Evening Star (Star Quartet 1)

The evening was as splendid as the day had been, she thought, gazing up at the full moon. Music wafted from the mansion, drowning out the guests. I should be glad to be alone, she thought, quelling a knot of misery that threatened to build in her throat, and leaned over to sniff one of the last remaining blooms on a rosebush.

“I had hoped to dance with you, Giana, but you escaped me yet again.”

Giana started at the sardonic voice behind her. She turned slowly to face Alexander Saxton, oddly breathless at hearing the voice that had haunted her, even in sleep, for nearly two wretched months. She drew back at his expression, etched in the shadows of the moonlight. He was blazingly angry. Damn him, what right did he have to be angry?

“You are supposed to be in Paris,” she said, “or New York.”

“I was in Paris, but as you see, I am now in London. I thought I would give your mother and the duke my congratulations, though I expect they will be rather taken aback at my appearance.”

He was standing too close to her, and she took a step backward, nearly tripping on the train of her gown. He reached out his arms to her, steadying her. She shook herself free, furious with herself for taking pleasure in his touch. “What are you really doing here?”

“I did not want to leave our business unfinished, Giana. I was curious where you have been hiding for the past seven weeks.”

“In Cornwall.” She gazed up at him desperately. “Mr. Saxton, I have not changed my mind about anything. I do not understand how you can be so pigheaded about this.”

“You are thin, Giana,” he said, sweeping his eyes over her. “And your complexion is sallow, but that might be the moonlight and the peach in your gown. You should not wear pastels, my dear.”

Giana clapped her hands over her ears. “For God’s sake, Mr. Saxton, leave me alone. Haven’t you done enough to me?”

“I have done too much to you, Giana. I am sure your lovely mother wrote you in her letters that she spilled the whole story of why you were in Rome four years ago.”

She nodded, grimacing at the memory of her mother’s appalled letters. At least he no longer believed her a perverted rich girl who played games in brothels.

“But she really knew very little, except that you were innocent. And your Daniele appears to have taken quite some liberties with your education. Odd that it took you four years to discover what it is really like to bed with a man.”

“You arrogant ass.” His words dug deep, and she could not forgive him. Her hand flew toward his cheek, but he caught her wrist and bore it back to her side. “You hurt me.”

“When I took you in Folkestone, or now?”

“Why do you wish to torment me?” she whispered.

“I do not want to torment you, Giana,” he said. “I want you to become my wife.”

Giana could not stop tears from welling in her eyes. Even as they spilled onto her cheeks, she felt her stomach turn. She wrenched away from him and stumbled toward a line of thick ivy bushes. “I’m sick, damn you.”

“Not again,” she heard him say wearily behind her.

There was nothing in her stomach, for she had been unable to eat that day. But she felt her body heave, and fell to her knees on the thick grass. She felt his hands on her shoulders, steadying her. When the nausea receded, he hauled her to her feet and carried her to a stone bench beneath an arbor of roses.

“I think I remember what comes next,” he said, no amusement in his voice. “Sit still like a good girl, for once, and I’ll fetch you some water. Thank God there is no beach about.”

She rinsed out her mouth, not caring that he was watching her, and downed the rest of the water. In a spate of anger, she hurled the empty glass at him.

He ducked it handily, and said, as if nothing had happened, “You are not still ill from the influenza, are you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said.

“Then my unexpected presence brought you such mingled delight that you threw up?”

Giana returned his amused expression with a look of loathing. “Leave me alone,” she muttered, “just leave me alone.”

“Giana, we have bandied insults like a pair of duelists. I am weary of being the villain in this drama of yours, weary of wasting my time with a silly child who, for all her supposed brains, has not a whit of sense.”

“Silly child?” She jumped to her feet. “Damn you, Saxton. I am not a silly child. You miserable bounder, children do not get pregnant.”

Her words hung naked between them. “I did not mean that. You make me so damned angry, and I wanted to get back at you.”

Under her appalled gaze, he began to smile, his eyes full of devilry.