No Brighter Dream: The Pascal Trilogy - Book 3 (19 page)

“Ali turned twenty-one years old a week ago. She is old enough to make up her own mind.”

“What are you saying?” Andre eyed his godfather with deep suspicion. “Have you dragged me down here on false pretenses?”

“Not at all. It is simply that I feel that Ali is, on the most essential level, connected to you, Andre. You found her, you decided to see to her future, and you sent her here to us.”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “And here she still is. I thought that since you once had great influence over her, you might be able to persuade her against the marriage.”

“Why? Why would you want me to?” he asked heatedly. “Is she not good enough for your blasted grandson?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Georgia said. “We love Ali very much.”

“Oh? Then why have you turned her into some kind of an aberration?”

“An aberration?” Georgia asked. “What on earth do you mean?”

“You ought to know what I mean,” Andre countered. “That—that girl I saw last month wasn’t Ali. I don’t know who the devil she was, but she certainly wasn’t the same person I sent you from Turkey. She was a travesty.”

Georgia looked at Andre keenly, her expression a mixture of exasperation and amusement. “Andre, you know I love you dearly, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. But I’ve never known anyone so competent at twisting the truth of things around when your emotions become involved.”

Andre stared at her. “I beg your pardon?” he said, unable to believe Georgia had gone blithely marching over such treacherous ground. “What in God’s name do you mean by that?”

“Never mind,” she replied. “You’ll work it out eventually, or at least I hope you do. Suffice it to say that in this particular instance, children do not stay children forever.”

Andre glared at her. “Do you think I don’t realize that?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure that you do,” Georgia replied. “But at this moment, that is neither here nor there. The point is that we both believe, as you apparently do, that Ali and Matthew would not make each other happy; they are dear friends, which is very nice, but that does not necessarily make a marriage.”

Andre rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Believe me, Ali isn’t going to listen to anything I have to say.”

“Perhaps not,” Nicholas said. “But there’s no harm in trying. As I said, you have an unusual connection to her. Maybe you can reach her in a way we can’t.”

Andre looked hard at Nicholas, then at Georgia. He saw the sincerity on their faces, saw their genuine concern. It was the last position in the world he wished to be put into, but at the same time he saw their point.

Maybe he could dissuade Ali from this ridiculous marriage, although the thought of having to endure another confrontation with her in her present incarnation was almost more than he could bear.

But the thought of Ali entangled in Matthew’s arms was definitely more than he could bear.

A
li started down the stairs for dinner in a state of anxious anticipation, knowing she’d be faced with Matthew as well as his grandparents, and there would be a horrible, silent, questioning dialogue going on between herself and Matthew during the entire meal. Nicholas and Georgia could hardly fail to pick up on it, and they were bound to wonder.

Her nerves screamed with tension. All she wanted to do was to escape, to run as fast and far as she could so that she didn’t have to answer to anything or anyone.

But galloping her horse into a lather hadn’t helped with that. It had only cost her an extra hour of walking the poor beast to cool him down, Sherifay panting at her heels, equally exhausted.

“Oh, why can’t I pull myself together?” she whispered furiously as she approached the library. She steeled herself to face Matthew after her humiliating reaction to his kiss. Ali colored, just thinking about it. She felt like a fool, a silly, naive fool who couldn’t even cope with a simple kiss from the man she was considering marrying.

But she couldn’t marry him. How could she, after that? Poor Matthew. Hattie was right, after ah. She was going to break his heart—she should have turned him down the moment he first proposed.

She took a deep breath, then opened the library door. And stopped cold. For a moment she thought she was dreaming again or that the heat had affected her senses.

Andre stood directly in front of the cold fireplace, a glass of sherry in his hand.

She blinked. He was still there, regarding her with a steady gaze devoid of any expression at all.

Ali’s world spun for an infinitesimal moment, fractured images clashing together. Andre sitting in a tent, trying to explain a complicated piece of history to her, Andre standing across a ballroom gazing at her stunned, Andre here, now, one shoulder propped against a mantelpiece with a glass in his hand as if he’d always stood like this, always looked at her in this indifferent manner.

Had she been holding a glass herself, it would have splintered on the floor.

“Ali?”

She spun around. Georgia came toward her, one hand extended, and she laid it on Ali’s shoulder. “Are you not going to greet Andre?”

“I—yes, of course,” she said, her throat ridiculously tight. “I was merely taken by surprise. Good evening, Your Grace.”

“Andre will do,” he replied, straightening to his full height. “How are you, Ali?”

“I—I am well,” she replied, grateful for Georgia’s steadying hand. “And you?”

“I am also well.”

She didn’t believe it for a minute. He appeared pale and strained. Oh, God, she wasn’t sure she could bear this. But she had no choice. For whatever perverse reasons he had chosen to come, she would not gratify him by falling apart. She would not.

“How are you enjoying life in England?” she asked politely, desperately trying to collect herself.

“Exactly as you might expect,” he replied. “Or have you really forgotten so much?”

Ali stared at the ground. She had forgotten nothing. That was the trouble. The very sight of him cast her into full memory. All kinds of memory. She felt her face growing hot.

“Has the cat got your tongue, Ali?” he said. “I don’t believe I remember your ever being at a loss for words. But then so much has changed that I no longer know what to expect.”

Her head shot up. “Are you trying to provoke me? If so, you are doing a good job.”

“Why should I wish to provoke you?” he replied evenly. “I’ve come to see Nicholas and Georgia. Since you are also here, don’t you think we might be pleasant?”

Ali nodded, looking away. “Of course.” Oh, how she wished he’d disappear, vanish into thin air. This was a nightmare come true.

And then Matthew appeared in the doorway. Ali, her stomach sinking, took in the grim expression on Matthew’s face as he registered Andre’s presence. Anger dashed in Andre’s eyes, quickly concealed.

If she thought she’d been caught in a nightmare a minute ago, now she knew she had just been dropped into the jaws of hell.

Andre summoned every reserve of control to behave politely throughout the drinks before dinner. He managed to remain civil throughout all three courses of the meal, answering questions about his work and his travels, although his attention wasn’t fully on the job. He knew that Ali was listening closely, although she feigned disinterest, the brat, behaving as if she had no idea of what he was talking about.

Her gaze remained demurely fixed on her plate and she pushed her food around exactly like every other silly miss he’d ever come across, as if she were too delicate to eat. That was a joke in itself.

She also behaved as if she had no idea that Matthew was staring her down, or that there were subtle but intense undercurrents running between himself and her, charged with the force of a hundred unspoken things. And she certainly did not behave like a woman in love with the man sitting next to her.

Ali. What had happened to her? Where had his sweet, funny child gone? What had happened to all that innocence, her lack of artifice? It had vanished beneath a swirl of skirts, an arrangement of lush dark hair.

His gaze traced the lines of her cheekbones, the square angle of her jaw, and the long sweep of her neck. Now that he had a chance to observe her at leisure without the gaze of most of the polite world upon them, he could also assess the other changes, the curves and swells that he’d never thought to see.

His fork slowed on the way to his mouth. She was still gamine in her own way, but he wondered how he could ever have so easily thought her to be a boy, for there was nothing boyish about her. She was … feminine. Very feminine, her ripe mouth begging to be kissed.

Andre fumbled and dropped his fork. “I beg your pardon,” he said, appalled with himself. What was he thinking, for God’s sake?

“No, there’s no need to fetch another,” he said to the footman who scurried to retrieve the fallen object and replace it. “I’ve had enough. Forgive me, Georgia. The meal was delicious, but I think the heat has affected my appetite.”

“Yes,” Nicholas said gravely. “I believe we are all feeling the heat this evening. Perhaps it would be best to retire early.”

“What a good idea,” Georgia said. “Both Matthew and Andre must be tired from their journeys as well.” She rose, giving the signal that the meal was over. “But, Matthew, dearest, would you first come upstairs with me? I have a letter to write that must go in the morning post, but my eyes are tired. I hoped you might let me dictate it to you.”

Andre silently applauded Georgia as Matthew opened his mouth to object, then closed it again.

“Very well, Grandmama,” Matthew said reluctantly as Georgia tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. “Good night,” he said. “I’ll speak with you in the morning, Alexis.”

Ali glanced up at him and nodded, her color heightening.

Andre wanted to be sick. Since when did Ali blush? Was it in memory of some stolen kiss, or worse?

Ali was on her way out the door, and he quickly stepped up behind her, placing a hand on her arm. She turned around, alarmed, her color fading. “What—what do you want?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“A word with you,” he said. “In the library.”

“But I was going to bed,” she said. “I have a headache.”

“The hell you have,” he said, steering her out of the dining room and taking her down the hall. He shut the door firmly behind them. “Now suppose you tell me,” he said, biting out each word, “what you damned well think you’re doing?”

“Don’t blaspheme,” Ali automatically replied, but her hands tightened into fists at her sides.

Andre’s heart unexpectedly tightened as he heard the familiar words, last spoken in what seemed a lifetime ago, but he pushed the old memory away. “Don’t blaspheme?” he said. “Tell me, what is worse, my blaspheming or your marrying a man whom you obviously don’t love? Is this your idea of becoming an Englishwoman, Ali?”

“Is that why you’re really here?” she asked, frowning. “Because of Matthew?”

“Yes. That’s exactly why I’m here, to stop you from this idiocy. Nicholas had the forethought to write me and inform me of Matthew’s proposal.”

Ali turned away from him. “He had no right,” she said, her voice thick. “It is between Matthew and myself, no one else.”

“He had every right,” Andre countered. “Every right, when both he and Georgia saw you about to make the mistake of a lifetime.”

Ali whirled around to face him. “And you? What right do you think you have to come here and tell me what to do?” she cried, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “What has any of it to do with you any longer? What do you care?”

“Damn you!” he said, his hands itching to wring her neck. “Do you really think I have no interest in what happens to you? Do you think that I picked your blasted scrawny, starved body up off a mountaintop and nursed you back to life to see you end up like this?”

“Like this?” Ali asked coldly. “Is that why you object so strongly to what you see, Andre? Because I am no longer the scrawny child you rescued? Because I have no more need of you?”

“What I object to is that you have become the one thing I cannot bear,” he said, truly wanting to throttle her.

“Oh, and what is that? What are you going to accuse me of now?” Ali said, her eyes now not only bright with tears but also flashing with rage. “Perhaps you think I have become a cold fish?”

“You’d have to be that to do what you’re planning. But you’ve become something far worse, by God. You’ve become a hypocrite, Ali. You’re going to marry a man you don’t love just for the position he will give you. Can you deny that’s true?”

Ali stared at him a long moment, two spots of red flaming on her cheeks. And then she turned and ran across the room, wrenching open the French doors that led to the outside and disappearing into the night.

Andre swore under his breath until he’d exhausted nearly every English oath he could think of and a few French ones as well. What was it about Ali that crawled under his skin, made him lose all semblance of control? She was a child, a silly little empty-headed fool who hadn’t one iota of common sense and never had.

He counted to twenty, trying to get a grip on his temper, and then he went after her.

Ali headed straight for the lake, so angry and upset that she could barely think straight. All she wanted was a swim to cool down her body and calm her raging emotions, although she’d have been just as happy to drown herself.

She stopped only to pull off her shoes and throw them over her shoulder. A few yards later came her dress, and then her stockings and petticoat and drawers. She hated her clothes. They made Andre look at her with disdain, as if she were beneath his contempt. And what had she done to anger him so? Nothing, except to consider a proposal of marriage. People did that every day of the week.

A hypocrite?
He
called her a hypocrite? Ohhh! How she despised him. It was an impossible paradox, loving and hating the same man all at one time, but she seemed to have mastered the art. How dare he accuse her of wanting to marry Matthew for position, the idiot? Andre had no idea—none—of the agonies she’d suffered on his behalf.

She finally reached the water. It took her only a moment to pull the pins out of her hair and let it tumble free. She was about to take off her shift when she heard something behind her. She spun around with a little squeak of fright.

“Did you lose something?” Andre asked, holding up her dress in one hand and her petticoat and drawers in the other. “You don’t cover your tracks very well.”

He looked at her with an expression she’d never seen before, his eyes reflecting the silver of the moon, but the heat of the sun blazed from them.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asked in alarm.

“Long enough to see that your hair has grown a considerable amount. I never thought to see it touch your hips,” he said.

“Go to hell,” she said, appalled with herself as she heard the words come out.

“Oh. So Allah no longer holds such a great sway over you? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about that, either. There seems to have been much that’s been lost in the translation between Turkey and England.”

Ali glared at him. “You are what has been lost in the translation, Andre. Only you. If I choose to marry Matthew, I will, and nothing you can say or do will make any difference to me. And that does not make me a hypocrite or a cold fish.”

“No? Tell me, Ali. Do you think he’ll warm your bed? Do you think he’ll make you cry out in the night?” Andre said, taking a step toward her.

Ali took a step backward, alarmed by the sudden change of expression on Andre’s face. “Wh-what?” she said, her heart beginning to race. It was only then that she realized that she stood nearly naked, the moonlight probably making her shift as good as transparent.

He took one last step and grasped her by the shoulders. “Tell me. When he kisses you, does he make your blood run hot?”

Ali swallowed. Matthew’s kiss had made her blood run cold, but just the way Andre looked at her made her feel as if she’d stepped into a furnace.

“Is that how you want to spend the rest of your life, Ali? With someone who hasn’t the first idea of what you need or how to give it to you?”

“And you think you know anything about it?” she said, her heart in her throat.

In answer his mouth came down hard on hers, and it was not the tender, chaste kiss that Matthew had given her, but something else entirely, his mouth opening on hers, his breath hot, mingling with hers, his tongue making her senses swim and her knees threaten to buckle.

She held on to him for dear life as he played out the kiss, bruising her mouth, crushing her body against his, the hard length of his erect manhood pressing into her belly.

That brought her to her senses and a sudden rush of fury coursed through her that he would manipulate her so callously, so heartlessly, just to prove a point about Matthew, with no care for her feelings. With all of her strength she tore herself away.

“And you called
me
a hypocrite?” she sobbed, and shoved at him with both hands.

Andre, unprepared, overbalanced. He toppled backward, but not without grabbing her arm as he went. Ali gasped as he dragged her into the lake with him, the cold dark water submerging her for a moment. And then Andre’s arms came around her and lifted her up above it as he found a foothold on the bottom. He pulled her against him, his breath coming hard.