"Fairies?" He gave a low chuckle, but there was no humor in it.

"Surely you didn't believe that, Annie. I mean, when you thought about it, surely you-" He broke off, staring down at her pale face. "I, um ... I guess, maybe, if no one ever explained, then it's understandable that you didn't-"

He broke off, watching her with a sinking heart as she turned an agonized gaze toward the cradle. After a long moment, she stiffened as though someone had struck her, then closed her eyes. A low, keening sound issued from her throat.

Alex reached for her, but she shook him off. When she finally opened her eyes again, the look she gave him was pulverizing.

"You lied."

The nape of Alex's neck p.r.i.c.kled. "Annie, no. I didn't lie,"

She had begun to shake. An awful, horrible shaking.

"Douglas!"

"Annie..."

She whirled and ran before Alex could stop her. The door slammed behind her with a resounding crash. The retort startled Bart awake, and he began to fuss. Alex ran out into the hall. He caught a glimpse of pink at the end of the corridor and guessed that Annie was going up to the attic, her favorite hiding place. Hurrying to the landing, he called down for Maddy to come and tend the baby.

The attic was as dark as pitch. His mind racing, Alex held the lamp high as he made his way toward Annie's little parlor. When he finally reached the area he sought, he expected to find her huddled in a corner crying. Instead she was sitting in the old rocker. Moving the lamp so the light played over her, he studied her face, trying to think of something, anything, he might say to soothe her. There was nothing. Not one d.a.m.ned thing.

He set the lamp on her wobbly table and took a seat on one of the straight-backed chairs. For a long while, they simply gazed into each other's eyes, his aching with regret, hers burning with unvoiced accusations. Looking at it from her side, Alex could see how it must seem, that he had deliberately kept the truth from her. The heartbreak of it was, no one had bothered to lie to her. Not him, not her parents. They hadn't deemed it necessary because all of them had believed they were dealing with a moron. Later, when Alex learned the truth, the ident.i.ty of the child's biological father had seemed irrelevant. In Alex's heart, he was the father, and that was all that seemed to matter. In his heart, it was still all that mattered.

In a throbbing voice, he said as much. Annie continued to stare at him in accusing silence. Alex sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. When he looked back at her, he said, "In the beginning, it was my intention to stay married to you only until after the baby came. Then I planned to divorce you and raise the child as my own. From the very beginning, long before I started to love you, Annie, I thought of the baby as mine. When I said as much, I wasn't lying, I was just telling it the way I saw it." As briefly as possible, he told her about the case of mumps he had contracted in his early twenties. "Ever since, I've a.s.sumed I was sterile, that I couldn't have babies.

Recently, Dr. Muir told me I may be mistaken, but that's beside the point. On the night your father came to me to tell me you were pregnant with my brother's child, I believed with all my heart that I could never have a child of my own. I saw your baby as the answer to a prayer, a child that would be closely related to me that I could raise as my own."

"You were going to steal my baby?" she asked with a horrified look on her face.

Alex groaned. "I didn't think of it as stealing. Not then. You were-I thought you were incapable of raising the child, that you were mentally disabled. When I began to realize that you were capable of feeling affection, that you might love the baby and pine for it, I decided to keep you here at Montgomery Hall."

"And that's why you kept me? So we could share the baby?"

"No!" Alex rubbed a hand over his face. "No... In the beginning, Annie. Only in the beginning. Then I started to fall in love with you. Everything changed after that.

Everything ..." He gave a shaky laugh and gestured with a hand. "To the point that now I'm sending Bart away with you.

If he was all I cared about, do you truly believe I'd do that?"

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and looked up at the rafters. When she lowered her gaze, she said, "I feel like you're sending me away because I embarra.s.s you, that you don't want me around until I learn not to act like a dummy. ''

"Oh, Annie, no." Alex shot up from his chair and crossed the room to her. Going down on one knee before her, he grasped her by the shoulders. Her eyes made him think of wet velvet. "I'm not sending you away to school because you embarra.s.s me. I love you with all my heart, and I'd be proud to go anywhere with you on my arm. Just as you are!

Embarra.s.sed?" He shook his head. "never, not in a million years. It's just that there are so many things you've missed.

Fun things. Wonderful things. Because I love you so much, I want you to have a change to do all of them, and you can't do them here. That's all."

"Are you sure?" she asked, her lips tremulous.

"Oh honey, yes, of course, I'm sure."

Before Alex quite realized what was about, he was covering her mouth with his. The next instant she melted against him.

Inside his head, his pulse sounded like a drumbeat. Don't do this. Don't do this, it seemed to say . But Alex was beyond warnings. Beyond being cautious. With so many other emotions pelting him, the remote possibility of pregnancy didn't even enter his mind.

Annie ... Pulling her up with him, he came to his feet. She felt like pure heaven in his arms. He ran his hands over her body familiarizing herself with her shape, which had altered since childbirth. A slim waist. Gently flared hips. Lord, he wanted to breath right out of her. He moved his hands to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, cupping their softness, reveling in their heat. At his touch, she moaned into his mouth. The sound, thick with need, drove him beyond rational thought.

He fumbled with the b.u.t.tons of her bodice. As the cloth fell away, he attacked the drawstrings of her chemise. Soft, warm skin. Nipples that eagerly pushed up for the brush of his fingertips. He ran his mouth from her lips to her throat, then lower. She arched her back over his arm, offering herself to him. Alex didn't need an engraved invitation.

As he drew her nipple into his mouth, the sweetness of her milk spilled over his tongue. Encircling her waist with his hands, he lifted her slightly, feverishly sucking first one nipple, then the other, teasing with his teeth and tongue. She cried out, a long, low wail that trailed off into a moan.

Alex peeled her clothing away as he might have the skin from a delectable piece of fruit, his lips following in the wake of his hands to taste every sweet inch of her the instant he got it uncovered. When he had her stripped, he took a moment to simply adore her with his gaze. Heavy with child, she had been precious to him beyond measure and beautiful in a way he couldn't put into words. But now? She was every man's dream, with full, rose-tipped b.r.e.a.s.t.s, a tiny waist, ample hips, and long, shapely legs, every inch of her flawless. So lovely, he was almost afraid to touch her. Yet so tempting, he couldn't resist. He wanted her, had to have her, the devil take all the reasons why he shouldn't.

He lowered her back into the rocker, jerked his fly open, and buried his shaft into her hot wetness. She looped her legs around his waist, meeting him thrust for thrust, the motion of the rocker heightening their rhythm. Creak- creak- creak.

Vaguely, Alex was aware of the sound, but for some reason, it no longer wore on his nerves.

Some time later, he returned to his senses to find that he was lying on the attic floor, his lovely wife sprawled naked on top of him, her face pressed to the hollow of his neck. As his vision sharpened, he found himself staring into a pair of beady little eyes. A mouse was perched on Annie's slender shoulder.

Alex blinked, then smiled as he stroked the tiny creature with a fingertip.

Madness. Making love in a mouse-infested attic? He closed his eyes, perfectly content to go crazy as long as this woman he held in his arms was with him.

Three weeks. He could hold her and love her for three more weeks, and he intended to make the most of every second.

He'd avoid getting her pregnant, and he'd take every precaution. But love her, he would. As much as he could, for as long as he could.

Three more weeks ... After that, his wife and child would be gone, and his arms would be empty.

So would his life.

Twenty-five.

Three weeks later, when Alex took Annie and Maddy to the station in Medford to see them off, the morning was cold, gloomy, and damp, a perfect reflection of his mood, which was dismal, to say the least. He had been dreading this moment for over two months, didn't want to face it, and could have thought of a dozen perfectly rational reasons to do an about-face and take his wife and baby home.

"Have you got your tickets?"

Wincing, Alex realized he was yelling so Annie might hear him over the train's engine. Reaching under the thick folds of her wool cloak, he caught her arm and drew her to a stop, leaning around so she could see his face as he repeated the question. She opened her reticule, a blue silk bag embroidered with jet beads, and started to fish through the jumbled contents.

Alex glimpsed something small and brown wriggling among the papers. Before he could register what it was or react, it took a flying leap.

"Naah-ooh!" Annie shrieked.

"Christ!" Alex swore.

"Mouse!" a fat lady screamed.

From that moment on, all h.e.l.l broke loose, women screeching and jumping on benches, men stomping about in an attempt to squash the scurrying little creature under their heels.

Alex leaped into the fray, not entirely sure what he hoped to accomplish, aside from making a complete a.s.s of himself.

With all the noise and confusion, he doubted the poor mouse was going to stand still so he might catch it. But with Annie's worshipful gaze fixed on him, her expression hailing him as her hero, he couldn't just stand there and do nothing.

The mouse took cover between a trash receptacle and a post, whereupon a woman, skirts bunched around her knees with one hand, launched an attack on the mouse's hiding place with wild swings of her purse. All Alex could think about was Annie's pet being bludgeoned to death before her very eyes.

He dived between the woman and the garbage can, rendering her blows harmless by taking the brunt of them across his shoulders. When his fingertips connected with a furry little body, he made a none-too-gentle grab. Tiny teeth sank into his index finger.

"Jesus Christ! You ungrateful little s.h.i.t!"

"Watch your language, sir!" Kerwhack. The woman's purse hit him squarely on the ear. As he straightened, Alex raised an arm to protect his face. "How dare you turn a mouse loose in a public place!" she cried. "I nearly had heart failure!"

She looked in fine form to Alex. He dodged another swing of her purse. "Madam, kindly stop swinging that reticule at me."

She thumped him on the shoulder. "Disturbing the peace!

Terrifying innocent people! And a grown man, no less. Such pranks are to be expected from young boys. But you? I've a good mind to report you. Rodents are diseased. Rabies! The plague! How dare you subject other people to-'' Alex cupped the rescued mouse against his coat lapel. "This is no ordinary mouse. It's a"-he grabbed at the first words that came to him-"genus attica. It's very rare. My wife wouldn't take a thousand dollars for it."

The woman blinked. "Rare, you say?"

"You have no idea."

She pursed her lips, the movement twitching the end of her nose and making her nostrils flare. "Did I understand you to say it's worth over a thousand dollars?"

"That and more."

"Oh, my ..." She touched a hand to her throat. "Oh, I am so sorry. At a glance, it certainly looked like an ordinary mouse."

"Madam," Alex said with his most well-practiced smile, "only a d.a.m.ned fool would charge through a train station trying to catch an ordinary mouse. Thank your lucky stars that you did it no serious injury."

She raised her penciled eyebrows and leaned sideways to peer at his cupped hand. "You don't say? A genus attica? You know, now that you mention it, I've heard of them. In fact, I think I saw one exhibited at the fair last year. Oh, yes, I'm sure-a genus attica. Yes, that was it. How absolutely extraordinary!"

"You won't see many people packing one around, I can tell you that."

She gestured for a thin little man standing nearby. "Horace, come and look. This man has a genus attica. Isn't that amazing? We saw one at the fair last year, remember?"

Tweaking his mustache and rocking back onto his heels, Horace looked surprised to hear that. "Hmm ... Ah, yes. A genus-what was that you said?"

"A genus attica! They're valuable beyond measure. You remember." She came closer to Alex. "May I see?"

Several other people were gathering around. Alex captured the mouse in his cupped hands and parted his thumbs so the woman could have a peek. She a.s.sumed a knowledgeable air and nodded. "Oh, yes. Upon closer inspection, I can see that this is no ordinary mouse. The ears of the genus attica are quite distinctive, are they not?"

A well-dressed man leaned forward to look over the woman's shoulder at the mouse. "The nose is quite distinctive as well. Dear G.o.d, a genus attica. It's a miracle some d.a.m.ned fool didn't smash it."

"Oh, isn't he cute?" another woman cried. "Paul, I'd love to have one of those. What a conversation piece. Where on earth did you buy him, sir?"

"Actually, I didn't," Alex replied. "You might say I came by him through a special liaison. Connections, you know. As I said, not just everybody has one."

Annie dashed up just then. Alex relinquished the mouse to her. She held it to her cheek, making soft cooing noises. None of the onlookers seemed to think that was strange, not now that they realized the mouse was a rare and expensive genus attica.

Alex knew when to retreat. He seized Annie by the arm and hotfooted it away from there. He spied Maddy standing near the steps of the train and veered in her direction. "Did ye catch the bloomin' mouse?" she asked as they joined her.

"Keep your voice down," Alex whispered. "That woman over there nearly sent for the authorities. Said mice were a health hazard, of all the crazy things."

"Well, I never!" Maddy huffed.

"From here on, it's a genus attica. Very rare, very expensive.

Otherwise, they might discover it later and put you off the train."

Maddy shot a look at Annie, who was carefully stowing her pet back in her reticule. "We can't have that."

"No, we cannot."

"A genus attica." Maddy nodded. "It has a certain ring to it.

Have ye got the tickets?"

Alex's heart leaped when he saw Annie reopen her reticule to get the tickets, but this time she caught the mouse in one hand while she searched. When she came up with the fare vouchers, he nearly sighed with relief. If she and Maddy missed this train, they wouldn't be able to leave for Albany until tomorrow. As much as he would have enjoyed keeping them home another day, he didn't think he could survive saying all the goodbyes again. Last night, holding Annie in his arms, not knowing how long it might be before he saw her again, had been agony.

After taking the tickets, Alex made sure she got her mouse tucked safely away. "Don't take it out on the train," he cautioned her. "Not everyone has a fondness for"-he lowered his voice-"mice, you know. In fact, some people are downright peculiar about them."

"All aboard!" the conductor yelled.

Alex caught Annie's arm, drawing her quickly along to catch up with Maddy, who was already harkening to the conductor's call.

"All aboard! All aboard!" the conductor yelled again.

When they reached Maddy, Alex stuffed the tickets in her hand and took little Bart from her to give him one last hug.

Tears burned in his eyes as he nuzzled aside the blanket and pressed his cheek against the baby's downy hair. After returning the infant to the housekeeper's waiting arms, he turned to Annie. Her mouth was quivering and her eyes were swimming.

"I'll write," he a.s.sured her. "It won't be so bad, sweetheart.

You'll see. Once you get started at school, you're going to love it."

She nodded, looking so dismal and forlorn that it was all he could do not to call the whole thing off.

"I love you, Annie, girl. I'm going to miss you every second of every day."

The end of her nose started turning red. Alex bent to kiss the tip, then gathered her into his arms. He closed his eyes, pressed his face against her hair, and dragged in a deep breath, trying to memorize her scent. He was shaking when he drew away from her.