A Husband For Christmas

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Distraught, embarrassed, frightened of feelings she’d thought she had shut away, she murmured huskily, ‘We didn’t like to be apart for long. If you missed me...’

‘And wouldn’t you have missed me?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered thickly. ‘I always missed you. Still miss you.’

‘And if I hadn’t lost my memory? Hadn’t left you? What would we be doing now? Making love?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted rustily, her whole body aching with the sudden need of it. The memory. ‘You would have swept me up when we came through the front door, carried me in here...’

‘And made love to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was I a good lover, Gellis?’

‘Yes.’ Eyes blurring with tears, she choked huskily, ‘Oh, Sébastien, you were gentle, funny...’

‘Funny? Dear God, I don’t think I would know how to be funny even if you gave me a manual. Go on, tell me how it was. Make me see it. Set the scene. Pretend it’s a play. You’ve been out shopping, you come back, I’m here—then what? What would I say? Do? Help me, Gellis!’

Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a deep breath. ‘You would smile—Oh, Sébastien, you had such a wicked smile.’

‘Did I?’ he asked bleakly.

‘Yes.’

‘Then what?’

‘Oh, you would take my shopping, dump it somewhere, and then you would...’ Taking a deep, painful breath, she continued huskily, ‘You would take me in your arms. Your eyes would be alight with laughter, and then you would kiss me as though you hadn’t seen me in weeks, and—’

‘How?’ he interrupted. ‘Gently? Passionately? How?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes! How?’

Face still averted, she whispered sadly, ‘You would start at the corner of my mouth, all the time whispering...’ Whispering and urging, his voice at variance with the devilish laughter in his eyes. And always in French; he’d only ever made love to her in French. Fresh tears in her eyes, she whispered in anguish, ‘Oh, Sébastien, I can’t!’

Touching her shoulder, he gently turned her. ‘Yes, you can. Please. I know I’m hurting you... Dear God, Gellis, what sort of a bastard was I to make you hurt so much?’

‘I don’t know!’ she cried. ‘That’s what I find so hard! That’s what hurts so! I didn’t know! I thought you were so special, so different, and all the time...’ Closing her eyes tight, she took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry. But I find this so hard.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed emptily. ‘You think I was living a lie? Pretending to love you?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed painfully.

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know why anyone would do that. Or perhaps you did love me,’ she added softly. ‘Certainly that would be less hurtful to believe—and then maybe you got cold feet, felt trapped. I don’t know, Sébastien, but whatever the reasons it was a coward’s way out to write me a note.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed grimly.

‘And yet I wouldn’t ever have said you were a coward.’

‘And so it goes round and round in your mind, with no answers. Just like mine.’

‘Yes,’ she said with a small attempt at a smile.

‘And I don’t think smiling at me is a very good idea,’ he reproved her with ironic humour. ‘I’ve been celibate for four months at least. And I don’t think celibacy is my natural inclination.’

‘No,’ she said awkwardly, her face pink.

‘Go on. What did I whisper?’

‘Suggestions.’

‘Suggestions? What sort of suggestions?’

With an embarrassed shrug, she murmured, ‘Erotic.’

‘Erotic?’

‘Yes.’

A sudden glimmer of amusement in his eyes, he asked, ‘And then what?’