She felt a nameless fear rising up to meet her, even as the ground below seemed to. Richard held his hand out to her. Closing her eyes and her mind to that fear, she leaned back against the seat and held on to his hand—her lifeline.
“My God,” Lexi said in a shocked whisper.
The drive from the private landing strip had been unremarkable, and in the growing darkness she had only had impressions of the rough, timbered hillside. A pause at two stone gateposts and massive iron gates that opened electronically, even the mass of the house seen dimly when the car pulled up to the unimposing double front doors, had not prepared her for the shock that awaited her inside.
The three of them had climbed a short flight of marble steps to the wide, rose-colored marble hall that stretched away on each side of them. Across it, and down two steps, she saw a massive reception chamber. Twisted Corinthian columns rose to an arched and muraled ceiling.
Lexi looked up at the man beside her. No wonder he hadn’t told her about this. How could he have prepared her? “Do we live here?” she asked.
“Well, well. The weary travelers finally return.”
“Greg!”
Lexi heard emotion in Melissa’s voice for the first time as the woman started toward the man approaching them painfully slowly with the aid of crutches.
“Surprised, Wife, dear? I told you I wouldn’t stay in that damned wheelchair forever.”
“But your hands—” Melissa said.
“Forget my hands!”
The man stopped in front of them. He raked his gaze over Lexi. Should she know him? She thought she saw a flash of recognition in his eyes. She knew he was Richard’s brother—half brother—and she did see a resemblance, although he was not as tall, not as lean as the man who stood beside her with tension stiffening his body even as he draped his arm over her shoulder. But know him?
“So you’re the woman who finally trapped my brother?”
Lexi flinched from the bitterness in the man’s voice.
“That’s enough, Greg.”
Richard spoke softly, but Lexi heard the implied command, and apparently Greg did, too. His face twisted into a smile.
“Of course, Richard. We wouldn’t want to upset anyone, would we?” He shifted his weight on his crutches and turned. “Your oh-so-efficient housekeeper has a light supper waiting for you, as well as a list of telephone messages. At least six of them are from your agent.”
“Alexandra is tired,” Richard said, interrupting Greg and tightening his arm on her shoulder, urging her to turn. “I’ll take her to her room now, but I’ll see you in the library in a few minutes.”
This time the command was not implied. Lexi turned, grateful to be leaving a scene she couldn’t begin to understand, and let Richard guide her up the staircase.
Upstairs, although the floor of the hallway was polished oak, not marble, Oriental runners and arrangements of massive furniture carried out the oppressiveness of the first floor.
Lexi cast a covert glance at the man walking silently beside her. Who was he? She thought she had seen all facets of him during the long weeks in Boston, from gentleness to impassive detachment, but never had she seen him exercise authority with such a sure knowledge of his right to do so. Could it be the house? No. She discarded that thought immediately. If anything, the house was a mere reflection of him, not the other way around. And he seemed to belong. She could see that now. From his erect carriage and the proud tilt of his head to the well-tailored suit and Italian shoes, he fit his surroundings. While she...?
She knew nothing about him—nothing more than she had known the morning she awoke to find a stranger beside her bed—a stranger who told her he was her husband.
Her husband.
Melissa, omniscient Melissa, had finally told Richard that Lexi was well enough to return home. Had she also told him that she was well enough to resume her conjugal duties?
Lexi stumbled, and immediately Richard turned, steadying her. She looked up at him, half expecting him to have read her thoughts, but there was wary concern in his eyes, nothing more. She felt the pressure of his hands on her arms, felt the strength inherent in those hands, and the gentleness. Would it be a duty? she wondered. Had it been only that in the past? Or had it been much, much more?
She offered him a tentative smile in apology for her clumsiness, and her thoughts, and he rewarded her by the softening of the concern in his eyes.
“Are you all right?”
No, she wasn’t. As she stood in the dim light of the alien hallway, with Richard looming darkly over her, she was more aware of that fact than she had been since her first moment of panic.
She didn’t know how she would have answered him in the past. She didn’t know how he expected his wife to answer him now. She only knew the irony of his words.
“Silly question, Richard,” she said, throwing her head back so that she could meet his penetrating gaze. “You must know that I’m terrified.”
He almost smiled. She was sure of that.
“Of what, Lexi?” he asked, still holding her. “Of my house, of my family, of what you can’t remember? Of me?”
“Yes.”
Even as she said the word, she knew it was not the truth. Richard’s eyes lost all traces of warmth, and he dropped his hands to his side.
“Not—not of you,” she said softly. “But of what—what you expect from me. And maybe of what I expect from myself.”
“And if I were to tell you that I expect nothing from you?”
“But you won’t tell me that, will you?” she asked.
He shook his head slowly. “No.”
He took her arm, and beneath all the layers of fabric, her flesh felt and came alive at his touch. It wasn’t fear, Lexi told herself, so much as it was an awareness of the power he held over her—physically, emotionally, even financially. No. Not fear. Not once since awakening to find him beside her bed had she feared him. Perhaps she should, she thought fleetingly. Perhaps one day she would. She pushed back those unwanted thoughts, not knowing what had called them forth and not wanting to examine the chill that had accompanied them.
The room he took her to was at the end of the long hallway. Opening a recessed door, Richard moved back to let her enter first.
She stepped into a room large enough to have been overpowering had it been furnished as the reception hall and hallway were. But it wasn’t. Soft lamps had been lit, casting warm circles of light throughout the room. Decorated in shades of blue, the room was delicate but not cloyingly so.
Lexi shrugged out of her coat, with Richard’s assistance, and while he dropped it onto a nearby French chaise, she surveyed the room, letting her smile play across her features.
Apart from the chaise, she saw no other French influence. The tables were English of Hepplewhite design, and their dark surfaces gleamed in the subdued light. The upholstered pieces were substantial, but not ungainly. Two club chairs and a matching sofa in softly tailored oyster white linen fronted a fireplace with a delicately veined white marble mantel.
Across the room, an alcove with two walls of windows and a third of French doors, all covered with tailored silk draperies, sheltered an overlarge, king-size bed.
She turned to find Richard