Page 28 of The Spy Who Loved Her
“But he stayed,” she said.
“Yes. He stayed. You kept him on.” He hadn’t expected it, but in retrospect, neither had it particularly surprised him.
“And you sent more children. With Kit.” Her hand slid over his own, interlacing their fingers. An affectionate gesture, he thought. Because she hadso much of it to give. That she would give it to him was an unexpected pleasure.
“Yes.” And she had kept them, too. One by one, they had vanquished the silence, the emptiness, the gloom. Just as much as they had needed her, she had needed them.
“You were there,” she said softly. “You were always there, and I never knew it.” Her fingers squeezed his.
But she had never been meant to know it. He would never have told her. He had long ago accepted that any role he played in her life would be a bit part at best; a minor player just at the periphery. He had been born to it, after all—always the spare. Unnecessary, superfluous, largely unnoticed. Transparent as good glass.
It had never been himshe wanted. Eventually, she would decide that she had had her fill of sleepless nights. And he would then be obligated to retreat once more into the shadows, as invisible as ever.
She said, in a low voice full of heartache, “Do you know, my husband never showed half as much care for me as you have.”
He regretted that, truly. Of course, he had had no right at all to direct Ambrose on how to conduct himself within his marriage, but he regretted that Emma had suffered for it. He had never wished to be the one who had shattered the precious illusion she had held so dear.
A soft sigh, and she wiggled closer to him, as if the cold had crept in around her and she meant to use the heat of his body to drive it away. “I was at a ball this evening,” she said. “And I found…I really didn’t want to be there. I would rather have been here.”
“Oh?”
“I told Diana—that is, the friend whose ball I attended—that I had been clearing out my husband’s things, and she said something that has stuck within my head all evening. That wounds must be cleaned to heal properly.” Her fingers drifted across the bed, sliding toward the nightstand. “I think she must be right. I have spent so many years living within the final chapter of a book that has ended. But these things do go on, don’t they?”
“I suppose they must.”
“I mean to say,Imust go on. Ambrose’s book ended years ago, but mine—mine is still unfinished. The words have stalled upon the page. Do you understand?”
“I’m a simple man. Metaphors are not my forte.”
A hum of laughter. “I have to close his book,” she said. “And let myown continue.”
“Ah,” he said. “Clearing out the past.”
“More likecleaningit out. Like a wound, lest it fester.” She pulled away, stretching herself toward the side of the bed, and her fingers grappled in the darkness for the handle of the drawer laid within her nightstand. It opened with the low whisk of wood against wood.
Rafe had long learned the necessity of keeping an even expression, of modulating his breathing, his voice, so as not to betray himself with an untoward word, or a sound, or even a twitch of his brow.
There was the sweep of her fingers within the empty drawer. The swift, indrawn breath of confusion. “That’s odd,” she said. “I’m—well, I was certain I put it in here.”
“What?” he asked, keeping his voice light and neutral.
“My husband’s journal.” Still that lingering confusion in her voice. “Itwashere. I know it was.” She made a soft sound of aggravation as she abandoned the search and cast herself back toward him. “And here I was, prepared to be brave.”
“You’re afraid of what you might find within it,” he said, as if it had been a guess.
Her breath sighed out against his shoulder. “I was,” she admitted. “I don’t know where it could have gone. Though I suppose it’ll turn up sooner or later.” She muffled a yawn in her palm as she settled her head once more onto her pillow, muscles relaxing into the softness of encroaching sleep.
Rafe’s cue to exit. “I ought to go,” he said in a low murmur.
But Emma found his hand again with hers, her fingers weaving through his own. “You could stay,” she offered.
“A stranger attracts notice even in quiet neighborhoods come the dawn. You don’t want me to be seen leaving in the morning.” By the wilt of her shoulders, he guessed that even if she might have wanted to protest it, still she understood the wisdom in it.
“Will you return this evening?” she asked, her lashes fluttering against her cheeks as her lids lowered once more.
Would that he could. “My apologies. I have a standing engagement on Thursdays.” And a great deal of work to be done in the daylight hours, besides.
“So did my late husband,” Emma said dryly. “He said he met friends at his club, but…I always thought he might have a mistress.”
