Andre took a deep breath. “But the risk was not as much as you might think. Raoul was only twenty when his parents died, but he reigned for over forty years, and history tells us he was a very wise king from the moment he ascended the throne—a fitting heir for Andre Alexei the First. I am sure he knew that with all the other defections to Protestantism the Roman Catholic Church was desperate to keep Zakhar in the fold.”
“How did he manage it?”
“The church found ‘mitigating circumstances.’” She raised her eyebrows in a question, and he added, “In essence, they ruled Eleonora was not in her right mind when she committed suicide. Ergo, it was not a cardinal sin.” He smiled his faint smile. “No cardinal sin, no reason to refuse the sacrament of a church burial. And so they were buried together in hallowed ground.”
Juliana considered this for a long time. “I don’t think—” she began, then stopped short.
“You don’t think...?” prompted Andre.
“I don’t think she was out of her mind,” Juliana whispered, staring at the tomb, feeling as if Eleonora were speaking to her. “And I don’t think she gave a damn about whether or not suicide was a sin. I think she just couldn’t bear to live without him. Not even if it meant leaving her children behind. This wasn’t like the endless years of captivity. This was life forever without him...or joining him in eternal death.”
Silence greeted her words. Then Andre said in his deep voice, “So you believe she loved him that much?”
“Yes.”
“To death...and beyond?”
“Yes.” Her throat closed after that one word, and she refused to look at Andre, knowing her emotions were too close to the surface.
“But you don’t believe he loved her the same way?”
Juliana fought the resurgent tears and shook her head. Those emotions she didn’t want to feel choked her and she couldn’t have spoken even if she’d wanted to.
After a tense silence Andre sighed. When Juliana darted a glance at him she saw an ineffable sadness in his face, and a weariness that had nothing to do with the physical. “You used to believe,” he said.
She swallowed hard and forced coldness into her voice. “I used to believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, too.”
“Damn you,” he ground out, grabbing her arm and pulling her so close she could feel waves of anger emanating from him. Then he was kissing her, his mouth plundering hers, his arms holding her prisoner while he took what he wanted. She fought him with everything in her, struggling to free herself, knowing she didn’t stand a chance against his overwhelming strength but refusing to surrender. He held her easily, her attempts to free herself futile, and rained kisses over her face. But when she sobbed against his lips finally, unable to stop herself, his arms gentled and he drew his mouth away from hers.
Then he was cradling her in his arms, soft words of apology in English and Zakharan flowing out of him in a steady stream until her tears ceased. But he didn’t let her go. “Shhh,” he whispered, his voice harsh, his breathing ragged. “Forgive me. I never meant... Shhh, do not cry. God, Juliana, please...please forgive me.”
She shook her head. Forgive him? How could she ever forgive him? She wasn’t thinking about the way he’d kissed her just now—that was nothing, and he wasn’t the first man to try to force a response from her. If that were all, she could easily forgive him as she’d forgiven other men who’d tried and failed to rouse her to passion.
But she could never forgive him for being something other than the man she’d thought she’d loved...eleven years ago. For making her weep bitter tears until every shred of the warmth, love and trust she’d possessed at eighteen had been slain, replaced with cold, cynical suspicion.
Maybe he did you a favor, she told herself now. If he hadn’t already inoculated her against love, could she have survived in Hollywood? If she hadn’t already experienced those devastating emotional wounds he’d inflicted on her, could she have portrayed them so believably on the silver screen, especially in the early stages of her career?
She didn’t know. But one thing she did know. She would have traded every acting award she’d ever won, every glowing review from the critics, every box office success, if she could take back one night. Because if that night had never happened, if she hadn’t believed herself loved the way legend claimed the first Andre Alexei had loved his Eleonora, then there would never have been the betrayal that destroyed her for any other man. She would never love again because love required trust. And trust was dead in her.