Ill-prepared to face Justin, she sat in an alcove to let her tears fall.
Justin ignored his aching head. He’d smacked it on the hearth when he fell, but he’d gotten the pistols, by damn. He poured the powder, dropped the ball into the muzzle and tamped it with the loading rod.
The lower library door opened and Justin raised his head, alert. Vincent offered a glass of port. A man accepted. They discussed estates and profits—his—and left the library.
Where was Faith? Lord, she must be in his room and frantic at his absence. He placed the loaded pistols in their compartments, and returned the case to its drawer. If anyone noted their absence above the mantle, they would look here…where they would be ready should Justin need them. Better here than in his room with Beth or Faith. One was too curious, the other too trusting. He patted the case of loaded pistols and shut the drawer.
In his room, he was sick with worry. Faith had not returned. Then she came in, hair tumbled, cheeks rosy. Catherine all over again. She didn’t see him in the corner as she leaned against her door, hand to her heart, eyes closing. Dreaming of his brother?
Justin rolled his chair forward with the force of his anger.
Faith jumped and opened her eyes.
He took a breath, prepared to allow her to explain.
She raised her chin but said nothing.
His anger turned to disquiet. Her eyes spoke not of pleasure, but pain. He reached for her. “Faith?”
Her composure crumbled the minute Justin’s look changed from anger to concern. When he took her on his lap, her strength disappeared and she wept.
“Dear God, dear God,” he repeated, pulling her close.
As far as she was concerned, he couldn’t hold her tight enough. She wanted to melt into him, never to be separated from him again. He rocked, stroked and soothed her. She felt so safe, she couldn’t stop the first sob, nor the next, nor the one after that.
“Shh. You will make yourself ill. Please, Sweetheart.”
Faith stilled as best she could, her sigh ragged.
Justin touched her cheek. “You’re frightening the hell out of me. Please tell me what happened.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t, she couldn’t.
“Damn it, tell me what that bastard did! Look at me,” he demanded as he raised her chin so she was forced to stare into his furious eyes. “I’ll shoot him if he hurt you. I swear I will.”
“No, Justin. It’s…all right. He didn’t…actually.”
“My God. What do you mean, not actually?”
She shook her head and hid her face in his neck once more.
Once more, he pulled her away to look at her.
She leaned against the missing chair-arm and he caught her, but her torn bodice slipped open. His hand shook as he raised it toward the four bloody scratches across her breast. He stopped short of touching her. “I’ll kill him.”
She pulled up the fabric to cover herself and looked away. “I’m so ashamed.”
“Faith, whatever happened—and it can’t be worse than my imagination—it was not your fault. I know Vincent.”
Tears clouded her vision. “Before I left, you called me Catherine. As if, as if….”
Justin shook his head. “Seeing Vincent after all this time, knowing he wanted you. I was reliving the past, afraid he would take you from me. I’m stuck in a bed or this blasted chair. I get so angry, I can’t seem to help myself.”
“That’s what Vincent said.”
“Sweet Jesus, Faith, you can’t possibly think…God, what have I done? Please, darling, I didn’t mean it, though I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness.” He rocked her in his arms.
Faith pulled from his embrace. “Justin, are those tears?”
“No.” He swallowed and pulled her back. “Ah, Faith. I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you like that, or for being so useless to you.”
She wiped his tears with her fingertips “You would never hurt me. I know that. And what happened was frightening, but I’m all right. I am. Just hold me for a while.”
“Gladly,” he said with a shaky voice. “But tell me the truth. Did Vincent hurt you?”
“Not in any way you can see.”
“Dear God!” Justin wished he could absorb Faith into himself to protect her forever. He feared the question in his mind as much as the answer. “Faith, do you know what rape is?”
“No.”
“It’s a violation.” He shuddered. “The worst kind. It’s when a man forces himself on a woman…inside her. Do you know what I’m asking?”
She couldn’t look at him. “He didn’t touch me.”
“How then did he tear your dress? Scratch you?”
She sat back and took a deep breath. “He didn’t force himself on me in the way you just said. He grabbed me and tried to kiss me. When I pushed him away…my gown tore and I got scratched.”
“The bloody bastard!”
“He was angry, frighteningly so. And he smashed things.” She explained how Vincent cornered her with the vials. “He wants you dead, Justin.”
“And he just plain wants you. You know it too now, don’t you, Faith?”
She went back into his embrace and nodded against his shirt.
He turned her in his arms and lowered the torn fabric to expose her injury. “I swear, Faith, by all that’s holy, he’ll never touch you again.” He kissed her, carefully, gently, near and around the defilement, and cleansed her soul with his touch.
He swept her so thoroughly into a world of tenderness, she forgot, for a time, the world of fear.
When she calmed—when they both did—and put the night’s horrors behind them, Justin spread salve on her cuts as tenderly as any nurse. Then he stripped her of her torn dress and dropped her nightrail over her head as efficiently as any abigail. When he tied the satin ribbons at her neck, their eyes met.
Justin cleared his throat, kissed her forehead and ordered her to bed then he covered her to her chin before he wheeled his way toward his own room.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” she asked, stopping him with her question. “You were so ill yesterday.”
“I’m fine. I brought what happened on myself with sprinkling that poison about. Then having Vincent here, knowing the threat he posed to you—”
“Me? I was worried about you.”
Justin tilted his head. “We worry about each other. An interesting arrangement. Now go to sleep. I promise you’ll not find me at death’s door on the morrow.” He came back to her bed, where she sat poised to get up, and motioned for her to lie down. She lay facing him while he tucked her in once more and kissed the tip of her nose. “You’ll not lose me, Faith.”
The castle shone gold in the sunlight, the path she walked lined with lady-slippers. Yellow buds and lush green leaves hid the thorns in the bracken.
The robed presence had flesh on his bones, his no-longer unseeing eyes were midnight blue and clear, his smile heart-quickening.
Faith opened her arms to him.
But from the depths of the black whirlpool rose anger and rage. Doom came charging forth and murder danced before them in shades of purple and black, both bearing the scents of suffering and death.
The coffin was bronze.
Faith woke crying. She ran into Justin’s room, but she couldn’t tell if he was breathing. “Justin, wake up.” She shook him. “Please be all right.”
He opened his eyes, alert. “Faith, what’s wrong?”
“I…I was afraid something happened, that you…died.” Tears streamed down her face, “I dreamed your coffin was sealed and I…I couldn’t open it, and I had not said good-bye. You were gone and I was…alone…without you.”
Faith’s wide eyes begged understanding, her dark, curls tumbled in thick waves over her shoulders and breasts. She looked breathtaking with her gentle curves outlined by the gown’s flowing softness, as they strained against their confinement.
Justin’s heart lurched and his mind raged at the fact
of Vincent hurting her. He needed to remove the ugliness, for both of them, replace it with something beautiful. “You’re cold.” He raised the covers. “Come, let me warm you.”
She got in beside him and settled against him.
He revelled in the scent and feel of her. Violets and silk. He quelled a strong, disturbing desire to investigate her every mysterious facet. “You smell as good as you taste,” he said.
There followed a comfortable silence wherein Justin matched each portion of her anatomy to a corresponding portion of his, then he pressed his lips to her brow. “God, you feel good in my arms. This is where you belong,” he whispered against her temple.
“I don’t think Vicar Kendrick would approve, now that you’re well.”
“You warmed me. I’m warming you.”
“You were ill, freezing.”
“You were frantic, trembling.” He slid his hand to her back, and fit her more intimately against him. “I’m taking care of you.”
“When Beth is a young woman, should you come upon her and her young man in this situation, how will you react if he says he is caring for her?”
“Ah. Yes. Well. Since I wouldn’t be certain his intentions were as noble as mine, I own I might have to break his neck.”
Her chuckle brought his. “Go to sleep, green eyes. I’ll not stop breathing.” Her lashes tickled his neck as her eyes closed and contentment etched itself into his soul.
Faith slipped from Justin’s bed and went to her room, dressing with particular care. Before returning, she smoothed her new dress at waist and hips and fluffed the full sleeves.
“You look particularly fetching this morning,” Justin said as she returned. He knew that she’d primped for him, aggravating man.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked, but the minute the words were out, she knew they were wrong.
He winked. “Yes, I did. Now, what’s on our schedule today?”
“First, breakfast. Then your bath.”
“I’m glad I’m better. I’ll enjoy my bath so much more.”
He was not going to make this easy. “Since you’re recovering so rapidly, I think you can manage to bathe yourself this morning while I prepare your daughter for a visit.”
“My daughter,” he said with renewed awe.
Faith accepted his breakfast tray when it was delivered and returned bearing welcome news. “Jenny said Vincent left, again, for France. But I hate that he could come back anytime.”
Justin squeezed her hand. “I’ll get well and we’ll leave before he returns.”
“Lord that sounds good.” Did he plan for them to leave together? “I know some exercises that may help you recover the use of your legs more quickly.”
“I’ll try anything.”
“Good. We’ll begin later.” Faith put everything he needed to bathe and dress beside him. “There. Prepare yourself for your daughter’s visit. And I do hope you enjoy your bath.”
She gave Sally the morning off, dressed Beth in a pinafore that showed her eyes to advantage and arranged her ringlets like a crown. Then she taught her to knock on her father’s door.
“Enter, dear ladies.”
Beth squealed and called, “Poppy,” as she ran to him, and he took her on his lap.
After Justin hugged her, and kissed her, and got his emotions under control, they chatted, teased, laughed and tickled, while Faith tidied the room…and worried.
Jenny said Hemsted was asking questions again. Suppose he decided to visit the sick room? Faith hated to keep Hemsted’s presence a secret. But Justin had enough to worry about.
And poor Harris. If someone found his questions threatening…Faith knew her imagination was running wild. Harris could handle himself. He’d cared for Justin alone until her arrival.
“Faith?” Justin called. “Beth fell asleep and, though my arms are strong, I don’t think they’ll hold her for an extended time. And she’s too precious to drop.”
Faith placed Beth on Justin’s bed.
“I have to learn to walk,” he said. “I can’t stand not having control of my body.”
“Your legs should have some strength. I exercised them before. If we start again today, you may be walking in no time.” But the bed was occupied. “Lie on the floor and we can start.” Faith watched, arms akimbo, as Justin lowered himself to the rug.
“You look pleased with yourself,” he said. “I think you like towering over me.”
Faith knelt and slid his dressing gown and night-shirt well above his knees. “I can hardly wait for you to tower over me.” She grasped his ankle with one hand and his thigh with the other, bending his knee back and forth. Straightening the leg, she pointed his foot toward the ceiling, then lay it flat again, and repeated the procedure several more times.
Lifting her skirts, she hobbled around him on her knees to his other leg. After several sets, she felt his thigh muscles. “You’re too stiff,” she said, straddling him, and he groaned.
She massaged his thigh thoroughly, enjoying the strength beneath her hands. Heady pleasure this, stroking the man she loved. But when she looked at him, his seemed pained. “You’ll feel better in a minute,” she said, kneading harder. “I think we need to do this more often.”
Justin groaned again, agony distorting his features, perspiration glazing his upper lip.
Faith sat up. “Good Lord, I’m hurting you.”
He shifted and raised one of his knees. “Ah…no, you’re not…hurting me. But, perhaps we had better continue another day.”
Still straddling him, Faith rested her back against his raised knee. “Absolutely not. If you ever want to leave this room, you have to move these muscles. She stroked his thigh. You just finished saying you wanted control over your body.”
“Interesting you should remind me.”
“Do you think you can bear it, if we continue?”
“I expect I can, if you can.”
“Good.” She pushed his dressing gown up further, and pulled back at the sight. “Oh, my.”
“Don’t stare, Faith. It’ll only get bigger. And harder.”
CHAPTER NINE
Justin watched Faith fight her fascination, but she couldn’t look away from the physical evidence of his desire, blatantly outlined beneath his dressing gown. “It’s…dancing,” she said.
He chuckled. “You did say I was stiff.” Could she possibly realize how much he wanted her at this moment?
“Does it hurt?”
There was his answer. As naive as he thought. “Not…exactly.” The more she gaped, eyes wide as saucers, the more aroused he became.
“It’s huge!”
He couldn’t control his laughter. “Why, thank you, Sweetheart. That’s the nicest thing you ever said to me.” He urged her down beside him and brought her close. His face in her neck, his arousal nesting exactly where it belonged, his eyes closed, acute pleasure purling through him.
“You must be getting better more quickly than I…is it warm in here?”
“Lord, yes.” He was set to ignite.
“Should we continue the exercises?”
“I think we have to stop for now.” He pulled away to read her expression. “Unless you want to lose your virtue right here on the floor?”
She pulled from his embrace and stood.
“I didn’t think so,” he said, with no little amount of regret. “Besides, I have a better place in mind for that.”
She wheeled his chair to him. “I guess it would be best for Harris to exercise your legs from now on.”
“You’re right…if exercise is strictly the intent. And I suppose, for the time being, it must be.”
Faith’s discomposure was obvious as she fussed while settling him in his chair. This must be her first experience with mutual sexual awareness. With sexual awareness of any kind.
Her breast came within inches of his face as she straightened the pillows behind him. What would she do if he nuzzled her just there and slid his hand up her leg while he did?
Reluctantly, he resisted the temptation to find out. For now. She was curious to learn; he was anxious to instruct. He wanted to touch, to savour, to penetrate. He groaned. Oh, how he wanted.
She pulled away. “Are you in pain?”
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