"Don't send me off," Derek pleaded. "Everyone's always sending me off, only I haven't anywhere to go."
Ivan patted the boy's shoulder. "Don't worry, I won't be long. I promise."
Derek sighed, then nodded, and Ivan felt an unaccustomed pang of guilt. But he would make it up to the boy, he promised himself. All Derek wanted was a little attention. In the future Ivan vowed to treat Derek as he'd wanted to be treated as a child, assuming he still had the opportunity. For now, however, he had to deal with his grandmother.
He turned to face her, steeling himself to reveal no facet of his emotions to her. "I'm waiting. What is it you wish to say?"
He saw her swallow as if she were nervous, and her bony fingers clenched again on her stick. Did she think to plead with him to be allowed to stay here after all she'd done to ruin his life and now Lucy's? He raised a hand to forestall her, but her words were not what he expected.
"I'm sorry."
His hands curled into fists but he forced himself to relax them. "You're sorry? Do you think saying you're sorry will bring my child back?"
She flinched as if he'd struck her, and she swayed on her feet. If she'd not gripped the cane so tightly, she would have fallen. But she didn't fall and she continued. "I'm sorry for the way I treated you all those years ago. For the way I abandoned you at that school."
Ivan went rigid. He could not believe his ears. She was apologizing now? But it was too little, too late. Far too late.
"Apology accepted. Is that all?"
She sat down, a stricken expression on her time-ravaged face. "You have every right to hate me."
"I don't hate you," he said, and it seemed actually to be true. He didn't have enough emotion left to hate her. "I don't give a damn about you."
"But you do give a damn about Lucy."
"Leave her out of this. If you'd just left her alone none of this would have happened. She would still be expecting our child."
"If I had left her alone the two of you never would have met."
"No doubt she would have preferred it that way," Ivan muttered, more to himself than to her.
But though time had ravaged the old woman in other ways, it had not adversely affected her hearing. "Has Lucy said that? Has she?" she repeated when he did not immediately respond.
The last thing Ivan wanted to admit to anyone was that Lucy had rejected him once more. That she had released him from his husbandly duties. That she would rather resign herself to the boredom of her brother's household than remain with him. Most especially he did not want to admit it to this woman, this woman who had never cared at all" for his happiness but only demanded that he do his duty to her.
But she'd pricked him in the one place that he was most vulnerable: his feelings for Lucy.
He looked away from her. She would know soon enough anyway. She would learn the truth from Lucy.
He looked back at her, forcing himself to an outward calm. Inside, however, he was shaking. He was dying. "She wishes to live apart from me. With her family." He waited for her angry response, for her harsh beratement. Instead she bowed her head, pulled a mangled hand kerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes.
Ivan's belligerent glare turned to confusion. The mighty Dowager Countess of Westcott in tears?
She raised her head and her damp eyes confirmed it. But if that fact shocked him, her words set him back on his heels. "Don't let her slip away, Ivan. I beg you. Don't make the same stupid mistake I made. Don't throw away your one chance for happiness out of pride. You will regret it every day of your life if you do."
"It's not pride," he choked out. "She doesn't want me for her husband. She never did."
Antonia rose to her feet. "She's always wanted you for herself," she vowed.
He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. "Yes. Your plotting saw to it that we would collide. But that's all we've done. Collide." He let loose a weary sigh. "There is no more to it than the physical attraction you so accurately predicted."
"Are you saying she does not love you?" Ivan thought back to the one time she'd said she loved him. Had it been true? He would never know now. "At one time she thought she did."
"And you? Do you love her?" He did not answer. He could not. But his silence seemed to energize his aging grandmother, for she approached him with renewed vigor.
"If you love her, you must tell her, Ivan. She is a romantic. For all her intellectual interests, she is nonetheless a romantic. If you want to keep her, you must tell her so. You must tell her you love her."
"And you, of course, are an authority on that nebulous emotion," Ivan bit out. "A loving mother whose son grew up to be a spineless, self-centered worm. A loving grandmother who couldn't bear the sight of her only grandchild. But perhaps you were a loving wife. You'll understand, of course, if I don't believe that either."
She winced at his sarcasm, but it did not entirely deter her, for she faced him still, though she trembled beneath the onslaught of his scorn. "I have made many mistakes in my life," she said. "And none of them can I undo—most especially the cruel way I have dealt with you. You were only a child. A frightened, lonely child," she admitted in a whisper. "I hurt you and I am heartily sorry for it. I can't undo the past. But I can try to change the future. Your future."
How many years had Ivan waited to hear just such an admission from her, just such an apology? And yet it roused a new sort of anger in him. It was far too late for her to be sorry. "You can't undo the past," he echoed. "As for the future ... I want nothing to do with you in the future. Nothing whatsoever."
She nodded and swallowed. "Yes. I understand that. But ... But I caution you not to confuse your hatred of me with your treatment of your wife."
Ivan bristled. "The two have nothing to do with one another."
"No?" She seemed to rally and her eyes glittered with emotion. "Then why can't you love her? Why can't you tell her you love her, as she needs to be told?" She watched him in the silence that separated them. "I can see the depths of your feeling for her. Everyone can."
Ivan could feel himself beginning to sweat. He glared at her, wanting to cut her with some scathing retort. But all he could say was, "If it's so obvious, then why can't she see it?"
"You have to tell her," she said, punctuating her words with one knotted fist. "You have to trust her with the truth in your heart. It's all she lacks from you. It's all she needs."
Ivan didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to believe anything she said, least of all this. What if she was wrong? What if Lucy didn't love him at all? What if he bared his heart to her and she still wanted to go?
Then again, she was already set on leaving him. What did he have to lose?
Only his dignity. His self-respect. What little was left of his pride. And yet that risk was nothing compared to what he might gain: Lucy's love.
Before he could turn for the door, his grandmother spoke once more, her ancient voice low, cracked—and earnest. "I have thought many things of you, Ivan, most of them unwarranted and unfair. But I have never thought of you as a coward. Not once."
"Then you don't know me very well," Ivan muttered to himself. He'd been a coward for so long, not risking his feelings for fear he might be hurt. But he could be a coward no more.
He gave her a brief nod and turned away. Once in the hall there was only one direction he could go. To Lucy.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Five Lucy sat in the window. Summer still kissed the land with green. But here and there the first hints of autumn showed. The sycamore leaves had begun to fall. The daisies had long ago faded and now one of the gardeners was digging and dividing the clumps. The boxwood topiary that flanked the entrance to the garden had been newly trimmed and would hold their obelisk shapes through the dormant season until spring brought new growth to the towering pair.
Lucy's hand moved to her stomach, to cover her empty womb. Would spring bring new growth to her? A new baby to grow inside her? A child to deliver and nurture, to love and shape for the rest o
f her life?
The answer hung like a grim shadow over her, making her shiver beneath its weight. Not if she left Ivan. Not if she returned to her family.
She looked at the door, hoping. Praying. But it remained still and solid. A six-panel oak door, easily twice her height. Ivan had left through that door. Once again she'd rejected him and he would not be coming back.
Tears stung her eyes. She'd sent him away, and why? Because she wanted more from him than he was able to give. Was that fair? Was that even reasonable? If he didn't love her it was because he didn't know how. But if she would just be patient, if she would just try harder, perhaps she could teach him, if only by example.
She swung her gaze back to the pastoral scene beyond the curtained window alcove. Since when had love become a prerequisite for marriage anyway? Ivan had asked that very question of her. Now she asked it of herself. Mutual respect and friendship had been all she'd wanted from Sir James. Why couldn't that be enough from Ivan?
Because it wasn't. She loved Ivan with every fiber of her being. With her heart, her body, and her soul. And she desperately needed him to love her back. But until he did, she simply could not let him go. She flung back the curtain and rose from the deep win dow ledge. At almost the same moment the door to the hall jerked open and Ivan burst into the room.
"I don't want you to go." He stood in the doorway, his stance belligerent, but his eyes tortured. "You're my wife and I won't let you leave me."
Joy surged through Lucy, joy and love and an overwhelming certainty that he could learn to love her as she loved him. Perhaps he already did, at least a little. After all, he was here, wasn't he?
"I'm not leaving," she whispered, unable to repress a happy smile. They had a long way to go but together they would manage. And together they would make another child—and a family—for them both. "I'm not leaving," she repeated. "I was just coming to tell you that."
Ivan stared at Lucy. He wasn't certain he'd heard her right. She gave him a trembling smile, a beautiful, hopeful smile, that held in it all the warmth of the sun, the serenity of the moon, and the enduring promise of the constellations. She wasn't leaving!
He took a step into the room, then halted. He wanted her so badly it hurt. His need for her was so pure, so all-enveloping, that it left no room for anything else. "I love you."
He started to hold his arms out, then let them fall to his sides. The words came out so easily. Too easily. They didn't begin to convey the depth of his feelings for this woman who had challenged him, then charmed him. Who was both brilliant and naive. Who was like no other woman. Why had he feared to say those three little words, when they didn't began to describe the depths of his feelings? How could he ever find the words powerful enough to explain how he felt about her?
Her smile had faded at his profession of love, confirming in his mind the inadequacy of his statement. She shook her head. "You don't have to say that, Ivan. I'm not leaving you. I'll stay even if you don't love me."
"But I do love you. You have to believe me, Lucy. I love you. I was an idiot before, a fool not to realize—"
"Shh." She moved up to him and pressed a finger to his lips. "Don't say anything else."
Their eyes met and held. Hers were a vivid green, so clear they seemed to shimmer with life—and with love.
Ivan was humbled by the love he saw in their luminous depths, love for him, a man who'd done nothing to deserve that love. He made a silent vow to do everything in his power to deserve it in the future. And the most important thing was to open his heart to her completely, to hold nothing back from her ever again.
"I want to make love to you," he said, and rejoiced when she blushed then smiled. "I want to love you always, in every way. I want you to live and breathe every moment of your life secure in the knowledge of my love for you."
She reached up and cupped his cheek with one palm, and he covered her hand with his larger one. "That's the vow I should make to you," she said. "You missed out on so much love as a child, but I promise you, Ivan, that you shall never be denied love as a man. As my husband."
She drew him toward the bed, and like a man mesmerized, he followed her. She loved him! How could he ever have feared that love—-or the love he'd tried to repress for her?
She backed toward the bed and he followed, beckoned by her trembling smile, glistening eyes, and open arms. She sat down on the bed and he began to descend over her. Then reality intruded and he hovered over her, wanting her desperately but knowing he could let this go no further.
"The doctor says we may not have marital relations for at least a fortnight. You need time to recover from ..." He let the words trail away.
Her eyes clouded for only a moment. When she smiled again it was with a new serenity. "Then come lie here with me and we shall say a prayer for the baby we have lost and all the ones we have yet to conceive."
Again Ivan hesitated. More children? He shook his head. "I couldn't put you through that again. It's too dangerous. I don't need to have children to be happy. I only need you."
She laughed, though a hint of tears showed in her eyes. "It's far too late for you to back out of this arrangement now, Ivan. You married me. You have professed your love to me. Now you must take everything that comes with it. For I plan to give you blue-eyed Gypsy boys and green-eyed Gypsy girls, whether you want them or not. More than anything in the world I want to bear your children."
Ivan gathered her in his arms. He could not speak for the tears that suddenly choked him. He'd never felt so loved. He'd never been such an important part of anyone's life. "If that's what you want."
"What I want is you," she whispered, curling against his chest, with her hand resting upon his cheek. "And I want no more misunderstanding between us. No more running away from one another." She lifted her head to stare straight into his eyes. "We have to run toward each other, not apart. Especially when things are not going well."
"Nothing can ever go wrong again, not now," Ivan vowed, and in that moment he believed it. But to his surprise, she laughed.
"You say that now, but I wonder what will happen the first time I disagree with you." She arched one brow, giving him a knowing smile.
Ivan grinned. "I'll kiss you into submission."
"What if I kiss you into submission?"
His smile faded and he stared at her, not believing his incredible good luck at finding and marrying this woman, not believing the miracle that had made her love him. He pulled her close and held her tight, wanting to crush her to him and never,let her go. "Anything, just so long as you love me," he whispered into her hair.
As the two of them lay entwined upon their bed, with bright sunshine streaming across them, Lucy heard the message of his heart. He needed her love, just as she needed his. And she knew without a doubt that he would love their children, more than he could possibly guess. Together they would build a family, a circle of love so strong and enduring that he would never go without love again.
Neither of them would.
* * *
Epilogue
The dining room glittered with light. The two cande-labras had been lowered, cleaned, and now gleamed with the flames of a hundred candles. Every wall sconce, lamp, and candlestick contributed to the glow, and the sweet smell of beeswax competed with the savory scents of the meal just completed.
The table was crowded with people. His family, Ivan realized, as he gazed in turn at each of them. From being alone to being surrounded by family—more family than he sometimes wanted—he'd come a very long way in the past five years. And all on account of his Lucy.
He stared down the long table at her and his heart swelled with love and pride. She was beautiful, both inside and out, and she'd brought him a contentment he could never have foreseen. Even this, a dinner in honor of his grandmother's seventy-fifth birthday, could not dim his happiness.
"A toast to long life," Sir Laurence said, rising with some effort to his feet. He lifted his glass and so did every one else.
"He
re, here," Sir James said. He and Valerie sat side by side, as they always insisted they must. Ivan had never seen Sir James tipsy before, and he chuckled at the sight of the somber scholar grinning like a fool.
Lucy's brother and his family were here, the nieces and nephews each with their own glass of wine. Derek and Stanley would soon be as tall as their father, and in the past in year Prudence had matured into a lovely young woman. But Lucy would not be the one chaperoning her in town next spring when she had her first season. He had no in to tention of giving his wife up for so long a period of time.
Alex had come from town for tonight's party. He was a favorite with the dowager countess, so Lucy had insisted. Giles was here too, though Elliot could not get away. That was just as well, for Ivan still felt a twinge of jealousy whenever the man greeted Lucy. Elliot was not a man to trust with any woman, even his best friend's wife.
And no wonder, for what a wife she was. Tonight, with her hair swept up, her gown cut low, and her favorite shawl—his shawl—draped across her shoulders, she was a sight that would give pleasure even to a blind man.
A tug on his sleeve drew Ivan's attention and he looked down at Raphael, who sat to his right. "May I make a toast, Father? May I?"
Ivan grinned at the image of his four-year-old son struggling to cover a yawn. It was well past his normal bedtime, but tonight they'd made an exception. He rumpled the boy's dark hair. "Of course you may." He tapped his knife against his wine goblet, then helped Rafe to stand on his chair.
The boy raised his glass of apple cider as he'd seen the adults do. He grinned at his father and then down the table at his mother. Finally he turned his impish attention on his grandmother, who sat in the middle of the table opposite him.
"Happy birthday to the best great-grandmother in the whole wide world."
Amidst the laughter and shouts of "Hear, hear!" Ivan waited for the familiar bitterness to set in. He hadn't wanted his son to love her. He hadn't wanted a child of his to have anything to do with the old crone. But Lucy had insisted and he had relented. Now he couldn't deny the true affection that lay between the old woman and her innocent great-grandchild.
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