when I look back." she explained. "A month ago I would
have said that I regretted having come to England with Mohan.
If I hadn’t, there wouldn't be a difficult decision to
make about returning to India or staying here. Looking back
today, though ... If I hadn't come to England, I never would
have met you. That outweighs everything else. So rather than
regretting coming here, I'm now very glad that I did."
"You still have the decision to make."
"Yes," she admitted. "but that doesn't change the fact that
I'm now glad I came to England. Knowing you is a greater
pleasure than the decision is a difficulty."
He considered her for a long moment and then shook his
head, saying, "You have the most unique way of looking at
life, Alex. If it's even possible, it's going to take me a while
and a good deal of thought to see matters your way."
Another puzzle for him to solve. "Heaven help me. Has
anyone ever mentioned that you tend to be something of a
rat terrier?"
"If you think I'm bad," he countered, chuckling softly,
"you should see my father."
He spoke of him so seldom, but always with strong feeling.
Alex debated silently for a few seconds and then decided
that the greater kindness was to intrude. As gently but
as firmly as possible. "You know, Aiden, it's obvious that
you really do like your father. At some point, you should
probably make an effort to breach the gap that's come between
you. If you don't, it could well be another of your regrets."
With a dismissive nod and shrug, he grinned and countered,
"But it isn't one today. If I hadn't stumbled to London
to escape him, I never would have met you. And since you're
shaping up to be one of the best things that's ever happened
to me, I'm damn glad that he and I had that falling-out."
She'd been addressing the longer term, but couldn't be displeased
that he'd seized the shorter. "Proof that some good
comes of everything. And proof that you can-and without
great effort-bend your thinking when you want."
He made a quiet humming sound as his brows knitted and
his gaze shifted out the window. Alex let him wander off into
his thoughts, suspecting that he was looking back into the
last two years and trying to shift the way he perceived all
that had happened. It wasn't an easy task for him; focusing
on the positive wasn't a natural inclination.
She so hoped he succeeded in changing that. If he could,
his life would be a happier one. And then maybe, just maybe,
he would someday look back at their time together and declare
that her decidedly unconventional way of going through
life had changed the way he viewed his own, and that because
of that, she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Which was such a shallow and self-important hope,
she chided herself. And a not very realistic one, either. Of
the two of them, she was the only one in love. For Aiden, she
was just another interlude, another woman in a long, long
parade of them. She'd have to consider herself fortunate if
he simply remembered her name in five years.
Alex turned that likelihood over and over in her mind, examining
it, trying to understand why it didn't distress her.
Intellectually, she should have recoiled at the realization that
she was nothing more to him than a casual, convenient conquest.
She should be sending him away or at the very least
working on a steely speech that would put a firm end to any
thought of an affair. But she wasn't doing any of that. And
more importantly, she honestly didn't want to.
No, the plain truth was that she was willing to accept that
Aiden didn't love her. She loved him and that was sufficient.
She wanted to make love to him, wanted to pour all of her
heart and soul into him. Whatever he could give back would
be enough. Loving him was a gift she was giving herself. A
very special, once-in-her-lifetime gift.
him askance. Yes, it was best if he never knew, never
even suspected that she loved him. She'd remove herself
from his conscience before it could even think to cringe. Her
gift to Aiden would be a clear assurance that she fully understood
and accepted the transient nature of their physical
relationship. How to go about doing that without sounding
as if she were buying used silver, though ...
To the accompaniment of screaming peacocks, they made
their way across the rear yard toward the kitchen. "I'm going
to kill them one of these days," he shouted over the noise.
"You'd better warn Preeya about getting too attached to
them."
Alex laughed and traded the key to the kitchen door for
the note Aiden had pulled from the jamb. Juggling his clean
clothing so that she could hold her skirts close, she stepped
past him and into the moisture-heavy heat.
"Please tell me that it's not a ransom note," he asked from
behind her, pulling the door closed and shutting away the
sharpest edges of the peacocks' cries.
"It's from Preeya," she explained as she read. "She says
that Mohan left with Mr. Stanbridge shortly after ten this
morning, that they're planning to return around four-thirty,
and that while we're all gone, Sawyer has taken her to market.
She doesn't say when they left or when they plan to return."
"I'd imagine fairly soon," Aiden suggested, putting the
extra bundles of silver on the kitchen worktable. "It's getting
late. She still has to fix dinner. Unless, of course, she already
did and left it on the stove or in the oven. My mother's cook
does that on her days out."
Alex laid the note and his clothes beside the silver,
stripped off her cloak, and went to look. "No dinner that I can
see," she announced, closing the oven door. "But bless her,
she did leave water on the stove. Enough for bathing. And it's
hot. If you'll draw a bucket of cold, I'll meet you at the tub."
"Are you going to join me in it?”
Her pulse skittered and sang and for a split second temptation
bloomed bright. Common sense seized control in the
next. "With Barrett and Mohan, Preeya and Sawyer likely to
come through the door at any minute?" she laughingly, regretfully
countered, carrying the steaming pot toward the
screened area of the room.
From the pump, he taunted, "Live dangerously, Alex."
God, how she wished she could, how she wished they had
even a little more time than they did. Pouring the water into
the copper tub, she answered, "I'll go so far as to prepare the
bathwater for you and then I'll go into the house."
He came around the screen, the bucket of cold water in
hand, and blocked her exit. "I'd prefer if you didn't go off
alone, Alex," he said, all the teasing gone from his voice.
"Not where I can't see you or hear you if you call for help."
The stranger, she knew. The nonexistent mystery he
&nb
sp; couldn't solve. "All right, I'll stay. The silver has to be cleaned
anyway. I'll see to that while you bathe."
''Thank you." He stepped back and let her pass, adding as
she went, "With the screen between us, it couldn't shock
your sensibilities too deeply. Not if you don't peek."
"I'm not going to peek," she assured him, bringing him
the clothes he'd worn earlier in the day. ''That sort of behavior
is for schoolgirls."
Schoolgirls peeked, Alex silently amended from her stool at
the worktable, but grown women watched. Discreetly, of
course. From a distance. While pretending they were polishing
silver. Not that there was too terribly much one could
see through a carved fretwork screen. Still, what details
were lacking were supplied by her imagination and the
kitchen had become uncomfortably warm. Rolling up the
sleeves of her blouse and opening the first two buttons on
her bodice had provided some measure of relief, but not
nearly enough.
"I've been thinking," he called, rising from his bath, "about
your returning-to-India-staying-in-England dilemma."
"Of course you have." Why hadn't she ever noticed just
how wide his shoulders were? And how lean he was?
A flutter of white as he pulled the bath sheet off the wall
peg. "I think you're approaching it from the wrong direction.
It isn't which you want to do more, it's which you'd like to
do less."
Alex put her elbow on the table and propped her chin on
her hand, watching him dry off. "I don't see that the change
in perspective really makes all that much difference, Aiden."
"Yes it does. Which frightens you more? Going back to
India? Or staying here?"
The answer was surprisingly clear and stunningly immediate.
"Going back to India." Knowing what his next question
would be, she supplied the answer before he could ask.
''There's a quality to life there. A rather terrifying kind of
freedom. Expectation, actually."
''To ... ?"
"Feel."
"Feel what?" he pressed, casually draping the bath sheet
over the top of the screen and reaching for his trousers.
"Everything. All emotions are considered part of the
divine. Happiness. Sadness. Love. Hate. Desire. To deny feeling
is to deny God's intention."
"I like that desire part."
"You would," she called back, laughing, watching his legs
disappear into his dark trousers and thinking that it was silly
to feel deprived by it. "Actually, you'd do very well in India
You wouldn't even try to resist the temptation of it."
"You were right, Alex. This is very complicated. Let me
see if I'm understanding so far." He picked up a boot and
pulled it on. "Being born English and raised in India, you're
certainly not Indian, but neither are you completely English.
And while you have a foot in both worlds," he went on,
pulling on his second boot, ''you feel as though you really
don't fully belong in either. How am I doing?"
He plucked his shirt off the peg and she sighed, resigned
to enduring propriety. "Quite well so far."
"Yes, but that's the easy part. There are tens of thousands
of English men and women who share that particular
dilemma with you," he said, walking out into plain view,
carrying the rest of his clothing, absolutely breathtakingly
bare from the waist up. "What sets you apart is how deeply
you feel the conflict and the courses you see for resolving it."
She wasn't feeling the least conflicted about anything at
the moment. Good God, he was magnificently sculpted.
"You're disgustingly rational," she declared absently, fascinated
by the hard ripples in his abdomen. And the chiseled
planes of his chest, the corded ropes in his shoulders and
arms ... Oh, if ever there was perfection in human form, it
was John Aiden Terrell. Somehow even the circular scar
high on his chest added to it. And he was in her kitchen,
sauntering toward her, practically begging her to touch.
He dropped his shirt and coat on the far end of the worktable
as he made his way toward her, grinning. "Alex? What
are we talking about?"
Ask me if I care, Aiden. She sighed, tore her gaze from
him, and collected what she could of her scattered wits.
"Going back to India or staying here." Her heart racing, she
rose from her seat and pointed to it as she went to retrieve
Preeya's tin of medicines. "You were saying something about
how I saw the decision differently than others."
Damn, he'd been hoping she wouldn't be able to remember.
But since she had, he didn't have a choice other than to
continue. He sat where she'd indicated and watched her take a
small metal box from a shelf on the far wall. "On the one hand
is India," he began again as she returned to stand between his
knees, "and the expectation to fully experience life and all the
emotions and sensations that go with it. Fairly put?"
She placed the tin on the table amid her silver and pulled
open the lid. "Yes."
"On the other hand, there's England," he continued while
she took out a small, wax-sealed jar, "which tends to glorify
cold rationality and frown upon any sort of emotional
demonstration whatsoever. Stiff upper lip, carrying on, and
all of that. Would you say that's a fair summation?"
"In a most general way," she admitted with a shrug as she
removed the seal. She dipped her fingers into the salve, set
the jar aside and turned to him, reaching to cradle his chin
with her free hand.
He caught both of her hands and gently stayed her. "Now
for the most complicated part," he said quietly, searching her
eyes. They were dark today. A deep, still-water blue. "The
heart of the problem for you, actually."
She arched a brow in wordless query and he took a
steadying breath. "You'd like to surrender to the temptation
of the Indian way of living life but you're afraid to, Alex.
There is, after all, a great deal of protection to be had in the
English practice of being intellectually distant and emotionally
numb. You can't be hurt if you don't care and don't feel
anything."
She blinked and the pulse beneath his fingertips jolted.
The betrayals were small and all she allowed him to see. Her
smile was placid, her voice calm, as she eased her hands
from his grasp and said, "Yet another difficult choice."
"Is it really?" be pressed, allowing her to turn his face and
apply the salve to his abraded skin.
"Of course it is." Her touch was gentle, light, and she
winced when he did. "Let's say, for the purposes of discussion:'
she added, lifting her fingers and looking away to take
up the jar again, "that I decide that it's perfectly fine to accept
and act on a strongly felt emotion."
"Let's pick desire;' he proposed, slipping his hands to her
waist and smiling up at her. "Just for the sake of an interesting
discussion."
"All right, desire,"
she allowed, a tiny smile flirting at the
corners of her mouth as she turned back, her fingertips
dabbed with more of the ointment. "What happens if I act on
those urges?"
He briefly considered a conservative reply, but just as
quickly decided against it. She was going to be his lover and
they both knew it. There wasn't any reason to pretend ignorance.
"Surrender and we'll both be extremely satisfied. Repeatedly.
And often."
Her smile broadened. "And what will you think of me?"
she asked, trailing her fingers along the tender spot on his
shoulder.
"What I already think of you. That you're the most incredible,
interesting woman I've ever met."
"And what will your friends think of me?" she asked,
stepping out of his hands to catch his right one. "Sawyer?
Barrett?"
"A gentleman doesn't go about sharing that kind of information,"
Aiden assured her as she got more of the balm from
the jar. "Not even with his friends."
She paused, her fingers over his knuckles, and met his
gaze. "This might hurt a bit. I'll try not to let it."
"I'll survive."
"Why wouldn't you tell them, Aiden?" she asked as three
sharp pangs, one rapidly after the other, shot up his arm. "If