The Hidden Years

by Penny Jordan

  Edward… She could feel her mind fighting to get away from even thinking about her husband, her body clenching with fear and misery at the mere thought of being with him, and yet what else could she do? How could she leave him now when his need of her would be so great? It wasn't a matter of being concerned about what others might think—it was what she would think of herself if she abandoned him now, turned her back on him now…

  'I'll go downstairs for that milk,' Lewis told her softly, 'Don't you dare move from this bed, and that's not coming from me, it's coming from that doctor of yours.'

  As he stood up she turned her head, revealing more swollen, dark bruises along her throat.

  A feeling of such pain and rage welled up inside him that he knew that if Edward were there in the room with them, despite his infirmities he would probably have slowly strangled him. How could he have done this to her, hurt her like this…?

  Almost without realising what he was doing he reached out and gently traced the dark marks with his fingertips, and then, when she shuddered and closed her eyes, he bent his head and tenderly pressed his lips to each individual bruise. When she trembled, he released her and stood up, watching her for a moment before saying quietly, 'I'd better go down and heat that milk.'

  After he'd gone Liz told herself that just as soon as he came back she'd tell him that he must leave, but her fingers strayed to her throat, touching the bruises he had kissed, and her body quivered with sensations that drowned out logic and common sense.

  There were so many things she ought to be doing. It was foolish of her to stay here like this in bed when she ought to be up, and yet her body felt so drained, so weak and exhausted. She closed her eyes, telling herself that she would just rest until she had had her milk and that then she would get up and ask Lewis to leave, but when he eventually arrived with the milk he had heated for her she was fast asleep.

  He watched her for a moment and then put down the tray. Somehow there had to be a way of convincing her that there was no debt she owed Edward. Somehow… and he would find it, because when he left England to return home he was taking her and David with him and nothing was going to stop him. Nothing.

  Liz was dreaming. In her dream she was in her garden, the sun was shining and she was warm and relaxed, and then suddenly a shadow started to creep over the sun, obliterating the light. She looked up towards it, her happiness giving way to fear as she saw that the shadow was that of Edward, her husband, who was coming towards her with such a look of hatred in his eyes that she cried out to him not to come any closer, but he wouldn't stop, he was reaching out towards her and she couldn't move, even though she knew that once he took hold of her he would hurt her, kill her even… Already she could almost feel the bite of those hard fingers against her skin, already she could almost feel their pressure on her throat, already…

  Lewis had fallen asleep in the chair. Her first low cry of fear woke him, so that he was already stumbling stiffly towards the bed as she started to cry, smothering the high, frantic sound against his own body as he took hold of her and half lifted and half dragged her from the bedclothes and into his arms, soothing her, rocking her in his embrace as he held her to him with one arm, and pressed her face against his shoulder with the hand of the other, his fingers splayed out beneath her hair as he cradled her head and whispered soft, reassuring words in her ear.

  The relief of discovering that she had been having a nightmare and that Edward was not actually there overwhelmed any instincts of caution and restraint which might have urged her to think beyond the present to the future.

  As she trembled in Lewis's arms and felt the tender comfort of his lips caressing first her temple and then her cheek, she turned towards him.

  'Liz.'

  She felt the emotion in his voice, deep within her body. She shouldn't be doing this… Shouldn't be here with him like this… But already it was too late, already he was kissing her, caressing her mouth with his so that her lips parted helplessly beneath the pressure of his.

  For a long time he did nothing more than kiss her, but they were kisses unlike any she had ever known, kisses which she hadn't even realised could exist, kisses which were a whole world of intimacy in themselves. Kisses which turned her bones to water, and her senses to a mindless confusion of delight while she responded to them as helplessly and innocently as though he were her first lover. Which in reality he was.

  There was no rush, no hurry, no impatience in the way he touched her, and then watched her as he saw the wonder of what was happening to her reflected in her eyes.

  He undressed her carefully and tenderly, kissing the soft flesh of her throat, each swollen bruise, and then the pulse that was beating so frantically fast at its base.

  The room was in darkness, her body cloaked in shadows so that he had to learn her by touch and not by sight.

  He felt her tension when he touched her naked skin, and the intensity of his own anger and compassion held him motionless.

  'There's nothing to be afraid of,' he told her rawly. 'I'm not going to hurt you.'

  'I know,' Liz told him. Her throat was so sore that to speak was an effort. 'I'm not afraid of that…just of disappointing you.'

  It had cost her so much to make the admission. She closed her eyes, half afraid to look at him. She shouldn't be doing this… shouldn't be here with him like this. She was Edward's wife… Edward's, and yet she knew that if Lewis left her now she would die from the pain of it.

  'You couldn't disappoint me,' Lewis told her, swallowing back his compassion, his anger against the man who had made her feel that she was responsible for his inadequacy.

  'I love you,' he told her. 'And you love me, and nothing, nothing is more important than that…'

  He loved her… She loved him… These were forbidden words, forbidden emotions, and yet, as he removed his own clothes, and she felt the heat of him, felt the scent of him enveloping her, she reached up to him, watching him with tentative anxious eyes.

  'It's all right,' he told her softly. 'Everything's going to be all right.'

  And then he was holding her so that they were lying body to body and she recognised in wonder and bemusement how much her flesh had yearned for this tactile mating with his, how much her skin welcomed the heavy warmth of his body, its muscled hardness, its weight and its power. Every tiny movement he made against her created such an erotic friction that she could hardly believe she was actually experiencing such sensations.

  Her need to reach out and touch him, to stroke her fingertips over his skin, to taste its warmth and maleness, to explore its alien contours, was so strong and so unexpected that she made a small sound of protest against it in her throat.

  'What is it—what's wrong?' Lewis asked her anxiously.

  'I want to touch you. To feel, to know…' She could hear the confusion and bewilderment in her voice and knew that Lewis could hear it too.

  'I hadn't realised. I didn't know…'

  She heard Lewis saying huskily, 'Give me your hands,' and almost like a child she obediently did so, shivering with pleasure when he placed them against his skin and told her, 'I'm yours, Liz. You can touch me however and wherever you wish. If my heart doesn't have any secrets from you, why should my body?'

  He was touching her as he spoke, his hands caressing her shoulders and then her breasts, his touch so tender, so full of love that it was impossible for her not to respond, not to arch her body and to press herself closer to him. The sound he stifled in his throat made her tense a little as her body recognised his arousal and shied away from it, remembering Kit's possession of her. But Lewis wasn't Kit. Lewis's touch wasn't Kit's. Lewis's loving wasn't Kit's lust and long before his mouth had touched the sensitive flesh of her nipples her stomach had turned fluid with longing and need and her body was twisting recklessly, pleadingly against his, while her hands moved yearningly over his body, seeking to convey to him how much she needed him.

  When he did draw the tender, sensitive hardness of her nipple into his mou
th to stroke it with his tongue and then suckle on it, her body arched convulsively beneath his hands, her soft cries of pleasure inciting him to bite passionately on the swollen flesh as she was pressing eagerly against him, as her whole body moved against his in a rhythmic eroticism of which she was completely unaware.

  As he struggled to control his own desire, Lewis marvelled that she could ever have believed herself to be lacking in sexuality. Her body, innocent and untutored in terms of experience, possessed an awareness and instinct that had caused him to become so intensely aroused that he wanted to devour her inch by inch, to touch and taste every silky particle of skin, to possess her so completely that her body would never forget him.

  When he finally released her she lay in his arms, shuddering from head to foot, her nipples gleaming damply in the shadowy light, so sensitive now that merely to feel his breath against them caused her to moan his name in protest and reach out blindly for him.

  But as though she had actually said the words, made the plea that was pulsing so fiercely through her body, he said thickly, 'No, not yet, my darling… Just be patient, and I promise you…' He was kissing her stomach, his mouth open and moist as he dragged it over her flesh. His hands held her thighs, moving her, lifting her, her senses so overwhelmed and bemused, so hungry for his total possession that she had no awareness of what he intended to do until she felt the warmth of his breath against the most intimate part of her body.

  She tensed immediately, but still had no awareness of what he intended to do; her own experience fell very far short of such intimacy, so that the sensation of his tongue moving, stroking firmly and deliberately against her body was doubly shocking. Shocking because beneath that first sensation of reaction and withdrawal lay a far different and more compelling feeling; a need not merely to lie tensely and still and force herself to accept what he was doing to her, but rather a need to move with voluptuous encouragement, to incite and invite the deeper penetration of her flesh, to have his mouth caressing her now as he had done before when he had drawn first one and then the other nipple into his moist heat, when he had first sucked and then bitten so erotically on her flesh.

  She started to cry out in denial of her own feelings, and then discovered that she was crying out instead because Lewis had put her unspoken wishes into practice and because the sensation he was causing within her body both excited and terrified her, so that she both wanted to beg him to stop and at the same time to plead with him never, ever to cease what he was doing to her.

  As she struggled to hold on to reason her body defied her, the sensation building up inside her, driving her, possessing her, obliterating everything else.

  The unbearable tension within her body, the intensity of her physical need, were things she could barely comprehend, crying out to Lewis that they were something she just could not endure, even as the fine-drawn threads of desire snapped, setting her free to fly beyond the barriers of mortality, and then to float there lapped in the warm, soft darkness of completion.

  Her body was trembling with reaction and shock when Lewis took her in his arms, tenderly stroking her skin, whispering words of praise and love to her.

  'But you didn't… we didn't…'

  'We will,' he told her gently. 'When you're ready.'

  When she was ready… He was turning her in his arms, curving her into the warmth of his body, and as she felt its male arousal a tiny frisson of responsive sensation danced through her.

  'When you're ready,' Lewis had said.

  She looked at him and said huskily, 'I think… I think I shall be ready very soon. In fact I think…' She stopped abruptly as he started to kiss her and she discovered that that earlier tiny frisson of sensation had become much stronger, so much stronger in fact that she was already moving eagerly against him, wanting him, needing him, inviting him…

  This time she knew what to expect; this time, her body, tutored by his tenderness and love, meshed rhythmically with his so that the sensation building inside her was something reinforced and shared with the growing urgency of his body's movements within her.

  The sensation was the same but different, deeper, so that her whole body seemed to sigh with pleasure and open to him as though it wanted to draw him within it so deeply and intimately that her flesh would have the memory of him imprinted within it long, long after he had gone.

  Later, when she had cried out her love to him and their bodies were at peace, he turned to her, tensing when he saw the tears glittering in her eyes.

  'I'm sorry. I'm sorry,' he whispered, holding her, anguish making his voice harsh. 'If I hurt you—'

  'You didn't,' she assured him. 'It's just… just that I never knew it could be like that… Once as a girl I thought, believed… but then Kit, David's father—'

  She stopped as he took hold of her hand and kissed the pulse that beat in her wrist and then slowly and tenderly kissed each finger.

  'It was the same for me,' he told her. 'That's the difference that love makes. It transforms the base metal of our desire into the pure brilliance of gold; takes us from our mortal plane to one that's higher.'

  They made love again, slowly, lingeringly, and this time Liz took the initiative, caressing him as intimately as he had done her, tentatively at first and then more surely when she saw how much she was pleasing him.

  She woke up early, well before dawn, turning to study his sleeping form in the shadows of her room, taking each memory to her to cherish, knowing they would be all she could keep of him, knowing she could not allow it to continue no matter how much her heart might cry out that it needed him, that it would die without him.

  She woke up again just after dawn to find herself held securely in his arms. He was already awake watching her.

  'I love you,' he told her, kissing her tenderly. 'I love you more than I believed I would ever love anyone. You're mine, Liz, and when I go back to Woolonga you and David are coming with me.'

  She tensed in his arms, 'I can't—'

  'You can and you shall,' he contradicted her, telling her, 'You can't stay with Edward now. Not after what he tried to do to you. No one would expect it.' He just managed to stop himself saying what was in his heart, and that was that Edward was either criminally or emotionally insane and that, that being the case, he should be locked away for his own good as well as that of the rest of humanity.

  'The man's dangerous, Liz,' he told her. 'He could have killed you. No court would oppose granting you a divorce once they knew what he'd tried to do.'

  A divorce… The word chilled her, shocking her back to reality.

  'I'll have to go and see him. I can't just leave him there…'

  She felt so confused, so unsure of herself—her heart, her body, her senses all urged her to do what Lewis was suggesting. Edward had changed—yesterday he had really frightened her. She had looked into his eyes and seen that he did actually want to kill her. But she was his wife. His wife…

  And Lewis was her lover!

  'I'm not letting you stay with him, Liz,' Lewis told her later as he gathered up his clothes. 'You love me.'

  It was true, she acknowledged when Lewis had gone to the bathroom. She did love him, she wanted to be with him more than anything else in the world, and yet the thought of Edward and what would happen to him if she divorced him haunted her.

  Lewis wanted her to stay in bed, at least until Ian Holmes had been to see her, but she refused, insisting on getting up.

  The bruises round her throat looked even worse this morning. Her throat itself was still sore, raw and painful inside, so that she couldn't eat, and could in fact barely swallow the coffee Chivers brought them. Did he suspect that Lewis had done more than keep watchful vigil beside her bed last night? Liz wondered. She felt guilty in testing Chivers's loyalty to Edward.

  Ian arrived just as they were finishing breakfast. As he greeted her Liz wondered if what had happened was visible to him in her eyes. She now felt no sense of guilt in physically loving Lewis. Her body was, after all, her own
, as was her love.

  Maybe, but her fidelity, her duty as a wife…those belonged to Edward. She bit her lip, no longer wanting to listen to her own conscience.

  'How…how is Edward?' she asked Ian nervously.

  'Heavily sedated and full of remorse… He's been asking for you,' he told her gently.

  'Why?' Lewis intervened bitterly. 'So that he can have another go at murdering her? Look at her… look at her throat, man. Look at what he's already done to her.'

  'I'm sorry, Liz. I should have asked you how you're feeling,' Ian apologised, ignoring Lewis's bitter comments.

  'I'm fine. My throat's a bit sore, but Edward… How is he, really, Ian? Does he—?'

  'Physically he's fine, but mentally… Well, you know how he feels about being away from here. He wants to see you, Liz… He needs to see you, really. You needn't be afraid… I'll be with you, and as I said he is very heavily sedated…'

  She was biting down hard on her bottom lip, wanting to tell him that she couldn't bear the thought of ever seeing Edward again, that she wanted to shut him completely out of her mind, that she wanted to turn her back on him and walk away from the shadows of her life with him so that she could live in the sunshine and warmth of Lewis's love, but she knew that the words could not be said, that if nothing else she at least owed it to Edward to go and see him. And besides she was concerned about him, despite what he had done to her.

  At her side Lewis made a small movement towards her. She could feel his concern, his love reaching out to enfold and protect her.

  Lewis was a gentle man, a tender, caring man; she had known that when he'd told her about his dead wife and child, and had had that knowledge reinforced last night when he'd made love to her. With Lewis she would be loved and protected, cherished and adored, with Lewis she would be truly fulfilled as a woman, for the first time in her life. Didn't she have the right as a human being to reach out and take what Lewis, what life was offering her? Why would fate have sent him into her life in the first place if it only intended to part them again?