Dancing on the Wind

Chapter 24

Kit stared at him, aghast. "Dear God, you had a twin sister who died? How did you bear it?"

"Very badly." His usual calm disintegrated, leaving his face stark and vulnerable. "It was like… being torn in half."

She sucked in her breath, then wordlessly crossed to the bed and embraced him.

His arms crushed around her, and he buried his head against her breasts, his whole body trembling. He did not weep. It might have been less dreadful if he had.

Over and over she smoothed her hand over his hair and the rigid back of his neck. She guessed that he had seldom, if ever, discussed his loss. She also had a strong sense that it was time that he did. When his grip on her began to loosen, she whispered, "Tell me about Elinor."

Slowly he pushed away and got off the bed. "Linnie was half an hour younger than I. I'm told that the doctor thought she would not live to see dawn, but she confounded everyone's expectations. We weren't identical, of course, but we looked very much alike, except that she was so much smaller that people assumed she was a year or two younger."

He drifted across the room, his bare feet soundless on the thick carpet. "My earliest memories are all of her. Always there, always smiling. She was quiet and looked so ethereal that she scarcely seemed to be of this world, yet she was clever and very perceptive. When we were four or five, I remember hearing her nurse say that Lady Elinor was on loan from the angels and she wouldn't be long in this world.

"I swore that I would prove the nurse wrong, that I wouldn't let Linnie die. I had a sixth sense where she was concerned-if she was in trouble, I always knew. When she was ill, I… lent her my strength. Once I bolted off my rocking horse and ran down the hall and caught her just before she could fall out a window. She had become careless while trying to lure a bird indoors."

He smiled a little. 'She always knew about me, too. Once when I was tossed by my pony and knocked senseless, she led my father straight to me. Other people thought that I was the 'dominant' twin, but it wasn't tike that. Though she was quiet, she was in charge. It was almost impossible for me to refuse her anything. She had a mischievous streak, but when we got into trouble, I always insisted that the fault and the punishment were mine since I was the elder. She didn't like that, but I couldn't bear to see her punished, so on that issue, I got my way.

"I thought that I could always protect her." He stopped at the window and parted the draperies with one hand so that he could stare out into the featureless night "But I failed."

"How old were you when you lost her?"

"Eleven." There was a long silence before he began to speak again. "My parents were indulgent, but they insisted on sending me away to school when I was nine even though I begged to be tutored at Ashdown with Linnie. Being separated was the most harrowing experience of my life. We were literally pulled out of each other's arms, both of us weeping hysterically. It was upsetting for my parents, especially my mother, but I was the next Earl of Strathmore and the Earls of Strathmore have always gone to Eton and that was that. I spent the first weeks at school crying every night, with Linnie doing the same at Ashdown. We wrote each other every day. I lived for her letters."

The thought of the children being wrenched apart made Kit shudder. At least she and Kira had been grown when they were separated. "As a twin, you were used to sharing and closeness. Perhaps that was why you made such deep, lasting friendships at Eton."

His forehead furrowed. "I never thought of that, but you might be right. Certainly I was lucky in my friends. I met Michael first, about a fortnight after I started school. He found me crying in a corner of the chapel. Most boys would have mocked me, but Michael only asked what was wrong. I told him that I missed my twin sister. He thought about it, then said that his older brother was a beast, and would I be interested in becoming foster brothers?" Lucien smiled a little at the memory.

"After that, Eton became more bearable. Linnie and I adjusted to being apart, though neither of us liked it. The separation was harder on her, I think, because she didn't have new friends and activities to distract her. When I came home on school holidays, she was so fragile that she seemed almost transparent. But her spirit was never diminished. She was like a flame that was too bright for the lamp."

"Did she die of an illness?" Kit asked quietly.

"An accident. A stupid, ghastly accident." Lucien's fingers clenched on the velvet curtain. "It was near the end of the Christmas holiday, almost time for me to go back to Eton. We had made a family visit to some cousins and were returning to Ashdown in one of those great, heavy traveling coaches. There were some Roman ruins not far off the route. Linnie wanted to see them, so I nagged my father to take us. He agreed finally-I could be very persistent. If I hadn't been…" His voice trailed off, and his face became dead white.

"The coach crashed?"

He swallowed hard. "It had been rainy for days, and the ground was very soft. We were traveling up a steep track beside a lake when the earth collapsed under the weight of the coach. We tumbled down the hill, the horses screaming and thrashing in the traces. The driver and guard were thrown clear, though both were injured. Inside the coach it was pure chaos with the four of us crashing into each other."

He dropped the curtain and turned back to the room. "The carriage rolled into the lake. One of the windows had shattered and water was pouring in. I don't remember thinking about my parents at all. They were both knocked unconscious by the fall, I think. They never had a chance. I grabbed Linnie and dragged her out the broken window. The water was freezing, and I was numb in seconds. My ankle was struck by the thrashing hoof of one of the horses, but I didn't feel a thing.

"I managed to swim to shore with Linnie, even though our wet clothing was so heavy I was afraid it would drag us to the bottom. The wind was bitter, bitter cold. She was still breathing, but I knew she would die if I didn't get her to shelter quickly. We had passed a cottage not far back, so I tried to carry her there. I remember being furious at being slowed down by my ankle, which wasn't working properly. I didn't learn until later that a bone was broken. I mistreated the ankle so badly that day that it still troubles me sometimes.

"The cottage was within sight when Linnie raised her hand and touched my face. She gave me the sweetest, saddest smile. I knew she was saying good-bye. And then… and then…" His voice broke, and there was a long silence before he said in a barely audible whisper, "I felt the moment when her spirit left."

Once again Kit went to him and gathered him close, her heart aching. "It wasn't your fault," she said vehemently. "If not for your care, Linnie might never have lived to the age of eleven. You did everything humanly possible."

"But it wasn't enough," he said bleakly. "It's absurd, isn't it? A grown man mourning a child who died more than twenty years ago. I lost my parents and my childhood on the same day. It was dreadful, but I survived, and in time most of the pain faded. Yet the grief for my sister is always there."

"Linnie was your twin, your other self," she said, tears in her eyes. "A Gypsy woman once told Kira and me that twins were those who had been very close in an earlier life. It's a bond that stretches beyond death."

"You understand," he said shakily. "I think only another twin could. That's why I've never spoken of this to anyone. Oh, Kit, Kit…"

His mouth came down on hers, and he kissed her with a kind of desperation. The powerful emotions that both had experienced flared into passion, his robe falling away, her shirt yanked over her head. A few short steps to the bed, then his weight crushed her into the mattress. Her hands moved over his body, learning what pleased him. His heated mouth found secret, sensitive places, igniting a hunger that would have shamed her if she had not been beyond, shame.

Then union, as natural as breathing. An intimate soreness was drowned by her arousal, enhancing the pleasure that was almost pain. The poignancy of mutual comfort. Then raw, blinding madness swept her up until she shattered. She clawed at him, her body convulsing as he plunged into her again and again.

Afterward they lay silently in each other's arms, drained. She was empty of everything but a mild sense of wonder and a deep contentment that filled every cell of her body and every haunted corner of her mind. For the first time since she and Kira had gone their separate ways, she felt whole.

It was a dangerous thought, one she quickly suppressed. Contentment was safer. Tenderly she stroked the small of his back. She had not known that a man's body could be so beautiful, just as she had never understood how a woman could throw away her reputation and her future for the sake of passion. It was still a foolish thing to do, but heaven help her, she did understand.

Lucien eased his weight down beside her, saying huskily, "This could become addictive."

She smiled a little, understanding the need to speak lightly of something so immense.

Absently, he twined her hair around his forefinger. "We're going to have to get married, you know."

His words were like a blast of icy water in the face. "What!" She would have jerked upright in bed if his arm had not held her down. "You're mad!"

"Not in the least," he said calmly. "You know the rules as well as I do. When a gentleman compromises a lady, only his name will mend the damage. Hence, I am offering you mine."

Struggling to collect her chaotic thoughts, she asked, "Would you be saying this if I were Kristine?"

"The situation would be different. Your sister chose to turn her back on convention. You did not-you've been living an entirely respectable life with your aunt." He smiled and traced the edge of her ear with a fingertip. "You said yourself that a gentleman does not treat a lady the same as an actress. In spite of our irregular activities, you are certainly a lady, and I am nominally a gentleman. Ergo, marriage."

In spite of his light manner, she knew that he was speaking in dead earnest. She sensed he had a need to protect others, particularly women, that was rooted in his failure to save his sister. That was not, she suspected, a good basis for marriage.

The candlelight played over his muscular body and made a silver halo of his hair. He was glorious, a naked, indecently masculine angel who had abandoned heaven so that he could master the arts of earthly sensuality. What would it be like to be his wife, to experience passion and intimacy again and again?

It was a dangerously seductive vision. Grasping for rationality, she said, "You're not very convincing as a defender of conventional morality, Lucien. You don't believe in society's rules, and you certainly don't always follow them."

"I might not always follow the rules," he admitted, "but I do believe in them. Social condemnation is very real-the lives of rulebreakers are wrecked every day. I'm not going to let you be ruined because I heedlessly took your virginity."

"At heart I'm as unconventional as Kira-I've simply lacked her courage and her opportunities," she said tartly. "What happened tonight was every bit as much my doing as yours, so you needn't sacrifice yourself on the altar of gentlemanly honor."

He shrugged. "It would be no great sacrifice. As my female relations point out frequently, it's high time I married, and you are an entirely eligible bride." His hand skimmed over her belly, the warm palm coming to rest on the silky curls between her thighs. "Besides, there is always the possibility of a child. That is one consequence that could not be easily concealed."

To bear his child… The idea was so alarmingly attractive that it was well-nigh irresistible. "The chance of that happening after a single night is remote," she said firmly. "Time enough to worry if it happens."

As he opened his mouth to continue the argument, she mentally reached out to Kira, seeking the strength to refuse Lucien again.

Kira wasn't there.