Sense, but not equilibrium. That would take a little more effort.
She sat on the edge of the bed, where Quentin had been. The spot was still warm from his body, but she didn’t flinch away. This had to be faced, and squarely.
What had happened? She could only guess what had set off Quentin’s bizarre behavior—and her own equally aberrant response to it.
Revealing herself to Quentin had been the height of folly. Had she actually believed it might help him?
She backed away from the painful thought of her own lapse and tried to consider the causes for Quentin’s conduct.
She’d been gone all day, true. She didn’t know what might have happened during her absence, except that Mrs. Daugherty had nothing to report.
Quentin had acted as though intoxicated, but she hadn’t smelled alcohol. Something had gone very wrong.
The wrongness was the same she’d seen yesterday in their last session, and in the parlor. In his eyes lurked a shadow Quentin, a man-beast filled with lust, irrational hunger, even a kind of cruelty. A creature who wanted her, making no attempt to hide it. And Quentin wanted her just as much.
That was the truth she had avoided, danced around, regarded with the sham of a scientist’s detachment. Just as she had failed to admit that Quentin might be far more afflicted than he appeared. The part of his mind that controlled the darkest human instincts had briefly lost some interior battle, here in this room, a battle in which she was the prize.
Hypnosis released the shadow Quentin. So, she suspected, did drink. Neither had been used tonight. What had triggered it? Could it possibly be the kiss in the vineyard, and jealousy the ordinary Quentin couldn’t admit?
The only way to be sure was to hypnotize him again. And she couldn’t trust herself to do it. She’d come too close to forsaking everything she believed in.
She wanted him.
There. It was said, admitted fully, if only in her mind. She wanted to know what it would be like to lie in his arms, feel his kisses all over her body, experience the joining of flesh she had only read about. She wanted to explore the lean, honed muscles she had only glimpsed before, see those red-gold eyes alight with the pleasure she gave him, and know ecstasy in return.
Quentin would give her ecstasy. She had no doubt that he was a superb and experienced lover, as accomplished in that skill as he was articulate and charming. And even if the Quentin she wanted had been temporarily absent, replaced by someone feral and dangerous, her feelings had not vanished. She saw now that they were a permanent part of her being. She understood that she had stepped out from behind the screen, knowing he was waiting, because of them.
Mere modesty did not keep her from his bed. Society’s conventions did not trouble her. A woman was physically capable of enjoying the act of love, and should be free to do so. She understood fully what was involved in the practice of sexual intercourse, in theory at least.
As long as she remained Quentin’s doctor, that theory would never be tested. But if Bolkonsky were able to treat him…
Good God. Had she been fooling herself? She had assumed that sending Quentin to another doctor was best for him, because she had begun to lose both control and objectivity in his particular case. He was unable to regard her as a doctor, and she hadn’t been successful in maintaining the necessary distance and authority. Better to send him away than fail him.
Oh, yes, she found him attractive, fascinating, impossible to ignore. She had reacted too strongly to his kisses. She was never so aware of being a woman as in his presence.
But she had not envisioned a lasting relationship between them, not even in her dreams. Now she saw the selfishness of her motives.
If Bolkonsky took Quentin’s case, he wouldn’t be her patient. He’d be able to get well, without distractions. And then…
Then he could come back to her, man to woman, and all would happen naturally as it was meant to. She’d have Quentin for herself.