His regular breathing told her that Lyon was sound asleep, and Millicent laid her head back down on the pillow. She could not sleep, though. She had never spent the entire night in a man’s bed. She lay there as the dawn’s light slowly brightened the chamber, studying her husband’s face.
He had a high, intelligent forehead and a straight nose. The closed lids and long, dark lashes hid the eyes that turned a dozen different shades of blue, depending on his mood. Millicent wondered what the man looked like without his beard. There was no doubt in her mind, though, that Lyon Pennington would be the handsomest man she’d ever seen. Like some lowly mortal facing a god, Millicent knew she would probably just want to run away and hide.
And that would only be right. Then he would not need to face the humiliation of introducing her as his wife.
Millicent knew very well the ways of the social world Lyon inhabited. She had been an eager eighteen-year-old when she was introduced into the marital meat market of the London ton, but that eagerness had soon worn off. Suitors had barely looked at her. She had been too plain. She had been too thin. She had been too quiet. She had been too clever. She had been too everything but special. Gentlemen like Lyon Pennington—those whose fortunes and accomplishments and looks and manners placed them in airy realms far above the rest—did not even notice her. The ones who did were penniless boors who saw only the size of her dowry as an enticement.
The years of healthy living and a suitable education and a good family name were not enough. Millicent’s self-confidence quickly drained away. Soon relegated to that wall of aging spinsters, she had suffered through five London Seasons of mortification. Then, at the advanced age of twenty-three, she had watched her uncle step in. He would have sold Millicent to the very devil just to get her off his hands. In fact, that was exactly what he did.
Millicent closed her eyes to halt the welling tears. She couldn’t live with herself if Lyon should wake up now and see her like this. She was finished with self-pity. After Wentworth’s death, she had found surprising strength by standing on her own two feet. This was how she wanted the Earl of Aytoun to remember her when they parted ways. Let him remember her strength, she thought.
She rolled slowly until her back was to him. Before she could slip out of the bed, however, his arm curled around her waist. Gently, he pulled her slowly back against his chest. Millicent didn’t protest. She didn’t make a sound but simply waited. Looking over her shoulder, she found him still asleep.
He whispered something again in his sleep and then—to her utter surprise—one of his legs moved, sliding over the top of hers. Her shift had ridden up in the night, and she could feel his warm skin touching her thigh. Millicent rolled toward him, not believing what had just happened. Perhaps this was all a dream. But he continued to move until she found herself lying flat on her back with half of her husband’s sleeping body draped over her.
He had moved his leg. She did not dare to breathe. Stunned by the discovery, Millicent felt her mind reeling with thoughts of how she was going to awaken him—how she was going to tell him. The impact of his ability to move his leg—and what his reaction would be—had her spirits soaring. Ohenewaa had been correct. She’d said that the decision to heal lay with Lyon himself.
Her heart pounded with excitement, and she turned her head on the pillow to awaken him. His face was only inches away from hers. She could tell he was caught in the middle of a dream. His brow was furrowed and he was whispering again, words that she could make no sense of.
“Lyon,” she whispered softly against his lips.
His body jerked once in his sleep, and the arm that was curled around her stomach moved. Millicent felt his hand drop to the edge of her shift. Lyon’s leg moved again, rubbing against the sensitive skin of her bare thigh.
Millicent felt her throat go dry. Her voice was barely audible when she whispered his name again. He didn’t awaken, but his hand slipped beneath her nightgown and moved upward with maddening slowness, along her thigh, her hip, the curves and hollows of her stomach, until he was cupping her breast.
A dozen times along that slow journey, she nearly grasped his hand, stopped him. A dozen times, though, she held back, unable to decide what she wanted more—to be touched by this man or to be free of any man’s touch.
Her heart was hammering fiercely at the walls of her chest. A tight knot of fire had coiled itself somewhere in her middle, and Millicent found herself arching her back ever so slightly, pressing into his hand. The heat awakened by the simple touch, the sensitivity of her body to his caress, thrilled her. She edged closer to him, and Lyon’s hand brushed lightly across the sensitive areola of her breast, making her nipple harden in response. Suddenly she knew she didn’t want him to stop.
“Lyon.” Millicent turned her face to him and brushed her lips against his. He stretched slightly, and his hand came to life on her body. He ran his fingers down over her belly and then up again to explore her breasts, feeling the fullness of one and then traveling to the other. His gentle touch was enough to make her breathe in sharply. Her body was quivering with excitement, and she felt herself growing moist. He seemed to be awakening, but Millicent found herself praying desperately that he wouldn’t push her away once he opened his eyes.
She kissed him again, this time using her tongue to tease the seam of his lips. He emitted a groan in his sleep, and her shivers gave way to shudders as she felt him gently pinch an erect nipple.
When Lyon’s hand left her breast and moved down her belly to the small triangle of hair at the junction of her thighs, her head rolled back on the pillow. She stared at the gray of the ceiling, and her lips parted slightly. Instinctively, her hips rose against his hand, and her legs opened for him. A soft whimper escaped her as his fingers slipped into the folds of her womanhood, lightly exploring, then finding and stroking the sensitive nub of desire.
Millicent’s vision blurred and her breath shortened. Her body began to pulse to a rhythm that she had always associated with fear and pain. But that was before. What she felt now was desire and anticipation so intense she was afraid she might cry out.
Lyon was stroking her harder. She turned her head on the pillow and found his mouth searching hers. She kissed him, but the moment his fingers thrust deep inside her, Millicent’s body erupted with volcanic force. She gasped for breath and somehow managed to roll beneath the weight of his leg to face him. Millicent clung tightly to him as waves of passion continued to roll through her quaking body.
*****
Lyon came fully awake at the sound of a woman’s quiet cry. Startled, he found himself inches from Millicent’s face. Her eyes were shut, but even in the dawn’s light he saw the tears squeezing through the corners of her eyelids and falling. He was shocked to find his hand tucked intimately between her legs. He immediately withdrew it.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered. “Millicent…I don’t…I was…By the devil, did I hurt you? Dear God, I—”
He stopped as she shook her head and wiped the wetness from her face. She looked up at him.
“Do not blame yourself. You didn’t hurt me. We were…I was caught up in…in something.”
He saw the glistening tears forming again in her gray eyes. He had been dreaming. He was at Baronsford. No, it was London. A woman had come to his bed. His body was still painfully aroused. It was Millicent.
His body. Lyon’s mind started to clear. He was lying on his side. He pushed the covers back with one hand.
“You rolled.” She hurriedly pulled the nightgown down. “You rolled in your sleep.”
Lyon saw his leg and knee trapping her lower body. It was impossible.
“How?” He tried to move the leg but could not. Frustration quickly replaced his shock. “How did I do this?”
“You were asleep. You weren’t thinking about it,” she replied gently, pulling herself to a sitting position and trying awkwardly to move his legs off hers. “You just did it.”
“That is not possible,” he persisted stubbo
rnly, trying again to make it move by pushing his knee. Nothing. “I cannot move the damn leg.”
“Don’t fight it, Lyon.” Millicent managed to free herself. Covering him with the blanket, she finally succeeded in rolling him onto his back. “Your strength is returning. You just need to give it some time. Ohenewaa said that it might happen like this. That one day you would just do it.”
“No,” Lyon snapped, though he knew that no one else could have moved him into that position. Perhaps…
He said nothing about the other times. It was true that he had recently moved his foot and his hand. But each occurrence had come without warning, and the frustration of not being able to do it again seconds later was almost too much to bear.
“It was a freak accident.”
“It wasn’t,” she said patiently, straightening his right arm, pulling the covers over him and tucking them carefully around his chest. “Give it time. Your body is healing.”
Millicent’s hair hung in a cascade of curls around her face. Lyon’s thoughts shifted, and he wondered why he had not told her how different she looked like this, and how much he liked it. She slipped off the bed and went around it, tucking in the blankets.
“Are you warm enough?” she asked.
“Yes.” Lyon’s attention was no longer on himself. In the dim light of the room, he tried to focus on her face. She had been crying, and the sadness still lingered around her eyes.
“Can I get you something to drink? Some water?”
“No,” he said, unhappy with himself at having the audacity to become intimate with her…without being awake.
She touched his leg once, smoothing the blanket, and took a step back. “Good night then.”
“Where are you going?”
She continued to back away. “To my own bedchamber.”
“Why?”
“It is almost morning.” She had reached the door and was already pulling at the latch.
“Millicent, wait,” he called gruffly.
“What is it?”
“What happened just now?”
“You rolled in your sleep. You moved your leg. That is great progress.”
He was not fooled by her hollow attempt at sounding happy. “What else happened? Tell me. What did I do to you?”
She shook her head, but no words came out.
“I acted…I behaved…dishonorably toward you, didn’t I?”
She again gave a quick shake of her head, but her gaze was riveted to the floor. Lyon cursed himself. One thing he was sure of: he had touched her without her consent.
“I must apologize for the way I behaved—for whatever I did—for whatever you are forgiving me for so gracefully. I promise you, Millicent, whatever it was, it shall never happen again.”
“Nothing happened. Please go back to sleep.” She whispered the words before backing out of the room and softly closing the door.
She was relieved to find the hallway deserted. The household was still sleeping. Millicent’s vision was blurred, but she managed to hold her tears in until she was safely inside her own bedchamber. There was no holding back her emotions after that.
He had apologized.
Wentworth had violated and battered her body sexually and physically at every opportunity during their five long years of marriage. He had called it his right as her husband to “educate” her as he saw fit. He had hurt her, killed her unborn baby, almost killed her. He had trampled on her body as if it were dry chaff in the barns.
But Lyon had apologized to her for making that same body feel alive. He had been sorry for touching her without asking her first. Even in his sleep, he had shown her the moon and stars as Millicent never knew they had existed. And Lyon Pennington was her husband, too.
Millicent buried her wet face in the pillow. She had no right to feel bad because in his unawareness he had made her climb to unknown heights of ecstasy. She should be grateful for the experience of learning that there could exist more than just pain and fear between a man and a woman.
He was growing stronger. His limbs were beginning to function. One day soon he would simply walk away. And when that happened, Millicent would need to go on with her own life. The thought terrified her.
The tears came faster. A numbing sadness was wrapping around her soul.
Who was she, Millicent thought, to care so much for him?
******
A carriage stood at the corner of a dark alley in St. Albans. A groom, with his hat drawn low on his face, waited beside the horses, talking to the driver. The drawn shade hid the identity of the two men meeting inside.
“Mr. Platt’s high praise for your efforts convinced me that I should come and meet you in person.” Jasper Hyde studied the young workman’s cocky expression. “Now, after hearing all about the slave woman and her influence on Lady Aytoun, I am certainly glad that I made the trip.”
“As I was saying, Mr. Hyde, her ladyship is relying on her more and more. I doubt any offer of money would convince Lady Aytoun to part with the slave.” Ned Cranch lowered his voice and leaned confidentially toward the plantation owner. “But as I have been looking about the place, I’ve noticed that no one watches her. And she does have a routine.”
“And what is that?”
“The woman leaves the house about dawn and roams the deer park in the direction of Solgrave, collecting things in this large basket she hangs from her neck. She gets back to Melbury Hall about the time the kitchen is ready to send up breakfast for the earl.”
“How convenient.” Hyde felt the twinges of the pain between his ribs but tried to ignore them.
“If ye want, Mr. Hyde, I could just snatch her some morning when she’s in the woods.” Ned glanced at the drawn shade and lowered his voice to a whisper. “In fact, knowing ye’re willing to make it worth my while, I could more easily cut her throat and make it look like she was attacked by some passing gypsy or tinker, maybe. Ye just say the word, sir.”
“I will keep that under advisement, Mr. Cranch. Meanwhile, I have other plans in the works that might settle the matter once and for all.” Hyde rubbed his chest as the pain started to increase. “But that is good thinking on your part. Right now, you continue to keep watch.” He had difficulty lifting his arm enough to toss the man a bag of coins. Cranch had no problem catching it, though.
“Will ye be coming yerself or sending Mr. Platt next time?”
“We’ll let you know.” Hyde weakly waved toward the carriage door, motioning to the man to get out. He did not like anyone seeing him when he was writhing in pain. He refused for others to see the hold Ohenewaa had on him.
“Thankee, sir.”
Ned Cranch stepped out of the carriage into the dark. As soon as the door closed, Hyde tore at his collar and cravat. He couldn’t breathe. The pain scorched his chest with the same blazing heat that his bailiffs had used to brand his slaves’ flesh.
Hyde had no voice or strength left at that moment or he would have called Ned Cranch back and asked him to go ahead and cut the woman’s throat. If he only knew that was a sure way to end the she-devil’s curse.
CHAPTER 19
“You are no more than a bloody bramble weed, Gibbs,” Lyon complained as the new steward entered the library.
“Thank you, m’lord.”
“Do you not realize that in taking the position of steward, you are supposed to be freeing more of her time? Instead, you’re tying her up in knots.”
“She’s not one to take what she sees as her duty lightly, sir.” The Highlander sat down at the writing table with a grace that belied his size. Taking out his pens and ink, he prepared himself to write the correspondence Lyon had wished to dictate this morning. “I’ve been trying to ease her ladyship’s burden.”
For three days Millicent had been running in every direction. With the exception of brief glimpses of her when breakfast and dinner were served, or when she was overlooking some devilish new concoction Ohenewaa had devised for Lyon’s legs and arm, or when one of the valets was be
nding him this way and that, she had been difficult to find.
Worse, though, was the matter of her failing to come to his bed again at night. She was extremely tired, or she had to stay up late answering letters, or some such thing. Any excuse she could think of had successfully kept her from being alone with him for any length of time.
It couldn’t go on, Lyon thought. He missed her. He missed everything that they shared, from the verbal skirmishes to the kisses that set his blood boiling in his veins. More than once Lyon had cursed himself for whatever it was that had happened that night he’d touched her in his sleep. That was the cause of all of this, he was sure. But staying away from her was not giving him any answers, either, and he needed to change that.
The papers being shuffled on the desk drew Lyon’s attention back to Gibbs. The man looked positively dejected.
“Bloody hell, Gibbs. She’s not been blaming her busy schedule on you.”
“I’m not surprised, m’lord.”
“In fact, she’s been singing your praises.”
“’Tis like her ladyship to do that, m’lord. She’s very generous with her compliments.”
“Where is she this morning?” Lyon asked impatiently.
“She is looking over what Cook planned to serve Reverend and Mrs. Trimble tomorrow.”
“How long will she be in with him?”
“Not too—” Gibbs stopped himself. “It could take all morning, depending on how involved Lady Aytoun wishes to be with the preparations. I’m thinking that she wants this visit to go well, m’lord.”
“Is impressing some country cleric and his wife so bloody important?"
“Mrs. Trimble’s lame, sir, and doesn’t leave the rectory too often. The woman is making the effort just to meet your lordship.”
Lyon snorted. “I don’t suppose you would know where your mistress is going after her discussions with Cook.”
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