that’s possible,” he said dryly, swallowing a healthy portion of his drink.
“Actually I’m not supposed to have sweets,” I reminded him. “I’m a diabetic. The raspberry scones were a rare treat.”
He looked startled. “Good God! I never even connected it. Why on earth did you eat them?”
I laughed. “I’m only human and I love sugar. When I indulge, I pay for it. Fortunately I’m not tempted often or easily.”
I leaned my head back against the chair and closed my eyes. The room was lovely. The warmth of the fire and the intimate flickering lights wove their spell. I felt mellow and slightly drowsy, otherwise I would never have said what I did. “I’d like to think you invited me here tonight because you were bowled over by my charms. But I don’t really believe that.”
He looked at me curiously. “Why not? You’re not exactly the type a man would overlook in a crowd.”
Again, I could feel the color in my cheeks. “Thank you,” I murmured, clearly uncomfortable with the way the conversation had turned. “I wasn’t begging for compliments.”
“I know. That makes you even more appealing.” He studied me thoughtfully. “What was your husband like?”
“I beg your pardon?” Whatever I had expected of the evening, it certainly wasn’t this.
“He must have been the worst kind of fool to make a woman like you unaware of her appeal.”
My stomach knotted in that twisting, painful way it always did when I thought of Stephen. I couldn’t discuss him. Not yet. “He wasn’t a fool,” I said quickly. “We just wanted different things. What about you?” I remembered the beauty seated beside him in church. “Are you married?”
He grinned, and the pain in my stomach disappeared. “Shame on you, Christina. Would I be here if I were?”
“I hope not,” I answered, “but I don’t really know you.”
“That can be remedied. In answer to your question, no, I’m not married. I came close once, but it didn’t work out.”
“What happened?” The minute I asked the question I wished it back. “I’m sorry. Please don’t feel you have to answer that.”
“I don’t mind at all,” he assured me. “I took her to America with me while I earned my degree at Cornell. She refused to come back.”
“Why didn’t you stay?”
He shrugged, a beautiful fluid lifting of his shoulders. “This is my home. I’ve spent my entire life preparing to take over the land. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
I agreed with him. “Scotland is a wonderful place to raise children. Much better, I think, than America.”
“Thank God children were never an issue.”
“Do you dislike children, Ian?”
“Not at all,” he replied promptly. “But I do believe that every child deserves two devoted parents. I deplore the current trend of selfishness that puts children’s needs last in a relationship.”
He spoke with such feeling. I wondered if it came from personal experience. Curiosity prevailed. “You can’t actually believe that people should endure a miserable existence for the sake of their children?”
“Of course not.” He set his empty glass on the table. “But people’s definitions of miserable are varied. Most of the time, problems can be worked out with a bit of effort. There are few things important enough to break up a marriage.”
What about infertility, I wanted to cry out. What if a man wants children so desperately that nothing else will satisfy him, not even the woman he promised to love, honor, and cherish fifteen years before? Of course I didn’t say it. It was ridiculous to even think it. No one would believe me. This was the twentieth century. A woman’s worth was no longer measured by the number of children she brought into the world. Or was it?
I closed my eyes and remembered the hands. I could still feel those hands, sterile, competent, cold, sure, precise, sliding across my skin, probing, prodding, inspecting every inch of flesh, examining over, under, inside, the tests inconclusive and never ending, until that night when I couldn’t tell my husband’s hands from the hands of the hundred specialists I’d seen, and the very thought of exploring fingers inching their way across my body was like the exploding pain of brilliant light against eyes that had been too long in dark places. I simply couldn’t bear it, and in the end it cost me my life as I’d planned it.
Deliberately, with great effort, I pushed the memories aside and opened my eyes. Ian was staring at me again. Why did I feel as if he knew exactly what I was