“Hell and damnation,” Dain muttered as he gingerly withdrew from her. “I’ll never make it to Chudleigh in time for dinner now.”
He rolled onto his back and focused intently upon the embroidered gold dragons above, to keep himself from leaping up and subjecting his wife to a thorough physical examination. Fortunately, with his lust appeased, for the moment, his intellect had resumed normal operation. And with the return of reason, he could sort out the simple facts.
He had not forced himself on her. Jessica had invited him.
He had crashed into her like a battering ram and been incapable of exercising much restraint thereafter, yet she hadn’t screamed or wept. On the contrary, she had seemed to get right into the spirit of the thing.
He looked at her. Her hair had fallen over her eyes. Turning toward her, he brushed it away. “I collect you’ve survived,” he said gruffly.
She made an odd sound—a cough or a hiccup, he couldn’t tell. Then she flung herself against him and, “Oh, Dain,” she choked out.
The next he knew, her face was pressed against his chest and she was sobbing.
“Per carita.” He wrapped himself about her and stroked her back. “For God’s sake, Jess, don’t…This is very…troublesome.” He buried his face in her hair. “Oh, very well. Cry if you must.”
She would not weep forever, he told himself. And upsetting as it was to hear it and feel the tears trickling over his skin, he knew matters might have been worse. At least she had turned to him, not away. Besides, she was entitled to cry, he supposed. He had been rather unreasonable these last few days.
Very well, more than that. He’d been a beast.
Here she was, a new bride in this mammoth house with its grand army of servants, and he had not helped her. He had not tried to make the way easy…just as she’d said about his father.
He’d been acting like his father. Cold and hostile and rejecting every effort to please.
For Jessica had been trying to please, hadn’t she? She had read to him and tried to talk to him and she’d probably thought the portrait of his mother would be a lovely surprise for him. She had wanted him to stay, when any other woman would have been in raptures to be rid of him. She had offered herself to him, when any other woman would have swooned with relief to escape his attentions. And she’d given herself willingly and passionately.
He was the one who ought to be weeping, with gratitude.
The cloudburst ended as abruptly as it had begun. Jessica squirmed away, rubbed her face, and sat up. “Lud, how emotional one becomes,” she said shakily. “Is my nose red?”
“Yes,” he said, though the light was failing and he could scarcely see straight anyhow.
“I had better wash my face,” she said. She climbed off the bed, picked up her dressing gown, and put it on.
“You can use my bath. I’ll show you the way.” He started to get out of bed, but she waved him back.
“I know where it is, ” she said. “Mrs. Ingleby explained the layout.” She headed unerringly across the room, opened the correct door, and hurried through.
While she was gone, Dain quickly examined the bedclothes and cleaned himself off with a piece of his shirt, which he threw in the fire.
Whatever the cause of her weeping fit, it hadn’t been a reaction to serious physical injury, he comforted himself. He’d found a spot of blood on one of the coverlet’s gold dragons and there had been a bit on him, but it was nothing like the carnage his overwrought imagination had pictured these last three days.
He could not believe his mind had been so disordered. In the first place, any cretin might have understood that if the female body could adapt to dropping brats, it must certainly be able to adapt to the breeding instrument—unless the man was an elephant, which he wasn’t, quite. In the second place, any imbecile might have recollected that this woman had never, since the time under the lamppost in Paris, recoiled from his advances. She had even spoken plainly enough—more than once, without a blink—about his breeding rights.
Where in the name of heaven had he obtained the idea she was fragile or missish? This was the woman who’d shot him!
It was the strain, Dain decided. The trauma of finding himself married, combined with crazed lust for his bride, had been more than his mind could cope with. The portrait of his mother had finished him off. With that, his brain had shut down altogether.
By the time Jessica returned, Dain had himself and everything else in proper order. Andrews had carried away the heaps of discarded traveling clothes, the valise was put away, the lamps had been lit, a footman was on his way to Chudleigh, and dinner was being prepared.
“It seems you’ve been busy,” she said, glancing about as she came up to him. “How tidy the room is.”
“You were gone rather a while,” he said.
“I had a bath,” she said. “I was agitated, as you saw.” She studied the knot of his sash, her brow furrowed. “I think I was hysterical. I wish I hadn’t cried, but I couldn’t help it. It was a…deeply moving experience. I daresay you’re used to it, but I am not. I was much affected. I had not expected…Well, frankly, I was expecting the worst. When it came to the point, I mean. But you did not seem to experience any difficulty, and you did not seem inhibited by my inexperience or annoyed, and, except for a moment, it did not feel like the first time at all. At least, not what I’d imagined the first time to be like. And what with having my anxieties relieved and the extraordinary sensations…The long and the short of it is, I could not contain my feelings.”
He had read the signs more or less correctly, then, for once, finally. The world was in order. All he needed to do was step carefully, to keep it that way.
“My temper has not been altogether even, either,” he said. “I’m not used to having a female about. It’s…distracting.”
“I know, and I’ve taken that into account,” she said. “Nonetheless, Dain, you cannot expect me to go through this again.”
He stared at the top of her head and watched his neatly ordered world tumble back into chaos. In an instant, his previously light heart became a lead casket, bearing the corpse of a fragile infant hope. He should have known better than to hope. He should have realized he’d make everything go wrong. But he didn’t understand now, any more than he ever had, how he had turned everything so very wrong. He didn’t understand why she’d been sent into his life, to give him hope, and kill it in the first moment he dared to believe it.
His face set and his body turned to stone, but he couldn’t muster the callous laughter or the clever witticism needed to complete this too familiar scene. He had tasted happiness in her arms, and hope, and he could not let them go without knowing why.
“Jessica, I know I’ve been…difficult,” he said. “All the same—”
“Difficult?” She looked up, her grey eyes wide. “You have been impossible. I begin to think you are not right in the upper storey. I knew you wanted me. The one thing I’ve never doubted was that. But getting you into bed—you, the greatest whoremonger in Christendom—gad, it was worse than the time I had to drag Bertie to the tooth-drawer. And if you think I mean to be doing that the rest of our days, you had better think again. The next time, my lord, you will do the seducing—or there won’t be any, I vow.”
She stepped back and folded her arms over her bosom. “I mean it, Dain. I am sick to death of throwing myself at you. You like me well enough. And if the first bedding didn’t prove we suit in that way at least, then you are a hopeless case, and I wash my hands of you. I will not permit you to make a wreck of me.”
Dain opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He shut it and walked to the window. He sank onto the cushioned seat and stared out. “Worse than…Bertie…to the tooth-drawer.” He gave a shaky laugh. “The tooth-drawer. Oh, Jess.”
He heard her slippered footsteps approaching. “Dain, are you all right?”
He rubbed his forehead. “Yes. No. What an idiot.” He turned and met her frowning gaze. “High-strung,” he said. “That’s the trouble, isn’t it? I’m high-strung.”
“You’re overwrought,” she said. “I should have realized. We’ve both been under a strain. And it’s harder on you because you are so sensitive and emotional.”
Sensitive. Emotional. He had the hide of an ox—and about the same intelligence, apparently. But he didn’t contradict her.
“A strain, yes,” he said.
“Why don’t you have a bath, too?” she suggested. She smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “And while you enjoy a good long soak, I’ll order dinner.”
“I’ve ordered it,” he said. “They should be up with it soon. I thought we might dine here. It would save the bother of dressing for dinner.”
She studied his face, and slowly her mouth eased into a smile. “Perhaps you’re not quite as hopeless a case as I thought. What about Sherburne?”
“I sent a footman to Chudleigh with a note,” he said. “I informed Sherburne I’d see him at the wrestling match. Saturday.”
She stepped back, her smile fading. “I see.”
“No, you don’t.” He rose. “You’re coming with me.”
He watched her chilly composure ebb as she took in the last sentence and decided to believe him. Her soft mouth curved upward again and silver mist shimmered in her eyes.
“Thank you, Dain,” she said. “I should like that very much. I’ve never seen a proper wrestling match before.”
“I daresay it will be a novel experience all round,” he said, gravely eyeing her up and down. “I can’t wait to see Sherburne’s face when I arrive with my lady wife in tow.”
“There, you see?” she said, unoffended. “I told you there were other benefits to having a wife. I can come in very handy when you wish to shock your friends.”
“There is that. But my own comfort was my first consideration,” he added as he edged away. “I shall want you about to cater to my whims and soothe my sensitive nerves and…” He grinned. “And warm my bed, of course.”
“How romantic.” She pressed her hand to her heart. “I believe I shall swoon.”
“You’d better not.” Dain headed toward the door she’d entered. “I can’t wait around to pick you up. My bladder is about to explode.”
With the world securely in order, Dain was able to devote the leisurely bath time to editing his mental dictionary. He removed his wife from the general category labeled “Females” and gave her a section of her own. He made a note that she didn’t find him revolting, and proposed several explanations: (a) bad eyesight and faulty hearing, (b) a defect in a portion of her otherwise sound intellect, (c) an inherited Trent eccentricity, or (d) an act of God. Since the Almighty had not done him a single act of kindness in at least twenty-five years, Dain thought it was about bloody time, but he thanked his Heavenly Father all the same, and promised to be as good as he was capable of being.
His expectations in this regard were, like most of his expectations, very low. He would never be an ideal husband. He had almost no idea how to be a husband at all—beyond the basics of providing food, clothing, shelter, and protection from life’s annoyances. And getting brats.
As soon as offspring came into his mind, Dain slammed his dictionary shut. He was in a good humor. He didn’t want to spoil it by fretting, and working himself into another fit of insanity over the inevitable. Besides, there was an even chance the brats would come out like her rather than him. In any case, he wouldn’t be able to prevent their coming because there was no way he could keep his hands off her.
He knew a good thing when he had it. He knew that tumbling his wife was about as close to experiencing heaven as he’d ever get. He was far too selfish and depraved by nature to give it up. As long as she was willing, he wasn’t going to worry about consequences. Something horrible was bound to happen, of course, sooner or later. But that was how his life worked. Since he couldn’t prevent it, whatever it was, he might as well take his motto from Horace: Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow.
Accordingly, with matters properly sorted out and settled for the present, Dain joined his wife for dinner. During the meal, he further revised his dictionary. To her odd list of accomplishments he had already added a comprehension of the art of boxing. At dinner he discovered she possessed a knowledge of wrestling as well, gleaned from sporting periodicals and male conversations. She had reared not only her brother, she explained, but ten boy cousins as well—because she was the only one who could “manage the lot of ignorant savages.” Yet not one of the ingrates would take her to a professional match.
“Not even Polkinhorne’s bout with Carr,” she told Dain indignantly.
That famous match had also taken place in Devonport, two years ago.
“There were seventeen thousand spectators,” she said. “Would you please explain to me how one female would attract notice in such a crowd?”
“You are bound to attract notice, even amid seventy thousand,” he said. “You are the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, as I distinctly recall telling you in Paris.”
She sat back, startled, her smooth cheeks turning pink. “Good grief, Dain, that was a flat-out compliment—and we’re not even making love.”
“I am a shocking fellow,” he said. “One never knows what astonishing thing I’ll say. Or when.” He sipped his wine. “The point is, you will attract notice. In normal circumstances, you would have a lot of drunken louts bothering you and distracting your escort. But since I shall be your escort, there will be no bothering or distracting. All the louts, however drunk they may be, will keep their eyes upon the wrestlers and their hands to themselves.” He set down his wineglass and took up his fork again.
“The tarts had better do the same,” she said, returning her attention to her food. “I am not as big and intimidating as you, but I have my methods. I won’t tolerate such annoyances, either.”
Dain kept his gaze on his plate and concentrated on swallowing the morsel he’d just very nearly choked on.
She was possessive…about him.
The beautiful, mad creature—or blind and deaf creature, or whatever she was—coolly announced it as one might say, “Pass the salt cellar,” without the smallest awareness that the earth had just tilted on its axis.
“These large sporting events tend to attract Cyprians in droves,” he said. “I fear you’ll have your hands full…” His mouth twitched. “Fighting them off.”
“I suppose it’s too much to ask you not to encourage them,” she said.
“My dear, I wouldn’t dream of encouraging them,” he said. “Even I know it’s very bad ton to—to cast lures at other women while one’s wife is about. Not to mention you’d probably shoot me.” He shook his head sadly. “I only wish my self-restraint were enough. But the vexing thing is, they don’t seem to want any encouragement. Everywhere I go—”
“It does not vex you,” she said with a reproachful glance. “You are well aware of your effect on women, and I’m sure it gratifies you no end to watch them sigh and salivate over your magnificent physique. I do not wish to spoil your fun, Dain. But I do ask you to consider my pride, and refrain from embarrassing me in public.”
Women…sighing and salivating…over his magnificent physique.
Maybe the brutal bedding had destroyed a part of her brain.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking of,” he said.
“Did I not pay a king’s ransom for you? Why in blazes should I waste money and energy luring other females, when I’ve bought one for permanent use?”
“A few hours ago, you were prepared to desert me,” she pointed out. “After only three days’ marriage—and before you’d consummated it. You did not seem to regard money and energy any more than you regarded my pride.”
“I was not thinking clearly then,” he said. “I was at the mercy of my delicate nerves. Also, I’m not accustomed to regarding anybody else’s feelings. But now that my mind has cleared, I see your point, and it’s a sound one. You are the Marchioness of Dain, after all, and it will not do for anyone to laugh at you or pity you. It is one thing for me to behave like a jackass. It is quite another, however, when my behavior reflects ill upon you.” He set down his fork and leaned toward her. “Have I got that right, my lady wife?”
Her soft mouth curved. “Perfectly,” she said. “What a keen mind you have, Dain, when it is clear. You go direct to the heart of the issue.”
The approving smile shot directly to his heart and curled warmly there.
“Good heavens, that sounds like a flat-out compliment.” He laid his hand over his melting heart. “And on my intellect, no less. My primitive, male intellect. I do believe I shall swoon.” His gaze slid to her décolletage. “Maybe I’d better lie down. Maybe…” He lifted his eyes to hers. “Are you finished, Jess?”
She let out a small sigh. “I daresay I was finished the day I met you.”
He rose and moved to her chair. “Anyone might have told you that. I can’t imagine what you were thinking of, to keep plaguing me as you did.” He lightly trailed his knuckles along her silken cheek.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” she said.
He took her hand and drew her up from the chair. “I begin to doubt you are capable of any kind of thinking,” he said. He wasn’t either, at present. He was too achingly aware of her skin, flawless porcelain white, and of the small, graceful hand in his own.
He was painfully conscious of his great, clumsy bulk, and his crude ways, and of his darkness, inside and out. He still had trouble believing that only a few hours earlier, he’d been pounding into her, slaking his bestial lust upon her innocent body. He could scarcely believe his lust was aroused again, so fiercely, so soon. But he was an animal. She had only to smile at him and the monstrous, brutal need swelled inside him, smothering intellect and demolishing the woefully thin veneer of civilized male.
He told himself to calm down, to talk, to woo. She wanted to be seduced, and it was the least he could do. He ought to be able to. He ought to have that much control. But the best he could do was lead her to the bed, instead of grabbing her and throwing her down on the table and himself on top of her.
He drew back the bedclothes and sat her down upon the mattress. Then he gazed at her helplessly while he searched the turgid mire of his mind for the right words.
“I couldn’t keep away,” she said, her grey eyes searching his. “I knew I should, but I couldn’t. I thought you understood that, but it seems you didn’t. You got that part wrong, too, didn’t you? What on earth have you been thinking, Dain?”
He had lost track of the conversation. He wondered what she read in his face. “What did I get wrong?” he asked, essaying an indulgent smile.
“Everything, it seems.” Her sooty lashes lowered. “And so it’s no surprise that I misjudged.”
“Is that why you didn’t keep away? Because you misjudged me?”
She shook her head. “No, and it’s not because I’m addled upstairs, either. You are not to think I’m mad, Dain, because I’m not. I know it looks that way, but there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. The intellect, as you of all men ought to know, is no match for the intensity of the animal drive. I’ve been in lust with you from the moment I met you.”
His knees grew wobbly. He crouched down in front of her and took a firm grip of the edge of the mattress. He cleared his throat. “Lust.” He managed to keep the one syllable low and steady. He decided not to try any more syllables of anything.
She was searching his eyes again. “You didn’t know, did you?”
Dissembling was utterly beyond his powers. He shook his head.
She brought her hands up to cup his face. “You must be blind. And deaf. Or terribly confused. Everyone in Paris knew. You poor man. I don’t want to begin to imagine what’s been going through your mind.”
He managed to laugh. “I thought it was me they knew about. That I was…besotted. I was. I told you so.”
“But, darling, you lust after every female you see,” she said ever so patiently. “Why should Paris work itself into a frenzy about that? It was because of my behavior, don’t you understand? They saw I was too infatuated to keep away, as a sensible, strong-moraled lady should. That’s what made the business interesting to them.”
Darling. The room was whirling merrily about him.
“I wanted to be sensible,” she went on. “I didn’t want to bother you. I knew it would lead to trouble. But I couldn’t help it. You are so…virile. You are so thoroughly a male. You’re big and strong and you can pick me up with one hand. I cannot describe what an extraordinary sensation that is.”
Virile he understood. He was that. He also understood there was no accounting for tastes. Until she’d come along, he’d always been attracted to largish women. Very well, then. Her tastes inclined to big, strong men. He was certainly that, too.
“I’d heard all about you,” she said. “I thought I was prepared. But no one had described you properly. I was expecting a gorilla.” She drew her index finger down his nose. “You were not supposed to have the face of a dé Medici prince. You were not supposed to have the physique of a Roman god. I wasn’t prepared for that. I had no defenses ready.” With a small sigh, she brought her hands to his shoulders. “I still haven’t. Physically, I cannot resist you at all.”
He tried to find a place in his dictionary under “Dain” for dé Medici princes and Roman gods, but the phrases fit nowhere, and merely contemplating them made him want to howl with laughter. Or weep. He couldn’t decide which. He decided he was becoming hysterical. He wasn’t surprised. She had a knack for doing that to him.
He stood up. “No need to worry, Jess. Lust is no problem. Lust I can deal with very well, thank you.”
“I know.” She eyed him up and down. “You deal with it to perfection.”
“In fact, I’m prepared to deal with it this very minute.” He began heaping pillows against the headboard.
“That is most…understanding of you,” she said, her glance darting from the pillows to him.
He patted the heap. “I want you to lie here.”
“Naked?”
He nodded.
Without the smallest hesitation, she stood up and undid the sash of her dressing gown. He watched the robe fall open. She gave a lazy shrug.
Femme fatale, he thought as, entranced, he watched the heavy black silk slither down past her slim shoulders, over the creamy skin and achingly feminine curves, and fall with a sensuous hiss at her feet.
He watched the graceful movement of her slight body as she climbed onto the bed and settled back against the pillows, unashamed, uninhibited, unafraid.
“I almost wish I could be naked all the time,” she said softly. “I love the way you look at me.”
“You mean the panting and salivating?” He untied his own sash.
“I mean that sleepy, sulky look you get.” She laid her hand upon her belly. “It makes my insides hot and muddled.”
He flung off his dressing gown.
She inhaled sharply.
His swelling shaft sprang up, just as though she’d called to it. Dain looked down and laughed. “You want virile. Virile you get.”
“And big and strong.” Her voice was husky. Her softened grey gaze traveled up and down his frame. “And beautiful. How the devil was I to resist you? How could you think I could?”
“I didn’t realize you were so shallow.” He climbed onto the bed and straddled her legs.
“I suppose it’s just as well,” she said. “Otherwise…” She slid her hand up his thigh. “Oh, Dain, if you had guessed what was going through my mind when I met you…”
Gently but firmly he removed her hand and set it upon the mattress. “Tell me.”
“In my mind, I took off all your clothes. I couldn’t help it. It was a dreadful few moments. I was terrified my reason would snap, and I’d actually do it. There, in the shop. In front of Champtois. In front of Bertie.”
“You took off my clothes,” he said. “In your mind.”
“Yes. Ripped them off, actually. As I did a short while ago.”
He bent over her. “Do you want to know what went through my mind, cara?”
“Something equally depraved, I hope.” She stroked his chest. Again he took her hand away.
“I wanted…to…lick you,” he said slowly. “From the top of your head…to the tips of your toes.”
She shut her eyes. “Depraved, yes.”
“I wanted to lick you and kiss you and touch you…everywhere.” He kissed her forehead. “Everywhere it’s white. Everywhere it’s pink. Everywhere else.”
He trailed his tongue over one sleek eyebrow. “That’s what I’m going to do now. And you must lie there. And take it.”
“Yes.” One sibilant sound of acquiescence and a shiver—of pleasure, apparently, because her soft, ripe mouth curled upward.
He brushed his lips over that small, cat-in-the-cream-pot smile, and said no more, but gave himself up to realizing his fantasy.
The reality, he found, was sweeter, and the taste and scent of her more intoxicating by far, than the dream.
He kissed her nose and savored the satin of her cheek. He inhaled her and tasted her and discovered her all at once, all over again: the perfect oval of her face, the slant of her cheekbones, the skin so fine and flawless that he’d wanted to weep when first he beheld her.
Perfection, he’d thought then, and it had nearly broken his heart, because he couldn’t have her.
But he could, for now at least. He could touch his lips to that perfection…the heartbreaking face…the tantalizingly dainty ear…the smooth column of her neck.
He remembered how he’d stood in the shadows and hungered for the white skin exposed in the lamplight. He trailed his parted lips down over the snowy shoulder he’d gazed at from his hiding place, and down her right arm to her fingertips and back up again. He made the same lingeringly possessive path up and down her left arm. Her fingers curled and her breath came in sweet little sighs that murmured in his veins and made his heart thrum like a violincello.
He lavished kisses over her firm, round breasts, rising and falling with her quickened breathing. He trailed his tongue over the taut, blushing nipples and savored her tiny moans briefly, then made himself move on, because there was more, and he would take nothing for granted. He’d experience it all, because the world could end tomorrow, for all he knew, and Hell open up and swallow him.
He continued downward, washing kisses over her smooth belly and the luscious curve of her hips…down the outside of her slender, shapely leg, to the slim ankle and on to the tips of her toes, as he’d promised. Then slowly he worked his way up again to her satiny inner thigh.
She was trembling now, and his loins were heavy and hot and more than ready.
But he wasn’t done, and only the present could be trusted. This moment might be all he had. And so again he kissed and savored, all the way to her toes and back.
Then he trailed his tongue over the velvety skin just above the dark nest of curls between her legs.
“You’re beautiful, Jess,” he said thickly. “Every inch of you.” He slid his fingers into the damp, dusky curls.
She moaned.
He brought his mouth to the warm, moist core.
She gave a low cry, and her fingers caught in his hair.
The feminine cry of pleasure sang in his veins. The rich scent and taste of Woman flooded his senses. She was all he wanted in the world, and she was his, wanting him, slick and hot for him.
He worshipped her with his mouth for wanting him. He pleasured her for the delirious joy of doing so, until her hands fisted in his hair and she cried out his name, and he felt the tremors shake her.
Then, finally, he sheathed himself in her hotly welcoming softness, and joined her.
Then the world shook for him as well, and if it had ended in that instant, he would have gone to damnation happily, because she clung to him and kissed him as though there were no tomorrow and she would hold and want him forever.
And when the world exploded, and he spilled himself into her, it was as though his soul spilled, too, and he would have given up that soul gladly, if that were the price for the moment of pure happiness she gave him.
The next day, Jessica gave him the icon.
Dain found it at his place when he came into the breakfast room. It stood between his coffee cup and the plate. Even in the weak light of an overcast morning, pearls shimmered, topaz and rubies sparkled, diamonds shot rainbow sparks. Beneath the glimmering golden halo, the grey-eyed Madonna smiled wistfully upon the scowling infant in her arms.
A small, folded piece of notepaper was tucked under the bottom of the jeweled frame. His heart racing, Dain took it out and opened it.
“Happy Birthday,” it read. That was all.
He looked up from the note to his wife, who sat opposite, her sleek hair framed by the hazy light from the window.
She was buttering a piece of scone, oblivious, as usual, to the cataclysm she’d just set off.
“Jess.” He could scarcely force the one syllable past his tight throat.
“Yes?” She set down the knife and spooned a lump of preserves onto the scone.
He thumbed frantically through his mental dictionary, looking for words, but he couldn’t find what he wanted because he didn’t know what he was looking for.
“Jess.”
The bit of scone paused halfway to her lips. She looked at him.
Dain pointed at the icon.
She looked at that. “Oh. Well, better late than never, I thought. And yes, I know it isn’t truly a gift because it belongs to you anyway. Everything of mine—or nearly everything—became yours legally when we wed. But we shall have to pretend, because I hadn’t time to think of, let alone find, a suitable birthday present.” She popped the buttered and lavishly sweetened tidbit into her mouth…as though everything had been thoroughly explained and settled and not a single fragment of the sky had fallen.
For the first time, Dain had an inkling of what it must feel like to be Bertie Trent, owning the necessary human quantity of grey matter, but possessing no notion how to make it function. Perhaps, Dain thought, Trent hadn’t been born that way after all. Perhaps he had simply been incapacitated by a lifetime of explosions.
Perhaps the term femme fatale ought to be taken more literally. Perhaps it was the brain she was fatal to.
Not my brain, Dain resolved. She is not going to turn me into a blithering imbecile.
He could handle this. He could sort it out. He was merely taken aback, that was all. The last birthday present he’d received had come from his mother, when he was eight. The tart Wardell and Mallory had supplied on Birthday Thirteen didn’t count, because Dain had wound up having to pay for her.
He was surprised, no more. Greatly surprised, admittedly, because he’d truly believed Jessica would sooner throw the icon into a cauldron of boiling acid than let him have it. He hadn’t even asked about it during the marriage negotiations, because he’d assumed she’d sold it long since, and he’d adamantly refused to let himself imagine or hope, even for one half second, that she hadn’t.
“This is a…delightful surprise,” he said, as any intelligent adult would say in the circumstances. “Grazie. Thank you.”
She smiled. “I knew you would understand.”
“I cannot possibly understand all the implications and symbolic significance,” he said very, very calmly. “But then, I am a male, and my brain is too primitive for such complicated calculations. I can see, however—as I did as soon as the filth had been removed—that it is an exquisite work of art, and I doubt I shall ever grow tired of looking at it.”
That was gracious, he thought. Adult. Intelligent. Reasonable. He had only to keep his hand upon the table and it would not tremble.
“I hoped you would feel so,” she said. “I was sure you’d recognized how remarkable and rare it was. That’s because it’s more evocative, do you not agree, than the usual run of Stroganovs, fine as they are.”
“Evocative.” He gazed at the richly painted figures. Even now, though it was his, he was uneasy, unwilling to lose himself in it or examine the feelings it evoked.
She rose and came to him and laid her hand on his shoulder.
“When I first saw it, after it had been repaired and cleaned, I was much affected,” she said. “The sensations were very odd. Apparently, at this level of artistry, I am out of my depth. You are the connoisseur. I am merely a species of magpie, and I am not always certain why my eye is drawn to certain objects, even when I have no doubt of their value.”
He glanced up, bewildered. “You are asking me to explain what makes this so extraordinary?”
“Besides the unusual color of her eyes,” she said. “And the lavish use of gold. And the workmanship. None of these explains why it elicits such strong emotion.”
“It elicits strong emotion in you because you are sentimental,” he said. Reluctantly he brought his eyes back to the icon.
He cleared his throat and continued in the patient tones of a tutor. “One is accustomed to the classic Russian pout. But this is altogether different, you see. Baby Jesus looks truly cross and sulky, as though he’s tired of posing, or hungry—or merely wants attention. And his mama doesn’t wear the conventional tragic expression. She’s half-frowning, yes. Mildly irritated, perhaps, because the boy’s being troublesome. Yet she wears a glimmer of a smile, as though to reassure or forgive him. Because she understands that he doesn’t know any better. Innocent brat, he takes it all for granted: her smiles and reassurances, her patience…forgiveness. He doesn’t know what he has, let alone how to be grateful for it. And so he frets and scowls…in blissful infant ignorance.”
Dain paused, for the room seemed to have grown too quiet suddenly, and the woman beside him too still.
“It is altogether natural and human a pose,” he went on, careful to keep his tone light and neutral. “We forget that this pair represent holy figures, and focus instead upon the simple human drama within the artistic conventions and rich trappings. If this Madonna and child were merely saintly, the work would not be half so rare and interesting.”
“I see what you mean,” his wife said softly. “The artist has captured his models’ personalities, and the mother’s love for her little boy, and the mood of a moment between them.”
“That is what awakens your sentiment,” he said. “Even I find them intriguing, and can’t resist theorizing about what their countenances express—though they’re long dead, and the truth hardly signifies. That is the artist’s talent: He makes one wonder. It’s rather as though he played a joke on the viewer, isn’t it?”
Glancing up from the icon at Jessica, he made himself laugh, as though this heartachingly beautiful portrait of maternal love were merely an amusing artistic riddle.
She squeezed his shoulder. “I knew there was more to it than met my untrained eye,” she said, too gently. “You are so perceptive, Dain.” Then she quickly moved away and returned to her seat.
Not quickly enough, though. He had caught it, in the flicker of time before she masked it. He’d seen it, in her eyes, just as he’d heard it in her voice a moment ago: sorrow…pity.
And his heart twisted and churned into rage—with himself, because he’d somehow said too much, and with her, because she’d been too quick—quicker than he—to perceive what he’d said, and worse, what he’d felt.
But he was not a child, Dain reminded himself. He wasn’t helpless. No matter what he’d unwittingly revealed to his wife, his character had not changed. He had not changed, not a whit.
In Jessica, he had found a good thing, that was all, and he meant to make the most of it. He would allow her to make him happy, certainly. He would let himself be flayed alive and boiled in oil, however, before he’d allow his wife to pity him.