623-1662
*Chapter Twenty-nine*
Cristina waited until the sound of his footsteps disappeared before she threw herself on the bed they had shared for the past two days and nights and allowed the flood of tears to escape. She cried until her eyes were swollen and dry, then walked to the adjoining bath and filled the tub.
She soaked in the hot, comforting water and thought about Blake and the woman back in England who bore his name. She knew Blake was going back to London to secure a future for the two of them, but she also understood that Meredith would fight it. Blake had never said it aloud, but that knowledge hung in the air between them. Cristina was positive that there was something more at stake than just a divorce petition; much more than Blake would admit aloud.
And she was just as sure that someone else in New York City knew exactly what it was.
She bathed quickly, stepped out of the tub, dried herself, and dressed in the same dress she had worn to the hotel for the luncheon with Roderick. She passed the front desk and was on her way to the front door of the hotel when the desk clerk called out to her.
"Madame."
"Yes?" Cristina turned and accepted the white envelope he held out to her.
"Your husband left this for you."
"Thank you." Cristina stared in amazement, then tore open the envelope and withdrew the message written on hotel stationery. There were three words: Love always, Blake. And the heavy gold wedding band engraved with climbing roses.
Cristina slipped the ring onto her finger, pocketed the precious message, and marched out the door filled with stubborn determination.
She didn't stop until she reached her father's Wall Street office. Cristina slipped past the clerk outside her father's door, knocked once, then entered before William could grant permission. He was busy at his desk and didn't look up.
Cristina slammed the door to gain his complete and undivided attention.
William jumped at the noise and looked up to find his daughter the culprit. "Good God, Cristina! Where did you get your penchant for slamming perfectly good doors off their hinges?"
His daughter ignored the question and asked one of her own. "Have you seen him?"
William took one look at the determination written all across her lovely face and didn't bother to pretend. "I haven't seen you in two days. But, yes, I did see Blake briefly this morning after he left the hotel."
"Then you know he's on his way back to England?"
"Yes."
"And you know why?"
"I'm sure he told you why," William answered.
"He told me part of it," Cristina admitted. "But he didn't tell me all of it. There's more at stake than his divorce. I feel it and I think you know what it is."
"I can't tell you, Cristina. I promised Blake I wouldn't."
"Then I'll have to book passage on the next ship to London and find out for myself."
"I can't let you do that, either, Cristy."
"Why not?"
"I promised Blake that I would keep you here with me where you'll be safe."
"Where I'll be safe?" Cristina's ears pricked up. "I am safe. Meredith doesn't want me. She wants Blake. Is he in danger? Tell me. I have to know what's going on."
"Cristina..." William had never seen his daughter truly angry, but he recognized all the traits.
&nb
sp; "Tell me," Cristina demanded. "Or I'll leave on the next ship. You won't be able to stop me and how will you explain that to Blake?" It was blackmail, pure and simple, but it worked.
"Blake won't like it," William conceded reluctantly.
"I won't tell," Cristina smiled angelically.
"Sit down," William removed a stack of papers from the safe beside his desk and handed them over to Cristina. They were letters from Blake Ashford addressed to William Fairfax. "Those should explain everything."
Cristina sat in the chair her father indicated and began to read. Blake had left nothing out of his letters to her father. Each one consisted of several pages and the first one was dated nearly two years earlier. In the first letter Blake thanked William for agreeing to meet with him on such short notice and for being completely candid with him. He wrote that he had decided to accept the post in Vienna the queen had offered in order to be closer to Cristina. He wrote that he hoped to see her and promised to write William as soon as he arrived in Vienna and arranged a meeting with her.
The second letter was dated after Blake's arrival in Vienna. He had written to give William the news that he was going to be a grandfather. He apologized for not telling him in person, then went on to express his concern about Cristina's tenuous position in Vienna.
Cristina continued to read the letters and found that Blake had written to her father with vivid descriptions of the apartment on the Ring, each stage of her pregnancy, and Leah's gradual acceptance of him. He wrote of their plans for Christmas, and later, about the bombing and the subsequent birth and death of Nicholas. She wept softly as she read the tear-blotched letter that poignantly described her courage during her long, exhausting labor.
She knew instinctively that Blake had written it that same night. And she became furiously angry when Blake wrote his deepest suspicions concerning Meredith and the Austrian cavalry officer named Oskar von Retterling.
Oskar von Retterling. Cristina gasped aloud and the letter slipped from her trembling fingers. The name conjured up the imagine of the man in the shiny boots pointing the gun at her head as she lay injured and unable to move on the frozen Vienna sidewalk. And fifteen months later, the name still had the power to frighten her. She remembered the sound of each syllable as the other man shouted von Retterling's name and she remembered the look in von Retterling's eyes. That look would haunt her until the day she died. Von Retterling. Cristina hated the man and his name and everyone around him with a hatred that was frightening in its intensity. He had tried to kill her and he had succeeded in killing her baby. Her precious, innocent baby. And Meredith had hired him.
The very idea chilled Cristina to the bone.
She bent and picked the fallen page up from the floor of her father's office. She placed it on the stack beside her and continued to read as Blake poured out all of his feelings of anger and frustration and grief in the letters to William Fairfax. As Cristina read each one, she realized the reoccurring and underlying theme of every letter was his love and concern for her.
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