Prince of Dreams (Stokehurst #2)(92)

He talked about his dream once more, on the day they took a walk across the snow-dusted land around the estate. Snowflakes descended gently from the sky, and Nikolas stopped to kiss the melting patches on Emma's face. “You look like an angel,” he murmured, touching the snowy points that had caught in her hair.

“So do you,” she replied, and laughed as she brushed at the snow on his tawny locks. “A fallen one.”

Suddenly Nikolas was quiet. Emma saw that he was staring at her, transfixed. “What is it?” she asked warily.

“You looked like this before, in Russia. I gave you a white lace shawl, and you wore it over your hair.”

I was never in Russia, she wanted to say, but she held the words back as she contemplated her husband. How often did he think of that mysterious hour when he had been lost in his dream of the past? She sensed the craving behind his closed expression, the desire to recapture what had been taken from him. Nikolas truly believed they had known and loved each other in a past life. Certainly she wouldn't encourage him in that belief, but neither could she bring herself to mock him for it.

“You loved the woman in your dream, didn't you?” she said quietly.

An indistinguishable emotion flared in his eyes. “That woman was you.”

“Even if that were true, it has nothing to do with us now,” she said. “It makes no difference to our situation.”

“It makes all the difference to me. I remembered how it felt to love you, and to be loved in return.”

“I'm sorry if that's what you want from me,” Emma said stiffly. “It's not possible. Can't this be enough for you? Being friends of a sort, and finding pleasure in each other's company?”

“No,” came his grim reply. “It's not enough.”

They continued their walk in silence until they came upon a small stone structure, the estate chapel which had been converted for the use of the Russian servants.

“I've never been in there before,” Emma said. “What does it look like?”

Nikolas regarded the chapel without expression and accompanied Emma to the small, arched doorway. He pushed open the door and held it for her as she went inside. Covering her hair with her blue woolen scarf, Emma glanced around the chapel. It was filled with icons and altars laden with candles. A few of them had been lit recently, their tiny flames sending soft light through the air. It was a sad and solemn place. The walls seemed to have absorbed the confessions and appeals of all those who had been there before them.

“Shall I light a candle?” Emma asked in a hushed voice.

Nikolas didn't reply. His golden features were as still as the icons that surrounded them.

“Well, it couldn't hurt,” Emma remarked, selecting a long taper. She lit it from a burning flame and placed it carefully in one of the holders before the Mary-and-child icon. Turning, she glanced at Nikolas, and her breath stopped.

Nikolas's eyes were flooded with burning wetness. He was unable to control his reaction at the sight of Emma surrounded by Russian paintings and candlelight. He had never known such torment. It seemed that she had the power of life and death over him. He didn't know what would happen to him if she never came to love him. He was afraid of what he might become.

It seemed an eternity before he spoke with inhuman self-control, his voice low and even. “I don't know what happened to me on that day. I'm not certain what's real anymore. All I know is that I need you.”

Emma stood there in helpless confusion, gazing at the man who had seduced, married, betrayed her…the most complex and disturbing man she had ever known. It would take courage to stay with him. She felt as if she were standing face-to-face with a tiger, with no bars between them. She had so many feelings for him…fear, desire, anger, tenderness. Would anyone ever fascinate her as he did? Was it worth the risk to find out if he truly did care for her?

She moved toward him and laid a gentle hand on his jaw. She felt the tremors in his body, a tension too great to bear. “Perhaps I need you too,” she whispered.

His hand tangled in her hair, a tightly possessive grip, and he pulled her to him, compressing and crushing her against his body. He pressed muffled words to her lips, then kissed her savagely, holding her as if he would never let go.

“Where are you taking me?” Jake asked the next day, his small hand locked in Emma's as they went out to the carriage on the front drive. “And why are we wearing fancy clothes?”

Emma had dressed him with exacting care in little black breeches, a blue vest, and a blue cap pulled over his heavy, dark curls. For herself she had chosen a smart gray frock trimmed with violet-and-gray-striped silk. Her hair had been neatly braided and pinned, and topped with a gray felt hat trimmed with grosgrain ribbon and a gauzy lavender scarf. A velvet hooded cape with a shawl mantle covered her shoulders.

“We're paying a call on my family,” she told Jake. “My stepmother wrote to me, saying they will be staying in the city for a few days.”

“You have a stepmother too?” he asked in surprise.

“Well, yes.” Emma adjusted his cap carefully and smiled at him. “You don't have a monopoly on stepmothers, you know.”

“What is yours like?”

“She's Russian, like you and your father.”

“Does she know Russian stories?” There was a flash of eager curiosity in the boy's eyes.