Midnight Eyes. Sarah Brophy

this ‘going slowly’ mean that after you are finished holding me for a while, you will return to your own rooms?” she asked as calmly as she could.

      His arms tightened around her almost painfully for a moment before he was able to deliberately relax them a little. “No,” he said firmly. “From now on we sleep in the same room. Always. That is part of the going slow.”

      She experienced an almost overwhelming desire to slap his dictatorial face at that moment, her passion changing like quicksilver into anger. She struggled to get out of his lap.

      “Well, I hope you like the floor,” she said imperiously, moving with confidence that she wasn’t quite feeling to where she knew the bed to be. She dragged off the top fur and threw it in his general direction.

      He caught it easily without conscious thought, momentarily stunned by her sudden flare of temper.

      A part of him could laugh at her feeble attempts to control him. Didn’t she realize that he was entirely beyond her control? All he had to do to shatter all her illusions of being in control was stride over there and physically drag her into the bed. One small woman could hardly be expected to hold her own in any physical confrontation against him.

      But he didn’t laugh.

      The fear and uncertainty that had fueled her outburst was painful for him to see and that pain killed any desire to laugh, cold. So much had changed so quickly that all she could try and do was to stop it spinning totally out of her control.

      He looked at her standing defiantly beside the bed and a wave of protectiveness washed over him. She stood there, trembling like a wild animal caught in a trap to which she knew there was no escape, but at the same time she fought so bravely for that fear not to show.

      Fear was the last thing he wanted her to feel. Somehow he knew that she had already known so much of it in her life that he didn’t want to create any more for her. He wanted her strong and whole of spirit and if that took letting her think she had him cowered, then so be it.

      “As my lady wishes,” he said simply, the ghost of a smile playing over his lips. “Although the floor doesn’t look too inviting. I think I will stay where I am. The chair might make an acceptable bed,” he ended doubtfully.

      She listened, with bewilderment, as he calmly prepared to take his rest in the chair. She had been expecting an argument at her angry challenge, and was half disappointed that he hadn’t given her one.

      In no time the room was settled into silence and Imogen panicked a little. “You’re not going to sit there while I change and get ready for bed, are you?” she asked stiffly.

      “I can close my eyes if you like,” he rumbled mildly, as if the mere idea of her being naked before his gaze hadn’t inflamed his senses. He pulled the fur up to his chin, trying to deny his body’s reaction, even to himself.

      “How can I know that I can trust you?” Her eyes narrowed. “You might look.”

      “Little One, you’re just going to have to learn that I am a man of my word. If I say I’m going to do something, then I do it.” He yawned loudly. “Besides, I’m too tired to look tonight. Good night.”

      She glared furiously into the darkness, trying to gauge if he mocked her or not.

      “Robert, are you awake?” she whispered, but silence was her only answer.

      She hesitated for a moment before beginning to undo the gown’s lacing, clumsy at the unaccustomed task but reluctant to call for Mary’s help. There should be no need for help on a wedding night and Imogen’s pride demanded that the fact she did need help had to be kept private.

      Robert’s eyes squeezed tightly shut and his hands clenched into painful fists. This self-denial would surely make him a candidate for sainthood, he thought savagely. He ground his teeth together, causing a satisfying shaft of pain. It was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. The temptation to open his eyes and enjoy the sight of her body almost overpowered him.

      The knowledge that she would never know if he looked or not tormented him. The pleasure he would feel at the sight of her would almost be worth the guilt he would feel over his small deception. At least it would if lust was all that was at stake, if he could be satisfied by brief carnal pleasure, but it wasn’t and he couldn’t.

      So instead he listened.

      He listened to the sound of her strained breathing as she tried to undo the more difficult fastenings. He listened to the small, satisfied sigh she gave as the dress finally came undone and slid from her body in a quiet whoosh of fabric.

      He knew she was now naked.

      Sweat broke out on his upper lip and he quickly licked it away as he strained to hear more. He listened as she shook out the dress and threw it over the trunk and was barely able to stop himself from groaning out loud in protest as he heard her slipping a chemise over her tiny form.

      He dared open his eyes again only when he heard the bedclothes shift as she snuggled down under the covers. The dying fire cast a warm glow over the room. In it he could just see her head above the furs, her unbound hair spread out in a dark cloud around her head, hiding the pillow from his view.

      “Did you look?” she whispered suddenly, breaking into his thoughts.

      He felt a glow start in his chest. Despite the strangeness of their all-too-new, arranged marriage, she trusted him to answer such a question truthfully. It proved that his decision to slow things down had been right. By waiting, he wouldn’t find himself caught with just a pale shadow of a true marriage.

      “No, Little One, I didn’t look.”

      She yawned, her eyes closing as sleep slowly stole over her. The last words she spoke before sleep finally claimed her kept Robert awake long into the night.

      “I don’t think I would have minded all that much if you had looked just a little.”

      Robert shifted uncomfortably in the chair. His sleeping mind roamed over battlefields, making him frown.

      In the dream, the killing was done, and he’d been sent to count the dead.

      He was wounded; blood streaming forth till everywhere he looked was covered with it. The bodies on the field were endless and to count them, he had to reassemble them.

      He was covered in their gore, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to finish the task. There seemed to be no end to the corpses. There was field after field of the dead.

      It was a nightmare he knew well and it always continued until he managed to shake his mind free from the coils of sleep.

      Robert twisted uncomfortably in the chair again; his brow furrowing as the silent battlefield of his dreaming filled with a whimpering. His dream self tried to hunt for the living amongst the dead, but despite his increasingly frantic efforts he couldn’t find anything alive in this familiar nightmare world; couldn’t find the source of the sound of living pain.

      It was a sharp, ear-piercing scream that finally dragged his mind back to full consciousness.

      By now, the fire had gone out entirely, and the cold had started to seep its way into his bones. At his age sleeping in a chair was no easy thing, he thought morosely, and he couldn’t quite contain the strangled sound that escaped as he tried to struggle upright.

      The scream had died and the whimpering returned.

      Imogen lay in her bed, tossing and turning, her limbs flailing as she tried to fight off her own night demons. In seconds he was by her side. He pulled her up into his arms as he called her name sharply, his voice infused with a cold panic he had never felt for himself.

      Her skin through the chemise was cold to his touch, but a thin film of sweat covered her face.

      “Imogen,” he called again, more loudly, shaking her as gently as his fear would allow. She moaned, thrashing her head from side to side but remained in the world of her own imagining. Ice clutched