Through his open bedroom window he could hear an owl hooting as it flew past. No alien sounds disturbed the natural busyness of the country night.
He started to relax and then he heard it—a door opening upstairs. Immediately he was out of bed and, reaching for his robe, pulled it on—he slept nude—before striding across to open his bedroom door quietly.
He saw her immediately, a slim white wraith who seemed to float rather than walk down the corridor, but, ethereal though she looked, Sylvie was no ghost. Even before he reached her he knew that she was sleepwalking; all the tell-tale signs were there, and of course he knew from her girlhood exactly what to do. So why was it so hard, then, to take her gently in his hold so that he could turn her round and walk her back to her bedroom?
The best thing to do, they had all been told after the first frightening occasion when she had been found wandering the long gallery at Otel Place, totally oblivious to what she was doing, was to guide her gently back to bed, if possible without waking her; but now, as he touched her, Ran could feel her start to tremble violently, her face turning towards him, her body stiffening as he tried to turn her round. Cursing under his breath, he glanced towards his own still open bedroom door. Perhaps if he could get her in there... The old family doctor at Otel Place had recommended that she be allowed to wake up naturally rather than be abruptly woken from her sleepwalk and he had also informed them that often these bouts of ‘walking’ could be attributed to some kind of disturbance or trauma that the walker might have suffered. Ran did not need to look very far to find the cause of tonight’s disturbance, and inwardly
he cursed not just Vicky but Lloyd as well.
Didn’t the man know just how lucky he was—what he, Ran, would give to change places with him?
Sylvie was still trembling against his body, her eyes wide open and unseeing as she stood stiffly beside him, almost transfixed. Not wanting to risk waking her, Ran urged her gently towards his own bedroom, talking very quietly and softly to her, just as though she were still the girl he remembered.
‘It’s all right, Sylvie,’ he assured her gently. ‘Everything’s all right... Come on, now...’
Obediently she moved, leaning on him slightly. If he could get her into bed without her waking up he could sit with her to check that she was going to sleep on and then he could spend the rest of the night in one of the other rooms. In the morning... He started to frown. Too late to regret now the jealousy which had prompted him to speak so harshly to her earlier, but the sight of that suit, the knowledge of just how it would look on her body, had filled him with such furious jealousy that he had overreacted.
Tenderly Ran guided her into his bedroom and towards the bed. The light gown she was wearing was plain and white, in soft cotton. In it she looked almost like a girl... youthful... virginal...
He closed his eyes. The last thing he needed right now was to start thinking about—to start remembering. Forcing himself to suppress the thoughts, the memories and the emotions which were running riot inside him, he stopped to pick her up, intending to lay her down on the bed, but as he did so a dog fox out in the woodland beyond the garden howled to his mate; the sound carried into the bedroom on the still night air, shocking him into immobility and Sylvie into immediate wakefulness.
‘Ran...what...?’
He could hear the shocked anxiety in her voice as she stared round his moonlit bedroom.
‘You were sleepwalking.’ He tried to reassure her. ‘I heard a noise...found you on the landing...’
Sleepwalking. Sylvie focused distractedly on Ran’s face.
It had been years since she had last walked in her sleep, but she didn’t for one moment doubt that Ran was telling the truth. After all, there was no reason why he should have spirited her from her own bed and carried her here to his—was there? If he had wanted to take her there, all he had to do... But even so... She started to shiver.
She only walked in her sleep in times of intense personal stress...intense personal distress...
‘It’s all right, Sylvie,’ she heard Ran saying gently. He was still holding onto her. Sylvie could feel the warmth of his arms, his body through the robe he was wearing and through her own fine cotton nightgown. Bemusedly she looked at him, her eyes huge and shadowed in the small oval of her pale face.
Outside a peafowl, one of the small colony which had migrated from Haverton Hall to the Rectory, its slumber no doubt disturbed by the mating call of the fox, screamed loudly, causing Sylvie to go rigid with tension.
‘It’s all right, Sylvie,’ Ran repeated soothingly. ‘It’s only a peafowl.’
She knew that, of course—their noise was, after all, familiar to her—but for once she felt too weak to bother arguing the point with Ran.
His bedroom was on the opposite side of the house from hers and furnished very differently, with heavy early Georgian furniture that looked imposingly traditional and masculine. The room suited Ran, she thought abstractedly; it suited his maleness, his completeness. A wave of longing swept over her. Unable to stop herself, she turned in towards his body, lifting her hand towards him.
Later she wasn’t even sure if she had actually meant to touch him or if the gesture had simply been one of longing, but as he turned his head towards her her fingertips grazed his mouth. She felt his breath against them, warm, tormenting her with all that could never be. She started to look away and then, to her shock, she felt Ran taking hold of her wrist, circling it with his thumb and fingers, holding her hand where it was whilst he very deliberately pressed a kiss to each of her fingertips in turn.
Wild-eyed, Sylvie watched him, almost forgetting to breathe in her shock.
‘Ran,’ she protested half-heartedly, but as she said the word she was already moving closer to him, instinctively seeking the warmth and the comfort of his body heat, his body.
If it felt like heaven to have his arms close around her, that was nothing compared to what it felt like to have him lift his hands to her face and cup it whilst he oh, so gently kissed her mouth, a slow, tender, lingering kiss...a lover’s kiss. Silently Sylvie pressed even closer to him, lifting her own arms to hold him, her mouth and then her whole body, trembling with the effort it took her not to give in to what she was feeling.
She could feel her eyes fill with tears, feel them, too, starting to flood over and roll down her face.
‘Sylvie.’ She could hear the emotion in Ran’s voice as he lifted one fingertip to touch them. ‘Don’t cry...please don’t cry. No man is worth your tears...’
‘It just hurts so much,’ Sylvie told him, unable to hold back what she was feeling any longer. Somehow the night and their seclusion had stripped away the barriers she had fought so hard to erect against her love for him.
‘I hate feeling like this,’ she whispered. ‘I hate loving so much and so...so...unwontedly... It’s so demeaning and it hurts so badly.’