you’d had the chance. Perhaps you forgave him too much, but who among us would not wish to be so generously loved and generously forgiven?”
She leaned back against the doorjamb. His kindness was a balm to her badly singed soul. She let herself wallow in the magnificence of his compassion, the sweetness of his friendship.
He took a step toward her, his brow furrowed with concern. “Helena, are you all right? I hope you are not angry that we haven’t told you sooner. It is a complicated story and not always a happy one, and we didn’t quite know how to—”
She held up her hand for him to stop. The only person she was angry at was herself.
“Helena—”
She adjusted the cuff of her right sleeve rather unnecessarily. “Where were you in this doomed, idiotic love affair of mine?”
His surprise at her question was followed by a wistful smile. “On the outside looking in.”
“So all this—” She gestured at the glorious mural he’d created for her and didn’t quite know how to go on.
“I’ve always loved you,” he said, his eyes a blue that was almost violet. “You know this.”
She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I only wonder whether I deserve such devotion.”
“Sometimes people fall in love with those who do not return the same strength of feelings. It is as it is,” he said with a quiet intensity. “What I give, I give freely. You owe me nothing, not love, not friendship, not even obligation.”
CHAPTER 11
Now everything was out in the open.
Hastings felt at once exhausted and unbearably light, all his secrets unloaded. She, on the other hand, looked as if the weight of a continent had settled on her shoulders.
He closed the distance between them and touched his hand to her sleeve. “It has been a long day. Would you like to take some rest? I can have some refreshments sent up.”
She gripped his lapels and yanked him toward her with surprising strength. “How dare you leave me alone in my hour of need.”
He had rarely been more startled. “That is not what I—”
“I know.” She let go of him and smiled sadly. “And what I meant was, ‘Stay with me.’”
“Of course. Would you still like to have tea sent up? There are books you like in the sitting room. I can read to you from—”
She gripped his lapels again. “I thought you were more clever than this.”
She looped her free arm about his neck and kissed him, her tongue seeking his with a need that had him all but moaning aloud.
He forced himself to pull back. “Wait!”
“No.”
“Helena, you’ve just been told some shocking news. You are not feeling quite yourself. You should be taking a bath, or having something to eat, not leaping on a fellow you didn’t even like ten days ago.”
She set her hands to just below his ears, her fingers cool upon his skin. “I want this. And I want this to be our wedding night. Now.”
She was looking at his lips. It took a moment for him to remember what he meant to say. “Helena, you can’t disown a past you don’t even remember by taking me to bed.”
“I don’t want to disown my past,” she whispered. “I just want you. I have never wanted anything as much as I want you at this moment.”
His head spun. His ears burned. And his lungs must have collapsed in shock, for he couldn’t draw in another breath. It was not only raining in the Sahara Desert; it was pouring like the beginning of the deluge.
In the back of his mind a voice begged him to disengage. This was no time to give in to his yearning, the voice beseeched. She would hate him for it when her memory came back.
But an entire jubilant chorus shouted in objection to the timidity of the lone voice of reason. Why allow all the old memories to have supremacy? Make new ones, memories of such luster and beauty that, should the old ones come back, they would be pallid and impotent in comparison.
“David,” she murmured.
His heart thumped. She’d never before called him by his given name.
“David. David. David,” she repeated.
Their gaze locked. He tried to find some irrational desperation in her eyes, but he could see only wonder, affinity, and undisguised desire.
Suddenly he was the one yanking her to him, the one kissing her as if this were his final hour on earth, the one lifting his arms heavenward in awe and gratitude as rain came down in torrents in