Jo Goodman (60 page)

"Tell me," she said.

He shook his head. "You've heard it before."

"I don't mind. I like the sound of your voice. Tell me where you went just then, what you were thinking."

Grey sighed, but he was relieved not to be able to refuse her. He wanted, no, he
needed
to talk about it. "Did you mind very much discovering I was not Falconer?"

"No." Berkeley ran her fingers back and forth lightly along his collarbone. She remembered that Grey had never accepted that the name had belonged to him. Even before his memory was returned he had somehow sensed his connection to Falconer wasn't what others thought. "You took the name and the credit—and the damnation in some quarters—to protect Decker's secret. He and Jonna couldn't have continued their work on the Underground if you hadn't identified yourself as Falconer. And it's not as though you hadn't been engaged in the very same work for years. You might never have met Decker if you hadn't been a conductor with the Railroad. Why should I think less of you because you're not the one they called Falconer?" Her fingers stopped their tracing motion. "Do you think less of yourself?"

"It's not that precisely. I suppose it's more of a regret that my involvement wasn't because of an ideal. I remember that Jonna once characterized my actions as noble. It made me uncomfortable, knowing as I did that my behavior was motivated by revenge."

"Someone told me that great change is not always prompted by a high-minded, heroic code. Sometimes it only takes a profound act of selfishness."

Grey's smile was wry. "I told you that."

"So you did." Berkeley raised her hand and touched his mouth, silencing him gently. "And I say it's not so simple as that. It began one way for you and finished another. In the end you embraced an idea that you hadn't always believed in. If that weren't true, you wouldn't have hidden your activities from your family as long as you did. You let them believe you were a self-indulgent wastrel, that you were no better than your own bad blood would allow you to be. You encouraged them not to bear any responsibility for raising you badly, only for
choosing
badly. You could have allowed them to see through your charade at any time, and yet you didn't. Not after the first slave you led out, not after the first score. One wonders if you would have ever told them if you had not been moved to help Decker."

Berkeley removed her hand and raised her face. She kissed Grey lightly on the mouth. "I don't know if you understand the true nature of revenge. In order to make it felt, you have to make it known. That you finally did was more by accident than design."

"So I can start posing for my statue?" he asked dryly.

She laughed and tapped his chest with her forefinger to drive home her point. "You can take comfort in the fact that you're wonderfully human: complicated, simple, wise, foolish, enigmatic, and transparent. You can embrace the contradictions in your nature or you can spend the rest of your life trying to make sense of them."

Grey didn't have to think about it. He grabbed her hand before she withdrew it. "I'd rather spend the rest of my life embracing you."

That should have deepened her smile. She knew he meant it to. Instead it was marked with a hint of sadness. Her expression had become grave. "The revenge you meant to take on your family never involved killing one of them. Don't forget that, Grey, when you look back on what you did. Garret planned for you to die."

"Because I dishonored the family."

"Because he couldn't be satisfied with the family's disowning you. In his mind you had tainted everything he stood to inherit. Beau Rivage. Alys. His way of life. Your mother's prized piece of jewelry that rightfully had always been yours. Your actions gave him what he wanted and in the same stroke made it all seem so much less than it was." She searched his face. "I've given it a lot of thought, Grey, and I really believe Garret had come to learn I was his half sister. Anderson said I never understood how integral I was to everything that happened. I think that well may be one of the few truths he told me that day. We've found it so easy to blame Anderson that we don't often consider the role Garret played. Perhaps he was afraid that I would want something from him—or from the father who never showed me the least attention. He couldn't know that I want only what I have. More is never enough for someone like Garret, and he didn't have the capacity to understand someone like me. He needed to have everything for himself."

Grey stared at Berkeley for a long moment. When she looked away, made self-conscious by his scrutiny, he touched her chin and brought her back to him. His voice was softly intent. "You're a marvel."

This time her smile revealed a glad heart. "Yes," she said simply, "I am."

His deep, throaty response was part laughter, part growl. Before she could suspect what he would do, or even that he could do it, Grey raised his injured leg over both of hers and trapped her under the wooden splints.

Berkeley looked up at him, her eyes wide as a startled fawn's. "What do you think—"

"Does it hurt?" he asked. "Have I hurt you?"

She felt the extra weight the splints lent his leg, but they were wrapped in thick bandages, and while heavy, were not uncomfortable against her. "No, but—"

"Because it doesn't hurt me," he said. "And I find I very much want to make love to my wife."

Berkeley frowned. It was not that they hadn't been intimate in the weeks following Rhea's birth and Grey's slow mending. It was just that there were limitations. Berkeley's hand slipped between their bodies and found the edge of the towel that was wrapped around his waist. Her fingers began to tug on the knot that secured it in place. "Grey, you know I'll—"

"In the more traditional way," he said. "I want you all around me." His breath caught as her hand went under the towel. She circled his penis with her fingers. Grey lowered his head until his mouth hovered just above hers. "I want to be inside you."

Her mouth opened. "Yes," she said. Just that.
Yes.

He kissed her deeply then, and she lifted her arms around his shoulders. His skin was warm and smelled faintly of soap. At the nape of his neck there were still some damp strands mingled among the dry ones. His jaw was clean-shaven. Berkeley smiled, tasting peppermint on his tongue.

His brothers had helped him, of course. While she slept in the sitting room they talked and drank and laughed. They had probably cried again, the three of them, separately and together, and laughed some more. They shared their pasts, their secrets, and their hopes for the future. It was then that Grey must have been moved to tell them that he hoped to seduce his wife.

She imagined Colin and Decker had made it their mission for baby brother to succeed. They sobered him, washed him, buffed and polished him, and fed him peppermint for good measure. She would have to find a way to thank them for their efforts without being obvious or coarse, but they really needn't have gone to so much trouble.

The truth was, she was easy.

Grey felt the outline of Berkeley's smile against his skin. "What is it?"

The closeness of his mouth tickled hers. "Hmmm. I'll tell you later. Lie on your back."

He was easy, too. When he rolled over she followed him.

Grey watched her, fascinated and aroused by her lithe, graceful movements. She sat up and straddled his thighs. Leaning forward, she placed her palms flat on his chest and gradually drew them downward. He sucked in his breath when she removed the towel and then let it out slowly as she raised her nightshift. She placed his hands on her hips and felt his fingers press into the taut flesh of her bottom. She was lifted, partly by his efforts, partly by hers, and then she drew him into her.

It was sometime later that they slept and much later when Grey finally woke. Beside him, Berkeley didn't stir. Pale sunlight had replaced moonshine in slanted beams across the bed, and the brightest of these glanced off her shoulder. Another beam caught the pair of earrings lying on the bedside table. The gold crowns glinted, and the delicate engraving was visible on one.

From the dressing room he heard the small snuffling sounds that Rhea made as she rooted through her covers. Usually this preceded a wild banshee-like cry which she had perfected to announce her hunger. Grey prepared himself not to start when it came.

What came instead was blessed silence. After a minute he dared believe that she had fallen back to sleep. Grey's eyes traveled over Berkeley, imagining his daughter was slumbering very much like her mother, her face turned to one side, long lashes shadowing her cheeks, one arm slightly under her body, the other flung awkwardly toward the center of the bed with her palm up and her fingers lightly curved as if around an invisible object.

Grey folded his hand over Berkeley's fingers and closed them with great care. There was a corresponding pressure in his chest. His faint smile deepened. It required no special sighted gift to see that she held his heart.

The End

Page forward for a note from Jo Goodman

followed by excerpts from the other Thorne Brothers

Dear Reader,

The publication of
With All My Heart
represents the end of the Thorne trilogy. Colin, Decker, and Grey have amused and frustrated, and in some ways, enriched me. I hope you enjoyed their stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Happy Reading,

Jo Goodman

www.jogoodman.com

Page forward and see how The Thorne Brothers Trilogy began,

with an excerpt from

MY STEADFAST HEART

The Thorne Brothers Trilogy

Book One