Wescott cursed under his breath and threw on the shirt he handed him. By the time he got across the hall, Rochelle was trembling in her night clothes and cap outside his wife’s room.
“My lord, I tried to calm her, but she pushed me away and screamed in fear. Whatever is the matter?”
“Damned if I know. Come with me.”
Ophelia screamed again as they entered, a sustained, ear-piercing wail that would almost have been musical, if it wasn’t so awful. There was no one in the room with her, no specter or marauder, no villain making her scream for her life. She was asleep, caught in the throes of a nightmare.
He’d seen her this way before.
“Shall I call the physician?” Rochelle asked.
“No. She’s dreaming of the fire again. Bring some cool water and a cloth.”
While the maid hurried to comply, he strode to Ophelia’s side and tried to wake her, but she was seized hard in the nightmare’s grasp. It was frightening, and frustrating, to see her suffer so. He sat on the bed and pulled her against him, settling her tossing head upon his shoulder.
“You’re dreaming,” he said, repeating it as if she could hear him. “You’re dreaming, you’re dreaming. You’re dreaming, little crosspatch. You must wake.”
Rochelle bathed her forehead and cheeks with a cool cloth, though Ophelia struggled against the contact as if it were fire itself. She let out another scream, trembling in terrified spasms. The depth of her fear took Wescott’s breath away.
“Why won’t she wake, my lord?” the maid asked.
“She’s a deep dreamer.” He held her so she wouldn’t throw herself from the bed. Finally, when he called her name loudly, she shook off the nightmare and regained her waking faculties. She was still afraid though, still gasping for breath.
“There’s a fire,” she said, struggling to get away from him. “A fire. We must go, quickly!”
“There’s no fire. You’re safe in bed, in your room at Wescott Abbey.”
“I made the fire. It shot from my fingers and everyone is angry with me.” She grasped his arms hard, willing him to believe. “I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it. It burned me too.” She drew her hands forward to show him, then turned them over, staring in confusion. “The fire burned me and I lost control of it. It chased me when I tried to push it away.”
“You haven’t started any fires. Nothing’s chasing you, love. You had a dream.”
Rochelle produced a cool glass of water and he held it to Ophelia’s lips. She could barely drink from shivering.
“Is she ill, my lord?” asked the maid fretfully. “Perhaps she caught an ague on the trip, at one of the staging inns.”
“We didn’t stop on the trip. She’s got no fever, and she has energy enough to fight me. She’s merely overtired.” He was doing his best to present a facade of capability in front of the servants. “Are you awake now?” he asked his wife, looking into her eyes. Her gaze still darted about the room, fixing fearfully on the candles and the dying fire.
“Shall I bring more light, my lord?” asked Rochelle. “I can send a footman for lamps right away.”
“No. In fact, extinguish the candles for now. There’s enough light from the fire. Close the screen upon the hearth, if you would.”
The maid pulled the sides of the fire screen together, blocking the flames from view. All they really needed was the heat.
“You may go,” he told Rochelle when she finished. “Get some rest so you can care for your mistress tomorrow. I’ll stay with her through the night.”
“Yes, my lord.”
As soon as he climbed into bed beside her, his wife protested. “No, please. I’m too afraid of that. I don’t want you to—”
“I won’t, if you don’t wish it.” A flush burned his cheeks. Humiliating, for the maid to hear this exchange. “I’ll only lie next to you, Ophelia. Good night, Rochelle,” he said pointedly, as the maid dawdled on her way to the door. The servant was clearly the loyal sort, which pleased him, although at the moment, he wanted her gone. Not because he intended to mistreat his wife, but because he didn’t want servants gossiping about her disdain for him.
“You...you needn’t stay,” Ophelia repeated.
She wasn’t happy for his company, but he slid beneath her covers anyway and pulled her into his arms, so her cheek rested against his chest.
“There, see now,” he said soothingly. “We’ll only talk together until you’ve forgotten your nightmare and start feeling better.”
“I’m better now.”
“Hush, little liar. You’re trembling like a leaf in a storm.”
“I’m not a liar.”
“I say you are. Be still. Take some calming breaths.”
He cradled her against him and stroked her arm, up and down, up and down. She began to settle in stages when it became obvious a seduction was not at play. Her trembling stopped, her breath slowed, and she finally allowed herself to go slack against him as she had earlier in the carriage.
This time, though, exhaustion would not carry her away. Her fingers worked nervously at his shirt’s sleeves, and she kept glancing about the room.
“You must be so angry with me,” she said.
“Why?”
“I didn’t mean to start the fire. It came from my fingers. Wherever I touched, things burst into flame.”
He looked down at her. “Are you still dreaming?”
She stared at her hands, bewildered. “I don’t mean to be so awful. Oh, I wish I could be a proper lady. That’s why everything caught fire, you know.”
“Ophelia, my darling.” He wasn’t sure why he called her darling, or why he bent his head to kiss her. He told himself it was to jolt her from her confused daze, but it was her lips too, the way she pursed them when she was uncertain or troubled.
She didn’t pull away at once. For a while she responded to his kiss, bracing her arms on his shoulders. His body came alive, blood rushing to his cock, but then she came awake, truly awake, and drew her lips from his.
“I don’t want to do that,” she said. “Please.”
He sighed. “I know you don’t want to. Are you with me now?”
“Where else would I be?”
He tightened his hold on her when she tried to move away. “No. Stay here and rest, and let me hold you. You had a screaming nightmare, and then you went on and on about lighting things on fire.”
Ah, those lips. They pouted now, as if she didn’t believe him. “That’s preposterous,” she said. “I’ve never lit anything on fire in my life.”
“You were dreaming. And I promised your maid I’d stay with you, so you can’t send me away even if you don’t want to perform your marital duties. Which are duties, Ophelia. Someday you’ll have to accept me whether you wish it or not.”
“I don’t want to talk about that.” She avoided his gaze, looking down at her clasping hands. “It’s just that I feel I’m not a proper lady when I... When we...do that...thing.”
“The thing we’ve done only one time?” He took one of her hands, to still its unconscious movement. “It must have seemed very real,” he said after a few quiet moments. “Your nightmare. The fire.”
She shuddered and nodded. “I’ve dreamed about it every night since it happened. The fire starts small, and I can’t put it out, and then it’s everywhere, burning me and destroying everything, and it’s all my fault.”
“Why your fault? You didn’t start it. You were performing in the theater.”
“I know, but in my dreams, it’s always me starting it somehow.” She sighed. “I’m so tired. I’ve barely gotten any sleep the last few days.”
“We’ll have to fix that, so you don’t become even more of a crosspatch. Here, lie down with me. I’ll keep you safe from nightmares.”
He said it with confidence, but he wasn’t sure he’d be up to the challenge. Lack of sleep would explain her waspish moods, but how to take those nightmares away when the fire had changed both their lives so dramatic
ally? Was he tied up in the horror of the fire too, in her mind and in her dreams? Was that why she held him at arm’s length?
“I won’t be able to sleep,” she said, squirming against him, her head restless upon his shoulder. “I’ll dream of fire again.”
“We won’t sleep, then. Sing for me instead. I’m married to a famous singer, and I’ve never heard a note.”
“Not famous. And I can’t sing anymore. It won’t sound fine at all, so I’d rather not try.” Her voice sounded tight, like she might start crying. His poor, miserable wife.
“Let’s talk then,” he said. “Tell me about your music school in Vienna.”
She tensed in his arms, and he remembered he’d mocked her about it earlier.
“Did you enjoy your time there?” he asked, taking care that no mockery touched his voice. “It must have been difficult to get into such an exclusive school. I imagine you had excellent teachers.”
“Excellent? Yes. The very best.”
He waited for her to say more, but her expression turned brooding.
“Was there much time for leisure, outside of music?” he asked.
She shook her head. “There was only music. Good and bad music. Sometimes I was praised, but mostly I felt my efforts weren’t enough. You can never really be the best at a school like that. There were pupils from everywhere, nearly every place in the world, and all of them were talented.”
“Did you want to be the best?”
She was silent a moment. “My mother wished me to do well. She used to say my voice was a gift from God.”
“Hmm. Do you think that’s true? Do you feel God’s presence when you sing?”
“There were times I felt quite happy at school, but there were other times I wanted to tear up my music folders and come home. My Mama would have been disappointed if I’d left, though. She wished me to have a career upon the stage. She said I used to sing even as I learned to talk. Did you know I’m named for a tragic Shakespearean character?”
“I suspected you were.”
She gave another melancholy sigh. “On the way to the wedding, my father told my mother she finally got the tragedy she wanted. Mama cried and told him to be silent. He meant me, marrying you.”
Wescott’s temper bristled. “For God’s sake, you could hardly do better than me. I don’t mean that to sound rude, you know, but I’m the Duke of Arlington’s heir. I was supposed to marry the Earl of Mayhew’s daughter. Lady June was quite put out.”
“I don’t know who Lady June is. I’m sorry you weren’t able to marry her.”
“I’m sure you are.”
He regretted his snide tone at once and rested his chin on top of her head, wondering why he wasn’t inside her where he ought to be.
“Ophelia, why do you make me so cross? We’re on our honeymoon and I think you’d rather be anywhere else.”
She turned toward the window. The curtains had been tied open, revealing a bright autumn moon overlooking the gardens and fields. Her lids looked drowsy, and he wondered if she’d fall asleep right there in his arms.
“I used to think people were saying ‘honeyed moon,’” she said a moment later. “I thought they meant the time the moon looks amber, as if it’s covered in honey. Have you ever seen a moon like that?”
“I have, more than once. A honeyed moon? I like that. It’s very poetic.”
He could see his simple praise pleased her, which made him feel oddly pleased in turn. How sweet a wife she might be, if she put all her prim, shrewish nonsense aside. As he held her in his arms, images came unbidden to him, so vivid his heart thumped in his chest. Images of Ophelia as a mother, singing to a baby snuggled in her arms. Singing to their baby, her Vienna-trained voice echoing in the Abbey’s spacious nursery where generations of his forebears had been raised.
His blood rose along with his imagination. His cock went hard, and he wanted to mate with her, to make her pregnant right away. He wanted to be inside her for pleasure, for legacy. He wanted her God-given voice to cry his name when she reached her satisfaction, clinging to his shoulders. She’d done that at the inn, clung to his shoulders and writhed beneath him in bliss.
When? he thought. When can I have you again? I’m dying to be inside you.
He wanted to part her legs wide and thrust inside her, fuck her, excite her as she was exciting him, but when he looked down to tell her so, she’d fallen asleep, and he knew that, no, he could not have told her such things. She would have reacted with horror and run from the bed.
She turned her head against his chest in sleep, and he knew he must let her sleep, and let her come to him in her own time even if he felt like he was about to die.
He eased her back on her pillows and stared out at the moon. It was not a honeyed moon tonight, not amber gold and sensuous, but cold, stark, and white.
If he kissed Ophelia’s lips, would she wake? He kissed her forehead instead and lay back beside her. His body burned for her, like the fire in her screaming nightmare, but his fleeting kiss was a surrender.
I will wait, he thought, for he had no other option. I will wait as long as I can before I go mad.
Chapter Nine: Afraid
On Ophelia’s fourth day at the Abbey, after luncheon, Rochelle brought her a walking gown and told her the marquess requested her company. Her first impulse was to plead exhaustion, as she had the three previous days, but she could not hide in her rooms forever.
Instead she rose and put on the silver-gray gown Rochelle brought her, and let the maid fuss and putter over her hair. When she finished, Ophelia looked at herself in the vanity mirror. She looked awfully pale, although the gossamer silver gown flattered her eye color. She pinched her cheeks, then wondered why she bothered. The last thing she wanted was for her husband to develop a deeper attraction to her.
“Your bonnet, my lady,” said Rochelle, handing her the pale gray hat that matched her gown. “I’ve a feeling Lord Wescott wants to get you out in the sun.”
“Is it a nice day?”
“I believe so, my lady.”
Ophelia had been inside so long she didn’t know. She let Rochelle arrange the bonnet atop her loose chignon and went to meet Lord Wescott at the bottom of the sweeping staircase. He looked every inch the country peer, from his fitted navy coat to his spotless buff trousers. He’d pulled his hair back in what she’d come to think of as his “civilized” look, and held a hat between his fingers. His eyes raked over her, and she felt heat rise in her cheeks. Did he find her pretty, attired for a walk in the garden?
Did she wish him to find her pretty?
She lifted her chin as she came face to face with him, waiting on the second stair.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “How are you today?”
“Tired, my lord.”
Of course, he knew that, for he spent each night drawing her from repeated fiery nightmares. The first night, she dreamed she started the fires herself, that her hands burned everything they touched. Another night the fire came to her onstage, a flaming ball from the wings. She ran to the stage door to escape it, but this time the marquess didn’t come, or her parents, or anyone to save her. The dreams felt so real, she’d choke and gasp for air, and then the flames would envelop her, bringing unbearable pain that made her scream.
Each night, he came to her and shook her awake, and chased the flames away. Where were you? she asked the night the fire billowed from the wings. You didn’t come for me. He’d looked at her with a combination of worry and exasperation and said, I’m here.
In the mornings, she’d wake and find him still sleeping beside her. She’d study him for long moments, taking in his tawny skin and gold hair, and increasingly familiar features, fascinated, but also afraid he’d wake and demand she perform her marital duties before she got away.
Then she’d creep to her dressing room and wait for Rochelle, and by the time she washed and dressed for the day, he was always gone. Even now, in the afternoon, she could see a little of her exhaustion reflected in
his eyes.
“I hope you slept well,” she offered, ignoring the fact that neither of them had.
“I slept about as well as you did.”
She bit back the apology she knew she ought to utter. It wasn’t as if she could help her terrible dreams.
“I had an idea to walk with you about the Abbey’s grounds, since it’s such a gorgeous day,” he said. “I’d like to show you a bit more of your new home. The property is famed for its old gardens and pathways, and wind-blown fields. I thought we might enjoy a picnic, if we could find a nice spot of sun.”
The servants had prepared a basket, which he presented with a flourish. She supposed a picnic was a proper honeymoon activity, even if their honeymoon, thus far, was a failure.
“Of course, I’d enjoy seeing more of the Abbey,” she said. That was not a lie. If this was to be her home, she might as well know the ins and outs of it, if only to know where she might go to avoid him when they were in rivalrous moods.
When she offered her hand, he helped her descend the remaining stair, then led her toward the back of the main floor, to the filigreed iron doors that let out to the gardens in the back. All the Abbey was imposing stone and iron until you went outside, then nature bloomed everywhere. Before she could stop herself, she drew in an audible breath.
It was a lovely, sunny day for autumn, with just a few clouds in the sky. As they walked on to the main path, a gentle wind ruffled her gown’s sheer overlay, and the sun warmed her skin after the house’s stony chill. This was the sort of pretty day that made her want to sing as she used to, with all her heart and breath. Was that what Wescott had meant, about feeling God’s presence in her singing? The birdcalls, breezes, and sunshine summoned her voice to rise from her lungs and harmonize with nature, but she clenched her teeth against it. Why bother to sing now?
“This was my home away from home when I was a boy,” he said. “My parents’ country house is just on the other side of those woods, called Arlington Hall. It’s much grander and modern, but one could never get into mischief there without someone finding out.”
“So you got into mischief here?” She could certainly see it, if he’d been as brash and strapping when he was a lad. “Did you know the house would be yours when you were older?”
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