Slowly, Meredith’s eyes opened. Heath brows lifted in surprise. He leaned closer to her. “Did I wake you?”
She didn’t look at him. She stared blankly ahead before she shifted upright and slowly stood up. The way she moved had Heath taking a step back, frowning. She didn’t seem to notice his presence, didn’t seem to be seeing anything around her. She turned very slowly on her heel facing the door, and began making her way toward it.
“Meredith,” he called to her, but she didn’t respond.
She continued walking, barefoot, toward the door, her nightdress billowing lightly around her. Heath kept up easily by her side, staring at her blank face before realization dawned on him. She was still asleep, and yet she was walking.
He knew nothing of the phenomenon, the sight so bizarre to him that he could do nothing but follow in awe. He’d heard her mumble incoherent words in her sleep before, saying things that didn’t make any sense. But to have her walk about while she was still in deep sleep was something he could not fathom.
A part of him knew that he should wake her, but he was much too curious to see where she planned on going. Her steps were slow, slow enough for him to think that it might take a while for them to get there. But Heath followed behind patiently. Worry tinged his heart, a bit of fear for the unknown peppering his mind.
It took him a while to realize that she was going to the gardens. He glanced apprehensively at her feet, worried what harm the cold dew would cause. But still he said nothing, did nothing, even as they made it out of the manor.
Though he’d just come from outside, the cold shocked his body. It was pure, unadulterated curiosity spurring him on now, even as he slipped his greatcoat from his shoulders. The moment they arrived to wherever she was headed, he would wrap it around her. But for now, he would not disturb her, even when he heard the shudder that went through her body.
Meredith took one of the grassy paths, one that led to the rose garden, now bare from the wintry weather. When they came upon it, she turned into a nearby gazebo and went to the bench sitting in the very back of it. She did nothing for a while, simply staring unblinkingly before her. Then her eyes drifted shut and her head lolled to the side.
Heath released a low, shuddering breath. The trepidation that had been creeping up on him took hold and he sank onto the bench next to her, letting it consume him. Then, he looked over at Meredith, at her peaceful sleeping face. After a moment, he wrapped his coat around her.
“You are certainly a mystery, Meredith,” he murmured, not wanting to wake her. “Just when it seems I am about to learn who you are, you go and do something like this. Had Francis still been lurking around, you might have frightened away whatever years he has left.”
She mumbled something under her breath. It was so perfectly timed, Heath almost thought she was responding to him. But she only shifted on the bench, tilting her head in the opposite direction. The tip of her ear brushed his shoulder and she seemed to take that as a reason to lean closer.
Heath’s heart thudded when she rested her head on him. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe. She’d caught him at an awkward angle, one that would surely cause him pain if he stayed in the position for too long.
“You cannot think you will truly sleep out here,” he went on. It served as good distraction—from the confusing mixture of worry and lust swirling within him. “We will both fall ill if we do.”
“Too…warm…” She groaned, shifting again. Heath held his breath. She continued to move around on the bench, as if she couldn’t find a comfortable position. Then she stopped. “Heath?”
Heath’s eyes slid over to her. He couldn’t see her face, not until she lifted her head, her brown eyes cloudy with confusion. “What’s…what’s happening? Why are we out in the gardens?”
“Are you truly awake?” he asked, peering closely at her. She frowned.
“What do you mean?” Meredith continued to look about herself, clearly very baffled. “Did you carry me out here?”
“You walked out her yourself,” he told her gently.
“No, I didn’t. The last thing I remember was waiting in the drawing room to hear whenyou returned. I must…I must have fallen asleep there.”
“You did.” He studied her face as he spoke, wanting to gauge her reaction. “You were sleeping by the window, in fact. But then you got up and walked all the way out here.”
“Why would I do such a thing?” Meredith sounded horrified, scared.
“You said you were too warm.”
Meredith gasped loudly at that. She gripped the coat around her shoulders, her eyes trailing away to the garden around her. Though the air was brisk, it was also thick with unease and terror, radiating off Meredith in waves. He didn’t take his eyes off her, watching as she took a deep breath and released it through her nose.
“I see.” She stood up, walking to the entrance of the gazebo. Heath was right on her heels. “And you followed me?”
“How could I not?”
She nodded, as if that should have been obvious to her. “Yes, that would only make sense. Then let us return to the manor. It is far too cold out here.”
She tucked her hands into the greatcoat, drawing it close to her body. Without turning around, she veered down the grassy path again, this time her steps were much quicker.
Heath wasn’t going to rush her. Though questions filled his mind, begging to be answered, he knew better than to try to force anything out of her. She would either draw into her shell again, or lash out at him. He didn’t know which one of the two options was worse.
So, they continued into the manor in silence. He’d expected her to say something when they were safely within the warmth of the close walls, when she’d handed him his coat, but she remained quiet. Heath wanted badly to say something, to ask at least one of the questions he was desperate to know the answer to. But a wave of uncertainty came over him at the thought. He didn’t want to push her when she wasn’t ready.
They came to a stop when they made it to her bedchamber. Meredith turned to him, peeking up from beneath her lashes. She too looked unsure, a bit hesitant. Heath had the fierce urge to pull her into his arms but she appeared too fragile for him to give in to it.
“Would you like for me to lock you inside so that you do not walk while sleeping again?” he tried to joke, wincing a second later at how distasteful it sounded.
But her lips twitched. “That is a good idea, though I do not think I will be able to fall back to sleep so easily.”
He stepped closer, unable to help himself. He leaned down slowly, so not as to startle her, and pressed a tender kiss on her forehead. He wanted so badly to do more, to take it a step further. To capture her lips with all the fiery passion that was swirling within him, stoked by the sight of her breasts poking through the thin fabric. It was quite a struggle to keep his eyes averted.
He made to step away and she gripped the front of his shirt. Meredith turned her big eyes up to him. “Could you…stay?”
His heart stopped. She doesn’t mean…?
When he saw the sincerity in her eyes, he realized that the direction of his thoughts had been completely wrong. Mentally, he cursed himself for even thinking such a thing when she was clearly not in the right frame of mind for such things right now.
“Of course,” he murmured to her. Though the manor was quiet, and they were the only two standing in the hallway, he felt the need to whisper.
Meredith’s hand released his shirt and slipped down the length of his chest to capture his hand. He wondered if she did that on purpose, if perhaps she truly did have another intention behind her request, but that was all he could do. He said nothing she took ginger steps backward into the bedchamber, looking suddenly unsure of herself.
He let her lead the way to the bed where she gently sat. This was a territory she did not know how to traverse, it seemed. She wanted him to stay with her, but it was clear she did not know what to do, could not find a place to put her hands. She looked around the mo
onlight-swathed room but he was sure she wasn’t focusing on anything.
Heath took over from there. He laid her onto her back, and then crawled into the bed next to her, pulling the quilt. With any other lady he would not have cared to be so gentle. He would not have given a single thought to sharing a bed with her when there would be no chance of them making love. But with Meredith, he was willing to do things he’d never thought of. Without a word, he gathered her into his arms, breathing her in deeply when she rested her head on his chest.
She released a long, shuddering breath. “It might be a long night for me,” she said after a few minutes of silence. In those minutes, Heath had been thinking about how hard his heart was racing and wondering if she did not hear it.
“Why do you say that?” he asked, his deep voice cutting through the quiet.
He could feel her fingers on his chest, through the layer of his shirt. “I did not dream and yet I was walking in my sleep. I know I will have a nightmare tonight.”
He frowned slightly at that. “Do you have nightmares often?”
“I used to. But they stopped for a while. They did not begin again until I had come to stay here.”
Heath’s frown deepened. “I am…sorry.”
She shook her head without lifting it. “No, it was not your fault. I think it began again because of the reason I ran away from that ball in the first place.”
“You never told me what reason was,” he said boldly, hoping she was comfortable enough to tell him what happened.
It took her a few moments. “It was the first ball I had been to in a while. I’d become somewhat of a recluse, you see. I only spoke to my father and Jenny. I did not want to be a part of London society any longer. I did not want to be married. I did not want to leave my home. But my father did not want that for me. He was afraid I would die a spinster and thought it would be in my best interest to at least remind everyone that I am alive.”
Heath waited patiently for her to continue. It didn’t sound as if she was crying, and he was holding out hope that her next words would not make it so.
“I decided to go, after Jenny convinced me. She can be quite persuasive when she wants to be. It was very much out of my comfort zone but I…did it nonetheless. And exactly what I had expected to happened did. I couldn’t handle it, so I ran away.”
“What happened?” he asked her gently.
Again, she took a pause, one much longer than the one before. Her finger was running uneven lines across his chest. It seemed she was thinking on whether she should say anything or not. “Rumors,” she said, finally. “Terrible rumors about a horrific thing in my past that I cannot get over. My mother…she was killed. Right in front of me.”
Heath instantly tightened his hold on her. He wanted to cradle her to his chest, to hold her safely against the cruel world that had battered her into the woman she was today.
When she spoke again, Heath could hear the tears in her voice. “I do not remember anything but her face. I look a lot like her, the same hair, the same eyes, everything. As I grew older, whenever that memory came to me, it was like I was watching myself die. It was like I saw my own body lying in a puddle of my own blood.”
“Meredith, I’m so sorry.” To his utmost shock, his own tears pricked his throat, a lump fast forming. He swallowed it back down, holding her tightly against him.
“Do you want to know why I prefer to be cold? It is not because I like it, but because the only other memory I have of that night is standing in a puddle of her blood. I remember looking down at my feet and feeling so warm, despite the horrifying sight before me. It had felt so…wrong.”
Now, Heath felt the tears soaking through his shirt. He reached a hand up to stroke her hair. “You are so strong, Meredith,” he said softly. “I cannot believe that you…that Lady Pebblebrook…”
He didn’t know how to finish the thought. He hadn’t heard anything about the family since he’d stop coming into contact with them and he didn’t mingle enough with the ton to know of the gossip. This was news to him and he was angry at himself for being so unaware.
She sniffled, shifting her hand to her face as if she planned on wiping her tears. Heath waited for her to bring herself together, wishing he knew the right words to say to her.
“And, to make matters worse, I had been put on trial for her death.”
“What?” he barked.
She didn’t move, despite the stiffening of his entire body as both shock and fury raced through him. “After that incident, I had refused to speak. I grew completely withdrawn. I was plagued with nightmares, with the image of my mother’s face in death and the cruel eyes of the masked killer who had taken her away from me. Because I had refused to speak, it was rumored that I was the one who had killed her and so they had brought me to trial. But there was not enough evidence to convict me. Even so, they still pointed their fingers at me. They’d already labeled me as such and did not care to retract their beliefs. It was as if they longed for any reason to gossip.”
“How could they do such a thing to a girl who’d just witnessed her mother’s death?” Heath was still rolling in his anger, the force of it burning the pit of his stomach. It took every effort he had to keep from revealing too much of it to Meredith, not wanting to scare her.
“I was old enough to be married, so certainly old enough to take action if that meant finding my mother’s killer. But I simply could not. I could not bring myself to do a single thing. I did not speak again until three years later.” She sighed. Her body had been tense, he realized, but she was relaxed now. “I would not have been much help, I’m afraid. I’ve suppressed the memories of that night so much that there is little I do remember.”
“Still, how could they think to—” he broke off, swallowing the rage. He gave her a fierce kiss on the top of her head. “You do not need to be afraid, Meredith. Not any longer.”
Heath wished he knew if she had smiled, if she was pleased to hear his words, but she gave no indication. She only went on, “When I ran away from the ball, I only had one thought in my mind: that I wanted to do away with my title. I hated the rumors. I hated being labeled as a murderess just as much as I hated the fact that my mother had been ripped away from me. I could not deal with it any longer and so I thought to run away from that life. To become someone new. Though, I hardly know how I would have survived since the very thought of speaking to another human being only made my condition worsen.”
“You have certainly grown a lot since then, I assure you.”
“It is all thanks to you, Heath. Thank you.”
Heath suddenly felt sheepish. “There is no need to thank me.” This time, he did not have to see her smile because he felt it. After a moment, he said, “I suppose you want to know what has turned me into this sort of person, don’t you?”
“I do,” she said. “But not tonight.”
That surprised him. “Why not?”
“I do not think it is a very happy story and I’d rather not add to my sad mood. Perhaps another time when it is easier for me to smile, so that I may encourage and comfort you the way you have done for me.”
Heath was shocked speechless. Her words had been so simple, so honest. And yet they calmed and consoled him in ways he did not understand.
Swallowing, he took to stroking her hair again. “Sleep. If you have a nightmare and wake in the middle of the night, you will find me by your side.”
“I’d hope so,” she mumbled. “I would not be pleased to find that you had slipped away while I was sleeping.”
Her coltish tone was enough to bring a smile to his face. “Is that a threat I hear, Lady Meredith?”
“You would be surprised the wrath I can conjure when brought to my point of no return, Heath. You need only take me there.”
“Do not tempt me.”
“I should be telling you that.”
He chuckled and she laughed. Together their laughter faded into silence. Heath was more than willing to talk with her all night if gi
ven the chance, despite the tiredness nipping at his eyes, but he knew she had to sleep. And so he said nothing, continuing to stroke her hair, listening to her breathing for when it became slow and even. He continued to listen to that breathing, until the dawn of light broke over the horizon.
Chapter 21
Meredith did wake alone, but when she looked out the window and saw how high in the sky the sun was, she realized that might have been her own fault. She sat up in bed, stretching her limbs far above her head with a broad smile on her face. Then, she looked to the side of her, resting a hand on the spot Heath had slept in last night.
Yes, he might have snuck out before the maid came in and saw him. That was only logical. But at least he’d left after doing the one thing he’d said he would. She hadn’t suffered from any nightmares. She hadn’t even dreamt at all.
Captive to the Kiss of a Wicked Duke: A Steamy Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 16
