Love Me Again

by Wendy M. Burge

  “Why? She's beautiful and healthy. I could wish for no more.”

  Christina stared at him, bemused. She didn't know whether or not to be hurt by this revelation. He had always wanted a son by her. Had he loved his late wife so much that he was satisfied with a mere daughter? Her throat burned on her next question. “Did you love her?”

  “No. I love you.” He smiled coldly down on her, his eyes a wintry accusation. “Every time I looked at her I hated her because she wasn't you. Every time I fucked her I,” He snapped her back against him when she tried to push away. His breath rasping in her ear, he repeated slowly, viciously, knowing that his vulgar language was intolerable to her gentle sensibilities. His satisfaction was immense as he continued to distress her. “Every time I fucked her I thought of you. And I fucked her as often as I could, Christina, morning, noon and night. The day she was declared pregnant I never touched her again. I couldn't bear to touch any woman. All I wanted was you. Just to have heard your voice alone would have soothed me. But, instead, like the coward I never knew you to be, you ran when it became too difficult for you. Well, what about me, Christina? Where was I supposed to run when the nights were so bleak I wanted nothing more than to put a gun to my head and end my misery? Where were you then? Fucking Sergei? Fucking this stranger you now mistakenly call husband? If you had only trusted me! If you had only loved me enough to know that our love is forever, then all these wasted years would never have been. We would be together again. Married and complete in each other as we had always wanted. But you didn't trust me, did you, Christina? If only...” His voice cracked and faded away into a hostile silence.

  Christina's whole body turned to ice. If only. But it could never be, not only because of this new life she had single-mindedly patched together for herself and the husband she was now sworn to, but because never would she trust Varek again. Their love had been too deep, too obsessive at times. He had owned her body and soul. And God help her but she secretly wanted it all back again! Held close in Varek's powerful arms, she could no longer fool herself, and it only made her angrier.

  For the first time she looked him square in the eye and hissed, “No, I can't trust you, Varek! You say you had no choice in what you were forced to do. Very well, I understand this, and still I can hate you for it. Yes and yes again, I understand it! Is that what you want? Do you want my forgiveness, too? That, you will never have. Do you know why, Varek? Because I was given no choice in the matter! It was my life you were debating. Did it never occur to you that perhaps I would have preferred to take my chances and stay by your side? It should have been my choice, too, Varek. But I was just a piece of property to you that you didn't want damaged. Well, you got what you wanted. I am alive and I am whole and I am happy with my life. You can't have everything, Varek, no matter how powerful you think you are.”

  His eyes were a blaze of conflicting emotion: rage, confusion, and fear. “So my failing is that I loved you too much? Is that what you are saying, Christina? That I should have told them all to go to hell and continue on in our own little fantasy world? And then what? When you were dead in my arms, I was just supposed to shrug and say, ‘Bring on the next bride!'” He gave a harsh, dry laugh. “God, how I wish to hell I had. It seems I should have been the selfish bastard and just cared about how much longer I could take you to my bed before the choice was taken out of my hands completely!” His fingers dug painfully into her side as he bent his face to within a mere breath's distance. His chilling glare stripped her soul bare. “And it probably matters not a whit to you, that when you were no longer sharing this world with me, I would have had no choice but to follow you? Is that where our selfishness should have taken us, Christina? Instead of the hope of a future together someday, we would have had nothing left to share but a grave?”

  Christina just stared at him, her mouth open in horror. “You wouldn't have!” she gasped.

  He looked down on her impassively. “As you just said, we all have choices. If anything had happened to you, I would have first tracked down the animal who had killed you, then I would have joined you, Christina. In life or death, we belong together.”

  Christina found herself drowning again. She couldn't even imagine Varek dead, cold in the ground, his vibrancy snuffed out. “Varek, don't you see that you read our fates wrong? We weren't meant for each other or none of this would have happened.” She was almost stuttering, grabbing at straws now.

  “Our fates are still intertwined, you little fool, don't you see that? Why else would you be here? Why else would I be here? But fate is a fickle bitch; I'll grant you that. After all, the most peculiar things can happen when you least expect it.” He sounded almost bored, his musing gaze studying Robert as they flashed past.

  Having noticed whom he was watching, Christina couldn't believe what she was hearing. “Are you threatening my husband, your highness?”

  Varek's eyes were anything but bored or impassive when he looked directly into her startled gaze. "I am your husband, Christina. Tell me that you don't see my face when he lies above you. How often do you have to convince yourself that you love him? That you are happy in your safe, dull little world? So, tell me, lark, who are you trying so strenuously to convince, me or yourself?” His smile was brutal as he stared her down, his whole demeanor as possessive as if he had thrown her down on the floor and claimed her body physically.

  When she tried to pull away again, he jerked her flush against him and she shivered as his warm lips brushed her ear, his moist breath caressing the sensitive skin. Against all her will, her body responded.

  She tried to shut out the feel of his voice as it whispered hotly in her ear. “Now that you've been in my arms again, do you really want to be anywhere else? You can't deny it because your body won't let you. Is your body weeping for me even now? If my fingers were in you right now, would they be dripping with your essence?” His cheek brushed her with a tender caress. “My God, lark, I need to come home.” This last anguished whisper was a stark testament to his pain.

  Thankfully, the music ended and after a long, tense pause, he slowly let her go. His face was an impassive mask as he watched her, waiting for her decision. When she stumbled slightly his hand shot out to steady her, the warmth of his palm searing her through the thin silk of her glove. Almost blindly she shrugged him off, and reluctantly he released her. How she stood standing she would never know. Her life was disintegrating about her feet as he gave her a bow, his searing gaze compelling her. Just the sight of him, standing there before her, so beautiful and golden and powerfully lithe, almost brought her to her knees. Her eyes slid closed as the room tilted under her feet. When she opened them again, he was gone.

  Christina looked around in a daze and when Robert materialized at her side, she was barely aware of him. Varek's insidious words were all too true. She had always belonged to Varek, ever since she had first seen him when she had been an ungainly child of eight. It was still indelibly fused on her memory how he had taken her hand and kissed it so gallantly, his gaze even then a force that could not be denied. From that moment on she knew no one would ever take his place in her life. She had loved him with an unswerving devotion that had years later turned into a consuming passion, and she had been one of the fortunate few whose love had been returned with equal fervor.

  The love of a lifetime. A love such as the celebrated troubadours through the ages had glorified. And it had ended just as all those fabled legends had, in tragedy.

  But, she wasn't that same person anymore. She didn't belong to Varek anymore, or did she?

  Reaching out blindly, she grabbed hold of Robert's arm. Her anchor in a world gone suddenly insane. Without a word spoken, they turned as one and headed for the nearest escape, ignoring the curious stares following them.

  Sergei hung back and studied Varek as he watched Christina disappear, the archduke's steady gaze narrowed and resolute. Sergei could tell by the tension radiating like heat from his body, that letting her go, again, was the hardest thing he
had ever done in his life.

  When Varek soon followed the fleeing couple out into the night with a leisurely stride at odds with his stiff posture, Sergei sadly wondered what fates his old comrade was planning to tilt at next.

  * * * *

  Robert stared at his wife's back as she sat at her dressing table, brushing her waist-length hair. She had barely spoken a word to him since they had left the ball. He swallowed his trepidation and finally broke the silence.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Their gazes met in the mirror. Her eyes were huge with shadowed secrets. After a moment she slowly shook her head. “I can't,” she whispered. “Not right now, Robert.”

  He clung tightly to his patience. He was scared as hell and she wasn't helping by not sharing this with him. He could tell she was deeply shaken by what had happened tonight. Girding himself, he asked with an unaccustomed harshness, not knowing if he really wanted to hear her answer, “Do you still love him?”

  Christina set her brush down with deliberate care, carefully avoiding his intent perusal. “No,” she lied, resentful that this was happening. She wasn't good at dissembling, no matter how important it was. She just prayed Robert wouldn't demand that she look him in the eye and repeat it.

  Feeling the tension in the air behind her, she turned around and faced him. Both were strained to their respective limits of endurance as they stared at each other, both pairs of eyes shuttering their innermost thoughts from the other. Christina felt a stab of pain, for Robert did not deserve this from her, but she was afraid that if she spoke to him of Varek she would confess everything, even of the muddled feelings battering at her disoriented mind and body at this very moment.

  The reserved front he was struggling to hold on to slipped, and Christina saw the pain beneath the mask. When he turned away from her to sit on the edge of the bed, she stood up and wandered, with hesitant steps, to her side of the bed. The mattress lay between them like a battlefield. “I do love you, Robert.”

  His back was still to her as he asked stiffly, “Do you? Truly?”

  She hesitated for the merest second, before answering quickly, “Yes.”

  Was she in love with Robert? Compared to what she had shared with Varek, the answer was a resounding no. But, that wasn't the only kind of love that existed between two people. There was the love of sharing, the love of ... friendship ... of companionship. The love that two people shared with their child. As if in a daze, she leaned over and blew out the candle on the bedside table.

  Pulling the covers down on their bed, Robert climbed in then held out his hand to her. Her smile expressed her relief as she slid in beside him, sighing with contentment when his arms pulled her close. There were no words spoken as they lay together, her head pillowed on his shoulder. Her eyes drifted closed and her roiling emotions soon became a distant hum as his fingers hypnotically stroked her temple, soothing her exhausted emotions into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Breathing in her subtle scent, Robert stared up into the darkness as he continued to stroke her brow. The only sound in the room was the soft whisper of her breath, a mere sigh in the moonlit stillness. His arms tightened about her when he remembered the sight of her in her former husband's arms. Over his many years in the King's Regiment, serving as an aide to Wellington, Robert had fought in many a campaign, losing some and winning most; however, he knew he was now facing the greatest battle of his life. Hell, if he was Varek, he would fight without honor to get her back and keep her. Unfortunately he knew that the archduke already had a very major advantage in this battle.

  Christina was in love with his enemy.

  Four

  Varek was leaning nonchalantly against a tree, restively biding his time, when he saw the door open. Straightening, he squinted against the early afternoon sun, then grinned in satisfaction as he watched Christina leave the British apartments. For three days he had impatiently watched for an opportunity to get Christina alone, but she had proved an elusive prey, never venturing out during the day and remaining stubbornly at Basingstoke's side in the evening. It would have been a hell of a lot simpler to have simply walked up to the British consulate and presented himself, but he wanted this next meeting between them to be private. There was just too much that needed to be said, and the last thing he needed was her so-called husband interrupting them.

  He still couldn't believe she was married; however, she wouldn't be for long if he had anything to say about it. Soon he would give the man more than enough reasons to divorce Christina, and then he would step forward and hasten the proceedings along with a few well-placed bribes slipped into the right pockets. With any luck, by spring she would be his again.

  Pushing himself away from the tree, Varek casually strolled along the Minoritzenplatz at a comfortable distance behind his prey. The morning was unseasonably warm, and the ringstrasse was crowded, but he had no trouble keeping pace behind her as she walked briskly ahead. In fact, he thought with a smile tugging his lips, her brisk pace was a bit too energetic for such a lady. Doubtless she had already sighted him, or she feared meeting him somewhere along the way.

  As he lengthened his stride, he couldn't help but admire the provocative sway of her hips encased in the sheath of thin muslin. She had matured while living away from him, and he was disconcerted by this further testament of the distance between them. Strangely he had thought that when he saw her again she would have been exactly the same, as if time itself would have stopped until they were reunited. But time hadn't stopped; it had marched ruthlessly on, and somewhere along the way she had found a new life for herself, as if he had never been.

  He frowned as again he puzzled over their years apart and just where the hell she had been. How could she have been in England all this time and word had never gotten back to him? It didn't make any sense. He'd established a link with every court in Europe, Russia, and Britain. He had even sent men off to the Americas and the West Indies. It angered him at the senseless waste of time. Someone had done a superb job of hiding her and he was fairly certain it couldn't have been Sergei; he hadn't the power to accomplish such a thing. Most likely it had been her brother-by-marriage, the Duke of Kerkston. And if she were being kept so diligently out of the eyes and ears of society, why was she now here in Vienna at this momentous occasion, where the likelihood of their meeting was unquestionable? Christina was making it obvious enough to him that this meeting wasn't to her liking. So, why was she here?

  It was a puzzle he was not comfortable with. Already he had his network of spies delving deeply into the background of the St. Poles. Someone was behind the scenes manipulating them all. His bet was on the duke.

  Up ahead, Christina paused at a cross street, waiting with obvious impatience for a clearing in the traffic. Avidly, he studied her profile as she looked to either side of her. God, she was so beautiful, he thought with a flash of hunger. As he studied her vibrancy he suddenly felt old and weary. Life had not been kind to him without her by his side. Each day had been a struggle just to face all the empty hours that filled each of those endless days. Yet, here she was, exquisitely serene and seemingly at peace with her life. He felt a stab of fear in his gut. Could she truly not love him anymore? Was he just fooling himself? For six years he had gone to bed every night with her name on his lips, a prayer for her safety and a plea for her to return to him.

  Now, looking at an older Christina, he wasn't so sure anymore that she had ever felt the same loss that had almost crippled him.

  His long strides made no sound as he came up behind her, but as he had suspected, she was prepared for him, for she abruptly turned on her heel and confronted him. Her sherr y brown eyes snapped with anger, her posture stiff with indignation. Even bristling like a pestered hedgehog she was a magnificent sight to behold.

  Holding her gaze with his own, Varek sketched her a low bow. He didn't even try to take hold of her hand, for it was obvious from the militant look on her flushed face that a scuffle would ensue before she would even al
low that simple courtesy. He contented himself with lightly taking hold of her elbow, in order to guide her out of the pedestrians’ path.

  “Good afternoon, my love.”

  “Don't call me that,” she hissed in a low voice as she glared up at him.

  His brows rose high over amused eyes.

  “You shall address me as Lady Basingstoke.”

  His smile stiffened. “The hell I will. In any case, you shall not carry that title much longer.”

  Her hands tightened even more about the parasol she already had gripped in a white-knuckled hold. “Are you threatening me again, your highness?”

  With a sigh, he reached out to brush aside a stray curl along her cheek, then froze when she flinched away. “You used to like my touch,” he reminded her gently.

  “I am a married lady and do not appreciate the disrespectful manner in which you approach me. I must ask you again to cease your harassing of my person, your highness!”

  Holding taut rein on his escalating temper, Varek's hand latched onto her free hand and with gentle force dragged it about his arm. Cognizant of the scene that could erupt at any moment, she had no choice but to be pulled along by him.

  “Why can't you leave me alone? Have you no honor?” she pleaded, almost frantic at the feel of his powerful arm under her fingers.

  Varek's eyes squinted as he stared off into the distance. “Apparently not. How can I leave you alone, Christina? Whatever binds us together is still there, and as strong as ever. You know this as well I. You should have had faith in me. However, that is neither here nor there. Times are changing and, hopefully, soon there will be nothing to keep us apart.”

  “Except a husband I happen to love.”

  She gasped as he stopped short and swung her about so they faced each other, his irate gaze compelling her. “Do you indeed, my love? Don't force me to disprove this ridiculous lie you insist upon throwing at me! We both know exactly what would happen if I took you into my arms at this very moment. By the time I'd finished with you, you would not even remember what the man looks like.”