And within seconds she'd followed his injunction.
Chapter 10
Checkmate, Tania said, lying back against the pillows with a triumphant chuckle. "I did it. This isn't such a difficult game, Kevin. I don't know why it took me so long to learn it."
Kevin sat back in his chair and smiled at her. "Five days isn't a lifetime, you know. Though I must confess I'm very glad you had a few problems with it. It wasn't too damaging to my ego to be beaten unmercifully by Jared at poker, since I'm something of a novice, but chess I consider my game."
"You play it very well." The mention of Jared had momentarily obscured her feeling of triumph, and she moved restlessly, pushing the chessboard aside and sitting up straight in bed. Then a thought occurred to her that caused her dark eyes to narrow suspiciously. "Perhaps too well to allow yourself to be beaten by a beginner. Did you let me win, Kevin?"
"I know better than that, princess. You wouldn't thank me for that kind of victory. You won fair and square. Besides, why should I let you win, when it's the only form of ego-stroking I get around here?"
"Perhaps you wanted to pacify me?" She swung her feet to the floor and stood up, her expression revealing clearly the discontent she felt. "That's why you're here,
isn't it? To keep me amused and out of Jared's way?" She walked swiftly toward the French doors. "Well, you've done a very good job, Kevin," she said bitterly as she opened the door to let a gust of fresh, cold air into the bedroom. "Jared should be very pleased with you."
Kevin’s gaze followed her, his expression troubled. Her small form, silhouetted in the late-afternoon sunlight, was charged with restlessness. He'd expected this outburst and was surprised it hadn't come earlier. There had been an almost feverish tension about Tania for the last two days. "Yes, that was my job," he said quietly. "One that I've enjoyed very much. I'd hoped that you'd found the last five days at least tolerable, too, Tania."
She drew a deep breath, the cold air searing her lungs, her gaze on the mountains that were being touched by the first rays of sunset. It wasn't fair to take out her frustration on Kevin, she thought remorsefully. He'd been an angel of patience and good humor, and she probably would have gone totally insane without his efforts to keep her happily occupied.
Her hands clenched unconsciously as she remembered the morning when Jared had carried her back to this room and she'd gone to sleep with his hand stroking her so gently. When she'd awakened two hours later, that gentle touch was gone. In Jared's place was a very apologetic and appealing Kevin McCord, who had been her constant companion ever since. She hadn't even seen Jared since that moment she'd dropped off to sleep five days ago. It had been Kevin who changed her bandage, saw that she ate every bite of the meals that were brought to her, and kept her from going crazy with boredom from the unaccustomed inactivity, which Jared had insisted upon.
Other than Jared's rejection of her, it was the inactivity that was the most painful. He'd made sure she would be active not only by Kevin’s presence during the day, but by posting a guard at her door from the moment Kevin left her until he returned the next day.
"You've been very kind, Kevin," she said wearily, turning toward him. "I suppose I'm just bad-tempered because my nerves are a bit strained." She made a face. "I'm not cut out to be an invalid, I'm afraid. This is all completely ridiculous, you know. I'm perfectly well now."
"Jared wanted to be sure. Shock can do funny things to your nervous system. The additional rest didn't hurt you, and built up your resistance to infection and virus."
"It didn't hurt me!" she exclaimed. She tightened the belt of her robe and marched over to stand before him. "It's driving me out of my mind, not to mention making me lose muscle tone by keeping me from practicing. A dancer can't afford such inactivity, damn it! Obviously, Jared doesn't care that it's going to take me two weeks of hard work just to get back to normal."
"He cares. You wouldn't doubt it if you'd seen the way he gives me the third degree every time I leave you in the evening. I have to give him a report that includes everything from your mental state to the tragic development of a hangnail. He knows very well how you feel. Why do you think he set the guard over you? He's afraid you'll be tearing all over the chateau and exhausting yourself."
"Curiosity doesn't necessarily mean concern," she said, careful to keep the hurt from her voice. "The man hasn't even had the courtesy to pay me a visit for days."
"It doesn't make sense to me either," he said with a helpless shrug. "But I'm not about to question Jared, considering the mood he's been in lately. I feel like I'm walking a tightrope between the two of you now. Just be patient—"
"I've been patient long enough," she interrupted. "He needn't think I'm going to bother him by inflicting
my presence on him. I've no intention of even going near him, but there's no reason I shouldn't be permitted to leave my room now. You can tell him I won't stand—"
"You can tell me yourself." Jared stood in the doorway. He looked self-possessed and very attractive in dark cords and a black, long-sleeved shirt that gave his slender, whipcord body the appearance of a vaguely sinister strength. He sauntered toward them, pausing for a moment to toss the large box he was carrying on the bed. "I'm not going to give you any argument. You can leave your room any time you wish. House arrest is officially over."
She tried to stifle the sudden leap of joy she'd known at the sight of him. She hadn't realized how achingly she'd missed him until he'd walked through that door. "I'm surprised you came to deliver the message yourself," she said caustically, her dark eyes flashing. "Why didn't you just send me a telegram or have that behemoth of a guard tell me?"
"Yes, I'd say you are definitely well on your way to recovery. Has she been giving you hell, Kevin?"
Kevin stood up. "She's been very good, actually. You can't blame her for coming a little unglued, under the circumstances. You'd be going crazy by now, Jared."
"I'm well aware of that," Jared said, his eyes on Tania's flushed, tense face. "I'm considering having the senator put you up for a medal for tolerating both of us."
"Well, if anyone could swing it, you could," Kevin said lightly. "I gather I'm a fifth wheel?"
"At the moment," Jared agreed, his gaze still not leaving Tania's face. "I think I can handle things from here."
"Well, if you can't, feel free to ask me at any time," Kevin said breezily as he strolled toward the door. "I'm sure we can manage between us. We might not even have to call Betz's boys for help."
"Don't count on it," Tania said tartly as the door closed behind him. "Have I ever told you how much I detest being spoken of as if I weren't here?"
"Judging by what I heard when I came in, you're in a mood to resent anything I'd say," he replied calmly. "Not that your attitude is completely unexpected."
"No wonder you decided to release me," she answered caustically. "If I'd known my assurances not to bother you would have that effect, you'd have gotten them five days ago."
Ryker's expression turned stormy. "I expected you to be impatient," he said deliberately. "I didn't expect you to be stupid. You're too intelligent a woman to jump to inane conclusions."
"Inane!" Her eyes were blazing. "How can you say that, when you—"
She broke off as he put his hand firmly but gently over her lips. "Let's start over again," he murmured. "I have no intention of letting you goad me into a quarrel. My temper is just as edgy as yours, after this week, or I'd never have responded like that. Maybe you actually don't know why I stayed away from you for the last five days. Though God knows how that can be true."
Then, as she continued to glare up at him with mutinous eyes, he shook his head in exasperation. "Do I have to spell it out for you? I want you, damn it! I knew I couldn't see you every day without taking you or going through an inferno more blistering than any you've been putting me through since you appeared on the scene. My control wasn't strong enough to resist so much temptation."
For a moment it didn't sink in; then her eye
s widened as she felt an exuberant singing somewhere deep inside. Her lashes lowered as she reached up to pull his hand away from her lips. "You could have told me," she said shakily. "How was I to know that you hadn't gotten bored with our little game and opted out?"
"It's never been a game. Not even in the beginning. It was too late to opt out from the first moment I saw you. I don't see how I could have clarified what the problem was without actually climbing into bed with you." His lips twisted. "And I knew I hadn't the right to do that yet."
"Right?"
"I had hurt you. Not only physically, but psychologically. It may not have been my hand that did it, but it was certainly my responsibility. I didn't have a right to ask anything of you until I'd healed that hurt." He paused. "That's why I'm here right now. I want you to come with me. Will you do that, Tania?" His eyes were holding hers with a steadiness that was almost mesmerizing.
It was odd how she'd first thought those eyes were ice-cold. Now they seemed to hold all the warmth in the world. "I don't understand," she said huskily. "Where do you want me to go?"
"Don't ask questions. Just come, okay?"
Dazed, she nodded, still gazing bemusedly into his intent face. "Okay."
She was rewarded by a smile that was so brilliant it took her breath away. "Good," he said softly. Then he was briskly turning away and moving toward the bed. "Where we're going you'll need something a little warmer than the robe you're wearing, so I came prepared." His hands were reaching for the large box he'd tossed on the bed when he'd first come into the room. "I think this ought to fill the bill."
When the lid was lifted and the delicate tissue paper pushed aside, it revealed a white fur so lustrous
and soft that it seemed to radiate light all over the room. Tania stroked it. "It's magnificent. What is it?"
Jared's hands were at the belt of her robe. "Ermine." He pushed the satin robe from her shoulders and let it fall carelessly to the carpet. His gaze ran lingeringly over the graceful figure in the clinging peach nightgown. "I never did send for those granny gowns, did I? I was wiser than I knew, to stay away from you." Then he took the white fur out of the box and draped it over her shoulders. It was an evening cape of such luxurious richness that her breath caught in her throat. It billowed behind her in a graceful little train, the hood making a perfect frame for the golden duskiness of her face. Jared's hands slowly fastened the two buttons at her throat, his eyes locked with hers in the same hypnotic intimacy. "You look like a little empress, proud and lovely and free. I knew you'd look like that when I ordered it from Athens."
Her hand touched the fur with a fairylike gesture. "It's too much!" she said, trying to control the trembling of her voice. "It must have cost the earth. I can't accept it."
"You have no choice. It's yours now." He leaned forward to brush her lips with a tenderness that caused an ache to start in her throat. "Besides, you'll make Betz most unhappy if you refuse. He was practically ecstatic when I told him I wanted him to get it for you. He thinks I'm at last yielding to the temptation he so efficiently put before me." His lips brushed hers again. "He's right."
Her laugh was shaky. "Well, we wouldn't want to disappoint Betz."
"Which shoes are you wearing?" He pulled aside the skirt of the cloak to reveal the low-heeled satin slippers. "Those will be all right for the little distance we're going," he decided as he took her hand in his,pulling her with insistent gentleness toward the door. "Come on, we have to hurry. It's almost time."
She almost had to run to keep up with his long-legged stride as he hurried her through the chateau and courtyard and on to the formal garden. The air was crisp and cold, and the dwindling ray of sunlight cast a mellow glow over the barren orderliness of the hedges. She felt the same mellowness pervading every atom of her being as she walked beside Jared with her hand clasped tightly in his in a joining that seemed oddly timeless. He hadn't put on a jacket, she suddenly noticed with a frown. He'd decked her out with the most magnificent fur imaginable and hadn't even bothered to slip on his old flight jacket. She was about to insist that they go back to the chateau, when she heard it.
It started as the merest breath of sound, like the misty wisps of which dreams are woven. The silvery music that was surely the most evocative and beautiful in the universe.
Her eyes flew to Jared's. "Wind chimes?" she asked wonderingly.
He nodded, his eyes fixed on her face, drinking in every fluctuation of emotion he found there. "Wind chimes."
Then the music was growing like a magic symphony, and her bewildered gaze followed the sound to its origin in the birch grove just ahead of them. "Oh, my God!" It was more prayer than imprecation. She stopped stock-still in the path, feeling as if a hand had been laid upon her heart.
The setting sun was behind the trees, and the slender white trunks of the clustering birches looked fragile and graceful bathed in its rosy glow. Yet it wasn't the lovely symmetry of the trees that had caused the singing deep inside her suddenly to burst into joyous song, but the branches. The bare branches that had
looked lonely and stark against the skyline were now decked with hundreds—no, thousands—of wind chimes. Hanging on every branch from the very highest to the lowest reaches were exquisite crystal-and-silver prisms that reflected the setting sun in a rainbow blaze of color, like the icicles of fairyland.
"I can't believe it," she whispered. Her senses were dazzled, assaulted by color and beauty and sound whose quantity and quality were almost too intense to bear. Then she was running, flying down the path and up the hill until she was among the trees. The hood had fallen back from her head as she raced, and her dark silken braid danced against the soft white fur as she spun in a circle, her arms outstretched and her face more luminous than the setting sun. The wind chimes cast rainbow shadows on the earth carpet on which she moved, and to the man who stood quietly watching her at the edge of the trees, she seemed a mythical princess from ancient Atlantis, lightly skimming the waves of brilliant textures, yet making them part of her.
The fragile silver carol seemed to be interwoven with the color, filling her, intoxicating her with beauty until the tears were brimming in her eyes. She finally stood quite still and let that beauty flow into her. "It's too lovely," she whispered over the painful tightening of her throat. "It's so lovely that it's hurting me."
"That wasn't the idea." Jared's voice was gentle. "It's supposed to heal you. I remembered what you said about the wind chimes healing your hurt when you were a child. I figured there couldn't be too much of a good thing." He came forward and took her hand. His slender, black-clad figure was a dark flame against the rainbow-dazzling aura surrounding them, and his expression was grave. "I want to heal all the pain you ever knew, little Piper. Will you let me do that?"
He was drawing her with him to the edge of the cliff, his hand warm and secure around her own and his eyes holding hers with that same loving steadiness. He stopped when they were under the birch tree where he'd been sitting that first day. It clung to the very edge of the precipice, and it, too, was covered with wind chimes that sang in the brisk breeze that whipped across the mountain.
Jared slipped an arm around her waist and stood with her only inches from the drop to the valley below. "Remember this, love." His voice was a husky murmur in her ear. "Remember the color and the wind song. Remember the beauty. How could fear and ugliness exist in a world this lovely? It was all a bad dream and now the nightmare is over, never to return. Whenever it tries to come back, you'll remember the beauty and the wind song and it will go away again." His lips brushed the delicate veins at her temple. "All you have to do is accept it to make it so, Tania."
She was accepting it, she discovered with a little tingle of incredulous joy. The ugly memory of that horror when she'd dangled helplessly in an agony of fear was being released and floating away as she stood there. She was being healed by the enchantment of the world Jared had created for her, and it was the act of creation itself that was the most effective balm. That
he'd cared enough to go to these gloriously extravagant lengths to help her was the most magical wind chime of all.
She turned to him, her magnificent dark eyes blazing and her lips trembling with a vulnerability that brought her no sense of shame. "Thank you," she said simply. No words were adequate at the moment. "I will remember forever, Jared."
Forever. Again that word, but this time she knew she spoke only the truth. No matter how far their forever stretched, she would remember the bright radiance of this instant.
He inhaled sharply and took an impulsive half-step forward. He halted abruptly. There was a pulse pounding erratically in the hollow of his throat, and his silver eyes were glowing with a deep, burning flame. He closed his eyes and made an obvious effort at control. He deliberately released her, his arm dropping from her waist as he stepped back. "That's all that's important," he said quietly. Then, incredibly, he was turning to leave!
"Jared?" Her eyes were wide and questioning.
"Stay here," he said gently. "It will be good for you to be alone for a while."
"You're leaving?" she asked disbelievingly.
"I find I'm not quite as self-sacrificing as I'd thought. I don't want to blow the whole purpose of the exercise by grabbing something for myself." One finger reached out to feather the curve of her cheek. "This is for you, little Piper." Then he was gone, striding swiftly through the rainbow-dappled grove like a dark, powerful shadow.
She gazed after him until he disappeared from view. He had lavished a multitude of gifts upon her this day, and not the least of them was that generosity of spirit which had prompted his departure. She knew he'd wanted her with an intensity that had nearly broken his control only a few minutes before, but he'd given her the gift of his restraint as simply as he'd wrapped her in the warmth of this magnificent ermine cloak. There was no question in her mind which was the more valuable present.
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