Silver Flame by Susan Johnson

Author:Susan Johnson [Johnson, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9780553299595
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 1988-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The children were all in Empress’s room when Trey walked in, so be spent a torturous hour making polite conversation, listening to everyone’s account of their activities that day, as well as listening to their myriad plans for their new future together, since Empress had ecstatically told them of their marriage plans. It was the very worst hour he’d ever experienced.

Recognizing his tenseness when the children’s clamoring quieted, Empress thoughtfully sent them out of the room to ready themselves for supper.

Trey immediately stood and restlessly strode to the window and back.

“Your trip into Helena was unproductive?”

“You might say so,” he murmured, lifting, then replacing, the hairbrush on the bureau top.

“Anything you care to talk about?”

“I’d rather not talk of it at all.”

“I’m sorry,” Empress apologized, Trey’s brevity and agitation unusual. “I didn’t mean to pry.” Just when she thought she understood him, his mood would alter and he wasn’t the Trey she knew.

Trey looked at the woman he’d only just realized he loved. The only woman he’d ever acknowledged loving. She was rosy-cheeked today, her paleness gone for the first time since her illness. She looked fresh and wholesome, her tawny hair tumbled riotously on her shoulders, the crocheted lace on her nightgown and the ribbon-trimmed bodice making her appear very young. Her eyes were the vivid, clear green of a rain-washed meadow. And trusting.

The contrast with Valerie was sharp and abrasive.

“What I have to say …” Trey began in a deeply pained voice. He sighed and softly went on, “… has to be said.”

Empress’s stomach turned over with a lurch, and her fingers crushed the linen sheet. “I knew something was wrong.”

“It has to do with us,” Trey said, dropping into a chair near the bed. “Nothing that’s your fault,” he added quickly, seeing the dismay on her face. “It’s partly my fault,” he went on, sliding down in the chair and stretching his legs out in front of him. “And very much Valerie Stewart’s fault. You don’t know her”—he sighed again—“but I, unfortunately, have known her.”

“Tell me,” Empress said quietly, wanting to know where this was leading, although a crushing sense of doom engulfed her. Trey’s dark handsomeness was marred with a harsh grimness, his mouth a thin, taut line.

“What would you say to a six-month delay in our marriage plans?” Trey asked, his tone expressionless.

“Is that all?” Empress replied with joyful relief. It wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t disastrous. Her desperate fear receded. “I don’t mind. Summer’s a wonderful time for a wedding.” She smiled at Trey. “Don’t be so gloomy. Our plans can be rearranged. I love you; whether we marry this week or in six months is hardly earth-shattering.”

Trey wasn’t smiling, and Empress realized there was more.

“I haven’t told you the worst part,” he said softly.

Her joyful reprieve had been grasping at straws, and one look at Trey’s face told her to expect disaster.

“I have to marry Valerie Stewart.”

It was a thousand times worse than she’d imagined. Annihilation of her dream, a blotting-out destruction of a happiness she’d only warily begun to accept.

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