emotion. Desire. Possessiveness. Was it too soon to claim this as love? Had he known her for months, or less than a week?
Or had he known her for ever and spent his life waiting for the moment they might be together? Common sense told him he could not feel love after so short a time in her company. But his heart announced that, in this case, common sense was wrong. There was nothing common about the sensations he felt, when with her. And after tonight, he knew she felt the same when she was with him.
He laid a hand on her hip, smoothing over the curve. As he watched her, she twitched in his arms, went rigid, shuddered, then was still for a moment before going rigid again. Was it a dream? Apparently so, for she did not open her eyes as she tossed her head from side to side as though trying to escape from something or someone. To comfort her, he held her tighter. She jerked away and said, quite plainly, ‘Don’t touch me. Never again.’ Then she sat up, suddenly awake. She gasped for air as though she had been running and looked wildly around her for a moment.
He carefully withdrew his hand from her body. Did his touch frighten her? She had not been bothered by it a few hours before. ‘You are safe, Justine. It was only a dream.’
She looked at him for a moment, unable to recognise him. She shrank away from him, wrapping her arms around her body, looking smaller and more helpless than he had seen her.
‘It was a dream,’ he repeated.
‘Only a dream,’ she repeated. Then her eyes focused on him and she smiled in relief.
‘Do you wish to tell me about it? Sometimes it helps to take away the fear.’
‘No!’ She shuddered again, then carefully composed herself to show him the usual, placid smile. But it was only an illusion, for her hair still hung damp with sweat on her face and her limbs trembled with suppressed energy.
‘Very well,’ he said, in a soft calming voice. ‘But know that you needn’t be afraid, as long as I am here.’
‘Of course not,’ she said, although she did not sound convinced. Was it nothing more than fantasy? Or was there something in her past that gave her a reason to fear? Life was not always kind to women who were poor and alone. Men could be predatory and a weak girl would not be able to protect herself. Whatever it was, it was clearly no fault of hers, for when he looked at her in the candlelight he could not imagine a more innocent creature. He patted the mattress.’ Lay back down beside me. Let me hold you. I will make everything better.’
She did as he bade her, relaxing into his arms as the tension drained from her body. He smoothed her hair away from her face and kissed her temples. ‘There, see? Nothing to be afraid of.’
She sighed. ‘This feels so good.’ She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder again. ‘I could sleep here and never wake.’
‘Do not say that,’ he said, tipping her chin up so he could look in her eyes. ‘Do not even think it. Now that I have found you, I do not want to lose you so soon.’
She blinked slowly and, for a moment, he thought that she might be about to cry. But when she spoke, there was no trace of a sob in her voice. ‘I am sorry if I frighten you. But in my life, until now, there has not been such happiness. Some of the things in my past, before I met you...were very difficult.’
Difficult. It was said in her quiet, unassuming way, as though she might not truly understand the meaning of the word. Where she might say difficult, another might speak of horror and bear scars greater than the one on his arm that she was now stroking. Do not touch me? They were the words of someone who had been beaten, or violated. All the more reason for him to be gentle with her and treat her like the treasure she was.
‘Are you not the one who taught me it is only the future that matters?’ He kissed her again. ‘That future will be as sweet as I can make it for you.’
‘And for you as well.’ She stroked his arm again, running her fingers lightly over the smooth, red patch, where the skin had been ruined by the fire. ‘Does it hurt, when I touch you here?’
He shrugged, embarrassed that he could not feel her touch through the thickness of the scar. ‘It did at one time. But now I feel nothing.’
‘It is the same for me,’ she said. ‘Sometimes, it is better not to feel anything at all.’
‘But you can feel my touch, I hope,’ he said sleepily, stroking her arm again.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘And my scar does not frighten you?’ It had been a fearsome thing at one time. Even he had cringed when looking at it.
‘I like it,’ she whispered back. ‘You are like your house. Not too perfect. Just right.’
His throat tightened with a strange rush of emotion, as he remembered her reaction as she had stared up at house and proclaimed it a castle, when most others would have called it a ruin. The touch of her hand on his numb skin made him feel like the battle-scarred king of the keep who had married a princess.
She rolled to face him, her head resting on his damaged shoulder. ‘In the dark, when I am by your side, I have but to touch your scar and I will know who you are. I do not even have to open my eyes.’
Strange. ‘I am a fortunate man to have a woman love me for my imperfections and not in spite of them.’
His face clouded, for a moment. ‘Would you do the same for me, I wonder?’
He smiled back at her, kissing her hair. ‘We shall never know, dear. You are perfection. I shall not believe otherwise, no matter what you might say.’
She frowned, as though ready to correct him. So he kissed her once, softly. ‘Now, go back to sleep. No more bad dreams.’ He touched the tip of her nose with his fingertip.
‘Yes, William,’ she said with a happy sigh and curled up beside him again, closing her eyes.
Will rode out to meet his brother that morning, still full of the strangeness of his new life. The horse beneath him was the chestnut gelding. It was a better choice than his foolish attempt to ride Zeus. But while full of spirit, it simply was not Jupiter.
It still hurt to think that he had been the cause of the old horse’s death. His father had cautioned him, practically from the cradle, that the Bellston family was known for its hot blood and rash actions. He had taken the advice to heart and been cautious and circumspect in all things. Because of this, his life had been well ordered and scandal-free.
At some point in the last year, his training had failed him. He had lost an old friend and his memory as well. But he’d gained the most precious gift a man could earn: the love of a woman who he could love in return. There was probably something to be learned about the need for balance in all things and the danger of being too punctilious for one’s own good, but he could not quite grasp it.
He could remember the feelings of unease, before the christening. He’d had the nagging feeling that his formerly feckless brother was somehow leaving him behind and that his own youth was slipping away unspent. Since then, he had allowed himself to be driven by passion to foolishness.
Not
