Gabrina insists that this must be earmarked for sensuality.

CH44

Julia watched Alex trudge reluctantly from the room. She kissed his forehead and ruffled his hair.

"Sleep well," she said brightly.

Alex yawned and dragged his feet. He glanced over his shoulder once and disappeared from view.

Julia shook her head and turned back to me. There was an enigmatic smile on her face, one that I found enchanting. "You did very well by him."

I nodded but made no reply. Her appearance was distracting. The nightdress she wore was robin's egg blue, with long sleeves and a white lace hem. Her hair was braided, which I had never seen her wear before.

"There's a bath drawn," she said as she walked into the room. She glanced at the clock. "It's almost eleven but I suspect you wouldn't mind cleaning up and changing clothes."

"And dinner as well. You never brought anything for me."

Julia raised a brow. "When you're situated again I'll have dinner prepared. I apologize for it being so late. Mme Giry stayed longer than I had expected. I would have drawn a bath two hours ago but—"

"Have you taken a bath yet?"

She tried not to react but her lips still managed to pull up into a smile and her cheeks reddened by my question. She knew exactly why I had asked.

"This morning." She scoffed at me and turned away to fold the blanket that had been at the end of the bed. "Though, honestly it's none of your concern."

"This morning isn't, but tonight is," I replied. She had her back to me and didn't see me smile. Her straight laces were tied in knots and I knew it.

"Quit grinning," she snapped.

I had forgotten the mirror. I laid back and watched her fidget with various items on the dresser top. "How big is your bathtub?"

"It's only big enough for one person. Erik, your behavior is not amusing."

"You could sit—"

"Your son and my daughter are upstairs. This is highly inappropriate."

"If it's inappropriate then how do families ever have more than one child?"

She crossed her arms and turned around. "Being this irritating must be terribly exhausting."

"Then sleep with me."

Julia pretended to cough to keep from laughing. "Don't be so presumptuous. Your bathwater is getting cold. I suggest you…"

"Undress?"

When she looked at me, her face had turned redder, which I hadn't thought possible. She refused to give into my persistence. "There is a wicker basket in the water closet already. Go and…disrobe…alone. Oh for God's sake, Erik, quit looking at me!" She sighed in disgust.

She was charming, really.

"I'll warm your dinner while you bathe. The clothes Madame Giry brought over are hung up for you. She brought you a robe as well, though I think I left it in the kitchen. I'll put it on the bed for you when you are done. Leave the dirty clothes on the floor and I will take care of them once you've finished bathing."

Julia saw me still staring at her. She exhaled sharply and marched from the room without another word to me. I could hear her muttering for quite some time afterward as she removed a pan from her kitchen cabinets. Something metallic hit the floor and she cursed to herself.

By the time I managed to get out of bed and leave the guest room, I found Julia standing outside the water closet door. She was fixing the lace string at the nape of her neck where the braid began. She paused when I hobbled toward her then looked away. Her presence startled me but I was quite pleased to see her. I had hoped she would change her mind and join me.

"There are fresh towels for you," she said as she turned back to face me. She kept her arms crossed as I stood before her, though I noticed her expression more than her posture. She was still smiling in the same way she had when she first walked into the guestroom.

"What?" I asked.

"That was nice of you."

"What was nice of me?"

"What you said about Alex. That was good for him to hear."

I looked away from her and stared at the framework. "What did he hear?"

"Everything he needed to hear."

I nodded. Somehow I had known he had heard my prayer for him. I hadn't expected that Julia had heard it as well.

"It shouldn't have been necessary. He should have already known. He should have…"

Her hand touched my chest and I turned back to face her. "He always knew that you loved him," she whispered. "He just needed to hear you say it."

In silence I watched her undo the top two buttons of my shirt. She paused and straightened my collar, a slight smile on her face. "Take your time. Dinner will be ready when you're done. If you need anything…and you know what I mean so don't you even start with me again…there's a bell on the floor by the tub."

I rolled my eyes. "I could be drowning and I wouldn't use a bell. That's ridiculous. A bell indeed!"

Another button, then another drew my eyes away from her face. "Madame," I said hoarsely. "If you wish to end up in the tub, by all means continue."

Her fingers grazed my bare flesh and I sighed to her touch. This was the moment, I thought, this is where I would kiss her.

She tapped me twice on the chest with her index finger and leaned forward. "Wash up. You smell like a horse."

The kiss would have to wait.

Even with the door closed I could hear Julia in the kitchen. Had I not been starving, I would have stayed in the tub longer and allowed the knots in my back to loosen. Nothing else seemed to cause as much pain as the spots beneath my kidneys. From what I had seen in the mirror, and from what I remembered, they had kicked me several times. My skin was raw where the sole of a shoe had made a burn against my flesh. Looking at it made me grimace.

The smell of dinner drew me from the tub. I dried and dressed, feeling the start of a headache pounding in my head. I wiped the fog off the mirror and stared at my reflection. The wound was still closed but the skin beneath was so bruised and red that I looked like a sewn up rotten tomato. No wonder Alex had stared. Anyone would have stared, ruined face or not.

To my surprise, Julia met me in the hallway as I shut the door and headed back to my room. She looked startled by my presence.

"Your robe," she said. She handed it to me and turned away, placing her hand on the side of her neck. "Your dinner is done. Do you want to eat alone?"

"Are you offering to join me?"

"Only for dinner," she answered quickly.

With a slight smile I nodded. "Shall we?"

Though I could have managed to walk down the hall and turn the corner, Julia brought dinner to me in bed. Just as I had suspected she had made a pot roast.

"Have you devised a room charge for me yet?" I questioned.

"You've been more trouble than money is worth," she replied. She sat back in the chair and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Then I'll pay you in another way," I said softly.

"Oh, Erik," she sighed. "How can you even think like that in your condition?"

"Quite easily. I look at…" My voice trailed away and I quickly stuffed my mouth with food.

Julia opened her eyes and sat up. "You what?"

To buy a little more time I shook my head. She was only the second woman I had ever been intimate with, but there were too many things I didn't know about her, too many things I could say that would seem foolish.

"Tell me," she insisted. By the tone of her voice I could tell that she assumed something terrible.

"It was nothing."

"Then if it was nothing tell me. Right this minute tell me what you were going to say," she said. Her voice rose, her fingers pressing into the arms of her chair.

"Fine," I said, matching her tone. "I look at you and nothing hurts."

She stared at me, lips parted in astonishment. Turning away, she flipped her braid over her shoulder and untied the ribbon at the bottom. I heard her sniffle and I lowered my fork from my lips.

"I'm sorry. Go ahead and eat. I'll be fine."

"Julia?"

"No really, I'll be fine." She sniffled again. "It's just that…No one has ever said that to me before," she whispered. "Louis would tell me that he only had to look at me to go to other women. He told me that on our wedding night, when I was two months pregnant with his child."

"He never deserved you. Not one day of his pathetic life did he deserve you."

She pressed her eyes shut and said nothing. I didn't know if she believed me or not until I saw her mouth the words 'thank you'.

I abandoned the dinner plate and fork onto the bedside table and leaned forward. Something came over me, some intoxication of being beside her, of wanting her closer.

"Lay down with me," I whispered.

She started to shake her head but I took her arm. "I'm not asking for you to sleep with me."

"Erik, don't—"

"You've exhausted yourself. You need the rest. Stay only for a moment. You don't even have to stay the night, just for a moment," I rambled.

"If I lay down I won't want to get up."

"Then stay."

"But the children."

"They're fine. They're both sleeping." I grasped her hand and she rose hesitatingly. "Just for a while. Just a little while. I promise…I swear I won't even attempt—"

"After everything you've said tonight? I hardly believe that."

"I swear it on my life, Julia. Just once I want to fall asleep and feel someone else beside me."

She sat on the bed with her back to me and sniffled again. "Why did you always leave in the middle of the night, then? Why did you dress as soon as you were satisfied and return to your own bed?"

I hesitated to answer. It was insulting for me to use her body and not stay until dawn. I came to her home, got what I needed, and left her asleep. Often she would walk me to the back door but she never said a word, never asked me to stay. Not after I had denied her the first time.

"I didn't want you to see me in the light of day."

"That's ridiculous. I saw everything else of you."

"Would you have let me come back had you seen it?"

"It. It? What is 'it', Erik? It's your face, not some…some foreign object."

"If you had seen my face would you have asked me to come back?"

Julia sighed in frustration. "That was five years ago. I don't know what I would have done."

"And now that you know would you let me stay the night?"

"You honestly don't know the answer by now? I married Louis, the most handsome man I had ever seen and what did I get from him? I got beaten once a week, I had women come by the house looking for him and I got raped when I complained about his mistresses. That is what I got from him. The ugliest thing in the world was his betrayal, his treatment of me and his own daughter. I would have preferred waking to you every day of my life rather than finding him beside me for even one morning."

She went silent, her head dropping down to her chest. Without another word she lay down slowly and moved from her side to her back.

I wanted her to stay with me but I was too proud to ask her for more than she had reluctantly given. I moved over further on the bed to allow her more room. She didn't move for a while. Even though we lay a foot apart from one another I could feel the heat of her body and smell her sandalwood perfume.

Julia reached over and turned down the lamp. She turned over on her side and faced me just as my eyes adjusted to the dimmed lighting.

Her hand rested on the right side of my face and I shuddered at her touch. My first instinct was to pull her hand away but I couldn't. She moved closer so that her legs were against mine.

"This," she said softly. "This is what I wished was beside me each morning for the past ten years."

She moved in closer, so close that I could feel her breaths against my nose and my lips.