The Lost - J. D. Robb [102]
They sipped more coffee, and Isabelle ate some of the bread if only to pretend that everything was all right.
“What version of the story did Esmé tell you?”
Isabelle recounted the conversation as accurately as she could recall.
“Esmé is honest; I will give her that. It’s the truth or as close as makes no difference.” He shrugged, not very successful in hiding the misery the story recalled. “To this day I can dream of Angelique drowning, her heavy cloak and skirts dragging her down, fighting, fighting to stay afloat, to stay alive.”
“Stop. Stop it, Sebastian. It does you no good to relive something that you had no control over.” What kind of love had they shared that he could still feel this pain two hundred years later?
“You think I had no control? I could have told her to wait until the storm season was ended. I could have tried harder to control my lust. I could have prayed instead of cursed when she told me she wanted to stay longer.”
“You missed her.” She swallowed hard. “You loved her. It is perfectly understandable.”
“I do not know if it is. I didn’t miss her so much as I missed the comfort of her body, the way she worshipped me and everything I did. Does that sound like love to you?”
Isabelle didn’t answer.
“No, Isabelle, it was no more love than what you feel for me.”
“And how would you define that?”
“Curiosity. You are a normal, healthy woman and much too old to be a virgin. You are a generous woman and think that if you share yourself with me enough, then all my problems will be solved. You are wrong.”
“No,” she said slowly, “what I think is that if you love me enough, then all your problems will be solved.”
“After two hundred years of trying, I suspect that love is beyond me.”
“Only because you confuse lust with love.” Her hand shook as she put her cup down.
“Do not play with the words,” he said, showing the first anger since the discussion began. “Love and lust are not the same and I know the difference.”
“But they are not exclusive,” she said with heat in her voice. Not that anger would make him listen to her. “I think lust is the body’s longing for love. Lust and love combined are as perfect an intimacy as a man and woman are capable of.”
With a jerk of his hand he dismissed the subject, standing. He looked away from her, his expression more frustrated than annoyed.
Isabelle stood up too. It took a lot of trust to argue, and they had pushed trust to the limit for today. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek into his back.
“I have to work. I will come back to sing this evening.”
She felt him relax. Because she had stopped questioning him? Because she had said she would come back? Because she left the choice about their future up to him? Because she had not said “I love you”? Probably all of them.
“I will walk you as far as the gate.” This time he took her hand and wrapped it around his arm. “Holding hands is for children. This is much more intimate.” The way his arm brushed against the side of her breast was proof enough.
They walked halfway across the courtyard in silence. Isabelle breathed in the morning air, living in the moment, knowing there was more to come. “It’s so lovely not to be in a hurry. Life in the States is lived at a running pace. I prefer this.”
“Two hundred years of this much quiet is more than anyone needs.”
“Do you wish you could die?” The question popped out before Isabelle remembered she was not going to pester him with any more soul-searching.
“Isabelle, if I knew the answer to that, I am not sure I would tell you.” He was quiet a moment more and then told her, “I don’t think I can. I tried to drown myself before I had been cursed for six months. But someone rescued me. I paid someone to run me through with a sword, but he fell and killed himself instead. I ran into a burning cottage to rescue a child, hoping I would die. I wound up miserably burned on my hands and arms. It took two years to recover completely.”
“I imagine that you gave