After that conversation in the drawing room when they’d ventured closer to confidences than ever before, they’d retreated to lighter subjects over dinner. Canforth had been exhausted, and while he did his best to hide his discomfort, she knew that his leg wound troubled him. She’d bitten back the urge to chide him for not taking a carriage, instead of riding all that way in the cold.
Tomorrow was Christmas. Today, really, although it wasn’t long past midnight. A decent sleep might restore him. Perhaps tonight, he’d come to her bed.
If only she could enlist the mistletoe’s magic to make her marriage what she wished. Canforth mightn’t love her, but she wanted him to know that while he’d left a frightened girl behind, he returned to a woman eager to be his wife in every sense.
Feeling more optimistic, Felicity changed into her white flannel nightgown, plaited her long hair, and picked up her book. She prayed that next time she lay down, she had something more exciting than “The Vicar of Wakefield” to put her to sleep.
Around her, the old house settled into silence.
The first groan was quiet. Some animal in the woods outside could have made it.
The second, hard upon the first, was louder and unmistakably human.
Felicity set down her book and swung her feet to the floor. Should she go to Canforth? Or would he consider it an unforgivable breach of his privacy? He’d always come to her bed, with no traffic in the other direction at all.
Curse this strange half-marriage.
Another long cry, sharp with misery, swept hesitation aside. One would need a heart of stone to disregard the anguish in the sound.
Springing to her feet, she grabbed her candle and burst through the doors separating her from Canforth. When she raised her candle to reveal the large man writhing on the bed, she saw he was too lost in the throes of his nightmare to notice any noise she made.
She paused on the threshold, tossed back to the uncertain girl she’d been, in awe of her big, strong husband. After a fraction of a second, the capable chatelaine took over. Digby raised his head from near the fire, but seeing Felicity, he lay down again, as if he knew his master was in safe hands.
She hoped to heaven he was right.
Despite the cold night, Canforth had kicked the blankets to the floor. The sheet twisted around him. In the flickering light, a sheen of sweat covered his bare chest and shoulders.
With surprising steadiness, she set the candle on the nightstand and leaned over to place a soothing hand on his shoulder. “Canforth. Canforth, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”
He didn’t wake, but he turned violently in her direction, like a compass needle pointing to north. The lines of suffering on his face made his scar stand out like a red banner.
Pity so powerful that it hurt gripped her. She’d known he must have seen and done terrible things, but only now, witnessing this unconscious torment, did the truth stab deep into her soul.
“Canforth, wake up,” she said in a firmer voice.
This time he jerked away, dislodging the sheet completely.
She gasped, although the bare torso should have warned her what to expect. He slept naked. Ridiculous after eight years of marriage to discover that.
Even as her hand began to stroke him into calmness, her hungry gaze devoured the magnificent sight before her. Like so much else during their time together, he’d been reticent about his nakedness, coming to her in a dressing gown and taking her in darkness. He hadn’t even removed her nightdress.
As his ragged panting eased, she surveyed this man she’d married.
Biddy was right. He was too thin. Felicity knew that, even before he’d appeared at dinner in clothes that had fitted eight years ago and now draped loose on his rangy frame. But his thinness made the superb lines of his body stand out in stark relief. The broad shoulders and powerful chest. The ribs clearly delineated under the pale skin. The narrow hips and long legs. She winced to see the knotted scar on his thigh. He’d called himself lucky, and in many ways he had been. But he’d bear his scars until the day he died.
Inevitably her gaze strayed between his legs, where his rod lay soft in its nest of dark auburn hair. She bit back the forbidden impulse to touch it, even as her fingers curled at her side.
Without looking away, however brazen that made her, Felicity bunched her bare toes against the cold wooden floor to restore some circulation. She hadn’t waited to put on a robe and slippers before she dashed to Canforth’s side. The night was freezing, despite the fire burning in the grate.
When she looked up, her husband’s eyes were open. She blushed like fire and whipped her hand away from his shoulder.
“Flick?” he said hoarsely, grabbing her hand hard enough to bruise.
“Yes,” she whispered. Meeting that glassy stare, she realized that the dream still gripped him.
Instinctively, although physical contact between them had always been rare, she smoothed the damp strands of hair back from his high forehead. Beneath her touch, his skin was clammy. At least the dream hadn’t heralded a return of his fever.
“It’s all right. There’s nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep.” How incongruous to speak to this huge, virile man the way she would to a child. But for all his potency and power, she was achingly aware of his vulnerability at this moment.