Come Lie With Me - Linda Howard [48]
“God, you smell good,” he breathed, breaking the kiss to nuzzle his face in the soft hollow of her throat. “What perfume is that?”
Giddily she remembered all the perfumes she’d tried. “It’s a mixture of everything,” she admitted in a bemused tone.
He chuckled and turned his head to claim her mouth again. This time the kiss was deeper, harder, but she didn’t protest. Instead she kissed him back as strongly as he kissed her, and he finally fell back onto the table, gasping.
“You’re taking advantage of a starving man,” he groaned, and she gave a spurt of laughter.
“I hope Alberta doesn’t feed you anything,” she told him, and turned away to hide the color that she knew still tinted her cheeks. She fussed over several insignificant details, but when she turned back he wasn’t paying attention to her. She disciplined her face into smoothness and helped him to dress, but there was a sense of determination about him that bothered her. It nagged at her all during dinner, where Serena entertained Blake with a wholly fictitious tale of their shopping trip.
What was he up to? She’d agonized over her scheme, gone to ridiculous lengths to put it into action, but somehow she still had the feeling that he was the one who was scheming, not her.
Chapter Seven
Dione, may I talk to you? In private, please.” Richard’s face was tight with strain, and Dione looked at him sharply, wondering at the bitterness that was so evident in his expression. She looked past him to the study door, and he read her mind.
“She’s playing chess with Blake,” he said heavily, thrusting his hands into his pockets and moving to the doors that opened onto the courtyard.
Dione hesitated only a moment, then followed him. She didn’t want anything to be said about her being in his company, but on the other hand, she knew that Richard wasn’t going to make a pass at her, and she resented feeling guilty for being friendly to him. Serena had continued her efforts at friendship, and Dione found that she really liked the younger woman; Serena was a lot like Blake, with his directness, his willingness to accept challenges. Sometimes Dione had the uneasy thought that Serena could check on her more easily under the guise of friendship, but more and more it seemed that the thought came from her own wariness, not any premeditated action on Serena’s part.
“Aren’t things going well?” she asked Richard quietly.
He gave a bitter laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “You know they’re not. I don’t know why,” he said wearily. “I’ve tried, but it’s always in the back of my mind that she’ll never love me the way she loves Blake, that I’ll never be as important to her as he is, and it makes me almost sick to touch her.”
Dione chose her words carefully, picking them like wildflowers. “Some resentment is only natural. I see this constantly, Richard. An accident like this really shakes up everyone connected to the patient. If it’s a child who’s injured, it can cause resentment between the parents, as well as the other children. In circumstances like these, one person gets the lion’s share of the attention, and others don’t like it.”
“You make me sound so small and petty,” he said, one corner of his stern mouth curving upward.
“Not that. Just human.” Her voice was full of warmth and compassion, and he stared at her, his eyes moving over her tender face. “It’ll get better,” she reassured him.
“Soon enough to save my marriage?” he asked heavily. “Sometimes I almost hate her, and it’s damned peculiar, because what I’m hating her for is not loving me the way I love her.”
“Why make her take all the blame?” Dione probed. “Why not put some of that resentment on Blake? Why not hate him for taking her attention?”
He actually laughed aloud. “Because I’m not in love with him,” he chuckled. “I don’t care what he does with his attention…unless he hurts you with it.”
Shock rippled through her, widening her enormous