Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)(62)

“Don’t put it like that.”

“In this case the burden of proof would seem to rest on the passage of time, but unfortunately, time is the missing element, isn’t it? I want you now or not at all. My loss, I suppose, that you don’t consider me a risk worth taking.”

“I can’t. It’s a matter of survival,” she said quietly, beseechingly, and he stood up as if he couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her.

“Then so be it. You won’t have to tolerate my proposals or my touch any longer. I’ll stick to our original agreement. I’ll recommend you for a respectable position, and then you can rejoice in never having to see me again. In the meantime, I’m going to be out for a while.” He strode to the doorway and paused to rake his eyes up and down her slender, straight form. “Something tells me you’ll adapt very well to the art of surviving alone in London,” he said silkily, each word driving into her like a sharp arrow. “If you find that wiping children’s noses or reading to old crones is not to your taste, you have one particular talent that is guaranteed to earn you a fortune.”

As the door closed, Rosalie clenched her fists and held them up to her mouth. She was frozen in place for several minutes, her mind racing and her heart throbbing with regret. Her ploy had worked only too well. She had hurt Rand terribly, but she could not allow herself to be sorry for what she had said.

Needing something to settle her nerves, Rosalie went to the small table which bore the weight of an untouched lunch and an octagonal wine cooler. Uncorking the bottle of wine with an easy twist of her wrist, she poured a hefty amount of it into a crystal glass. Raising the sparkling crystal in a mocking gesture, she made a toast. “To the future,” she said sardonically, and swallowed the wine with her unshed tears. The unsettled jangling of her nerves began to calm down after several more swallows, the shaking of her hands easing even if the aching of her heart did not. Giving in to the weakness of her knees, Rosalie sat down in an embroidered chair and poured more wine into her glass. If only the sweet distillation could bring permanent forgetfulness, she mused, grateful for the temporary peace it provided.

How much better off she had been with her wistful dreams of youth. Now she would have to live with bittersweet memories that would cause her to die a little each time she relived them. Was it preferable to be ignorant of what she could never have, or to have had a few bright, painfully clear moments of it? Sighing, Rosalie tilted her head and drained the last measure of liquid in her glass before filling it one final time. Wearily she loosened the tiny ruff at the neck of her gown and then relaxed in the chair with the sorrowful resignation of a condemned woman. Reflectively she stared around the room as the glowing afternoon sunlight painted the walls. She loved France . . . she had known the greatest happiness of her life in this country, a place where all that was turbulent, peaceful, sophisticated, and simple, somehow fit together in an understandable scheme. And she could never forget the weeks of paradise at the Lothaire or drive them out of her thoughts. Numbly Rosalie set down the halfempty glass as she contemplated her return to England. How was she going to endure hearing the gossip about Rand, wondering how he was, wanting to be close to him, remembering his passion, his smiles, his pain? She shuddered and moved to the window, her feet dragging across the carpet. The day was cooling rapidly, and a thin, icy draft of air curled around her body in a serpentine pattern. Vaguely surprised at the swift arrival of lassitude, she closed the window and then shut her eyes for a moment, all of her energy expended after the simple action. Then she raised a hand to her midriff as she became aware that her stomach was churning.

“Rosalie . . . you idiot,” she scolded herself, thinking miserably that almost three glasses of red wine had been two too many. Staggering over to the chamber pot, she opened the cabinet that housed it and waited only a few seconds before nausea took hold of her and her body purged itself of the vile fluid. She had never felt so cold, so tired, so incredibly ill. The water from the porcelain pitcher on the silkwood stand tasted sweet and blessedly clean as she rinsed her mouth out, but it did nothing to alleviate the sensation that her blood had been frozen in her veins. It was becoming immediately clear that this was no simple case of overindulgence. Something was terribly wrong. She had to get help. Staggering over to the maid’s bell, Rosalie pulled on it three times before she was forced to stop and clasp her head. It was sheer luck that a young chambermaid was passing by at that moment, for almost immediately a light rap sounded at the door.

“Come in,” Rosalie said weakly, leaning against a damask-covered wall. “I mean, entrez. . .” She squinted at the maid, who kept lurching in and out of focus. “Listen here,” she said desperately, “something is wrong with me. I’ve had some bad wine, or . . .” Oh, God, hadn’t she read countless stories in the newspapers about thieves drugging hotel guests before robbing them clean? “The wine . . .” she murmured again, and then realized that the tiny maid did not understand English. ”Aidez-moi,” she managed to say, and the young dark-haired girl began to chatter excessively as she gestured toward the bed and took Rosalie’s arm. “Don’t leave me,” Rosalie managed to gasp, afraid that if she had been drugged, someone was waiting for her to fall unconscious. She did not know which language she had spoken in, but she tried to say it again and failed.

Rapidly an opaque cloud was rolling over her; with each second it obscured a larger portion of her vision, until she was blinded. She thought of Rand and tried to form his name, and failing that, she submitted to the suffocating cloud. As the maid urged her gently away from the wall, Rosalie felt the floor dissolve beneath her feet, and with a moan she fell helplessly into a bottomless hole. In the blackness she continued to sink, the ice that collected on her arms and legs serving as added weight to make the pace of her endless descent faster. Only one thought occupied her mind before the darkness swallowed her whole, and it was that she had plummeted too deeply ever to reach the surface again.