Midnight Eyes (7 page)

She thought about it for a moment, struggling to find the words. “Aren’t we supposed to get carried away?” She ducked her head and added clumsily, “I was enjoying it.”

Robert squeezed his eyes more tightly shut as a wave of pure, white-hot longing washed over him. He was on fire. Her words were almost as seductive as her small hand, but he didn’t want to be seduced, or to be a seducer.

It wouldn’t be enough, he realized, not now when he sensed that there was so much more than a brief, physical pleasure at stake.

“I’m glad you were enjoying it,” he said as evenly as he could and rested his chin on her silky hair. He opened his eyes and stared into the orange flames of the fire, searching deep inside himself for the strength he was going to need to turn down what she offered so sweetly. “I want you to always enjoy what we do together and to that end, I think we—I, should go more slowly.”

“You think I’ll enjoy it more if we go more slowly? You want to go slowly?” she asked doubtfully.

He smiled, more than a little gratified by her obvious impatience. “I want many things, and slowly is the way I’ll get all of them, not just some of them. For tonight all I want to do is to hold you for a while, if you will let me.”

She gave a small shrug, trying to manifest an acceptable level of unconcern. That her body was still on fire she tried to ignore. After all, if he could, then so could she.

“Does this ‘going slowly’ mean that after you are finished holding me for a while, you will return to your own rooms?” she asked as calmly as she could.

His arms tightened around her almost painfully for a moment before he was able to deliberately relax them a little. “No,” he said firmly. “From now on we sleep in the same room. Always. That is part of the going slow.”

She experienced an almost overwhelming desire to slap his dictatorial face at that moment, her passion changing like quicksilver into anger. She struggled to get out of his lap.

“Well, I hope you like the floor,” she said imperiously, moving with confidence that she wasn’t quite feeling to where she knew the bed to be. She dragged off the top fur and threw it in his general direction.

He caught it easily without conscious thought, momentarily stunned by her sudden flare of temper.

A part of him could laugh at her feeble attempts to control him. Didn’t she realize that he was entirely beyond her control? All he had to do to shatter all her illusions of being in control was stride over there and physically drag her into the bed. One small woman could hardly be expected to hold her own in any physical confrontation against him.

But he didn’t laugh.

The fear and uncertainty that had fueled her outburst was painful for him to see and that pain killed any desire to laugh, cold. So much had changed so quickly that all she could try and do was to stop it spinning totally out of her control.

He looked at her standing defiantly beside the bed and a wave of protectiveness washed over him. She stood there, trembling like a wild animal caught in a trap to which she knew there was no escape, but at the same time she fought so bravely for that fear not to show.

Fear was the last thing he wanted her to feel. Somehow he knew that she had already known so much of it in her life that he didn’t want to create any more for her. He wanted her strong and whole of spirit and if that took letting her think she had him cowered, then so be it.

“As my lady wishes,” he said simply, the ghost of a smile playing over his lips. “Although the floor doesn’t look too inviting. I think I will stay where I am. The chair might make an acceptable bed,” he ended doubtfully.

She listened, with bewilderment, as he calmly prepared to take his rest in the chair. She had been expecting an argument at her angry challenge, and was half disappointed that he hadn’t given her one.

In no time the room was settled into silence and Imogen panicked a little. “You’re not going to sit there while I change and get ready for bed, are you?” she asked stiffly.

“I can close my eyes if you like,” he rumbled mildly, as if the mere idea of her being naked before his gaze hadn’t inflamed his senses. He pulled the fur up to his chin, trying to deny his body’s reaction, even to himself.

“How can I know that I can trust you?” Her eyes narrowed. “You might look.”

“Little One, you’re just going to have to learn that I am a man of my word. If I say I’m going to do something, then I do it.” He yawned loudly. “Besides, I’m too tired to look tonight. Good night.”

She glared furiously into the darkness, trying to gauge if he mocked her or not.

“Robert, are you awake?” she whispered, but silence was her only answer.

She hesitated for a moment before beginning to undo the gown’s lacing, clumsy at the unaccustomed task but reluctant to call for Mary’s help. There should be no need for help on a wedding night and Imogen’s pride demanded that the fact she did need help had to be kept private.

Robert’s eyes squeezed tightly shut and his hands clenched into painful fists. This self-denial would surely make him a candidate for sainthood, he thought savagely. He ground his teeth together, causing a satisfying shaft of pain. It was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. The temptation to open his eyes and enjoy the sight of her body almost overpowered him.

The knowledge that she would never know if he looked or not tormented him. The pleasure he would feel at the sight of her would almost be worth the guilt he would feel over his small deception. At least it would if lust was all that was at stake, if he could be satisfied by brief carnal pleasure, but it wasn’t and he couldn’t.

So instead he listened.

He listened to the sound of her strained breathing as she tried to undo the more difficult fastenings. He listened to the small, satisfied sigh she gave as the dress finally came undone and slid from her body in a quiet whoosh of fabric.

He knew she was now naked.

Sweat broke out on his upper lip and he quickly licked it away as he strained to hear more. He listened as she shook out the dress and threw it over the trunk and was barely able to stop himself from groaning out loud in protest as he heard her slipping a chemise over her tiny form.

He dared open his eyes again only when he heard the bedclothes shift as she snuggled down under the covers. The dying fire cast a warm glow over the room. In it he could just see her head above the furs, her unbound hair spread out in a dark cloud around her head, hiding the pillow from his view.

“Did you look?” she whispered suddenly, breaking into his thoughts.

He felt a glow start in his chest. Despite the strangeness of their all-too-new, arranged marriage, she trusted him to answer such a question truthfully. It proved that his decision to slow things down had been right. By waiting, he wouldn’t find himself caught with just a pale shadow of a true marriage.

“No, Little One, I didn’t look.”

She yawned, her eyes closing as sleep slowly stole over her. The last words she spoke before sleep finally claimed her kept Robert awake long into the night.

“I don’t think I would have minded all that much if you had looked just a little.”

Robert shifted uncomfortably in the chair. His sleeping mind roamed over battlefields, making him frown.

In the dream, the killing was done, and he’d been sent to count the dead.

He was wounded; blood streaming forth till everywhere he looked was covered with it. The bodies on the field were endless and to count them, he had to reassemble them.

He was covered in their gore, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to finish the task. There seemed to be no end to the corpses. There was field after field of the dead.

It was a nightmare he knew well and it always continued until he managed to shake his mind free from the coils of sleep.

Robert twisted uncomfortably in the chair again; his brow furrowing as the silent battlefield of his dreaming filled with a whimpering. His dream self tried to hunt for the living amongst the dead, but despite his increasingly frantic efforts he couldn’t find anything alive in this familiar nightmare world; couldn’t find the source of the sound of living pain.

It was a sharp, ear-piercing scream that finally dragged his mind back to full consciousness.

By now, the fire had gone out entirely, and the cold had started to seep its way into his bones. At his age sleeping in a chair was no easy thing, he thought morosely, and he couldn’t quite contain the strangled sound that escaped as he tried to struggle upright.

The scream had died and the whimpering returned.

Imogen lay in her bed, tossing and turning, her limbs flailing as she tried to fight off her own night demons. In seconds he was by her side. He pulled her up into his arms as he called her name sharply, his voice infused with a cold panic he had never felt for himself.

Her skin through the chemise was cold to his touch, but a thin film of sweat covered her face.

“Imogen,” he called again, more loudly, shaking her as gently as his fear would allow. She moaned, thrashing her head from side to side but remained in the world of her own imagining. Ice clutched at Robert’s heart, filling his voice with a desperate need.

“Imogen. Imogen. For God’s sake, Imogen, wake up.”

She suddenly opened her eyes wide and screamed. She lifted her hands to her face as her body was racked by loud, heaving sobs.

It no longer mattered to Robert whether she slept or woke; her pain was all too shockingly real either way. He gathered her fragile body to his and rocked her back and forth, running his hands up and down her back to soothe her pain. He found himself babbling words of comfort that even he didn’t fully understand.

Imogen woke in the sheltered warmth of his fierce embrace.

For the first time in longer than she cared to remember, she didn’t shed her night tears forlornly into her pillow. No, they were being absorbed into the blood-warm skin of Robert’s chest and matted into the hair there. It was Robert’s muscular arms that held her gently tight, the rumble of his deep voice seeping into her bones, dulling her lingering fear.

Robert waited patiently for her to cry herself out but still he couldn’t let her go when calm descended.

Now he was holding her for his own comfort and reassurance.

He needed her close, needed to know that she wouldn’t break in two if he let her go. The sound of her gut-wrenching sobs had torn into him, leaving him helpless in the face of her raw, open grief. Many moments passed before he dared to move her slightly away from him so that he could look into her face and reassure himself that her demons had indeed fled. Her face was red and her eyes a glassy pink, but the fact that she tried to smile up at him made her the most beautiful being he had ever seen.

He wiped away her last tears with the pad of his thumb. He stared at the droplet of saltwater that beaded on his skin briefly before rubbing them in thoughtfully. He tried to find words of comfort and reassurance, but they eluded him.

He mightn’t know how to be softly caring, he thought with a silent sigh, but years of training boys to be men had taught him to be practical in the face of others’ raw emotions.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked quietly.

She sucked on her bottom lip and shook her head.

He took a deep, fortifying breath. “Sometimes these things don’t seem so bad if you talk about them. They shrink a little if you bring them into the real world.”

“No, they don’t,” she said, her voice roughened with her tears. “Sometimes you talk about them forever, yet they are still big enough to destroy you.”

Robert hesitated for a moment, but couldn’t push her. Perhaps with time, she would share her scarred soul with him, would give him the chance to kiss her wounds as she had kissed his. Until then, he would have to be patient.

He ran his palms down her arms till he was holding her hands. “Would you like me to stay with you?” he asked in a carefully neutral voice, afraid to show just how much hope he attached to her answer.

For a moment Imogen couldn’t breathe. She hadn’t even realized that she wanted him to stay until she heard him say the words, and a part of her shrank from the whole idea of letting a man into her bed, especially with the dark nightmare still chilling her skin. That fear was drowned out by her far-greater need right now for the cleansing comfort he offered. Hesitantly she reached her hand up to the middle of his chest. “Yes. Stay. Please stay.”

Robert didn’t hesitate in case she changed her mind. He wrapped his arms around her back and gently leaned forward till they were both lying on the bed with him outside the covers. It wasn’t the way he wanted to share her bed, but he could sense the nervousness underlying her boldness and he didn’t trust himself enough to crawl in beside her. When she immediately curled her body into his as though she belonged there, he knew that he was doing the right thing.

He closed his eyes and savored the perfection of their simple embrace. It didn’t matter that his body was chilling down rapidly in the cool chamber, not when the warmth of her trust was enough to heat him. It also didn’t matter that only an absolute terror had driven her to accept him in her bed. The fact that he was there was a thing he hadn’t dared hope for yet. It didn’t matter that the closeness of her body was swiftly re-igniting his unfulfilled desires, causing an ache in his body that was as much pain as pleasure. There would be time enough for him to indulge those desires, soon.

All that mattered was that Imogen was curled up trustingly in his embrace and was sleeping peacefully there.

Home.

He was finally home.

Imogen stood with hands on hips, her face flushed with anger.

“He’s gone where, exactly?” she bit out.

Mary raised her hand, but quickly dropped it with embarrassment, realizing it wasn’t terribly astute to try and pacify a blind person with hand signals.

“I said, he’s gone to the stone tower with a few of the men. They’re going to see what can be done with that pile of rubble, if anything.” Mary tried to ignore the look of fury on Imogen’s face, adding quietly, “It’s actually a very sound idea, Imogen.”

“Oh, most sound,” Imogen snapped. “Everything he has done around here is most sound, most wise or just plain, bloody messianic.” She threw her hands into the air, growling with pure irritation as she stalked over to the window. She wrapped her arms tightly round her middle to try and stop herself from breaking something. There was no point breaking inanimate objects when it was his head she longed to crack like an eggshell.

The sunlight streamed cheerfully through the open window and it seemed to have a little more warmth in it today. Perhaps the long, unrelenting winter might be finally coming to an end. Or perhaps it was the lavish fires Robert had insisted be lit in all of the Keep’s rooms that generated the added warmth that was causing Imogen’s face to flush.

She ground her teeth, angered by something that should have made her happy.

She might have hated the cold dankness of the Keep but she couldn’t stand it that all Robert had to do was wave his magic wand and everything was put to rights. This was
her
Keep, goddamn it, and she honestly felt that she had looked after it as best she could.

The Keep had become sadly neglected, true, but that had never been Imogen’s choice. It was Roger who decided how she lived in her prison, and he had preferred it to be an all-female prison, forbidding all but two males from serving at the Keep. Duncan functioned as the Keep’s groom, come shepherd, come gardener, come anything else that might possibly be required. Really, he did a remarkable job, for a sixty-four-year-old.

The cook’s son, Lucas Ross, on the other hand, worked in the Keep itself, trying to do any of the small jobs that defeated the women, and at seven years of age he had become a surprisingly good rat catcher.

Imogen felt a growing sense of justification replacing her feeling of incompetence. Which of these two fine examples of masculine strength had Robert actually envisaged as the master woodsman? Imogen thought snidely. While their wood supplies had never been plentiful, that they had had wood at all should be seen as no mean achievement.

And it wasn’t as if Robert was making all these grand achievements in household management by himself, Imogen thought with a scowl. Far from it. The Keep was now bursting with his people. His male people.

Life had changed for everyone in the Keep since their wedding night, but for her most of all.

She had awoken early the next morning and, turning instinctively to Robert, had found only his cold furs. She had tried hard not to brood too much about his desertion, telling herself that it was only to be expected, but feelings of betrayal still lingered.

However, the greatest betrayal was that of her wayward heart and body.

For a moment she had held close the pillow that had cradled his head through the night and had bathed her senses in the echo of scent he’d left behind. Even when she had then put the pillow firmly from her, his scent haunted her.

She couldn’t let that show, however. Haunted or not, she wouldn’t have people pitying her for being an unwanted bride. She had gone about her days as usual, telling herself that all was as it had always been, but it didn’t work. There was now a loneliness to her days that surpassed even that of her years of isolation.

It was a loneliness that bit deepest in the rare moments Robert breezed into her days.

On that first morning he had arrived in her chambers around midmorning and had brought with him all the bracing scents of a brisk winter’s day. Her heart had skipped a beat at the sound of his voice, even if it was only mouthing polite nothings, and the wonders of the night before rose up before her, starting her wanting him all over again. So powerful was the feeling, it took her a moment to realize that he wasn’t similarly affected.

He stood before her with all the joy of a man facing his executioner.

In those all too precious minutes he found just time enough to tell her that his horses had arrived. They had been traveling in relatively easy stages from Wales, accompanied by the knights that had fought under him in the recent wars on the borders. He had then muttered something about eating in the hall with his men, but understanding that she would prefer to eat in her rooms.

In his eagerness to get away from her, he had all but run from the room. Why he bothered at all remained something of a mystery to her.

That the visit was to prove to be something of a record wasn’t improving her temper any.

That evening she had eaten in splendid isolation and the food had tasted like sawdust. Somehow, the sound of raucous male laughter had soured her appreciation of the food that night and every night since.

Each night the laughter was only getting louder as slowly more and more of Robert’s men trickled up North to be with their glorious leader, but her isolation remained just as absolute. Loneliness was becoming such a part of her days that sometimes she could almost choke on it, and it was a loneliness that followed her each night into her dreams. She had been alone for years, had lived as if in sleep, but then so had everything around her. Now the Keep was waking up. Robert was quickening it, drawing it into the living world. It was she alone who remained in the dark world of sleep.

She leaned her head wearily against the casement.

For one who had been alone so long, loneliness was suddenly becoming an impossibly heavy burden to bear. In bed at night Imogen could feel inertia laying like a heavy blanket on her, suffocating her, and each night she went to sleep with her cheeks wet with tears.

Strangely, though, she no longer met the familiar demons in her dream.

No, a new torment had arisen from her mind to plague her.

Her sleep was now haunted with half memories of being held close in Robert’s arms. As she slept, her skin was tortured by butterfly kisses, by slow, sensuous caresses from warm hands. She would struggle to wake, wanting to know if what felt so real was only a sad, unfulfilling dream. A part of her was even traitorous enough to want to believe that Robert came to her each night under the cover of dreams.

She tried to wake but failed. Her mind slumbered while her body burned, and each morning she woke alone. Only the scent of him on her skin gave her a small hope that she did more than dream her nights away, but perhaps that was nothing more than a desire that it was so.

Hope, she was fast discovering, was as much a torment as anything Roger had devised.

Imogen could feel resentment building inside her. The more he stayed away, the tighter he seemed to hold her mind. She longed for him yet, perversely, when he was with her, she found herself withdrawing into herself, treating him ever more coldly. She was unable to reach out to him. She lived each day with the fear that if she didn’t try something soon he, and the fire he brought to her body and mind, might slip through her fingers.

It really was enough to drive a person mad!

And that would serve him right, Imogen thought darkly. See how he liked being married to Lady Deformed when she was also known as Lady Deranged. At least then he couldn’t ignore her.

Strangely it wasn’t only the ignoring that irritated her. No, what really made her want to scream was the fact that he dared as well to make decisions and plans about her Keep. She would be damned before she would allow that anymore, she suddenly decided.

She turned quickly from the window. “Mary I’ll need some stout walking shoes.”

“My lady…”

“And a warm cloak too, I suspect. Do I possess such things?”

“I’m sure I’ve seen some in the south chamber, my lady, but…”

“Good,” Imogen spoke over Mary ruthlessly. “Well, please go and get them. I have an overwhelming desire to go to Roger’s tower.”

Mary’s jaw dropped. “But, Imogen, that is well over three hours’ walk from here.”

Imogen raised a brow imperiously. “What are you trying to say exactly?”

“What I am trying to say, Imogen Colebrook, is that for the last God knows how long, you haven’t moved farther than these four walls. One trip downstairs and you think you’re up to a stroll across unforgiving country, knee-deep in snow. It’s complete madness.”

As you would expect from Lady Deranged, Imogen thought with a small smile.

“Possibly,” Imogen said aloud, “but if I am mad, I think it would be best if you humored me. A madwoman might not like having accusations of laziness thrown about.” Her face suddenly went very serious. “And that’s Imogen Beaumont now, I’d thank you to remember.”

Mary had the grace to blush a little. In her horror at the suggestion she had momentarily forgotten both the change of name and the rights of nobility. She supposed she should be grateful that Imogen had seen fit only to reprimand her on the former, when the latter was seen by many as the more serious crime.

“Now don’t you go changing the subject,” Mary said, blustering a little to hide her discomfort. “We were talking about you walking miles in the snow, not what your name might be.”

“This fear of me walking isn’t just your polite way of saying that I have got fat, is it?” Imogen teased, feeling surprisingly lighthearted for the first time in years.

“You know I mean nothing of the sort. Any extra weight you might carry has always managed to land in all the right places.” Mary huffed with evident disgust.

Imogen couldn’t stop a blush of pleasure at the old woman’s words.

“Do you really think so?” Imogen asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of her voice. She ran unsure hands over her gently rounded hips to try and feel if there was any truth to the words.

Mary’s anger evaporated in the glow of Imogen’s pleasure. That such a small compliment meant so much to an awe-inspiringly beautiful woman was a travesty. The older woman sighed silently. Sometimes she was apt to forget just how much Imogen had been cheated in life.

“Aye, I really think so,” Mary said gruffly. “I’ll just go and get all that you’ll need for this expedition.”

The glow of happiness on Imogen’s face went up a notch. She could momentarily block the whys and wherefores of her “expedition,” and just enjoy the pleasure and anticipation of going outside again. Every fiber of her being hummed with excitement and she couldn’t stop herself from clapping her hands together and doing a small, excited jig.

It didn’t even seem to matter that she would be heading toward the dark tower Roger had built and told her tauntingly so much about. How could that matter when she would be entering the land of the living again after all these years? It was almost too good to be true.

She hugged her arms around herself more tightly, trying to hold in her excitement.

“All right, my lady, I’ve got some sturdy shoes and a cloak that might vaguely fit. I have also found a hat, gloves and young Lucas,” Mary said briskly, dumping everything but Lucas, who stood impatiently near the door, into Imogen’s waiting arms.

“Why Lucas?” Imogen asked, sitting down to put on her shoes.

“Why Lucas? Because one of us has to use her brains and it would seem that the honor is all mine,” she said dryly. “You clearly can’t go out by yourself and, as much as I would dearly love to be the one continually picking your sorry hide out of the snow all day, it will be one pleasure I will be forced to forgo. You might consider yourself able to walk for hours in snow up to your knees, but I’m not. Your husband has managed to thaw most of me out with his excellent fires, and I’m damned if I’ll let you freeze me up again.” She paused before adding, “Besides, Lucas was all I could find in the kitchens.”

Imogen smiled as she stood, trying to get a feel for the boots. They pinched a bit, but other than that they seemed just fine. “Cheer up, Mary,” Imogen said playfully, “and I might even bring you back a snowball.”

Mary humphed and grabbed the cloak from off the floor where Imogen had dumped it and thrust it into her hands. Imogen twirled it around herself with a small flourish, then spread her arms wide. “How do I look?”

“Like a beggar with stolen clothes,” Lucas said round a mouthful of apple as he wandered farther into the room.

Imogen was momentarily taken aback, then a slow smile lit her face.

Mary scowled and gave Lucas a good-natured cuff round the ear. “Now, don’t you be giving Lady Imogen any of your cheek.”

He nodded vigorously and gave her a mischievous salute as he stuffed the core of the apple into his mouth and started crunching his way merrily through the seeds. Before he had even finished it he was reaching a hand for more into the food basket he carried. It was only a second stinging slap from Mary that stopped him.

She scowled down at him severely. “And don’t you go eating that basket clean of food. That’s meant for Lady Imogen’s and Sir Robert’s lunch.” The mere mention of Robert’s name miraculously produced the result that any number of cuffs round the ear would never do.

“Now that my noble guide has been given all of his vital last-minute instructions, may we be on our way? Please?” Imogen couldn’t stop herself from rubbing her hands together in anticipation.

Mary hesitated a moment. It was a dangerous world beyond the Keep’s walls, and Imogen was more vulnerable than most. She might have longed for the day when Imogen started to live again, but it now seemed to have arrived all too soon.

“Aye, be gone with you, then,” she said gruffly. She thrust Lucas’s hand through Imogen’s crooked arm and gave them a shove out the door.

Imogen had to stoop to try and match herself to Lucas’s slight stature and even then she stumbled. With a shake of her head she stopped after a few yards. She gently put Lucas’s hand down and stepped a half pace behind him and firmly placed her hand on his shoulder.