carefully, perceiving that it was love. Love. She did love him; it was not a full-blooded love such as she'd known for Antony; that hurtling through darkness and destruction because one cannot resist another, one cannot live with him or without him, and one goes on, knowing full well that one is being destroyed.
No, this was a newborn love, fresh and gentle as Alex was, but it was love. Julie Stratford had been a fool not to love him; but then Ramses could seduce the goddess Isis. Had there not been Antony, she would never have loved anyone but Ramses. That he had always understood.
Ramses the father, the judge, the teacher; Antony the bad boy with whom she'd run away. Playing in the royal bedchamber like children; drunk; mad; answerable to no one; until Ramses had appeared after all those years.
This is what you've done with your freedom? Your life?
The question was, what would she do with her freedom now? Why did the pain not cripple her? Because this newborn world was too magnificent. Because she had what she had dreamed of in those last few months, when the Roman armies swarmed over Egypt, when Antony was desperate and full of delusions: another chance. Another chance, without the weight of a love that was dragging her down into those dark waves forever; another chance without a hatred for Ramses, who wouldn't save her doomed lover; who wouldn't forgive her for being doomed herself.
"Your Highness, I'm losing you again," he said intimately.
"No, you're not," she said. The lights swam around her." I'm with you, Lord Alex." The high crystal light fixture above was full of tiny sparkling rainbows; she could hear the faint tinkle of glass as it moved in the breeze from the open doors.
"Oh, but look, there they are!" Alex said suddenly, pointing up to where the banister curved and ran away from the top of die stairs.
The noise died around her; the lights; the crowds, the soft communal excitement. Ramses stood there!
Ramses in modem raiment, and beside him the woman, of considerable beauty, young and fragile as Alex was fragile, her auburn hair brushed exquisitely back from her face. A flash of dark eyes as she looked at them and did not see them. And Lord Rutherford, dear Lord Rutherford, struggling on his silver cane. Did Ramses really fool the mortals around him? This giant of a man, his face glistening with immortal vigour, hair a tousled mane. And the woman - she had not been given it. She was mortal still. Desperately, fearfully, she clung to Ramses' arm.
"Darling, not now," she begged.
Onward the party moved, the crowd swallowing them.
"But dearest, just to tell them that we're here. Why, this is splendid, it means Ramsey's been cleared. Everything's back to normal. Pitfield worked the miracle."
"Give me this time, Alex, I beg you!" Had her tone become imperious?
"All right, Your Highness," he said with a forgiving smile.
Away from them! She felt desperate, as if she were suffocating. Reaching the top of the stairs, she glanced back. They had gone into a far doorway draped with velvet. And Alex was taking her in another direction. Thank the gods for this.
"Well, it seems we're at the opposite end of the dress circle," he said to her, smiling." But how can you be so shy when you're so lovely? When you're more beautiful than any woman I've ever beheld?"
"I'm jealous of you, of the hours we've spent together. Believe me, the world will ruin it, Lord Alex."
"Ah, that's not possible," he said with utter innocence.
Elliott stood at the curtained doorway." Where on earth can Alex be? What could possess him to wander off at a time like this? Oh, this is past all patience."
"Elliott, Alex is the least of our worries!" Julie said." He's probably found another American heiress. The third consecutive love of his life in one week."
Elliott gave a faintly bitter smile as they went on into the box. The woman he'd glimpsed in the car had been all hat, ribbons and hair flying. Maybe it was just the bit of good fortune his son required.
A curved tier; a giant amphitheatre save it was covered over; and only one-half of the oval. At the far end lay the stage, obviously, hidden by a wall of soft shimmering curtains; and sunk beneath and before it, a gathering of men and women making horrid sounds with their stringed instruments and horns. She