by Joey W. Hill
“Yes, you are.” Komal smiled now, squeezed his arm. “It may take time, longer than you want or expect, but I think that’s the key. Let her know she’s not alone, that you’re here. You’re her raft. I’m just a phone call away if you need me for anything.”
* * * * *
It was an easy task, physically. Staying with her, making sure she was always in his sight, talking to her, touching her. Caring for her bodily needs. Emotionally, he’d never done anything harder than watching those distant blue eyes refuse to focus on him, her lips refuse to speak, day after day, no matter what he did.
And he understood then how his wife had been unable to take those long, awful days when his detachment was absolute, his attentiveness apparently shattered beyond repair. He’d left her side in their bed night after night to sit on that landing, staring into the waters illuminated by moonlight. Too numb to search for answers, just going through the motions of living, too tired to talk to her, no emotions in him to respond to her.
He was gentle with Marguerite, spoke to her, cared for her, did everything necessary to keep the pain of her physical injuries to a minimum. Inside, his emotions ran the spectrum from fury with her for doing what she had done, to the terror of reliving the memory, to the frustration with her lack of response now when he had so much love he wanted to give her. He just had to keep offering comfort and reassurance with it, not knowing if it was disappearing into the black void of her mind that her blank expression seemed to indicate, or if deep inside that void somewhere his angel was receiving his love, using it to nourish herself and grow stronger, to take control back from the trauma that had seized her body.
Several days passed. Leila was glad to come every day in her capacity as nurse to check on Marguerite’s physical state and Tyler stayed in touch with Komal. Marguerite would sit up if compelled to do so, allowed Tyler to bathe her without complaint and carry her into the bathroom for Sarah or Leila to care for more intimate requirements. Tyler would have willingly done it all, but he was overruled by the two women who agreed that Marguerite needed to be the one to give her permission for that. Otherwise, he never left her. He laid her on a blanket in the garden by the statue while he worked with his orchids. Let her sleep on the sofa in his office or gaze out the window from the recliner as he made phone calls. Put her next to him in a chair in the solar as he ate breakfast and coaxed her to take a few bites. She chewed and swallowed without interest as the sun shone through the paleness of her skin. He was beginning to feel like he had a mannequin he moved around the house with him. It was dark outside and dark in his heart.
When he watched Komal drive back down the driveway five days later, he fought a weariness that threatened to make him weak. Marguerite needed his strength, not his impotent rage at a man who was dead. She’d killed him, slain her own dragon so it seemed, but as Komal had said, she’d discovered the dragon lay not in the man, but the memories that would not let her go.
He turned, went back in and up to the bedroom. In the growing evening, Sarah had turned on the side lamp and he saw she was brushing Marguerite’s hair, combing it out on the pillow, lifting her head as needed to straighten out the snarls.
“It’s as lovely as the manes of those horses you see in the arenas, the Lizzie horses I always call them. I thought it would soothe her to have it brushed.” She put it into a loose braid, bound it with a piece of ribbon she’d found somewhere in the nooks and crannies of domestic supplies he knew nothing about. “I gave her an extra pain pill while you were with Mrs. Gupta. She seemed a little more uncomfortable tonight, I suspect because of the rain we’ve been having. It should make her sleep more deeply.” Her sharp eyes studied him. “Maybe you should take one, too.”
Tyler shook his head. “Thank you, Sarah. I’m sure she’ll thank you, too, when she’s able. I’ll sleep with her now, so go find yourself some rest. We’ll take it slow in the morning. A late breakfast. If she’s up to it I’ll spend the day with her in the gardens.”
“All right then. You just call us if you need anything.” She slipped out, closing the door.
Tyler stripped out of his clothes, slipped in behind his unconscious angel. He touched the hollow of her neck, just above the cross and the ring strung on Sarah’s necklace. The diamond sparkled at him. As he caressed her there, another thought occurred to him. When he settled in behind her, he laid the curve of his hand from thumb to the end of his forefinger around the matching curve of her throat, where the heel of his hand pressed on the ring and cross, making her feel their presence as well as his presence in the area where she’d always been most emotionally as well as physically responsive.
Her body trembled, a soft murmur, a quiet plea. “Ssshhh…” He wrapped his other arm around her waist, brought her in close to the heat of his body. “I’m here, Marguerite. Your Master is here.”
* * * * *
He felt the touch on his shoulder, insistent, and then a sharp blow, almost as if he’d been shoved, hard. A brief flash of a face he’d seen before, but whose name he didn’t know. He started awake, realized he was alone.
Years in military operations where he had to come awake with all his senses ready for battle kicked in. He understood in a blink the bedroom door was open and he was alone. He lunged out of the bed.
She stood on the railing of the landing, the marble foyer twenty feet below her. The sling on her arm had dropped on the floor. How she’d even gotten up there with the type of injuries she had he didn’t know, but she was motionless on her perch, staring at something just above her through the arched window that availed him a sight of the night sky. She opened her arms, the white satin robe he’d left on her fluttering out on either side of her like angel wings.
There were ten yards and a corner from the hallway to the landing’s catwalk. He covered the ground as if he had wings himself. As her body fell forward, he was already there, seizing her around the waist and spinning them, lifting clear of the rail and putting her on the carpet, pulling her off with enough force they both tumbled. He kept grim hold of her though, until he realized she wasn’t fighting him. The glaze of sleep cleared from her eyes. She looked startled, then that distant look came back into her gaze. She’d been asleep. She’d been fucking sleepwalking, the extra dose of the strong painkillers apparently allowing her to perform a feat that would have been prohibitively excruciating if she’d been conscious.
He pressed his forehead down on hers as she lay beneath him, relaxed, her breathing already even again, while his heart raced so fast he thought he might be having a minor heart attack. Fortunately, he felt no numbness in his arms. Lifting her in them, he took her back to bed. This time he used her robe sash and bound their hands together so she couldn’t leave again without his knowledge. He needn’t have taken the extra precaution, however. He stayed awake until dawn brought light into the room again.
* * * * *
In the morning, he was able to get her to sit up so he could take her into the bathroom and let Sarah assist her there. He insisted on handling her bath himself so he could do a thorough inspection of her injuries and make sure there were no new swellings, heat or bruises. He remembered her first day here, when she’d turned over control to him. She’d discovered pleasure in the quiet darkness underwater, found that it wasn’t empty and alone at all, but filled with the sensations he could provide and share with her. He recalled her apprehensive wonder, the incredible response of her lithe body. The assimilation of it all by her extraordinarily intelligent mind.
“How do women put up with all this?” He kept up a running dialogue as he washed her hair, made sure the thick length of it was rinsed clean, made sure he was doing nothing to aggravate her injuries. “I’m not saying I want you to cut it. I love your hair. I’m just appreciative and awestruck at all that’s involved in keeping it beautiful. You know I’m going to mess it up. I’m going to put some man’s shampoo on it that will make it dry and frizzy, not be the way you like it, so you’re just going to have to tell me how to do
it right before I turn you into Medusa.” Putting the sponge down, he picked up a towel and raised her to her feet. And found himself looking into blue eyes that for the first time in days were focused on his face, his mouth. Somewhere deep she might be, but some part of her was listening, if only to his voice.
He managed, barely, to keep his voice steady, casual. “It’s not possible, you know. You could never be anything but beautiful to me. I might not mind if you looked a little like Medusa to other men though. You get entirely too much attention for my peace of mind. You could have a bevy of Mariuses waiting on you hand and foot to satisfy your every desire, rather than having a cranky Master trying to tell you what to do all the time.”
He pulled a robe over her shoulders, belted it and had to resist the urge to wrap his fingers in the ends, pull her to him and hold her tightly against his heart. “You’re going to need to snap out of it soon, anyway. With Chloe and Gen running Tea Leaves, you know Chloe will be having topless male waiters serve the tea so she can sexually harass your employees.”
Something stirred in her gaze and he picked up on it as if she’d spoken. His heart lifted at even this minimalist form of communication.
“Chloe is doing fine. I’ve had Mac and Violet checking on her daily. Her parents came into town as well. He broke her arm and leg, knocked a couple teeth out. She lost a good bit of blood from the stab wound in her side, but fortunately he didn’t hit any vital organs.”
He didn’t want to tell her all that but knew he had to. She would want honesty, not vague generalities. “Most of her injuries were because she fought him like a Green Beret to keep him away from Natalie. I don’t think her own mother would have fought any harder. He had to beat her unconscious to get away.
“Now, stop,” he reproved, sliding the robe back off her shoulders and replacing it with a comfortable sundress that dropped over her hips easily. Too easily. She’d already been thin. Over a week without more than a few mouthfuls of food and enough water to keep her hydrated wasn’t enough to keep her nourished. He knew it was past time to consider an IV and more in-depth psychiatric care. He couldn’t help but remember Komal’s reference during her last visit to those who never came out of a trauma or breakdown like this. People who were quietly cared for in expensive, private facilities where they received everything they could need and nothing they cared about, a lifetime as mannequins.
He pushed the thoughts away. It was too early to think like that. This was a woman who made subs long for the privilege of scarring them with permanent burns. Who had given him a run for his money in tennis. Had nearly put a fork through his fingers when he pushed her too far. Who had jumped off a building to save a child.
“Natalie’s mother is going to blame you for a while. And the police department here, or the prison that was holding your father. Even Chloe. Anyone within range of her thoughts, because she almost lost her little girl. But it’s not your fault, not any of it. I know you think if you’d died when you were fourteen, none of this would have happened.” His throat closed at the flicker of acknowledgement, agreement even, in her face. “But that’s total bullshit and I won’t tolerate it.” He closed his eyes, took a breath, resumed in a more even tone. “Let’s look at it this way. Say you died with your mother and brother. Your dad might or might not have gone free without your testimony, but then or now he would be out there, his mind twisted. He would have struck again. Something would have snapped him. A waitress that looked like his mother, or the general humidity level or the Dow. And he would have killed or raped.
“But you stopped him. It began and ended with you. You ended it. And now you’ve earned the right to heal, love and live. You earned it a long time ago, a million times over. So I don’t want to hear you worry about it any more.” He arranged Sarah’s necklace on her, straightening the interlocked ring and cross. “We have a wedding to plan and I’m not doing it all myself. In fact, I think there’s a law that requires the woman to handle all of it. The man just shows up.”
“Never said…I’d marry you.”
The tone, sullen and faraway, made him want to turn cartwheels, but he took her hand as if they’d been carrying on a two-way conversation all along, his only reaction a tremor that ran through his fingers, which he covered by tightening his grip on her.
“But you will. Because you love me.”
“Talk too much.” She closed her eyes. “Never shut up. Tired. Sleep.”
“Food first,” he said firmly, then couldn’t stop himself from holding her to him a moment. He kept his touch tender when he wanted to crush her, shake her. Beg her to talk some more.
He took her downstairs, coaxed her into an unsatisfying handful of bites. He was sure Sarah was cooking nine or ten different dishes for each meal, anything to coax out her appetite. Just nothing—
“Oh, holy Christ.” He almost smacked himself in the head for his stupidity. “Marguerite?” He took her hand. She was nodding off in the chair, inflicting sleep on herself to escape again. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
Her eyes opened, a glimmer of interest. After a quick call to Sarah he found that he had three types, all ones Marguerite had brought to his house for him to try. In short order, Sarah had steeped and brought him a cup of each. He spaced them before her as he’d seen her do at her own shop when she drank from several in succession, trying the different flavors on her tongue.
She studied them, reached out, touched them, moved them, changed their arrangement on the table, making their relationship a more widely spaced triangle. Picking up the middle one with her functioning right hand, she started to bring it to her lips. She hadn’t eaten enough and she was normally left-handed. Her hand started to shake. Leaning forward, Tyler steadied it with his own and moved with her to bring it to her lips. It touched briefly, a quick sip. Her eyes looked up at him then down as she drank some more. He could tell her hand was tired, so he pulled over a chair and sat next to her. Slid his arm around her so she could lay her head carefully on his shoulder as she continued to take sips. Both his hands were clasped under hers, cupping them and the teacup, giving her the extra strength. He noticed the cup’s heat and his heat were warming her fingers somewhat.
“Japanese tea ceremonies, cha-no-yu…”
Her voice drifted off, and he coaxed her back. “What about them? Talk to me, angel.”
“During…the cha-no-yu… You do things a certain way, behave a certain way. Make the outside world quiet…contemplate… Stupid things. The way a flower grows.” Her throat was rusty with disuse and she was quiet for another moment while he waited, trying not to press. “Only it’s not stupid. It’s beautiful. Simple and perfect. Why can’t we be like that…”
“You’re like that to me,” he said at last. “I could sit and watch you do nothing for hours except sit in my garden. With the flowers. With that perfection.” He fished out a handkerchief, took it to her eyes as he saw a tear fall into the bowl of the cup.
“Not.” She sniffed. “Only if I was naked. You’d get bored otherwise.”
“You being naked would be a lovely perk, but you’re wrong. I would spend my entire life looking at you. Clothed or not clothed. I want to, remember?”
She closed her eyes, her face adjusting carefully to burrow into his neck. As her hand lowered, he helped her ease the cup back to the table. “You never give up.”
“No. I don’t. Not on you.”
“You should. Just let me die, Tyler. I’m so tired.”
Fear crawled inside him. The anger that was so close to the surface ripped at him with rabid teeth, but he managed to rein back the reaction. Lifting her from him, still supporting her, he curved his hand around her delicate jaw, his finger teasing her lips, bringing her eyes up to him. “Not going to happen. So stop pouting about it and get over it. I love you and you’re stuck with me. You sleep as much as you need to, until you’re no longer tired. Awake or asleep, I’m here with you.”
A sigh went out of her. Her blue eyes drifted closed, the lids com
ing down over that distant, sad look, but he thought for a moment he saw a reaction of aggression. Defiance. But then she was gone, her breath even, telling him she’d left him again.
The desolation swept him, but he fought it. She’d spoken.
To tell him she wanted to die.
He lifted her, carried her to the sofa in the sunroom. He spent the rest of the afternoon watching over her slumber, doing paperwork, watching TV, reading. Trying not to lose his mind and roar his frustration.
Chapter Nineteen
“Mr. Winterman? There’s a gentleman at the door for you. Well, actually he says he’s here for Miss Marguerite.”
Tyler left Robert watching over Marguerite and was surprised to find Brendan standing in his foyer. He wore jeans and a crisp shirt, his hair styled well. Every inch of him the late twenty-something professional, the pretty-boy type with a great body, the kind of looks that would make a woman run through a stoplight and create a four-car pile up to gawp at his ass if he was walking down the sidewalk.
He was a beautiful man, a man who carried Marguerite’s brand. Tyler was all too cognizant of that as he turned from his contemplation of the vaulted ceiling, the artwork. “Master Tyler. You have a beautiful place here.”
“Brendan. It’s a long drive, unannounced.”
“I thought I could make a better case in person. It’s going around The Zone, what Mistress Marguerite did. I want to help. I thought I could help, in some way.”
“How?” Tyler asked bluntly.
“Her name was on the news. Everyone knows she saved the little girl and the kidnapper was a man named Peninski, a released convict.” Brendan met Tyler’s gaze. “Do you believe in Fate?”
Tyler blinked, once. “I met Marguerite. So yes, I do. Not to be rude, Brendan, but…”
“You don’t have time or patience for small talk.” Relief crossed Brendan’s his features. “It saves me from having to make it. Let me get to the point, then. When I was six years old, my parents were killed in a car wreck. I was placed in an orphanage. There was a girl there named Marie Peninski.”