Only afterward did the full enormity of what she'd done sink in. Margo lay in the crook of Malcolms arm, his body pressed warmly against hers, his breath shuddering against her ear. The fire of their joining still lingered in deep tremors inside her.
Then, like ice water through her veins:
I slept with him.
Dear God, I slept with him.
Panic smote her so hard Malcolm stirred. "Margo? What's wrong?"
She couldn't answer. Couldn't put into words the myriad terrors ripping her apart. Dad was right. I'm nothing but a two-bit whore, I'll never be anything, never amount to anything, I can't even say no when I know it's the wrong thing to do, l could be pregnant ... .
Oh, God. She could be.
She'd destroyed everything she'd worked for, would never be able to face down that bastard who'd murdered her mother, could never tell him he'd been wrong
And Kit Carson ...
If she couldn't even be trusted not to fall into bed with the first man who took her down time ...
She began to cry. When the dam burst, she couldn't control the flood. Malcolm touched her shoulder.
"Margo? Please, what is it?"
She jerked away, so miserable she wanted to die.
Malcolm's tender concern only made the enormity of her folly worse. Clearly, he'd anticipated a jolly romp in the grass with a woman capable of enjoying the moment. A woman he'd thought had just turned nineteen. All she'd managed to give him was a ten minute quickie with a scared kid. Worse, a scared kid with a past. The fact that it had been the most profoundly shattering experience of her young life ...
She hid her face in the sweet grass and cried until she thought her heart would burst.
Malcolm listened for a long time, damning himself for several dozen kinds of fool. He finally dared a question.
"Margo, I have to ask. Who was he?"
She strangled on another hiccough and stopped crying long enough to ask, "Who?"
Malcolm wanted to touch the nape of her neck, but she wasn't ready for that yet. "The bastard who hurt you."
She finally rolled over to face him. Tear streaks blotched reddened cheeks. Faint surprise flickered in her eyes. For several moments, he thought she wasn't going to answer. When she did, it still wasn't really an answer.
"You sound angry."
This time he did touch her, very gently. And this time, she didn't flinch away. "I am angry, Margo. More than you can know"
She held his gaze for long seconds. Behind her, spring water poured over a lip of stone and meandered through Diana's sacred grove down to the Tiber and the distant sea.
Then she turned away again. "You're wrong. It wasn't what you're thinking. And I was wrong, too. About a lot of things."
Malcolm bit one lip. God, who did this to her? I'll take him apart .....Maybe, but so was he. Whoever he was, whatever reason he had for doing it. He was wrong."
"How-how can you be so-so damned nice?"
Meaning you only sleep with boys who are rotten to you?
He decided to introduce a little levity. "But I'm not nice. I'm a calculating cad, Miss Margo." She went very still in his arms. "Consider: I dragged you two thousand years into the past, plied you with sweet Roman wine, then danced you through half the streets in the city for the express purpose of scaring myself half witless. We perverts are like that, you know. Devious fellows. We'll do anything to indulge our bent for self-inflicted terror."
His smile, calculated to put her at ease, shattered her fragile self-control. Margo's whole face crumpled, then she turned away from him, shutting him out once again. "Where are my clothes? I'm too naked. If you want to talk, let me get dressed."
"Margo..."
She paused, holding the Parthian tunic in front of herself like a shield.
"What?"
"You've no idea how sad that makes me feel."
Her brows dove together. "How sad what makes you feel?"
"That you can take your clothes off to sleep with a man, but you can't talk to him afterward. That's what love is all about. Touching and talking and caring."
She opened her lips several times, but no sound came out. Then, bitterly, "Who made you the world's expert, anyway? You're a penniless bachelor! You....ou are a bachelor, aren't you?" she asked suddenly, hugging the tunic more tightly to her breasts.
He managed a smile. "Yes. I'm a bachelor, Margo. And I never claimed to be anyone's expert on the subject. But I do think you ought to be at least friends with the people you sleep with. Otherwise, it's the saddest thing in the world, groping after something you can't define with a total stranger who probably can't define it, either."
"I know exactly what sex is!" She crouched in the sunlight, fingers dug into the earth, the folds of her tunic forgotten. "It's getting drunk and thinking you're having a good time, then waking up trapped and hurt and scared of everyone you thought you liked! It's miserable and lonely and I'm sorry I ever laid eyes on you! Damn you, Malcolm Moore! You ruined my seventeenth birthday!"
SEVENTEENTH? Malcolm opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Terror and regret and rage at her lie tore through him so savagely he couldn't even move. Seventeen? My God, Kit will kill me!
She flung herself into her Parthian tunic and trousers, then fled. Malcolm swore and hurtled himself into his own clothing, but by the time he gained the street, dodging tree trunks and pleasantly occupied couples, she was gone, swallowed up by the teeming celebration beyond the temple precinct. He stood on the stone sidewalk, shaken so deeply he could scarcely breathe.
Idiot, fool, dolt .....ou knew shed been hiding from something) Whatever it is, you just drove her right back into the middle of it. In a moment of utter folly, Malcolm had allowed himself to forget that Margo was young and vulnerable, trying to hide something desperately painful behind a pert, sexy exterior. Donning a mask of confidence and challenging the world didn't change the fact that she was a scared little girl hiding in a woman's body. Memory crucified him. The passion, the quivering fire against him and inside him . ...
There wasn't anything he could do now except pick up the pieces and go on, hoping Margo would eventually forgive him.
It was even money Kit Carson never would
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The rest of Margo's stay in Rome was a nightmare. After fleeing Malcolm, she lost her way in the tangle of narrow, crooked streets. Margo wandered for hours, seeing hardly anything, scarcely paying attention to where she put her feet, much less where she was going. When the light began to go, Margo came out of her mental fog with an abrupt jolt She blinked at unfamiliar surroundings, discovering she had no earthly idea where she was or where the Time Tours inn might be.
"Malcolm ..." she quavered
But Malcolm wasn't there to bail her out She was on her own in the growing darkness. The crowds had thinned out, leaving her virtually alone on a grimy little street of four- and five-story Roman tenements. Haphazard, rickety wooden buildings a block long, the tenement "islands" sported cheap shops at street level and increasing poverty the higher one climbed the stirs.
She had to find shelter. Rome's streets were deadly after dark. Margo glanced both ways down the street, then, swallowing hard, she headed back the way she'd come. She walked several blocks without finding a trace of anything remotely resembling a landmark she recognized. She moved faster, heart in her throat, abruptly aware of men loitering in darkened doorways and zigzag alleys.
When Margo spotted an inn, she didn't care how dirty it was or how drunk its occupants. She bolted inside, feeling marginally safer in the boisterous, lighted room. She drew immediate attention, but managed to stare down several curious types who shrugged and returned to their wine and dice games. The innkeeper communicated through signs and gestures. She handed over coins and he handed over food and a blanket. The food was hot, the blanket threadbare, and the comer she eventually chose to bed down in drafty, but at least she wasn't alone in the dark on dangerous streets.