"Only by ten minutes or so." The carriage rumbled to a halt in front of the manor. Already beginning to put her experience behind her, Kira continued buoyantly, "Now come help me out of this beastly outfit!"
Chapter 40
Lucien had been unsurprised to see Kit and Kira enter the manor house, then dart upstairs together. He guessed that for the next few days it would take a crowbar to separate them. Quite understandable under the circumstances.
He kept his distance, not trusting himself near Kit. It was one thing to intellectually accept that their affair was over, another for him to stop craving her. But surely, in time, that would pass.
After drinking half his glass of brandy, he stood and wandered restlessly across his bedroom. The other two men were relaxing over supper and a celebratory drink, but he had chosen not to join them. He had no appetite, nor did he feel much like celebrating. Michael had frowned when he had excused himself, but had known better than to comment. Friendship was as much a matter of knowing when not to speak as when one should.
He opened the French doors and went out onto the small balcony. The wind was brutally cold, but the storm had blown away, and the moon rode high in the sky. Its cool light refracted brilliantly through the ice that sparkled on every twig and branch. Ice everywhere, especially in his heart.
He leaned against the railing and gazed into the crystalline night, consuming his brandy in slow sips. Perhaps when he was done, he would be able to sleep.
Kit helped her sister change from the bondage costume to a plain blue gown. With her hair brushed out and falling simply over her shoulders, Kira was beautiful, with the special glow that was uniquely her own. She looked exactly as a woman going to her lover should. Kit guessed that the next time she saw her sister and Jason, the two would be at peace for the first time in years. Certainly Kira would be.
She wanted to change her own clothing, but as soon as her sister left the bedroom, sharp anxiety washed through her. Something was very wrong where Lucien was concerned.
It wasn't until Kit reached out and found silence that she realized that she had become accustomed to feeling him in the background of her mind, rather as she did with her sister. His current blankness was unlike the time when she had feared Kira was dead. Instead, it was as if he had closed a door that had been gradually opening to her.
Suddenly worried, she grabbed the cape and headed though the icy hall toward Lucien's room. Perhaps he was angry because she had wandered off and gotten herself captured. At the time she'd had as little volition as a sleepwalker, but her behavior had complicated events dreadfully. If she and Lucien had stayed together, Kira might have been rescued without any bloodshed-not that Mace and the other two were any great loss to society.
Her steps slowed as she approached his room. What if he really didn't want her? What if…?
Before she could lose her nerve, she rapped firmly on his door. No answer. Quietly she turned the knob and went inside.
The lamp was lit and the bed turned down, but he wasn't in it. Cold air gusted from the open French doors. She looked out to see Lucien standing on the balcony, his back to her.
He must have heard the knock, for he said without turning, "No need to check up on me, Michael. Nothing ails me that a night's sleep won't cure."
Uncertainly, she said, "Are you feeling unwell, Lucien?"
His broad shoulders became rigid. After a long pause, he turned and leaned casually against the railing of the balcony. He looked cool and elegant, with no trace of warrior remaining. "Only tired, Kit. It was a busy night."
She walked toward him, tugging the cape closer against the fierce cold. As she did, she realized that she was dressed exactly as her sister had been earlier. Needing to know if he could tell them apart, she offered him Kira's smile and Kira's glow. "Are you sure I'm Kit?"
Guessing that he was being tested, he said ironically, "Of course, even if you are still playing the role of Cassie James." His gaze went to the cape. "I assume that you and Kira exchanged cloaks because she didn't want anything that had come from Mace."
It was a relief that he could unerringly tell them apart. Equally clearly, he still knew how her mind worked. But his expression was as remote and unapproachable as the fallen archangel of his nickname. The silent communication that had been growing between them had vanished as absolutely as if it had never existed.
For an instant she felt a sick certainty that Kira really had dazzled him to the point where he was hoping Kit would quietly fade from his life. Of course, if she told him she was pregnant, he would certainly marry her. But that was not the marriage she wanted.
Her mouth tightened. She had never given up on finding Kira, and she was not going to give up on Lucien until she was absolutely sure he didn't want her.
The sable cape swirling about her calves, she joined him on the balcony. The house was L-shaped. with a formal garden lying in the angle between the wings. Not daring to look directly at him, she studied the frozen fountain, which the moonlight had transformed into an opalescent ice sculpture. "I said that when the crisis was over, I would be happy to give you anything you wished that was in my power. Have you decided what you want?"
There was a stillness so profound that she could hear the brittle sound of ice-crusted twigs tapping against each other in the wind. Finally, he said, "What I want is something that can't be given. You're under no obligation to me, Kit. I'm glad I could help find Kira. In the process I found the spies I was seeking, so the scales are balanced. Go and be happy."
It was blatant dismissal. She caught her breath, the frigid air searing her lungs. "You've changed your mind about wanting marriage?"
"Ever since Linnie died, I've been looking in vain for the other half of myself," he said in a voice as bleak as the winter night. "Whenever I sought it in a woman, I found loneliness instead. I hoped that with you, there was a chance of having the emotional intimacy I craved. You are a twin, you know how to give, how to make yourself vulnerable, and how to love without reservation. I wanted all of that."
He braced his hands on the railing and raised his face to the sky. The moonlight gilded his face to impossible handsomeness. Bright star of the morning, most beautiful of God's host, beyond the ken of man-or woman.
"But I was a fool to think it possible to have that kind of closeness with anyone else," he continued. "Elinor and I were born in the same hour, of the same blood. Together we learned to play, to talk, to laugh-to share all our thoughts and emotions. And even with Linnie, that would have waned when we grew up. Perhaps it's as much a curse as a blessing to be a twin, because it gives one an appetite for what can never again be attained."
After a long pause he said in a scarcely audible voice, "I suppose that what I really wanted was to recapture the golden days of my childhood, before I discovered what a painful place the world is. You can't give that time back to me. No one can, any more than I could have replaced Kira in your heart if she had died. She comes first with you. She always will. Tonight I realized that I would not be content with any shreds that are left over, and it's better not to try."
He looked at her then, his eyes a pale, moonstruck green. "It has been a pleasure knowing you, Lady Kathryn. I learned many useful things about myself."
She shivered, the chill of his distance far worse than the bitter wind.
Noticing, he said, "You should go inside. After surviving so much, it's foolish to risk lung fever."
Before she could reply, a light came on in a bedroom in the wing of the house that ran at right angles to the section they were in. Kira was visible in silhouette going to the window to draw the curtains. Before she could, Jason came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned back against him, her head falling against his shoulder with complete trust.