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    She glanced at him, reminded suddenly of Steve by the wary, reserved gaze the boy directed at her, so different than his twin's openness.

    "Yes," she said, taking a deep breath, "I am your mother."

    "Where have you been?"

    Taken aback, she flashed Steve a rueful glance, saw from his face that he had no intention of helping her and said quietly, "I was on my way to you when I became very ill. As soon as I recovered and could travel again, I came to be with you."

    Franco's steady gaze did not waver. "It took you a long time, ma mère, to join us."

    "Yes." Her throat tightened so that she could barely force the words past her lips. "Far too long."

    Silence settled briefly, broken by Laura's impulsive forward motion into her lap, her small body squirming close as she said, "We are glad you have finally come! I have a new puppy. Would you like to see her?"

    "Yes ... yes, I would like that very much," Ginny got out past the lump in her throat. Laura's sweet face was a blur beyond the hot tears that stung her eyes.

    Blindly she allowed the child to pull her up from the ottoman, watched as Laura remembered her manners and turned briefly to her father to ask permission to leave and heard his gruff consent. Her eyes swept over Steve, saw the faint smile on his hard mouth.

    "It's always been easy for you, green-eyes," he said softly. "Welcome home."

    She caught her breath. Home. Strangely,she always thought of Mexico when she thought of home, instead of France, where she had been brought up. Perhaps soon they could return, to bring up their children in the warmth and beauty of Mexico. After all, she still had the Hacienda de la Nostalgia, a marriage gift from Don Francisco, and of course Steve owned a house and extensive land as well. They could take Laura and Franco to Monterey, where the beautiful house overlooked the ocean and the slick black rocks along the California coast, where sea spume laced the air with salty tang and it felt so clean.... Yes, there was much they could do as a family now.

    Laura's impatient tug on her hand reminded her of the new puppy, and with a laugh she followed the exuberant child from the parlor and down the hall toward the kitchen where she could already hear excited yaps. Franco was slower in following, his wary reluctance reminding Ginny so much of his father. There was so much of both of them in these children, and her heart leaped with the prospect of their future together. All would be well now. It had to be....

    "Maman!" Laura broke free and raced to kneel beside the small spaniel puppy that bounced enthusiastically against her. "Maman, come and see how soft Silky's ears are...."

    It was the first time one of her children had called her Mother, and Ginny could not stop the happy tears that rolled down her cheeks as she knelt beside the child to stroke the spaniel.

    "Yes, my love," she whispered, "they are very soft."

    Laura slanted her a frowning glance from eyes that were slightly uptilted at the corners, unusual eyes like her mother's, with the same gypsyish slant that made Ginny's green eyes so remarkable and exotic.

   "But you are crying, Mamam...."

    "Because I am so happy, my sweet. Only because I am so happy...."

    And I hope nothing happens to take that happiness away again....

* * *

Music swirled above the glittering jewels and gas lamps that brightened the vast ballroom filled with the elite of London. Aristocratic heads turned to watch the striking couple that seemed oblivious to the stares, though they were certainly used to them by now.

    Of course, Steve Morgan—also known as Esteban Alvarado—the American millionaire who had Somehow been appointed as Mexican ambassador, always stood out in a crowd, with his tall, lean good looks and the air of danger that attended him.

    "Yes," a dowager whispered behind her jeweled fan, "he does look Mexican, I suppose, with his dark skin. And it is said that his grandfather is a rich Mexican landowner descended from Spanish aristocracy, though I think all of them claim a heritage they do not possess."

    "Perhaps," her companion remarked, eyeing Steve Morgan with an appreciative smile, "he is aristocratic, though if you look at his eyes—" She shuddered deliciously. "So very wicked, those blue eyes, and the way he looks at a woman. Why, it makes one feel disrobed!"

    The dowager countess laughed. "I am not so old that I do not recall how it feels to have a man look at me that way, my dear Amelia, and neither are you. Is it true, do you think, that he still has his famous Italian opera singer as mistress even though his wife has just returned? I cannot imagine why he would not be more discreet, though his wife has hardly been very discreet herself. My dear, the most delicious on-dits claim that she actually lived in a Turkish harem, and then there is that painting that hung in the Royal Academy, the one by Alma-Tadema that is scandalously revealing. It is her, I have heard it said."

    A light tap of folded fan against her companion's arm accompanied the significant glance and whisper. "It is said that the Prince of Wales purchased it from the Academy for his own private collection.... What do you think of that?"

    "I think," the dowager replied with a sniff, "that it is far too obvious there is much mystery and rumor about the ambassador's wife, and not all of it can be just the latest gossip. Mrs. Morgan has had her own share of admirers, I am told."

    "Oh my, yes! When she first returned to London, she was seen in the company of Herr Metz, the Swiss banker. Much has been rumored about his preference for boys, though it is claimed that he is only a friend of her cousin, Monsieur Pierre Dumont. Very interesting, I think...."

    The jeweled fan fluttered more gossip, their boa feathers studded with emeralds and sapphires, intricate patterns of gilt wafting speculation between the women with relish.

    "And now Morgan has been appointed as the Mexican ambassador, though I hardly see why it is necessary. There is always revolution in that country, and England should not be involved. Ah, but these politicians must have their intrigues, I suppose. Do you think it true that his wife's former husband, the Russian prince, was actually killed by him? He does look as if he could do murder, looks very dangerous despite the fact he's dressed so impeccably."

    As conjecture swirled around them, Steve and Ginny danced a waltz, his arm around her slender waist as he held her against him. His hand spread on green satin the exact shade as Ginny's emerald eyes, lean brown fingers pressed firmly into the small of her back.

    Exotic eyes tilted up at him, and a sparkle lit their depths as she smiled provocatively. "They are all making guesses about us, I am certain."

    "And do you care?" His hand tightened briefly. "Let them talk."

    "Shall we give them something else to talk about?" Her soft murmur was accompanied by a subtle shift of her body, so that he felt the press of her breasts as a seductive reminder against his chest.

    He gazed down at her through narrowed eyes, amused by her defiance of public convention. Ginny, his green-eyed temptress, his nemesis, the woman who bedeviled and tempted him, the one woman he had never been able to get out of his mind for long. It was just this sort of thing that made him want her, her unexpected flouting of all the rules society expected to be followed, her fiery nature and passionate little body that he knew so well—yet hardly knew at all.

    No matter how many times he'd made love to her in the past, there was always something new and surprising when he was with her.

    "Have I told you how lovely you are tonight?" he said in a soft drawl, deftly turning her toward the open French doors at the far end of the ballroom. "And how much I would like to kiss you all over?"

    "No, you have not." Her murmur and the tempting pout of her mouth reminded him once again how sweet her lips were and how long it had been since they'd made love. He had spent their first night together with Ginny in his arms, but not made love to her since then. He knew she wondered why, as he did himself.

    There were so many memories between them, so many times they had fought one another, the verbal spats no less vicious than the physical ones. He still bore the scar from where she had stabbed him so long ago, that time in the desert when he had forced her into submission, taking her on the burning hot sands with only a thin blanket beneath them, not caring if she wanted him—until she had shocked him into taking her seriously. Then she had yielded to him, his passionate little gypsy. With the fresh knife wound bleeding in his side, he had taken her again....

    Ginny. When the news had been given to him of her death in an earthquake in Cuba, he had thought—known—it couldn't be true. How could such life, such beauty and passion die without his knowing the exact moment of its death? First a kind of grief, then anger overwhelmed him, until he had moved by rote, living each day because he had no other choice, because he had two children who looked to him for their survival. It had been the children who had kept him from the road to his own destruction, the anguished thought that they were all he had left of Ginny.

    So many times in the months he had thought Ginny dead he'd remembered his cruelty to her, her frustration, her fury and, yes, her own brand of vengeance. She knew how to hurt him in return, with a careless shrug of her shoulder and a new admirer on her arm. Now it was time they ended the games, time they came to know each other instead of indulging in the constant warfare that always seemed to lead to bed.

    Yet he felt so awkward with her now, so damnably like a callow youth instead of her husband. Her lover. The man who had introduced her to the passionate side of her nature—and who had watched her blossom into an alluring woman he had not been able to forget even when he had tried.

    Guiding her in a sweep of satin skirts across the ballroom floor, his hand shifted lower, palm testing the contours of the stiff corset binding her beneath the silk. He preferred the softness of her bare flesh beneath his hand, her smooth, flawless skin a welcoming cushion instead of layers of cloth and bone. Why must fashion dictate women hide their bodies behind rigid whalebone and yards of satin?

    "What are you thinking about, Steve?" Her elegant head was tilted, her eyes curious as she gazed up at him, and he gave a careless shrug, his tone light.

    "I noticed that the Prince of Wales could not take his eyes off you earlier. Is he another of your conquests?"

    "Could he be? Oh, don't look so black at me, Steve. I'm only teasing you. The prince is a terrible flirt, but he talked mostly about his tour to America and Canada. It is so difficult to understand his thick German accent at times."

    Not replying, he swung her about and through the open French doors onto a narrow veranda. Strains of the waltz were softer here, and his hand shifted on her back to slide down to the shelf of bunched skirts caught up with bows and lace in the ridiculous fashion called a bustle.

    "Steve ...?" There was a question in her eyes and tone, the pressure of her hand light on his arm as she looked up at him through her lashes.

    "It's more quiet out here." A poor excuse. He just couldn't stand the crowds anymore, the smell of too much perfume, the ennui and desperation that was so evident in the high voices and nervous laughter. It always made him impatient, made him want to ride out where the air was fresh and there were no staring, avid gazes. The impulse to leave the ball was nearly overpowering.

    Moonlight filtered through lacy tree branches, pouting molten silver onto the veranda just off the ballroom, and the soft air was spiced with the fragrance of night-blooming flowers. A huge urn at one side dripped soft white blossoms that reminded him of moonflowers, a tropical vine in Mexico that exuded sweet scent and exotic blooms, round and lucent—pale as the moon, as beautifully intense as Mexico.

    "You're ready to leave here now, aren't you, Steve?"

    He looked down at Ginny, saw the frown gather in her eyes and on her brow. She was far too perceptive at times. He put out a hand, his finger brushing over the gleaming jewels around her neck, vivid against the creamy expanse of her skin. Once her pale skin had been a lovely peachy color, a vibrant tan acquired from days of riding in the hot Mexican sun. His hand fell away and his tone was abrupt.

    "You should know something, Ginny."

    She tensed beneath his hand, eyes suddenly dark and wide.

    "Oh God! You're not going to tell me bad news tonight, Steve, when the music is so gay and the champagne chilled. I am having too good a time and I refuse to allow it."

    Despite her flippant words, there was a note of genuine distress in her tone. For all her bravado, Ginny was far too fragile lately. The resilient woman he'd known—had battled across half of Mexico at times—had changed ...