Read Online Sins of Omission by Fern Michaels - Free Book Online Page A

bridge, and if you don’t know how to play, I am here to teach you. You, in turn, will teach me to play poker and roll the dice. I have always wanted to learn. Now I wish to get out of these heavy clothes and into something more comfortable. I will be back almost before I am gone and we’ll have a spicy drink before the fire. You will tell me what you did today and I will tell you what I did.” Seconds later she was out of the room, her perfume lingering behind her as always.
    For nine days, each evening was the same as the one before. On the tenth, Reuben decided he was annoyed. Not by so much as a look or touch did Mickey let her intentions be known. Somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t measuring up, that somewhere along the way he’d become a disappointment to his benefactress. He wished he knew when and where she had decided that she didn’t want him after all so he could go back and try to analyze it. Madame Mickey was a beautiful, sensuous woman, generous of heart and sweet of nature. And he wanted her.
    Mickey watched the expression in Reuben’s eyes shift from anger to annoyance and knew the time was almost right. She had paid close attention to his every gesture. After all, she was an expert in the art of seduction. But he still wasn’t ready. Soon, though. Now the game was really on.
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    Although the nights proved torturous for Reuben, the days following Mickey’s return from Marseilles were comfortable and filled with contentment. Both Reuben and Daniel were on the road to recovery—Mickey saw to that. Because Daniel’s eyes were very much improved, she allowed him to read while it was fully daylight. At night, knowing the lamplight would strain his eyes, she forbade him even to think of burying his nose in a book. For his part, Reuben followed all the rules of her ministrations as an example to Daniel. To fill their free time, Mickey provided other forms of entertainment: word games, music, even a lesson in French cooking.
    Both Reuben and Daniel found themselves falling into Mickey’s routine, yet always upon rising, Reuben would go to the long, mullioned windows of his bedroom and stare out at the countryside, finding it difficult to believe that not very far to the north the Germans were preparing for the great offensive against the American forces. Through his window, even on the dreariest days of fall, the land was sweetly undisturbed, the air crisp and clear and waiting for the promise of sunshine. At the front, he knew, the land was disemboweled by artillery, the air thick with the smell of gunfire and powder and the stench of the trenches. Though the same sun would shine on the battle zone, it would lack the golden warmth and would hold no promise.
    The threesome made it a point to breakfast together, munching their way through crisp toast made from homemade bread fresh from the ovens and heartily spread with luscious jams and jellies put up from fruits grown on the estate, and lightening their coffee with fresh dairy cream. Coffee, almost impossible to get, was brewed with chicory and one of Mickey’s secret ingredients. If coffee was unavailable, they would drink chocolate from the generous supply Mickey had set aside for herself when she knew war in her homeland was imminent.
    After breakfast they would carry their cups into the paneled library. There, Reuben and Mickey would take turns reading aloud to Daniel, who soaked up each work like a sponge. “He is insatiable,” Mickey grumbled good-naturedly on several occasions. “He will need proper tutoring soon.” When the room grew thick with smoke they moved to the parlor for their French lessons.
    This was Reuben’s favorite room, despite the feminine furnishings and spindly-legged tables. Here Mickey was reflected in each object that had been chosen to grace the mantel or armoires and etageres. Seashells from the French Riviera, a coin collection under