Evening Star (Star Quartet 1)

“Very enterprising,” she said. She felt too tired and too empty to protest. “What are you doing here, Alex? I left you a note. There was no reason for you to come.”

“I have come to take you back home, of course. As for your note, it’s been a long time since I’ve been treated to such drivel.”

Giana pulled the cover over her shoulders. “It was not drivel,” she said dully.

“Would you like to sit up?”

She ignored him and slowly pulled herself up on the bed.

“I ordered dinner for us here. I trust you have some appetite.”

She didn’t reply, merely stared straight ahead at a painting of the New York countryside on the opposite wall. A very bad painting, she thought, the sun suspended in the sky like a large orange platter.

“You are not such a coward, Giana,” he said deliberately. “You could have had one of my guns loaded and ready to use on me when I returned home.”

She turned her head to face him. “Why?” she asked blankly.

She looked so wan, so damned withdrawn. “Do you feel all right?” he said, sitting forward in his chair. To his surprise, she flinched away from him.

“Of course,” she said. “I will feel even better on the morrow.”

“Ah yes. It is your intention to run away? To return to England, and weather the storm?”

“No. I will go to Cornwall. I do not want my mother or the duke hurt by any scandal.”

“Very thoughtful of you. And what about me, Giana?”

“You?” She looked f

aintly surprised, one elegant brow arched upward. “You made your wishes perfectly clear, Alex. You cannot bear the sight of me. I am but obliging you.”

“I didn’t want this, dammit, and you know it.” He rose abruptly from his chair and stood over her. “I have had a perfectly hellish day, and I return home to find that my wife has packed up and walked out on me. Another example of your thoughtlessness. I won’t abide any more of it, Giana. After dinner, we are going home.”

Giana’s fingers curled about the bedcovers as she fought to control her anger at him. She had hoped to ignore him, but instead, she yelled, “I am not your wife, and you can go to hell.”

To her surprise, he smiled. “That’s better. I wondered how long you could play your spiritless-old-horse act. Come now, tell me what you think of me.”

“Stop it. Damn you, Alex Saxton, just stop it.”

He sat down beside her, and she wasn’t fast enough to move away from him. She felt his fingers gently pushing the hair from her forehead and close about her face. He leaned down and lightly kissed the tip of her nose. She tried to struggle free of him, but he merely stretched out beside her, and held her firmly against him.

“Let me go.” She brought her arms up to push at his shoulders. “I know exactly what you think of me, Alex. I don’t know what game you’re playing now, but I refuse to be a part of it.”

He pressed his face into her hair. “I have never been so frightened in my life.”

She stopped struggling. “You, frightened?’

His fingertips roved lightly over her face and sketched the line of her brow. “You could have been killed,” he said simply. “All I could see was you lying beneath that mast. You and the child, both dead.” He drew a deep breath. “I could not have borne that, Giana.”

She stared up at him warily. “I am not demented, Alex. You weren’t frightened, you were furious. And you said awful things to me.”

“Yes, I know. But you also know that I am not a particularly even-tempered man. In fact, I, just like you, spout the stupidest things when roused.”

“Now you accuse me, when it is you who are to blame.”

“We are both to blame. In this instance, perhaps it was I who was the more outrageous. Will you forgive me?”

“You want me to forgive you so I will come home with you to avoid any scandal?”