Read Online Falling Stars by Loretta Chase - Free Book Online Page B

softly.
    “And all the while, time was ticking away,” he went on. “I knew your parents would arrive the day of the wedding—and that would be the end, because they’d take you away and I’d never be allowed within twenty miles of you. I knew—perhaps you did, too—that I hadn’t a prayer of winning their approval. Ever.”
    “I... knew.”
    “I was terrified of losing you, Christina. That’s why I plagued you to elope with me. That night before Julius’s wedding was our last and only chance. I was so sure you’d meet me, as you promised, at the gatehouse. Everything was ready. The carriage was packed, waiting. I waited, hours, and you didn’t come. And when at last I gave up and returned to the house, I found your note in my room, and I... I just wrote out all my rage and hurt in a letter I should have burnt, not sent.”
    She turned to him. “I couldn’t do it, Marcus. I couldn’t break my parents’ hearts. I couldn’t subject Arthur to public humiliation.”
    “I know,” he said. And he did, at last. He understood now what he’d been too heartsick to recognize then. “If you had, you would have been the flighty, unfeeling creature I claimed you were in that letter.” He turned his gaze back to the night. “The whole situation was hopeless, wasn’t it? I should have faced it and accepted it, like a man. Instead I lashed out at you, like a spiteful child. That was... unforgivable.”
    She shook her head. “I think now that it was better you wrote as you did. Otherwise, I might have grieved for what might have been for—well, a long time. Instead, I was able to pick up the pieces of my broken heart, telling myself I’d had a lucky escape, and go back to Arthur, and be a good wife to him.”
    Arthur’s wife, when she should have been his, Marcus thought bleakly. Arthur’s children, when they should have been his. She had gone back to Arthur, while Marcus had gone on, heartsick, for... oh, months only, though it had felt like years. But he’d picked up his broken bits of heart, too, and gone on to build his empire. He’d been too busy to be lonely. And there had been other women. He had fallen in and out of love half a dozen times at least.
    But never so deeply. Never again had he loved, body and soul, as he had loved one eighteen-year-old girl. He had taken many risks since then, but never fully, with all his heart. Never had he been tempted to do so. Until now.
    His gaze slid back to her. He hadn’t even wanted to like her again, but he couldn’t help it. She’d grown not only more beautiful and desirable but cleverer, bolder, infinitely more... exciting. If he let himself fall in love again, he had no doubt he’d fall harder. And then...
    How would it end—if he let it begin—this time?
    “It sounds as though we forgive each other,” he said cautiously.
    Smiling, she moved away from the window. “Yes. How mature we’ve managed to be, despite an unpromising beginning. Perhaps we might even manage to stop bickering.”
    “I don’t mind bickering with you. It’s—”
    “Stimulating.” She pushed a lock of hair away from her face. “However, I’d rather not return to the company looking quite so stimulated. I had better go to my room and put myself to rights.” She headed toward the door. “If you’re in a mood to be chivalrous, perhaps you’ll explain to Julius and Penny that you accidentally stepped on the hem of my gown and tore it. That may, just barely, explain my overlong disappearance.”
    She hurried through the door before he could answer.
     
    ***
     
    She would have to leave Greymarch, Christina told herself several hours later while she lay awake, staring at the ceiling. She had finally put her life together as she wanted it and was at last becoming the woman she wanted to be. She couldn’t let Marcus Greyson turn everything upside down again. She’d spent only two days under the same roof with him, and already the world was tilting dangerously askew.
    He had