The Bride Who Wouldn't (8 page)

“So do you.”

Isaak did.

He hadn’t shaved since the morning of the wedding. He was the unshaven version that had walked into her office that day but he didn’t remind her of that man at all now.

“And you
are
nice.”

“Am I?” Isaak said, his foot nudging her calf.

“Yes.”

“Am I still nice?” His hand met her knee.

“Stop,” Kate said but she was smiling as he removed his hand and placed it on the table.

“Warm isn’t it?” Isaak smiled.

She chose quail ballotine, and the wine waiter suggested chardonnay or pinot noir, and Isaak watched the tiny screw of her nose but Kate nodded. “Pinot noir would be lovely.”

“Kate,” Isaak said when the waiter had gone. “What wine would you really like.”

“A shiraz.”

He called the waiter back and changed the order. “You say what you want, not what you think others want you to say.”

“I was just—”

“Holding back,” Isaak finished for her as their wine was delivered. Kate was so glad she’d been forced to speak up, for it was so rich the colour was almost black and the taste was heaven.

“Wow,” Kate said, feeling the heat on her cheeks. “That’s wonderful.”

“Tell me one thing,” Isaak said and she happily nodded. “How did you come to study genealogy? How did you fall into that?”

“It found me,” Kate admitted. “I love history and I wanted to find out more about my family. The more I got into it the more I was fascinated.”

“So how far did you get with my family?”

“I didn’t really get anywhere. Your uncle did most of the work; my classes are aimed at giving people the tools to look themselves. Your uncle enjoyed the classes a lot, he was a very clever man.”

“He was,” Isaak agreed. “And a good man, he gave both Roman and I our start. He came back to Russia when Roman turned eighteen and offered us two tickets to London. It was like a lifeline. He said he would pay our rent for one year. Roman and I have…” he tapped the side of his head, “…business brains. I got a job at a liquor store mainly putting out the stock but I could see the owner was being ripped off by his staff, there was a lot of theft going on out the back and I called it. When profits started to go up, the owner offered me a share in the business and Ivor lent me the money to buy in. When the old man retired, Ivor lent Roman the same amount.”

“That was how your business started?” Kate smiled as he nodded but then, just as she started to relax, just as she had stopped thinking him formidable, he reminded Kate that he was.

“Why, if there was nothing going on between you and my uncle, did you travel to Russia with him?”

He watched the glass stop midway to her lips and then she took another swallow of wine.

“I assume the library doesn’t offer field trips to all the students?”

“No.”

“Kate, why don’t you stop lying to me?”

“I don’t lie.”

“Over and over, you withhold information,” Isaak pointed out. “Do you want a few examples?”

“No.”

“You’re sure about that?” Isaak checked.

“Very sure,” Kate said because she did not want her virginity discussed here! “The further I looked into it the more questions it threw up. Ivor hoped I might help him get some answers. He did all the talking in Russia, and I asked all the questions.”

“What sort of questions?”

“Isaak…”

“I want to know, Kate.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Kate responded. “Isaak people come to search their family history when they are ready to find certain things out.”

“I’m ready,” Isaak said, and as they ate their main course, he tried to prove that he was. “I know that my family history is not the most impressive. My mother and
babushka
both had miserable lives and it was not due to poverty.”

“Babushka?”
Kate frowned.

“Grandmother,” Isaak explained and then let out a tense breath. “I know that my
ded
, my grandfather, and my father also spent time in prison. I understand why you may have said those things about going to the police the other night.” As Kate shook her head in protest to his words, Isaak pushed on. “You’re not going to surprise me.”

“I think I might.”

Kate was nervous to tell him, unsure how he might react to the news. “Isaak, as I said, that ring is not a replica. The hallmarks have been scratched but it goes back to pre-1917 and the Romanov empire.”

“Ivor was once very wealthy, he could afford to buy this easily.”

“No.” Kate shook her head and waited as their plates were taken away. “It was given to him by your
babushka
. So too were the earrings, along with other trinkets.”

“No,” Isaak stared at her in disbelief. “She was a modest woman, there was no money in my family. Why would she have this?”

“She was a very beautiful woman,” Kate said. “And looking at the records, when your grandfather was in prison, she had a cleaning job. Where, we don’t yet know, but it would seem that your
babushka
had a lover and we were trying to deduce who he might have been. Growing up, Ivor was told he had been born premature, that he came early.” She gazed at him intently. “Whoever he was, he made sure Ivor was provided for. When Ivor returned from serving in the military your
babushka
told him the truth or a part of it—she had had an affair while her husband was in prison. She wouldn’t say whom with, but it clearly was someone rich enough to bestow her with money and jewels enough for Ivor to leave Russia and start a new life in England.”

“Why wouldn’t Ivor tell me that?” Isaak asked and Kate gave no reply, but later back in the suite when he was clearly struggling with the news and asked the question again, Kate was honest.

“I think his concern was if your father ever found out.”

Isaak nodded because that
did
make sense. “My father was always jealous of his brother, even without knowing this. Ivor would come back to Russia often with gifts, money…” Isaak looked back on those times. “Of course we thought he had made his fortune in England, we never knew that it had been handed down to him. My uncle was right—it would have made things worse.”

“Worse?”

“My father was already an angry man.”

He started to undress, and Kate turned her head and then picked up the nightdress and headed to the bathroom to change.

Walking out, she wondered if he’d perhaps offer to take the sofa, but his eyes met hers as she hung the pearls on the mirror.

“Sleep well.” Isaak got into bed and stretched out luxuriously.

“And you.”

Kate wouldn’t sleep well.

She wanted the bed and possibly the six-foot-two Russian it contained.

It was a very new feeling to have.

K
ate awoke to
her alarm and the sound of rain beating against the French windows, and possibly she was more nervous the second morning that she approached the bed but for very different reasons this time though.

Isaak was asleep and there was no comment from him, this morning, when she slipped in between the sheets.

Kate lay on her side and facing away from him, closing her eyes as her heart hammered in her chest.

Asleep, the slight disturbance, the soft bleep of an alarm would usually be enough to wake him for Isaak always rose early, yet he allowed himself the rare indulgence of hitting snooze.

Or did he hit it?

Whatever, the alarm had gone off, and Isaak slipped back into his dream—the sound of laughter, the dark wood of a hotel room, the taste of a sweet crepe, and then it shifted to feeding Kate her dessert last night and the feel of her dancing in his arms on their wedding night.

He remembered their kiss, the sublime of her tongue but not the harsh exchange afterwards. He felt the indent of the bed and then her faint floral scent stirred him closer to awake.

“Kate?” His voice was low and smoky with want and, as naturally as breathing, Isaak rolled toward the feminine side of the bed, his arm coming over her waist and to the soft of her stomach. His mouth met her shoulder, nuzzling beneath her hair, and just as he went to pull her into his fierce erection, just as his hand went to move from her stomach to slide between her legs and bring her to slick pleasure, it was then that Isaak properly awoke.

She felt his sudden restraint, his hand moving back to her stomach and Kate could barely breathe, because there was want between her legs, too. His cock he had freed from confines and the head was there in the middle of her thigh and there was an ache in her heavy breasts and she almost willed his hand to leave the warm space where it held her stomach.

“I didn’t hear the alarm,” Isaak said. “Can we pretend that didn’t happen.”

“I don’t want to.”

There was the absence of fear for the very first time, combined with the soft stroke of his fingers on her stomach and the weight of him still on her thigh and she ached for it to creep up.

“Can I ask something?” Still his fingers were stroking her very gently through the fabric, his mouth kissing down her shoulder. “Something I worry about…”

“Yes.”

“You said he seemed patient at first… Basil.”

“Yes.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“He didn’t make me like this,” Kate admitted. “He didn’t help matters but it wasn’t him that caused it.”

“What happened?” Isaak asked. “You don’t have to tell me, I just…” It made him ill at the thought that someone had hurt her. “It might help if I know.”

She’d never told another.

It was the most shameful moment of her life, and Kate lay there reliving it for a moment and he felt the tension rip through her.

“Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“You truly can.”

“I got caught.”

“Caught?”

“You know…”

“I don’t.” He rolled her onto her back and propped himself on an elbow. Looking down at her, he was seriously curious now. “Caught by whom?”

“My mother.” She could see the confusion in his eyes.

“Did she catch you with your boyfriend?”

“No, no.” Her cheeks were on fire, and yet she still managed to look at him. Maybe if she could admit it, just say it out loud… “When I was a teenager, one day everyone was out, I didn’t hear her come home and my mother caught me exploring my lady garden.”

Isaak’s English was excellent, rarely did he have to pause a conversation to translate in his head, but that was what he was doing now.

What the fuck was a lady garden? Did she mean…?

He was terribly aware that his reaction must be serious, and he had expected it to be, for he had been expecting to have to contain his anger against another man, never for a moment had he thought that he might need to contain his laughter.

Nyet
, he told himself, for he must not laugh, but he was watching the embarrassment turn to horror in her eyes as she saw his serious face struggle for composure.

“You cannot laugh!” Kate shouted. It was her darkest secret, her absolute shame, and he had the audacity to laugh!

“Oh, baby…” He was trying to stop, rarely did Isaak laugh but he was shaking from it now as he kissed her tense face. “Oh, no, I should not laugh.” Not that that stopped him. “I am sorry. I have never heard it described as lady garden…”

To hear him say those words mixed with the sound of laughter, it was an Isaak she had never seen, his words, the kisses to her face, the way he apologised as he tried to compose himself. Surely he could not have reacted any worse to her confession, and so why was she smiling too? Why did she feel a cloak of shame lift as she also started to laugh?

“Lady garden!” Isaak said again.

“That’s what she called it.”

“No wonder you’ve got issues.” He looked down at her. “I could have fun with that forever… I’m going to trim the lady garden.” There was a knock at the door. “I’m going to plant seeds in the lady garden.” Then he called for the maid to come in.

He was still laughing as a tray was delivered to his lap.

Oh my, she thought of the serious faces of umpteen counsellors and doctors she had visited over the years and then she looked to the smiling face of possibly the most insensitive man, but again she’d misread him.

“You did nothing wrong,” he said when the door had closed and it was just the two of them. “Nothing. Lucky I did not have your mother, she would have been losing it three times a day.”

She just stared back at him, and he was suddenly serious. “Yes.” Isaak nodded. “It is normal, it is nice.” He picked up her hand and gave it a kiss. “I am sorry to laugh but…”

“No.” She stared at him, it was the honesty of his reaction that had lifted her. It was that he truly did not seem to think what she had done had been a problem. Oh, the counsellors and doctors had said the same and intellectually she knew they were right—but her mother’s horror and revulsion at such a formative time bypassed all logic and had settled in deep.

But then so too did Isaak settle in deep, for suddenly his eyes were serious and he leant over and gave her a very nice kiss.

“She should not have shamed you. That was so, so wrong.”

“E
njoy,” Isaak said
from the bed as Kate, wrapped in a bathrobe, was about to leave for a day of pampering in the spa.

“I shall.”

He just knew she was lying, and Isaak called her back.

“Remember last night when you ordered the wine?” He took her hand. “If they suggest something that does not appeal, say no. If you want more pressure or less, then you say so.”

“I shall.”

“Good,” Isaak said. “It is your day.”

“What will you do?”

“I want to look up my uncle, maybe look for images of the ring.” He picked up her hand and examined the ring closely.

Kate took it off and handed it to him. Then she went to the safe, opened it, took out a small pouch, and poured the earrings into his palm.

“I was always going to return these to you. When I thought we’d be getting an annulment, I was going to give them to you.”

“These were a gift to you though.”

“It’s your history Isaak. I think these are the most beautiful earrings I have ever seen. I would never have sold them, and I’d have never worn them.”