"I’m sorry, I have no right to ask it. I mean, I’m not asking you to fall in love with my friend. How absurd—"
"Not at all absurd, actually. Indeed, I find him most attractive. Easy to like, be in company with, talk to."
Blake laughed. "He won’t thank you for that. The last thing Michael ever did was talk to women. Oh, not that he was an oppressor of females. He just seldom had time, and found most of them dull."
"Well, that’s all about to change," Bryony said firmly, all she had learned about Michael Avenel making him more fascinating to her than ever, and rendering her even more determined to help him recover.
Blake’s eyes shone as he looked at the determined young woman's set jaw. "Yes, I have a feeling they might just do that after all."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Michael and Bryony stayed with the Sandersons for a little over a week, until the boys were feeling much better and Gavin’s eyesight gradually began to return.
The time passed quickly, with Bryony spending all of her time with Michael and the boys whilst Blake worked with all his patients in his rapidly growing practice.
Arabella did her many chores, shopped in Bath for new clothes and personal items for her house guests, and kept out of the way. Both the doctor and his wife hoped against hope that their romantic notions for Michael’s happiness would become reality.
Bryony allowed herself to be pampered by Michael simply because she could see it helped take his mind off his own predicament. He was constantly sending for food and drink to build them all up. He read to her as she drowsed by the fire, the boys with their heads in her lap. He carried them back and forth to bed and even stroked her brow as she fell asleep.
They had taken a small room near his in order to avoid climbing the stairs with the children, and because Bryony wanted to be near Michael when he had his nightmares.
If Blake and Arabella knew she was going to him in the night, they never said a word.
Michael might have suspected, if only because she was so sleepy in the day after being awakened as often as three times a night. But she didn’t want anything to diminish the friendship which was growing between them, or shame him any more than he felt he already had been in front of her, by mentioning his night terrors, and the way she would embrace and soothe him whenever he was in the throes of one, until he finally quietened back into a normal sleep.
The affection Michael had never got to explore in the past now came to the fore. Bryony’s sons lapped up the attention like kittens drinking cream. She couldn’t believe how a man so huge could be so tender. He was so gallant towards her she felt like the most prominent Society belle once more.
What a contrast there was between he and her former husband. Even in the throes of Michael’s worst nightmares he was never cruel, though she had been bruised on one or two occasions by him striking her hand away or gripping her powerfully. But those had been simple accidents. Her husband’s blows had all been intentional....
Gradually Bryony began to discover the touches Michael would respond to calmly, and by the end of that week the nightmares began to diminish in frequency, duration and intensity.
He never woke, though he did begin to explore her body, stroking down her shoulders, arms or holding her hand, occasionally her breast. She would remain with him for a time, and then drag herself back to her own chamber, only to be called out again a couple of hours later.
On the sixth night she was so tired she just drew her new dressing gown around her more tightly and slept in the chair by his side.
She awoke just before dawn with a start. With a last warm pressure of her hand she scurried from the room before he discovered her sleeping there. She was cold and stiff, but at least they had had a solid six hours or so of uninterrupted sleep.
During their waking time together, they conversed on their favourite subjects in all of their languages for practice. When Alexander Davenport and his wife Sarah came to visit, they made a formidable and entertaining foursome. Every visitor commented that they had not seen Michael looking so well-rested since he had been injured.
They could not have liked Bryony more, for all she seemed to have nothing to say about her family, or how such a well-brought up young lady had arrived so unexpectedly in his life. She was certainly a mystery they wanted to solve, but they could understand her fears. She was not the only woman in their set who had had a hard life.
On the eighth day, alone together after a conversation about where she had grown up, she noted Michael looking intently at her, and sighed.
"I can see there’s one thing you wish to talk about. As my new employer, you have the right to know more about the woman you will be harbouring under your own roof. All right, I’ll tell you. But before I do, you must promise me you won’t interfere. Promise me you won’t try to persuade me to go back. Or try to help in some way that you think is going to make things better."
"All right, I promise."
"No, you have to mean it. Really mean it. I don’t want you trying to be my white knight!" Bryony said almost desperately.
"I’ve given you my word. Please calm yourself. Surely it can’t be that bad."
"It’s as bad as you can possibly imagine."
Michael stared at her. What on earth?
He steeled himself for the worst, but even then it didn’t prepare him for the gut-wrenching terror of her next sentence.
"My husband was Damien Dalrymple, Earl of Conwy."
Michael’s jaw dropped. "My God! Demon Dalrymple!" he burst out, his emotions all too clearly etched on his handsome face.
Her laughter held no mirth, and was reminiscent of the braying of a donkey. "Would that I had know his sobriquet before we ever wed."
"Oh, Bryony. The Demon?" He shook his head pityingly.
She could feel the tears springing up as she was forced to recall things she simply did not wish to remember. Ever.
"No, please don’t ask me any questions. I can’t bear to think about it. Not now at least. It’s still too painful."
Michael ground his teeth together. He and the Demon had faced each other across the playing fields at Eton, and even as a young man he had been wild, out of control, had fought, gambled and swived his way from one end of England and Wales to the other. Never had anyone seen a more volatile and mercurial nobleman.
"How on earth—"
She shrugged. "A title covers a multitude of sins."
He was sickened. But jealous too. Damien’s reputation as a ladies’ man was prodigious by any stretch of the imagination, making him look like a virgin by comparison. He had been said to be such a proficient lover that one stroke of his hand or tongue was enough to provoke orgasm. One look even, if the story about Rosalie Stanton at the New Year’s Ball five years ago was true. Not to mention the more lively sexual escapades he was said to have engaged it.
Bryony looked so timid and untouched, but he had seen flashes of boldness, knew she was not as naive as she appeared to be. My God, if even one half of what he had heard were true....
His head swam with desire, and a burning need to bash the man’s face in. Michael knew he had renounced violence and killing, but he would gladly have broken all his good resolutions to throttle the swine for what he had evidently done to this poor girl.
Bryony could see what he was thinking, and the fact that it appalled as well as titillated him to know who she had been, what she had seen, what he guessed she had done.
"He’s dead now. He can’t hurt us. But his brother Derek is alive, and his mother. Father helped protect me when he was still alive. He was intelligent enough to make sure that not all of my dowry was given to Damien at once. That kept him in check for a time.
"After Papa was dead though, it all went. But at least by that stage he was no longer with us very often, and most of the time I could get him drunk enough to leave me alone. He never caught the syphilis, the clap a few times, but I was dashed lucky.
"He had an endless number of side-slips. We had a string of
women all claiming money from the estate, and I did try to give them something. It all went. It wasn’t all their fault, after all. He just had the most uncontrollable appetites, for everything."
Michael sighed. "And no moral conscience whatsoever, I seem to recall. He was the year below me at school, yet even the most senior boys were terrified of him. Hell, even the masters were. He always stopped just short of expulsion."
He shook his head, recalling with a shudder one eighteen-year old who had been beaten within an inch of his life by the six-foot tall fourteen year old.
"He adored violence. He would have joined the Army were it not for the fact he had to leave all of the comforts of home. And what comforts they were. Women by the score, everything on a silver platter, though by the time we wed they were penniless, as I discovered too late once we were irrevocably bound, and I was locked in the house to ensure I didn't tell my parents we had been tricked."
"Oh, Bryony—"
She held up her hand, commanding silence. "Once my money was gone and his estate depleted, he had to move on to greener pastures in order to indulge himself. He was trying to kill me before he died," she revealed her voice surprisingly steady considering the enormity of it all.
Michael's jaw dropped. When he was finally able to speak, his words came out as an appalled whisper. "Oh God, no! Are you sure?"
She nodded. "A patch of wet floor polish at the top of the stairs, a loose set of floorboards outside my room. Some falling masonry at the front of the house when he took me out for a walk. We never went out for walks. I’m sure his brother was helping him, even his mother. She was a cold-hearted but passionate woman who took several of the young local lads as her lovers and kept them like trained ponies. She never did anything to hold her sons in check."
She shook her head. "They were all debauched, and excused their excesses on high animal spirits. I say they never tried to check their innate evil. I pray I shall be able to raise my sons to be good men. That nurture will win out over nature. It terrifies me to think they might—"
"They won’t! They’re lovely children, devoted, kind, not naughty at all. Not evil," he insisted, shaking his head.
She shuddered. "Yes, but how long can I keep them like that? If Derek ever finds them—"
"He won’t, I swear," Michael vowed.
She gazed at him earnestly. "He will. It’s only a matter of time and his degree of desperation. Darren is the heir, and I am his sole guardian. There's little enough left, of course. I can sell parcels of the land to keep the place running, but it certainly won't be They can’t do anything other than try to badger the solicitors for relief. They will not give it. He can marry a rich heiress, but if he married me he could have control of everything, and then kill me."
He shook his head. "But to marry your brother’s widow is illegal!"
"The law isn’t always enforced with regard to aristocratic concerns. Besides, the law would never stop him. Nothing stops any of them when they want what they want."
"How did your husband die?" Michael asked, feeling more chilled to the bone than he ever had in his life.
She gave him a long look. "I know what you’re thinking. But no, I didn’t snap one day and fight back. I might respect myself more if I had.
"No, a tree fell on him in a storm. A storm not unlike the one we met in. I’m told he suffered for days before he died. I didn’t go to him. I was so relieved I thought I might laugh in his face, spit at him. So I pretended I was prostrate with grief and bided my time.
"But when Derek stared to make advances to me to the point where I had to lock myself in my room, and then he tried to separate me from the boys when I refused to give in to him, I ran for our lives."
"My God, Bryony." He shook his head pityingly.
"I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, Michael," she insisted, her tone bitter. "I just want you to know why I can’t go back. Also that, well, I’m as damaged and crippled as you are."
He had been about to take her hand, but now scowled furiously and began to wheel away from the sofa.
"Just the thought of any man having power over me like that again is almost too much to even bear. I don’t fear you. Not because you’re in that chair, but because you’re a decent man. You’ve told me that you too were a ladies’ man like my former husband. But you would never take anything by force. You would never deliberately set out to hurt and debauch innocents.
"I’m sorry if I embarrassed you the other day. I don’t know what came over me. I suppose it’s because you and I were alone, and I’ve never met a man like you, so handsome and kind. I guess I was, well, flirting. I wanted to feel attractive, pretty even, in front of a normal decent man. I didn’t want you to be disgusted by me.
"I’m sorry. It was unworthy of me. It won’t happen again. I give you my word you won’t regret hiring me, taking me into your home."
He had no idea how she could ever think herself disgusting or unlovely. Or him normal and decent. But his emotions and desires were far too close to the surface. After what she had told him about her hellish marriage, he did not dare touch her, compliment her. "But you are Lady Bryony Dalrymple. How can you—"
"Rhiannon, actually. Bryony is my middle name. My mother’s maiden name was Wells. It will do for me. The title and estate mean nothing. None of it. Please believe me, Michael. I would rather sweep the streets for an honest day’s pay than ever see that castle or its occupants again."
Bryony rose from the sofa. "And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to lie down for a while."
She was exhausted, and longed for his arms around her. But after what she had revealed, she could she he hardly dared touch her.
Lord in Heaven. Married to the Demon.
Despite all of Bryony’s feminine softness she had to be made of tempered steel to have survive marriage to such a man for almost six years.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After Bryony’s remarkable revelation as to her past life before they had met, Michael was even more tenderly solicitous of her than before, though more aloof too, drawing back from any accidental or purposeful touches.
His new attitude both moved and saddened her. She was more than grateful to him for all his kindness, and did not want him to think she feared him.
But to breach the distance which had sprung up was equally difficult, not to mention unwise. He might need a woman in his life, but she was no fool.
On the one hand, she longed for him desperately, as a woman would her beloved. On the other hand, a relationship with him as anything other than master and servant would bring with it a whole new set of problems she wasn’t sure she knew how to cope with. She had the feeling that in some ways Michael would be even more uncontrollable than her husband had been.
No, she longed for him with every nerve and fibre of her being, but she simply could not risk everything and end up hurt, pregnant, or worse.
So they confined themselves to safe, neutral topics, played chess and cards, and tried not to be left alone with each other too much thereafter.
A few days after her revelations, Michael decided it was time to test his resolve, see if he could do the noble thing and treat Bryony like the fine lady she was without giving in to his more base desires. He informed her one morning to start packing, that it was time for them to head back to his house in Bath. All three patients were doing well, and he had prevailed upon Blake and his wife far too long.
Or so he told them. Inwardly he was impatient to get them home and settled. To have his things around him once more and not have to fear him imposing on his friends by shouting the place down in the middle of the night. No one had said anything, but he knew....
So Bryony packed quickly, taking care of his things first despite his protests, then getting the boys to help her with their new wardrobes, books and toys they had been showered with by everyone who had heard about how Michael had saved them.
"Thank you so much for all you’ve done for us," Bryony said, giving Arabella a warm
hug in the foyer of the house as they made ready to depart.
"Don’t mention it. Our pleasure."
"We’ll come visit you soon," Blake promised.
"I hope so. In the meantime, if I can ever get him to go again to take the waters, I’ll be a happy woman."
"I have every faith you shall," Blake said with a conspiratorial wink. "Without meaning to be too forward, if you can’t motivate him to get well, no one can."
With many waves goodbye, the four of them set off, and soon found themselves at the snug, modest stone-built eighteenth century house on the outskirts of Bath. It was quite quaint, set back from the road a short distance up a small steep winding path. The coach pulled in at the stable block at the back.
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