Come Near Me (10 page)

“No. Stay.”

Adam hadn’t shouted, but the command in his
voice stopped her. She squared her shoulders, turned to face
him.

“I—I was only going to summon someone to
clean up that mess,” she said, wondering when she’d learn that she
lied no better now than she ever had. “But I suppose I can do it.
Just—”

“For God’s sake, Sherry, stop babbling,” Adam
spat, running a hand through his hair, his dark eyes looking
bruised, tortured. He walked over to the bed, sat down on the edge,
dropped his head in his hands. “Christ, but my head hurts.”

Sherry was shaken. She’d never seen Adam ill,
looking any other way but strong, self-possessed, in total command
of himself. She bit her lip, thinking to withdraw, then shook her
head, knowing she couldn’t leave him. Not like this.

She soaked a small towel in water she poured
from the pitcher standing on a table in his dressing room, wrung it
out tightly, then approached the bed, touching his shoulder.
“Here,” she said, holding out the towel. “Lie down, and I’ll put
this cloth on your head. It’s cool, and might help soothe you.” She
caught the smell of strong spirits on his breath, and her lips
tightened. “Perhaps if you didn’t find it necessary to drink quite
so much?”

Adam lifted his head and glared at her for a
moment before snatching the towel from her hand. “Ah, yes, just
what I needed. A soothing cloth, and a sermon on mending my wicked
ways.” He lay back on the bed, stretching out his long legs on the
coverlet even as he pressed the cloth over his eyes.

Sherry turned to go, but Adam snaked out a
hand and caught her wrist “No. I said I want you to stay.”

“Adam, I—”

“Please, Sherry,” he said, his eyes hidden by
the cloth, but the tightening of his jaw, and the unnatural
paleness of his complexion frightening her. Was he simply drunk, or
was he really ill?

“All right, Adam,” she said, sitting down on
the side of the bed as he released her wrist only to hold on to her
hand. “For a moment, until you fall asleep.”

He didn’t speak again, but only began
stroking the back of her hand with his thumb, rhythmically
stroking, stroking, stroking. She watched as his body seemed to
relax on the bed, as the strain went out of his jaw. She silently
counted his breaths as she observed the even rise and fall of his
chest, tried not to look at the tanned skin exposed above the two
opened buttons of his shirt. He looked so defenseless, so young, so
much the man she had met and not the man she’d been married to
these past terrible months. She bit her lip as a sob caught at the
back of her throat.

When she felt sure he was sleeping, she tried
to remove her hand from his grasp; but he wouldn’t let her go. In
his sleep, he wouldn’t let her go. It was only when he was awake
that he pushed her away, told her with his expression, with his
tone of voice, with purposely hurtful, cutting words, that he would
be happier if she were simply to disappear from his life.

How simple it would be to lie down beside
him. How she longed to do so. She could stretch out her legs, rest
her head in the crook of his shoulder, feel his warmth against her
body.

When thought turned to action, Sherry didn’t
know, would never know. She’d gone beyond rational thought in her
need to be close to Adam, to touch him, to comfort him.

Her slippers slid off her feet and onto the
floor. She lifted her legs slowly, careful not to move too quickly.
Still with her hand clasped tightly in his, she lowered herself
onto her side, sighed inaudibly as her spine came up against his
hip, as the cushion of his arm became her pillow.

Across the room, she could see the roses
strewn on the carpet, the dark puddle of water that had seeped into
it. Why had he ordered Emma to bring the roses to his rooms? Had he
been remembering, as she had been remembering? Obviously, his
memories hadn’t been happy ones.

Sherry began to cry. Silently. Almost gently.
Her sorrow was too deep for sobs. She simply lay there, staring at
the windows and the slowly fading light, her tears sliding from her
face, onto the fine white lawn of Adam’s shirtsleeve.

She didn’t know how long she lay there,
although shadows had begun to appear in the room by the time she
felt Adam stirring beside her. She knew without seeing him that he
was awake, that he had removed the cloth from his eyes, tossing it
to the floor on the other side of the bed.

Feigning sleep, she lay very still, hoping
he’d slip his arm from beneath her and leave her here, alone in her
misery.

He shifted slightly on the bed, turning
toward her, his body pressed against her back.

She closed her eyes, silently begging him to
leave her.

His fingers gently pushed her hair away,
traced a pattern on the side of her throat.

She swallowed, hard, to stifle a weak
whimper.

His hand moved lower, sculpting her shoulder,
sliding slowly toward her waist, the flare of her hip, exploring
her body as it lay hidden beneath the smooth white satin of her
dressing gown.

She opened her mouth to protest, but his
mouth was against the side of her throat now, his lips warm and
soft. His tongue slid along the sensitive flesh behind her ear,
dipped inside. Teased.

She turned in his arms, surrendering without
words, without the wearying exercise of a battle she knew she’d
lose, had already lost. Would always lose.

He kissed her hair, her eyes, her chin, then
claimed her mouth. She tasted the sweetness of ale as his tongue
invaded her, scraped against the roof of her mouth, slid over her
teeth, dueled with her own tongue, sucked at it, drew it into his
own mouth.

Both his hands were on her now, molding her,
shaping her, dragging her toward the center of the bed, pushing her
onto her back.

Her dressing gown fell open, exposing her
breasts, and he didn’t hesitate in gaining more ground, claiming
more territory as his own in this silent war of the senses.

A small cry escaped her at last as his mouth
settled over one nipple. Her back arched as he cupped her in his
two great hands, lifted her, teased her with teeth and tongue, with
talented fingers.

She had gone beyond reason, if she hadn’t
already taken that step when first she had entered his rooms. Her
movements were clumsy, yet effective, and his buttons opened; she
felt the bare skin of his chest under her fingers. Becoming frantic
in her need, she bit his shoulder.

His hands spanned her narrow waist, he drew
circles on her lower belly with his tongue even as one hand slid
between her thighs, finding her center.

The frantic need became fluid, and she melted
into the mattress, boneless. Without a will of her own.

She allowed her thighs to open, lacking the
strength to resist him, to deny her own desires.

How very good he was at loving her body.

Talented fingers slid against her, spread
her, teased and nipped and entered her, drowning any thought of
shame in a shower of sensation. Colors burst behind her eyes,
taking her out of the darkness and into a world filled with reds
and bright yellows and blinding, startling white.

She felt him move, raise himself up, fumble
with the buttons holding his pantaloons. She smelled the sweetness
of ale as he hovered over her, his body no longer touching hers.
She didn’t breathe, didn’t move.

He lowered his head, whispering in her ear.
“Tell me lies, Sherry,” he said. “Tell me you were never with him
like this. Tell me.”

She snaked her arms over his shoulders, tried
to pull him down to her. “I was never with him, Adam. Why can’t you
believe me?”

“Open your eyes.”

She shook her head, refusing him.

“Open them, Sherry. Look at me when you
lie.”

The world grew quiet, with only the rasping
of their mingled breaths to tear through the fabric of silence.

Sherry opened her eyes, looked up at him,
tried to reach his soul. “I was never with him, Adam. There has
only ever been you, will never be anyone but you. I love you.”

“Of course you do.”

Her heart ached as he smiled. She closed her
eyes once more, crying as she held him, crying as he entered her,
moved inside her, drove inside her as if to brand her and at the
same time erase the touch, the memory, of another man.

And then something changed. Deep inside her.
She became numb, with all feeling, all emotion, leaving her,
draining away. Leaving her calm, and centered, and completely
empty. Desire wasn’t enough. Love wasn’t enough. Truth wasn’t
enough.

She didn’t need them anymore, and let them
all slip away.

She felt no desire building inside her to
replace the sweet tension that had come before he’d spoken, before
he’d ruined even the studiously built facade of love she had clung
to all these months.

When he emptied himself inside her she lay
quietly beneath him, an empty vessel, incapable of being filled. As
he lay close against her, his body sheened with perspiration, she
lowered her arms to the coverlet, their bodies joined even as she
left him there alone. Left him behind as she traveled to a place of
emotionless calm deep inside her mind.

He must have sensed her withdrawal.
“Sherry?”

Adam rolled onto his side, taking her with
him. She didn’t have the power to resist him. After all, it was
only her body he held. Her body didn’t matter. She could even look
at him now, dry-eyed, without fear, or hatred, or even love. She
had gone beyond feeling anything at all.

He looked at her for a long time, stroking
her cheek, still damp from her tears. “Oh, Christ, Sherry, I’m
sorry. I’m so sorry. Sherry? Say something. Curse me, I deserve it.
But for the love of God, say something.”

“Richard Brimley was my lover,” she began
quietly, her hot, dry gaze never leaving his even as her voice came
to her own ears from a strange distance. “It was raining that day
and we deliberately sent Geoff off to race a dangerous course just
so that we could be alone. We took shelter in the barn. I was with
him. I let him touch me. Again and again and again. I let him take
me. I wanted it.”

The mantel clock chimed out the hour of six,
each separate tinkling sound echoing inside Sherry’s empty
body.

“No,” Adam said after an eternity of silence,
his voice a rasping whisper of raw, exposed pain as he took hold of
her shoulders, shook her, hard. “No, you didn’t do that. You
couldn’t have done that. My God, Sherry, you really didn’t do it,
did you? All this time! I believed what I saw, not what you said.
Christ, what a fool I’ve been! You weren’t lying then, were you?
But you’re lying now.
Why?
”

“I don’t love you anymore, Adam,” Sherry told
him simply as his hands dropped from her shoulders. She pulled the
edges of her dressing gown together and slid from the bed, standing
beside it to look at him without love, without hate, without pity.
He was a stranger to her, a man she’d only dreamed, but never
really known. “I can’t feel, I can’t care, I can’t love. I can’t
even lie to you and tell you I’m sorry. It simply doesn’t matter to
me anymore, that’s all.”

He fell back against the pillows, his forearm
pressed over his eyes, and she left him there, her steps steady as
she slid her feet into her slippers and walked back toward the door
that separated their bedchambers. He heard her softly closing that
door behind her....

Before...

O that the beautiful time of young love

could remain green forever.

—
Johann von
Schiller

E
ven the perfection of his
late mother’s rose garden paled beside Charlotte Victor’s beauty.
Sherry, as her father had called her. It was a perfect name for
her, for the deep sherry red color of her hair. The sun, hanging
low in the sky, seemed only to shine on her as they stood looking
down at the rose gardens, bathing her in golden light, setting
small fires in that glorious hair, showing the gold mixed with the
dark copper. Hers was the only scent he smelled, a mixture of
rosewater and homemade soap, of youth and innocence.

Adam knew he was falling, and falling hard. After
years of believing he’d never find love, that true love didn’t
exist, he’d come to believe in love completely. In the space of a
day, of an hour, of a minute.

He’d been in love once before, thought he’d been in
love once before. How young he’d been, how naive. Melinda had been
his everything, and he’d treated her like a perfect, untouchable
goddess. She’d agreed to marry him, had told him she loved him, and
he’d loved her with all his heart.

Right up until the moment he’d seen his untouchable,
lying goddess lost in the arms of another man. A marquess had been
a good catch, it seemed, until she’d caught the eye of a duke.

The Dagenham betrothal ring that had been in his
pocket, ready to be placed on Melinda’s hand that night, now lay
somewhere at the bottom of the Thames, buried under nearly a
decade’s worth of mud. He’d never regretted its loss. He’d danced
at Melinda’s wedding, congratulated her groom, had watched over the
years as Melinda grew increasingly unhappy in her choice. And he’d
laughed in her face when she came to him five years after her
wedding and offered herself as his mistress.

He was so sure his heart had been hardened against
love, that he’d never again look into a woman’s eyes and willingly
lose himself there.

Until a carefree, laughing young woman looked down
at him as he sat in a full foot of water, and called him a
gudgeon.

Adam watched, fascinated, as Sherry delicately made
her way down the flagstones, holding her skirts above her ankles.
She took a half dozen steps into the rose garden, then turned to
gaze up at him, her eyes wide and incredulous. “I can’t believe
there are so many different roses in the whole world, yet alone in
one garden. I’ve never seen... never imagined!”