Midnight Angel (Stokehurst #1)(59)

Tasia struggled away from him and snatched up a sheet to cover herself. She kept her head bent, unable to look at him as he went on.

“I never thought I could be a good husband to anyone but Mary. I never wanted to try with anyone else, until you came along.” Luke touched the na**d curve of her back, stroking her rigid spine with his knuckles. “I know you aren't certain of your feelings for me. If there were time, if things were different, I'd court you with all the patience I could wring from my soul. Instead I'm asking you to take a blind leap and trust in me.”

For one moment Tasia could imagine what it would be like, sharing his home, his life, waking beside him every morning…but the vision slipped away, leaving her with a hollow ache. “If I were a different person I would say yes,” she said miserably.

“If you were a different person, I wouldn't want you.”

“We don't even know each other.”

“I'd say the last twenty-four hours have been a fairly good start.”

“I can only explain the same things over and over again,” she said in a raw voice, “and you won't listen. I've done something even God can't forgive. Somehow, someday, I'll have to pay for it. Retribution is coming. Since I'm too much of a coward to face it, I'll keep running until it catches up with me.”

“So Nikolas Angelovsky is serving as some instrument of divine justice? I don't think so. I think God has better means of punishing sinners than sending half-crazed Russian princes to do His will. And until you remember something, or come up with some kind of proof, I won't accept that you killed anyone. I'd feel that way even if I weren't in love with you. What in hell has made you so eager to take the blame for a crime you may not have committed?”

“You love me?” Tasia repeated, pushing aside her tangled hair to stare at him in amazement.

Luke scowled, hardly presenting the image of a besotted lover. “What do you think I've been trying to say?”

She gave a dazed laugh. “You have quite a way of working up to it.”

His voice was gruff, as if he were embarrassed by his declaration. “Believe me, you weren't the most likely candidate. I've had women throwing themselves at me for years—some of them with damned fine prospects.”

“I had excellent prospects in Russia,” she informed him. “Land, a fortune, palaces—”

“So Madame Miracle wasn't far off the mark.”

“No, indeed.”

His mouth twisted. “I wouldn't care if you were a woodcutter's daughter. I'd prefer it, actually.”

“So would I,” she said after a moment.

They didn't look at each other. There was a bleak silence, a period of assessment during which they each considered the next step. Somewhere in the middle of their bickering, he had proposed, and she had refused. But it wasn't over yet.

Tasia felt like weeping. She didn't dare. He would comfort her then, and there was no point in clinging to each other when they would soon be parted forever. She gathered the sheet more tightly to her br**sts.

“Luke,” she said softly. It was the first time she had ever used his name, and he gave a slight start. “If you are ready to love again, and take a wife, you can find someone far more appropriate than I. You would be best off with someone similar to Mary.”

She meant it as a benediction and well-intentioned advice, but instead he looked at her keenly. “Is that what this is about? If I'd wanted a substitute for Mary, I could have found one years ago. But I wouldn't expect my second marriage to be an imitation of the first. I wouldn't want that at all.”

Tasia shrugged in an offhand manner. “You might say that now, but if you married me, you would be disappointed. Not at first, perhaps, but after a while—”

“‘Disappointed,’” Luke repeated incredulously. “Why in hell…No, don't explain. Let me think for a minute.” As she tried to speak, he raised his hand in a gesture for silence. It was important that there should be no misunderstandings on this subject. He struggled for a way to make it all clear for her, but the task seemed impossible. She was still young enough to think of the world in terms of absolutes, unaware of the infinite ways time could change everything.

“I was still a boy when I married Mary,” he said, choosing his words with care. “I never knew what life was like without her. We went from being playmates to childhood sweethearts to friends, and finally to husband and wife. We never fell in love, we just…comfortably drifted into it. I won't belittle her memory by pretending it wasn't genuine. She and I cared about each other, and we had a hell of a good time…and she gave me a child whom I cherish. But when she died, I became a different man. I have different needs now. And you—” He reached for Tasia's hand and gripped it hard, staring at her downbent head. “You've given my life a kind of passion and magic I've never known before. I know that we belong together. How many people on earth ever find their soul mates? They spend their lifetimes looking, and it never happens. But somehow, by some God-given miracle, you and I are here together—” He paused, and his voice turned scratchy. “We have a chance. You know what I want. I can't force you to stay. The choice is yours.”

“I don't have a choice,” Tasia cried, her eyes blurring with tears. “It's because I care for you and Emma that I must leave.”