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voice. "Just the truth."
He aligned his own glare then. A floorboard creaked in the
stage right wings, straining in the density of their unmoving
confrontation.
"You're still trying to make up for it, aren't you?" she
finally, softly asked.
A leaden sigh rumbled up his throat. "Gabriela, what the "
"Your only sin. Falling prey to Raquelle's game. You're
trying to earn atonement for it, even now. You're still aching
to prove yourself a worthy proxy of the Danewell name." She
whirled and laughed again, this time at herself. "Saint
Genesius, why didn't I see it before? The court has changed,
but the rules are the same. Instead of marking your mettle in
the chambers of Whitehall, you've taken on the cause of a
poor little actress with stars in her eyes."
She turned back then, bringing her hands together in slow,
sad claps. She wished stars indeed filled her eyes, instead of
the hot onslaught of tears. "Congratulations, sir," she rasped.
"Father would be very proud of your success."
She didn't know why the swift jerk he gained to his feet
came as such a surprise. Nevertheless, she scrambled
scrambling back in rhythm to his rapid, angry advance.
Just as abruptly, he slammed to a stop in front of her. "My
father," he leveled, "has nothing to do with us."
"Marcus . . . " Gaby countered in a whisper, "he has
everything to do with us."
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Compelled by a force she no more understood than
controlled, she leaned closer to him. But didn't touch him.
Just stood a half breath away, swaying in the power of his
presence, the power he'd never stop having over her.
"Don't you see?" she pleaded. "He has everything to do
with anything you do." She gently shook her head. "It amazes
me that you've lived this long, Marcus. Truly astounding that
the guilt hasn't eaten you alive by now. It devours every step
you take, every action you make."
His deep growl vibrated to her toes. "You . . . nay have the
right "
"I have every right. I have every bloody right in the
world."
He joined a narrow glare to the growl. "Is that right?"
"Damn you." She reached to him then, with a fist to the
center of his chest. "Damn you!" she cried. "Damn you for
letting me love you, Marcus; for letting me care about you,
then for shutting me out with less regard given a leper! Why
did you even come back, you bastard? Why?"
How long the world went away after that, she didn't
comprehend. She only knew she could no longer fight back
the hurt and tension and unbearable anticipation of the last
fortnight. And the loneliness . . . oh, when would her
loneliness be over? When would she get this all right?
Finally, his voice seeped through her tear-laden fog. He
murmured her name as his hands curled around her
shoulders, fingers pressing stiff lace against her muscles in
imitation of the rough threads in his voice.
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"Gabriela . . . I pray you to understand. 'Tis not a matter
of your guilt or mine. For once, simply, you asked too much
of me."
She wanted to react by wrenching from his abysmal,
wonderful hold. And for the first time in days, she watched
Marcus as he probed her mind, deciphering that fact. She
thanked Fate for the miracle. But then, even more incredibly,
his grip tightened around her in correlation to his finding.
"I only asked to be closer to you," she whispered.
"In a manner I cannot grant." His hand reached up and
encompassed the back of her head. "I am sorry, Gabriela. I
cannot."
"Marcus . . . " At that, she leaned up and layered soft,
fervent kisses along the crest of his cheekbone. "Marcus,
there can be nothing wrong about initiation, if two people
both want it."
He sucked in an unsteady breath. "There is our plight,
then. Both of us do not want it."
"Look at me and say that."
"Gabriela . . . "
"You can't, can you?"
"Gabriela . . . "
"You can't because you like this. Because you want more
of this, just as I do."
"Gabriela!"
He meant the exclamation to terrify her. A surreptitious
trip into his mind verified that. But her poor, flustered love
didn't know he'd just aided the opposite effect in her heart
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and body. Her own pent-up fury and frustration smoldered
close to the embers of desire, of need, of want.
His outburst was the ignition on those embers. Starting an
inferno.
And as that blaze swept through her now, Gabriela
clutched his face with both hands and crushed her lips to his.
She felt the stunned tremoring of his body. The instinctual
clench of his arms around her, hands pressing wondrous heat
into her flesh: tentative but urgent strokes born of their
absence from each other. She felt his lips part for her, his
moaning mouth welcome her. And she felt the silver-hot heat
course through him, jolting into his manhood, nearly searing
through their clothes in its unworldly intensity.
And in that blazing rapture of a moment, Gabriela knew
the perfect joy of one very startling conclusion.
This was enough.
Yes . . . oh, yes. Who needed some silly initiation when
she had the completion of this man's embrace, the marvel of
his touch, the power of his love? She had more than what
most women dared to dream of: a love created by the force
of fantasy itself, a lover who held the ages in his eyes and
magic in his heart.
Marcus insisted on terming his existence a curse.
In this moment, Gabriela thanked Fate for the miracle of
him.
She reached that thought out to his heart, retwining the
cords of their silent bond as she went, vowing nothing would
fray those connections ever again.
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Until, with a suddenly ferocious growl, he shoved her away
again, keeping her away by the length of one shaking arm.
With the other, he reached up and dragged his shirtsleeve
across his lips. Those lips curled into a humorless grin, above
eyes that peered out at her from the black spikes of his hair,
their depths a frozen silver lake.
"It seems I now return your congratulations, lady," he
broke the silence in a low grate. "That performance was your
best yet." Then, the smile dropping, "Not even Raquelle could
better it."
She went dead inside. All the warmth she grappled to hold
for the man, all the joy and all the hope, were killed in one
slice of words, spilling a million drops of her heart's blood.
And yet that heart continued to torture her with its beat as
she paced two steps to the beast who still fixed his unblinking
glare on her.
Then that heart stopped. Just for a moment. As she
slapped his face with all the strength left in her body.
Somehow, she found the stamina to turn and leave him,
too, for her next cognizant perception came of her dressing
room door. Gabriela wrenched it open and stumbled inside.
She heard herself breathing, as if her head had separated
from her body. She took in shuddering breaths, wondering
why she couldn't cry, but thanking God she didn't.
She backed against the door to close and lock it. The smell
of satin, feathers, old dust and new rice powder washed over
her with as much comforting force as the mother's perfume
she barely remembered, the cozy home kitchen she never
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had and now, for the first time in her life, could write that
deficiency off as no great loss.
How had she wasted so many years pining for a family,
dreaming of somebody to love, when love only brought . . .
this? The shattering. The crushing. The betraying.
And after all that, the loneliness. Awful and aching. Again.
She'd buy no more tickets to this show, Gaby vowed. From
now on, the stages of the world would be her home; every
new audience, her family. Pain would exist only in scripts,
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