Yet she had ignored him completely, had run from his efforts to make their marriage bearable. She had tried to escape him in every instance—in her bed, at his table, among his family—she had been too afraid of her feelings for him, too afraid of being hurt. She had made him out to be indifferent, a ruthless charmer with little else on his mind than carnal pleasure. She had convinced herself that her causes were more important than anything else, pretended that everything else faded in comparison. Nothing mattered, and therefore, nothing could hurt her . . . including her husband.
Lord God, she had been deluded all right. Nothing had pointed that up more than Sophie's return. Of all the things she expected to happen when Sophie walked through that door, his embrace was not one of them. Not in a thousand years would she have expected him to embrace his fallen sister so firmly, folding her in the protective, forgiving circle of his arms. She had expected him to rail at Sophie, perhaps even disown her, but never to comfort her, not after the dishonor she had brought him.
It was not a simple act of kindness, but a gesture worthy of kings.
And now? Yes, what now, Claudia? Oh God, what now?
She languidly finished her bath, mulling over the awareness that had finally battered through her thick head, pondering what she must do. When she came to the inevitable conclusion, she rose from her bath and dressed. Her conclusion was hardly profound—it was merely instinctive.
She had to fight.
If she wanted his love, she would have to fight to earn it. She needed her courage now as she never had before, because this would be the most difficult battle of her life. She had to fight not only for herself but for Julian, too. For them.
Because he needed her more than ever, whether he wanted to accept it or not.
Julian impatiently swiped at the lock of his hair that fell again across his brow, tickling him, reminding him that he was, indeed, quite alive, and not suffering from some horrid dream. He glanced at the little pot of violets next to his elbow and scowled. The damn things were everywhere and he was bloody tired of looking at them. With a heave to, he managed to get his arms and legs to move together to push himself up from the leather chair he had sunk into, then staggered across the carpet to the sideboard.
There were several bottles there, some he recalled sampling earlier. Squinting, he selected a bright blue bottle, smiling when he saw the bottle was full. "What have we here?" he mumbled, and, tipping his head back, let a stream of gin burn the back of his throat and his gullet. "Ah," he muttered, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. "Good ol' bloody gin."
"Julian?"
Her voice was like drums banging in his ears and sent his heart reeling in a strange but familiar sense of confusion. He awkwardly turned and looked over his shoulder.
His grip slipped; the gin bottle clanked against the glassware on the sideboard.
Damn her. Damn her! Wearing a gown of shim-mering lilac satin, the witch looked every inch an angel. Her beauty was extraordinary and it angered Julian that he was, once again, struck hard by the magnificence, the sheer perfection of her.
He hated her, hated her for making him weak with wanting and enslaving him to her! "Get out," he snapped, jerked around, grabbed the bottle of gin, and reeled toward the leather chair he had vacated in front of the hearth, as far away from her as he could possibly get under the circumstance. He fell into it, drank from the bottle he clutched in one hand, staring blindly at the violets as he strained to hear any sound of her. There was nothing. The discomfort rolled over him in a sickening wave, and faltering, he risked another glimpse of her.
She was still standing at the door, her long, slender fingers on the door handle. Julian scowled; she quietly shut the door. "No," he said, shaking his head so violently that nausea burned his throat. "Don't want you here. Just go."
But she was moving toward him, seemingly gliding on air. In a moment of sheer madness, Julian believed it was an apparition advancing on him, the image from his dreams. His scowl turned into a confused frown, and he sat up, watching the gossamer silk skirt float out from her body as she flowed toward him, smiling. Smiling. A soft, compassionate smile that sent a shiver down his spine. He watched her, wishing to God in heaven that she had come to him before now.
Before he had stopped loving her.
"God!" he suddenly roared, and sagged in the chair, bracing his forehead against his hand, tenting his eyes. Who was she? Who was this creature who tormented his dreams and his days and his heart? "What do you want? What in God's name do you want of me?" he cried out.
"To love you," the apparition whispered in a velvet voice.
Julian's heart slammed hard against his ribs; her scent wafted over him, lavender filling his senses. He made no objection when the bottle of gin slid carefully from his fingers. His heart and lungs labored with her nearness, but he made no sound at all, did not open his eyes. He felt her fingers moving beneath his chin and jerked away, catching her wrist in a firm grip as he opened his eyes. Her face was just above his; he could see the flush of her pristine skin. Her blue-gray gaze penetrated the fog around his brain, gaining entry into his depths, scoring his very soul. A man could drown in her eyes, wander straight into them and slip beneath the surface, lost forever.
That was the sum of it, wasn't it? He had been lost in her for so long, lost a little more of himself each time he was with her. And now he was hopelessly trying to kick his way free of her depths, but she had ensnared him, pulling him deeper still. He abruptly shoved her away; Claudia gracefully stepped back, moved from his reach, and knelt at his feet in a soft swoosh of lilac satin. "What do you think you are doing?" he demanded roughly.
She didn't answer, but took his foot and put it in her lap, running one hand up his calf. Even through the leather of his boot he could feel the sensation of her touch and recoiled fiercely. But she held on, carefully working the boot from his leg until it was loose, then lifting his heel and pulling the boot from his leg.
Oh God, he did not have the strength to fight her. Indistinct little tingles ran up his leg and straight to his groin as she removed the other boot. "Why do you do this?" he demanded angrily. Bracing her hands on his thighs, she pulled herself up to her knees, then moved so that she was on the floor before him, between his legs, her hands moving along the tops of his thighs. She pinned him with a clear, steady gaze. "I know you despise me, Julian—"
"No. No, I do not despise you. I feel nothing for you," he interjected, unwavering in the face of that enormous lie.
"All right then, you feel nothing. But I do. I would give my heart to you on a platter if that is what you wanted."
"What I want," he spat, "is for you to leave me be. Just leave me be!"
She shook her head; a wisp of dark hair came loose from her coiffure and floated to her shoulder. "That is the one thing I will not do," she murmured silkily. "I will not leave you, not like this, not when you are hurting so."
Something in him went wild with fury and despair, consuming all reason and torching every wicked desire, every carnal hunger within him. He pitched forward, hardly noticing Claudia's small cry of alarm as he came out of the chair and toppled her onto her back in front of the hearth. Coming over her, he pinned her wrists on either side of her head. She lay beneath him, her breast rising and falling rapidly with the earnestness of her breath, her gaze steady on him, calm and sorrowful_. . ._
Julian squeezed his eyes shut. "You want me now, Claudia? After all these weeks of pushing me away, you want me now?" he breathed.
"Yes."
The softly whispered response sent a wave of raw hunger crashing through him and obliterating everything in its wake. He was suddenly crushing his lips to hers, probing deeply between them with his tongue, savoring the sweetness of her breath. At some point he had let go of her, because her delicate hands were holding him tightly to her as she had never held him before, possessively, her hands searching his back, his shoulders, his neck, tangling in his hair, pushing the coat from his shoulders and arms.
She wanted him
. . .
for a moment? A day? A year? Did he bloody well care at the moment? He dragged his mouth across her chin to the swell of her breasts rising above the neckline of her gown and mouthed the succulent flesh. Her fingers raked through his hair, behind his ears, tracing tantalizing little paths to his shoulders. When he slipped his hands behind her back to unfasten her gown, she arched into him, pressing her breasts against him, burning him with a look of unadulterated sensual ardor. "Do you want me Claudia?" he asked, roughly shoving the gown from her shoulders to her waist.
"Yes," she whispered again, gasping softly when he covered her breast with his mouth, nipping at the tip with his teeth.
Her hands drifted inside his shirt, to his bare chest, where her fingers danced lightly across his nipples, drawing them to a peak and churning the desire in his loins. He groaned, laved the other breast as his hands fought the satin of her skirts, dragging them up, his fingers skirting across the inside of her thighs where her smooth skin was moist and warm. He touched his lips to the column of her throat as his fingers trailed down to the apex of her thighs.
Her response was a low groan, the ragged drawing of breath into her lungs as he slipped a finger inside her, his thumb brushing the tiny pinnacle of her desire. Claudia clutched frantically at his arms, her fingernails digging into his skin beneath the wide sleeves of his shirt. Julian hardly noticed; he was bewitched by her eyes, captivated by the dark pools of longing beneath heavy lids. "Do you want me like this?" he asked hoarsely, and she sighed, biting her lower lip. The dam broke in him then; weeks of longing, of holding himself back, of denying his feelings for her crumbled into nothing. He moved swiftly, yanking her drawers from her hips so that he could bury his face between her legs and inhale the musky scent of woman. His tongue slipped between the folds, circling around and over the pinnacle that made her writhe beneath him, then down, deep inside her and back again. The scent and the feel of her filled his body through every pore, swirling around and around and pooling in his groin, burgeoning in his sex, straining to be free, to be in her.
The crescendo of her gasps turned to cries of pleasure as he sustained his desire on her body, licking and nipping and sucking her until he felt the violent shudder deep inside her, felt her thighs contract around his head, heard her cry out. He was throbbing painfully now, but still he lapped at her, fervently kissing the evidence of her passion from her thighs. When she at last stopped moving beneath him, he lifted his head. "Do you want me like this?" he uttered, his voice hoarse with passion.
Claudia came up, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him hard, her mouth searing him, drinking the remnants of her own flesh from his lips. Julian strug-gled with his trousers, at last freeing his aching erection, and fell to his side, taking Claudia with him, lifting her leg over his hip. She kissed him; Julian slid easily into her heat, too easily, his body yearning for instant gratification. Gritting his teeth, Julian tilted his head back, unwilling to spill his seed into her just yet, clinging to a thin thread of control left in him. He forced himself to go slowly, wanting to savor the moment, the moment she had at last come to him and said she wanted him. He would remember it all and forever, and deliberately kept his pace slow, prolonging his own agony.
Claudia's breath and tongue flitted across his neck, inside his ear, along the crease of his lobe. "Is this what you wanted?" he asked her again, wanting to hear her say it, and drove into her. Claudia closed her eyes, lost in the throes of passion. "Is this why you have come?" he asked, thrusting hard.
"Oh, Julian," she exhaled into his shoulder. "I have come because I love you!" she murmured, and tenderly kissed his cheek.
That simple utterance shattered his heart into a million shards. How he had longed to hear her say that, how he had dreamed of it, had wished for it a million times or more. He pushed her onto her back, lifted her leg and thrust harder, his blood raging with desire and confusion that those words would come now, when he was at his weakest, when she had hurt him so. He lengthened his strokes, bearing into her all the bewilderment and passion and hope he had carried inside these two long years. She moved beneath him, panting, her body tightening around him, and when she cried out, his passion exploded furiously within her.
He collapsed on top of her, his mind awash in disbelief. He felt himself sliding out of her, the hardness of him deflated by his confused passion. In sheer frustration he shoved her away and rolled onto his back.
Claudia came up, bracing herself against the floor with one arm. "Julian! What is wrong?"
He looked to the fire and pushed himself up. "You may want me now, Claudia, but it is too late. Far too late." The sound of her dismay only served to irritate him—he stumbled to his feet and clumsily fastened his trousers.
"How_.__ . ._ how could you say that?" she asked as Julian stooped to retrieve his clothing. "You don't believe me. You don't believe that I love you!"
Those words burned. Why now? What did he do with those words now? Did he ignore the doubts in his heart? Did he allow wild hope to build again? How could she say that now, how could she ruin it all by declaring something he so desperately craved after he had depleted all he had to give?
Julian looked down at his wife. Her hair spilled wildly about her shoulders and she seemed unconscious of her nakedness. Her breasts, pale as the moon in the light from the hearth, rose softly with a breath that seemed to catch in her throat as she gazed up at him. Damn her allure all to hell. "Frankly, Claudia, I don't know what to believe anymore," he muttered helplessly, and stepped over her, pausing only to fetch his boots as he walked out of the salon.
In his rooms, he quickly dressed. He had to get out. He could not stay here with her, not like this. What a goddam fool he had been to think they could co-exist in one house! He stalked to the foyer and commanded a footman to fetch him a hack. As he waited, he realized with painful acuity that he had finally hit rock-bottom in his life, bouncing like an India rubber ball to be hit again and again. Ah, God, such was the quality of love!