By midevening, Lulu had staggered off in the company of a dark stranger with nice eyes and thick arms, and Genevieve headed home. She arrived to find Robert lying on the Pirogue couch, reading and smoking a cigar. She’d been snippy with him in the couple of days since she’d been back, and he’d become hangdog in response. She didn’t know why she’d kept on at him. He was kindness itself. And tonight was no exception. As she walked through the door, he gave her his warmest smile.

“Are your feet sore, honey?”

The Ferragamo shoes had indeed been rubbing at her heels, and she was hobbling a little.

“Come over here.”

She lay back in the couch with him and closed her eyes while he worked on her feet, inexpertly but lovingly. Massaging her insteps, manipulating the joints of her toes. She tried not to let herself think about those other hands on her feet…that other touch…“Feet are amazingly complex things,” said Genevieve quietly. “There are more bones in the feet than in any other part of the body.”

“Is that true?”

“Maybe.” She longed for Zachari’s touch. Longed for it. How was she to get rid of this longing? She needed something to happen to reawaken her interest in Robert—something that would really focus her attention on him.

“I’m glad you’re not an artist,” she said.

He stopped his massaging. “Are you?”

Those doleful eyes of his, bagging slightly, the mustache she’d never liked and which he’d stubbornly held on to. The large earlobes. She was fond of him. She always had been. But there had to be more to a marriage than that.

“You’ve got your feet on the ground,” she said. “That’s a good thing.”

He patted her foot. “I’m glad you see it that way. I’m not sure you always do.”

“I know. But that’s all going to change now.”

“It is?”

She took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking. I know how important family is to you…”

He sat up straight, snapped to attention. “Yes?”

“Well, it’s difficult for me. But still…”

“Genevieve, are you saying—”

“Get me a drink, will you?”

“Of course.”

She could see how excited he was, and how he was struggling to contain it. He didn’t want to frighten her with his eagerness, bless him. But it frightened her all the same.

He went to the ivory-veneered drinks cabinet. “What’ll you have?”

“I don’t know.” She blinked away a tear. “I don’t know.”

( nineteen )