A Season for Love by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online

reason to go on living.
At first there had been a natural fondness between them. The little that they had been able to share Pieter accepted—her touch, her lips, the glory of her beauty. But after the first six months of their self-imposed exile, his mind began to warp, the ravages of bitterness clouding all reason. To have Ronnie as his wife but not to have her, sent him reeling into a world of cruelty and anger. He lashed out at her constantly for no reason. Twice he had thrown things at her, drawing blood from her golden satinlike skin.
And still Ronnie tolerated him. She knew he would be contrite, knew she could never leave him. He needed her. And he did love her as he so often told her. She was a heaven-sent angel. He couldn't have made it without her then, but now he had acquired her strength and wisdom from their years together.
In his more lucid moments he had confessed that he also knew he had robbed her of her life, or at least of her youth. He told her that after his death, she would be well taken care of; she would be exorbitantly wealthy. But he was aware that money meant little to her, and that she was fiercely independent. Upon her insistence, the bulk of his estate had been left to world charities that benefitted children.
The recent passage of her twenty-ninth birthday had been more of a milestone for him than for her. He had finally been able to reach from his web of self-absorption to realize what he had done—sacrificed her for himself. She had uncomplainingly given him life, while he took hers. He had stifled all the joyous youth that had been rightfully hers.
And he had become determined to set her free, although it was proving a difficult task. She fought him, but he persisted in her taking the cruise, that she at least taste the pleasantries of life away from him and the depressing manor. She was impatient at his insistence, adamant against him, but he forced her to go. He repeated the same argument he had used for wanting the divorce. Her time for youth and love had been all too brief. He could live as a cripple for years to come. And if she refused to leave him, then she needed to have a season of happiness to recall when he inevitably took his turns for the worse. And though she knew that the bitterness ripped him apart at times, he fervently hoped that she would have a wonderful time.
Ronnie cried herself to sleep.
She woke to a crisp tapping on her door. "Just a minute!" she called out, aware that she was a sight. Springing into the bathroom, she washed her tear-stained face, resolving that she would have no more excursions into self-pity. Pieter must never know how wretched she was, nor how his insistence on the cruise had only made it all worse. No one knew the seriousness of his condition—except herself and his doctor. And she could weave illusion for him when others believed that he had a weak constitution, common among brilliant artists.
She had long ago schooled herself against tears. Only the cruise had brought them to the surface. They would have to be shelved again, with the new love that she had found.
Combing her hair back into its neat knot, she walked into her bedroom and called, "Come in."
Henri opened the door and stepped inside, a silver tray in his stiff arms. "Good evening, madam. Mr. von Hurst suggested I bring you a tray. He didn't think you'd feel up to dinner, nor did he desire to dine downstairs. I hope you find this satisfactory."
"Yes, fine, Henri," Ronnie said. "Thank you."
Henri nodded, his head as stiff as his arms. "Where would you like the tray, Mrs. von Hurst?"
For a whimsical moment Ronnie was tempted to tell him she'd like to see it dumped upon his proper head. In the five years of their living beneath the same roof he had yet to address her as anything except madam or Mrs. von Hurst. In this house, she mused, it was easy to forget she had been given a first name, much less a nickname. Pieter spent days enclosed when he didn't see her; when he did see her,