“Yes, of course I have.” She tugged the silver-backed hairbrush through her hair, her eyes focused on Steve’s reflection in the mirror. “But Lerdo is president now, isn’t he? If the fighting is nearly over, it should soon be safe. I do not see why we can’t make plans to return—”
“Maybe your memory is shorter than mine,” he said harshly, “because I can damn well remember how it was when Maximilian was in Mexico. Have you forgotten the Juaristas, the revolution, the soldaderos?”
An involuntary shudder tracked chills down her spine, and Steve’s voice softened a little at her visible reaction.
“Ginny, the fighting is not yet over. I won’t risk the children in Mexico right now, and for that matter, I won’t risk you there until I make sure it’s safe.”
Her fingers shook slightly as she placed the hairbrush carefully on the dressing table; silver gleamed in the soft lamplight. “Does this mean that you intend to go to Mexico?”
A faint, rueful smile tucked one corner of his mouth inward, but his eyes were watchful. “You’ve always had a way of getting straight to the point when you choose. Yes, Ginny love, that’s exactly what I mean. As ambassador—”
“Pierre said your appointment was a farce,” she broke in as she turned back to face him. “Is it? Is that why you’re in London? Is this appointment due to Jim Bishop’s machinations again? His dark intrigues?”
“Dammit, Ginny—”
“I knew it! It is Bishop. He’s here, isn’t he? In London? Like he was in New Orleans, and in San Francisco, and every other time things have gone so wrong…. Will it ever end? Will you ever just want to be with me and not go running off trying to save the world?”
“Save the world? How melodramatic you can be, Ginny my love. If men like Jim Bishop didn’t try to save the world, as you put it, there would be total anarchy. Bands of mercenaries running wild—”
“As you did?”
Blue eyes narrowed fractionally at her, a cold glitter in their depths that reminded her how ruthless he could be.
“I assume you’re referring to my time spent as a Juarista. Juaristas weren’t mercenaries.”
“Weren’t they?”
“No, not like your beloved French soldiers, who raped, murdered and looted with impunity from Maximilian. At least the Juaristas were fighting to protect their own country.”
“Yes,” she said quietly, “and it will happen all over again if you’re right. Steve, please, if Mexico is in danger of having another long revolution, we’ll stay here. Or we can go to France, or even Russia. We could visit my father—he sent for me, and if not for the trouble in Bulgaria, I might be there now. Oh, Steve, it was chance that took me back to France, and then of course, finding out you had brought the children to England—”
When he remained silent, she said almost desperately, “We can go anywhere we’ll be together and not torn apart again. I don’t think I could bear it if we’re separated, or I must be away from the children again. They are just beginning to remember me. You are just beginning to remember me….”
The wariness in his eyes altered subtly. He reached out, touched a blunt fingertip to her cheek, scrubbed his thumb over the moisture he found there and lifted his dark brow.
“Tears, mi amante?”
“Steve, I want a home, a real home, where we can watch our children grow up and know that we’ll always be there together. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, but I never knew how much until recently. Until I saw you again, and saw how the children love you and how you love them. It—it showed me a side of you I hadn’t suspected was there.”
His hand dropped to his side and he didn’t respond. Ginny felt the beginning of despair well inside at the futility of wanting that elusive security and love she’d searched for since she was only a child. First, her mother had died, and her father was always absent. Though she had known herself well-loved by Tante Celine and her cousins, it had not been the same thing at all. Not even when she’d left France to join her father in America, had she felt as if she truly belonged. Always an outsider, always feeling as if she had somehow lost something precious. And she had spent far too long in search of it.
The mistakes she’d made, the men in her life—the futile search for acceptance, for unconditional love to fill the void. Now she was a woman grown, with children of her own, and she still felt as if she was that lost, lonely child inside.
Steve put his palm against her cheek, his skin rough and warm as he stroked her face gently.
“Ginny, I wasn’t going to tell you now, but I guess it’s best to get it over with. I’m leaving next week for Mexico.”
“Next week? When were you going to tell me? As you walked out the door? Oh God, Steve, I thought this time it would be different, that—”
“Listen to me, dammit. With Porfirio Díaz fighting for control and Lerdo resisting, Mexico is in danger of another fullblown revolution. You remember the last one. It wasn’t pretty. This time, there’s no leader like Juarez to guide the country in the right direction.”
“Then take me with you.” She leaned into him, intense desperation engulfing her as he began to shake his head with a frown. “If you leave me behind, our lives together will never recover. I just know it. And I could help. I knew Lerdo, and Díaz, too, so it’s not as if I would be a liability. Oh, Steve, don’t leave me behind again!”
After a silence that seemed far too long, he shook his head, a faint smile crooking his mouth. “I suppose if I don’t take you, you’ll just follow me anyway.”
“Yes,” she said, “I will. And I’ll make certain that I’m an inconvenience.”
He laughed and hooked his hand behind her neck to pull her hard against him, his breath wafting across her cheek as he bent to kiss her.
“Little hellcat. You may be of some use to me, after all, though I’m willing to bet Jim Bishop won’t agree.”
“To hell with Jim Bishop,” she said faintly as his mouth brushed across her lips.
And then Bishop was forgotten, and Mexico, and even Italian opera singers, as Steve scooped her into his arms, carried her the few steps to the wide canopied bed against the wall and tossed her onto the mattress, his lean body following her down as he slid his hands beneath her silk dressing gown. She arched upward, hungrily, reaching for him and twining her arms around his neck.
“Bruja,” he muttered against her throat, “my green-eyed witch. You’ll probably be the death of me one day….”
Her hands raked up his back, shoving impatiently at his shirt until she felt bare skin, her fingers spreading out to hold him close as she shuddered with reaction. Lamplight cast a rosy glow across the room. Lips and hands made new and remembered discoveries as their bodies moved apart, then joined again, the passion that was always between them reignited.
There was no more talk as they came together with a savage intensity, not even undressing. The restraint of the past month was gone, replaced by the familiar need that always consumed them, that had driven them to desperate acts at times, this overpowering passion between them. It was a relief and an answer, and as Steve thrust inside her, his body a hard, driving force that took her past the realm of coherent thought to mindless sensation, Ginny knew that she would do whatever she had to do to stay with him.
He was her past, her present, her future….
5
Steve Morgan was ushered into a large anteroom with gleaming marble floors beneath thick Turkish carpets. Dark mahogany panelling boasted gilt-framed paintings of austere faces beneath white powdered periwigs. A stifling room, with only one tall casement window flanked by heavy draperies allowing in thin light, it seemed to close in around him. Shadows hovered in far corners like guilty secrets untouched by the glow of lamps or truth.
Restless, Steve resisted the urge to pace. Damn Grayson for committing him to a meeting with another anxious investor. Mexico’s current situation made rich men who invested in land or silver mines nervous, gave them a high stake in the future of the country’s leadersh
ip. To make it worse, this investor, he’d been told, owned extensive property in Oaxaca, and needed discreet advice on the advisability of supporting Díaz.
Christ, he had too much to do to waste time pretending interest in a bored aristocrat’s political machinations. With his return to Mexico only a few days away, he realized just how impatient he was to leave London.
It wasn’t just the fact that the city had begun to swallow him; that was bad enough. He wanted to be in the thick of things, in Mexico, where he could protect his grandfather if need be, conserve what was left of the old man’s strength.
The last time he’d seen Don Francisco, his grandfather had looked frail, though an indomitable will still shone from his eyes, as piercing and clear as ever. His new wife, Teresa—former wife to Lord Tynedale and Richard Avery’s mother—watched over Don Francisco with a protectiveness that Steve found irritating. He still hadn’t quite forgiven the old man for marrying, nor for keeping the weighty secret of an unmentioned son.
What would it have been like if he’d known? Nothing would have changed, but he wouldn’t feel as if he’d somehow been betrayed.
Footsteps echoed on the marble floors; he turned as the door swung open. Richard Avery, tall, lean, with pale skin and burning deep-blue eyes, entered the room and regarded Steve Morgan with a lifted brow.
“It is good of you to come.”
“Lord Tynedale, I admit that I was not told it would be you I was to meet.”
“Would you have come if you’d known?”
“Maybe.” This was the man who had taken Ginny from Cuba to Mexico to France and finally to the Ottoman Empire. Avery had loved Ginny, and she had loved him in return. He’d saved her from death twice—but Steve was damned if he could summon up a deep sense of gratitude. A lingering resentment usurped more appreciative emotions.
Richard Avery motioned to chairs in front of a small table. “Shall we be seated? What I have to say won’t take long.”
“If this is about Ginny—”
“It is and it isn’t. Please. Grant me the courtesy of a few moments of your time. There are things I’d like to ask you, things I do not feel I can ask anyone else.”
Despite himself, Steve found Avery’s manner inoffensive and disarming. He accepted the offer of a glass of dry sherry, a civilized invitation to a camaraderie neither felt.
Stretching his long legs out under the table, he sat back and regarded Avery over the rim of the small glass, observing his careful movements, the slight frown etched in his brow as he twirled the wineglass between his fingers.
Finally Avery looked up. “Do you love her?”
Steve’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I don’t see that it’s any of your business. Ginny and I have known each other a long time. How we feel about one another is no one else’s affair.”
“Yes. I am aware of that. I am also aware that you have not always chosen to remain with her, for various reasons.”
“If you asked me here to condemn me for—”
“No, no.” Avery put up a hand when Steve started to rise from his chair. “That is not my intention. I simply seek to reassure myself that she is happy, not just content. I have my own reasons for it.”
“Guilt?” He hadn’t meant to sound so mocking, but saw from Avery’s startled glance and quick, angry flush that he had come near the truth.
“In a way. You mock me, but I loved her. It was not her fault that I had to divorce her. And yes, we were married in the eyes of the law of Islam.”
There was an innate dignity to him that halted Steve’s terse reminder that he was not married to her now, and Avery must have sensed it, because his tone altered slightly, became impassive.
“It was necessary for me to force Ginny to leave me, but I did not want to part from her. I was caught in an untenable situation. You are aware, I am certain, of the political implications. Sultan Abdul Aziz was deposed in May, after Ginny was safely away. He killed himself by slitting his wrists with a pair of scissors, it is said. His successor, Murad, has been declared insane by his brother, Abdul Hamid, who seeks to take the throne. Since the massacre of the Bulgarians by Turkish troops, Russia will no doubt soon declare war on Turkey. I barely escaped with my own life, even though my mother is Persian and distantly connected to the sultan. That alone can be a death sentence when there is a struggle for power.”
In the soft hush that fell as he paused, Steve regarded the man who was his mother’s half brother; his uncle, though younger by a few years. There was a definite familial resemblance between them, evident by the dark blue of their eyes and lean build, but Richard Avery was as alien to him as an English aristocrat.
“And so,” Avery continued softly, his tone reflective, “after I sent Ginny to safety with Colonel Shevchenko, I did what had to be done to survive.” His eyes flicked up, caught Steve’s gaze and held it. “You, I understand, are an adventurer. A man who takes risks. I am not. I prefer books to danger, the exploration of civilized cities to the threat of the wilderness. But I’m not unappreciative of its beauty. Nor am I immune to the beauty of a woman.”
Steve set down his glass, his tone hard. “If you wanted me here to tell me about your relationship with Ginny, she’s already told me.”
“I am fully aware of that. Do not mistake me—I found her very beautiful, very vulnerable, but I knew it was not me she wept for at night, nor dreamed of, nor wanted with her. It was always you, Esteban. May I call you that? I have heard Don Francisco mention you so many times, it is how I think of you.”
“Have you? Until recently, I had never heard of you. I find it intriguing that you were aware of me all this time, yet I had no idea of your existence.”
“Until my father died, I did not know that the Esteban of whom I had heard so much was related to me. You see, I did not know Don Francisco was my true father until Tynedale died. Tynedale. It seems so cold to refer to him that way, when I always thought of him as my father. You do know, do you not, why it was that Don Francisco was my father? It was not an impetuous affair, as you seem to believe. My father asked him to produce an heir. He had been badly injured in a riding accident after my sister Helena was born, and without an heir, his title would pass to another. He could not bear the thought of it. Don Francisco was always such a wonderful friend, and it was to him that he turned for this most special of requests.”
The taste of the dry sherry on his tongue was heavy, and Steve did not refuse the offer of another glass to wash it away, to drown the distaste he felt. If it had been any other man, he would have left by now. But for some reason, he could not bring himself to reject Avery’s explanation. Had he been waiting for this, wondering, without admitting it even to himself?
“My mother,” Avery continued in the same soft monotone, “was a beautiful woman. She still is. Don Francisco, being the gallant gentleman that he is, agreed to my father’s request. Once successful, he left Cuba. It would have been too awkward to remain, to visit often, you see. So, I’m Lord Tynedale now, heir to title and lands as my father wished, but grateful to Don Francisco for the gift of life, and for nothing more.”
“Do you think I’m concerned with my inheritance? My grandfather has disowned me so many times that it’s never been something that worried me. It doesn’t now, either.”
“No, it would not. You are a millionaire several times over, I’ve heard, from careful investments. It is partially because of that ability that I wanted to meet you, to bring this out into the open between us. I know you will care for your wife as she should be cared for, and I want you to know that it was always you she wanted—”
Steve set his empty glass on the table between them and rose to his feet. “How long do you intend to be in London?”
Tynedale understood. He stood up, smiling slightly. “The prince desires to travel to Russia, and has asked me to accompany him. He made the acquaintance of the tsar on his last tour of France, and has accepted his invitation to the summer palace. It is beautiful, I understand, named for Catherine t
he Great, and very opulent. I expect to be most intrigued. It should take my mind off the recent death of my wife.”
The reference was to his Turkish wife, the woman who had supplanted Ginny, and no doubt been responsible for the attempt upon her life as well. Living in a harem had its drawbacks, it seemed.
“Why are you telling me all this, Tynedale? You didn’t arrange for me to come here just to find out how I feel about my wife.”
“Perhaps not.” A faint smile pressed at the corners of his mouth as Tynedale watched him. “I felt we should meet privately before we meet publicly. Tomorrow evening you are to attend a soiree given by the Prince of Wales. So will I. It is inevitable that we meet, so I leave it up to you to prepare Ginny for my presence there.”
Ginny was surprised and a little shaken when Steve told her that Richard Avery would be attending the same soiree.
“He’s here? Oh, I knew he was supposed to be in London, but I wasn’t sure…didn’t know if he would even think of me or would prefer not to see me again.”
“I think he’d like it too much.”
Sprawled in a chair, one leg thrown carelessly over the arm, Steve watched her through lazily narrowed eyes, a faint smile on his mouth. Ginny knew that look. He was waiting for her to react.
She arched a brow as she reached for the cup of hot, sweet tea she favored. Delicate china rattled with a light, tinkling sound, tiny roses vivid against the creamy white background. It was a habit lately to drink tea in the afternoon, a practice that was growing in popularity in London. She sipped the hot brew slowly, taking her time before she responded to Steve’s news of Richard.
“It will be delightful to see him again. He was very good to me, and I cared a great deal for him.”
It was true. She had cared for Richard. But he’d never supplanted Steve in her heart, and he’d been intelligent enough to know that.
She looked up in time to catch the skepticism in Steve’s gaze, and was startled. It was gone so quickly, she wondered if she had imagined it, for he gave another careless shrug, his smile revealing nothing.
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