Silken Threads (46 page)

She ought to be used to being alone, after
all those years of making do virtually on her own, but having
Graeham around had spoiled her. God help her, she missed him more
than ever, despite his duplicity and the fact that he was married
and living on some grand Oxfordshire estate by now. He’d been like
wine for her soul. For the first time in years, she’d felt as if
she were a part of someone else, not just desired, but well and
truly loved.

It had all been an illusion, of course,
crafted partly out of whole cloth by Graeham Fox and partly out of
her own loneliness and need.

Never again.
No handsome devil would
ever use her like that again. Ever.

She’d made sure Graeham Fox would never use
her that way again by moving here to this remote corner of the
Midlands, far from her former life. No one in London knew where
she’d gone; it was as if she’d disappeared from the face of the
earth. Graeham couldn’t find her in a thousand years, even if he
wanted to. That knowledge both comforted and depressed her.

She treated Manfrid to one last, indulgent
scratch behind the ears and then stood, fighting a wave of
disorientation. These dizzy spells were much less frequent now, in
her fourth month, than they’d been in the beginning. In addition to
all the nausea and weakness, she’d actually fainted several times.
But according to the local midwife, all that would taper off
completely soon, and she’d have more energy than ever.

Manfrid made that funny little sound in his
throat he sometimes made
—
almost like a dove
cooing
—
and leapt up, suddenly alert. If he’d been
Petronilla, Joanna would have assumed there was a field mouse
lurking about somewhere, but Manfrid doggedly avoided the prey that
his sister found so compelling. The big cat strolled over to the
dirt path that cut through the pasture and sat, staring off in the
direction of the woods, his tail twitching.

Joanna turned toward the poultry house, then
turned back around as something caught her eye
—
a movement
at the edge of the woods. Squinting against the low orange sun, for
the woods were to the west, she identified the source of the
movement
—
a man on horseback.

All she could see of him was the distant,
dark shape of man and horse advancing toward her along the path.
She wondered who he was. Most folks around here rode mules unless
they walked. Horses were a luxury.

She touched the dagger hanging from her
girdle, a concession to the riskiness of living alone in relative
isolation. Pray God this fellow was some local nobleman, or perhaps
a priest, and not...

Joanna shielded her eyes, peering at the
horseman’s hair, gleaming rustily in the golden sunlight. It hung
in waves over the collar of his brown, split-front riding tunic.
His long legs were encased in leathern leggings secured with
crisscrossed thongs.

“Nay...”

Joanna focused on his face, her heart
skittering in her chest. “Holy Mary, Mother of God.”

The feed sack thudded to the ground.

It was him.

Thank God he found her.

Oh, God, why did he have to find her?

Joanna pressed a hand to her fluttering
stomach, mentally scolding herself for her lack of backbone. She
hated Graeham Fox. She despised him utterly for lying to her, using
her, getting her with child, then leaving her to marry the lovely
and learned Phillipa.

How the devil did he find her? Only Hugh
knew where she was, and Hugh was in the Rhineland.

Graeham slowed his dun stallion to a walk as
he got to the end of the path. Those earnest, dazzling blue eyes of
his still had the power to steal the breath from her lungs, damn
him. Something looked different about him; she realized his nose
had a bump halfway down that never used to be there, and his
forehead was marred by a livid little scar that cut through the
outside edge of an eyebrow.

Reining in his mount, he said, “Joanna...my
God, it really is you.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and
stared at him.

His expression sobered. He dismounted and
tethered his horse to the limb of one of the oaks. Manfrid rubbed
deliriously against his legs. Graeham squatted down and stroked his
back. “
You’re
happy to see me, aren’t you, boy?”

Manfrid purred lustily. Graeham looked up
and met Joanna’s gaze as he petted the cat. “Christ, Joanna, I’ve
missed you. I thought I might never see you again.”

He stood and took a step toward her.

She backed up a step.

He stopped in his tracks. “I know
you’re...put out with me.”

“You have no idea,” she said, her voice low
and unsteady.

“I just need you to listen to me.” He held
his palms up placatingly, started walking toward her. “Just
that
—
hear me out.”

“Roast in hell.” Joanna stumbled backward as
he advanced on her, his strides growing swift, determined. She
backed up against the poultry house and she turned to flee, but he
seized her by the shoulders and pressed her against the earthen
wall. She pushed against his chest, but it was like trying to budge
a wall of rock.

“I can’t believe it,” he said, his gaze
feasting hungrily on her hair, loose and uncovered, her eyes, her
mouth, and lower, to her swelling breasts and the belly that pushed
stubbornly against her snug violet kirtle.

He lowered a hand to her stomach, caressed
the slight roundness, his expression one of wonderment.

So. He knew.

Looking into her eyes, he said, “You’re even
more beautiful now. I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”

His face was very close to hers now, too
close. He was bending his head to hers, his gaze on her mouth. She
tried to shake her head no, but that only brushed her lips against
his.

A whimper of longing rose from her as he
closed his mouth over hers, his lips so warm, so demanding. He
framed her face with his hands, threaded his fingers through her
hair.

The world spun as he kissed her. She grabbed
fistfuls of his tunic, her heart pounding, reeling with riotous
emotions
—
love and hate, desire, bewilderment.

How could he do this to her? What kind of
power did he have over her? She felt drugged by his nearness, his
kiss, his warm, familiar scent that she’d missed so much.

He broke the kiss with a breathless whisper.
“I love you.”

“Oh, God, more lies.” She covered her ears
with her hands. “Stop lying to me, Graeham, that’s all I ask of
you.”

He pulled her hands away from her ears.
“‘Tis the truth, Joanna, I swear it. I should have told you long
ago, but I was an idiot.” Lifting her hands to his mouth, he kissed
them. “I love you, Joanna. I do, I
—
”

“What of Phillipa? Do you love her, too, or
did you just marry her for the land?”

Releasing her hands, he lightly stroked her
cheek. “Joanna...”

“Did you seek me out thinking I’d be your
leman, that you could come to me whenever the fancy struck you and
I’d just spread my legs like some twopenny
—
”

“‘Tisn’t like that, Joanna.”

“Go back to your wife, Graeham.” Joanna
pushed against him as hard as she could. He staggered back a step,
just enough for her to sidestep him.

Joanna strode swiftly toward the cottage;
once inside, she could bolt the door, locking him out. She passed
the sack of chicken feed lying on the ground, and automatically
bent to retrieve it. As she straightened up, a resurgence of her
former dizziness made everything whirl slowly.

Please, God, not now,
she thought as
dark spangles filled her vision and her knees gave out.
Not
now.

“Joanna?” Strong arms banded around her,
lifted her off her feet. She felt herself being cradled like a baby
against his chest, felt the steady reverberations of his footsteps
as he carried her, limp and half-senseless, in the direction of her
cottage.Graeham kicked open the door, paused for a moment, and then
she felt him walking again. He lowered her gently; she heard the
crackle of straw beneath her, felt the scratchy woollen blanket
that covered her little bed, the soft feather pillow beneath her
head.

He stroked her forehead, her hair, and then
he was gone. Feeling suddenly bereft, she forced her eyes open and
saw him, clawing his hair back with his hands, looking wildly
around the little one-room cottage. Spying her wash stand, he
crossed to it, dipped a wash rag in the bowl of water, wrung it out
and returned to Joanna’s side.

“Joanna, what’s wrong?” he asked, sitting
next to her on the bed and wiping her face with the damp cloth. He
looked stricken. “Are you ill? Do you need a physician?”

She shook her head slowly. “I’ve had a bit
of a rough time with the pregnancy,” she said listlessly. “It’s
getting better.”

His gaze lit on her stomach. He rested a
hand there in a way that struck her as endearingly protective. “Is
anything wrong? The baby’s all right, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “The midwife says everything’s
fine.”

“You need a physician, not
some
—
”

“There are no physicians around here, and
Claennis is a very good midwife.”

He smoothed his hand over her abdomen,
shaping its roundness, his expression troubled. “It’s been hard for
you. I hate to think of what you’ve been through since I left.”
Looking around the tidy little cottage, with its whitewashed walls
and jars of fall flowers scattered about, he said, “You’ve made the
best of things, though. You always did persevere in the face of
adversity. Your strength is one of the things I most love about
you.”

She snatched the wet cloth from his hand and
pressed it to her suddenly throbbing forehead. “Don’t say
that.”

“Don’t say what?” He leaned over her, his
arms braced to either side of her head, looking almost amused, the
arrogant bastard. “That I love you?”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“It’s true, Joanna. If I had any sense at
all, I’d have told you months ago. Let me tell you now.”

“Why? So you can try to sweet-talk yourself
underneath my skirts?”

“Ah, that again.”

“I may be foolish and gullible and all too
susceptible to handsome, charming devils like you
—
”

“I’m handsome and charming?” he asked with a
delighted smile. “You love me, too. I know it.”

“‘Tis your vanity speaking. How could I love
a man who used me so ill?”

“I did use you ill,” he admitted. “I let you
give yourself to me without telling you about Phillipa and the
estate in Oxfordshire. I didn’t know what to do. I loved you so
deeply, and I wanted you desperately, but I couldn’t imagine giving
up that land. Like an idiot, I kept trying to figure out how I
could have you
and
the land, but of course, there was no
way. I’m a flawed man, and I made unforgivable mistakes, for which
you suffered dearly, but you still love me. I know it. I felt it
when you kissed me.”

“‘Twas you who kissed me.”

“You returned the kiss. Now tell me you love
me.”

“I don’t.”

He leaned closer, his eyes scaldingly blue.
“You do. Tell me. Say it.”

“I may not have a lick of sense when it
comes to you, Graeham Fox, but I do know better than to return the
endearments of a married man.”

“I admire your noble stand,” he said dryly,
“but it really isn’t necessary. I’m not married.”

She narrowed her gaze on him. “Yes, you are.
Lord Gilbert told me you were. Lord Gui wrote him all about
it.”

“Lord Gui wrote him that he’d set a date. I
never married Phillipa.”

She blinked at him. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t love her. I love you.”

She regarded him in nonplussed silence for a
moment, and then handed him the wash rag. “Help me to sit up,
please.”

Setting the rag aside, he scooped an arm
under her shoulders and eased her into a sitting position on the
edge of the bed next to him.

“What happened after you left for Normandy?”
she asked him.

“All I could think about during the journey
from London to Dover was you. Ada kept asking me what was wrong,
why I was so preoccupied. I told her I felt ill. I did. I was sick
at heart over what I’d done to you, over the prospect of losing
you. ‘Twas eating me up inside. The worst part came when our boat
set off across the Channel. All I could think, as we pulled away
from the dock, was that I might never see you again. It started
raining, so they put up an awning and all the passengers crowded
under it. Except for me. I stood alone at the railing and watched
the cliffs of Dover disappear in the rain and wept. I don’t think
I’ve done that since I was a child.”

Joanna found herself reaching for his
hand.

“Lord Gui was at his brother’s house in
Paris when I arrived there with Ada,” he said. “Phillipa was there,
too. By then I knew what I had to do. I took Phillipa aside and
told her I couldn’t marry her, that I loved someone else and would
always love her, and that I’d make a perfectly insufferable husband
for anyone else.”

“You did?”

“I did.”

Joanna bit her lip. “How did she take
it?”

“At first she was disappointed, because
she’d been looking forward to studying at Oxford. Lord Gui couldn’t
bear to make her unhappy, so he decided to deed the Oxfordshire
estate directly to her. Once she realized she could live there
without being saddled with a husband, she was thrilled. The baron
told me I was a fool to give up such a grand estate. I told him I
was even more of a fool than that, because I was resigning from his
service and returning to England.”

“My God,” Joanna whispered, astounded at
what he’d sacrificed for her.

“Lord Gui asked me to remain with him long
enough to escort Phillipa to Oxfordshire in October. ‘Twould take
that long to get the manor house ready for her and staff it
properly, he said. I felt I owed it to him after everything he’d
done for me. I spent a few weeks in Paris with him, helping him
attend to business there. When we returned to Beauvais, we found
Lord
—
” He caught himself; his mouth quirked. “We found my
father waiting there for us.”