Tarleton's Wife (27 page)

The bed sagged as Nicholas dropped down beside her. “Speak to me, dammit! Is it true?” He grabbed both shoulders and shook her. “Wake up, girl! Don’t you understand?
I have to know!
” Nicholas stopped, looked at his hands blankly, as if he had not known where they were placed. Chagrined, he loosed his grip, murmuring an apology.

Julia bit her lip. Was there any way around the truth? Not if Nicholas had talked to Miles Bannister. There was no such thing as an almost virgin. She was or she wasn’t. It was an indication of her emotional turmoil that she had not considered the possibility of Nicholas talking to members of the regiment.

“I didn’t lie to you, Nicholas,” Julia sighed, “but I suppose it could be said I omitted a few things. After all, it was no one’s business but mine. I will swear to whatever I must, so each of us will have our freedom. And there’s an end to it.”

“
No one’s business but yours
.” Nicholas stared, gray eyes slicing at her like silver sword points. “We spend the night together, we marry the next day and it’s no one’s business but yours?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Nicholas, you know what I mean! Stop seizing on things which are irrelevant.”

“
Irrelevant!
”

“Of course it’s irrelevant. You don’t even remember it!” Julia’s composure gave way, the last sentence dissolving into a discordant wobble.

Nicholas slumped down, head in his hands. A night with Julia would certainly account for why he had been so determined to marry her. And for the dreams. Oh, yes, it accounted very well for the dreams.

“Then it’s true,” he said with resignation.

“Yes.”

Appalled by the enormity of what he had done, Nicholas searched frantically for words which would not compound his crime. “I mean no insult, Julia but how did such a thing happen? I can’t imagine so forgetting myself as to take the daughter of my commanding officer, particularly just after—if Bannister is to be believed—I had sworn to become the guardian of her honor.”

Julia sat with her head bowed, bed coverings forgotten in a heap around her waist. The soft flow of her long-sleeved, high-necked white muslin gown made her appear very young and fragile. Vulnerable. Nicholas felt a tightening in his groin. It was suddenly not so difficult to understand how his judgment had strayed.

“It was everything, I suppose,” Julia replied at last. “The mountains, the deaths, the cold and fear. Then the game, that awful game. Father’s certainty that he would be killed. The incredible relief when it was you who won.” She paused briefly, only to rush on, determined to say it all before her courage failed. “It wasn’t your fault, Nicholas. I asked you to stay. Begged, as I recall. And you did. I suppose you were as worn down by it all as I. Even
your
very proper honor had become tarnished around the edges.”

“I must have planned to marry you,” he said, almost to himself.

“If you did, you never mentioned it.”

He took in the all-enveloping nightgown, the long brown braid lying over one shoulder, the gentle swell of her breasts. In his dreams her hair was always loose. And she wore no clothes at all.

Which was why, after those first moments of shock, he had not doubted Bannister’s story. He should have realized…should have known. Oh, Lord, what must it be like for her? To know a man has made love to you…and forgotten it?

Nicholas rose to his feet, backing away as he spoke. If he didn’t leave now, this minute… “I’m sorry I woke you, Julia but I had to know. Go back to sleep. We’ll talk more of this in the morning.”

“Nicholas,” she said urgently, “it really doesn’t matter. One night doesn’t make a marriage. I grant you your freedom. Forget me and go on with your life.”

Nicholas paused at the door to listen to her parting words, grotesque candle shadows dancing over his face, transforming him into the distorted, fearsome image of her
Nightmare
—the grim skeleton presiding over the bier. There was no crash of shattered glass, no frozen mother or frantic babe. This was London, Julia told herself. From this nightmare there would be no waking. No release.

Forget me and go on with your life.

Without another word the major opened the door and went out.

* * * * *

Except for her timely warning about Viscount Albemarle, it had been nearly a year since Julia had suffered The Nightmare, the horrors long since effectively exorcized by The Dream. The Dream which had, from that very first time, been startlingly real, bringing her phantom lover, her beloved Nicholas, into her bed and driving away the dark shadows of grief, the harsh burdens of the new life she was creating for herself.

The Dream always began in the same sexless, faceless way. With a flow of peace, joy and safety, a feeling of coming home. Only gradually, as she lay in bed eagerly welcoming the respite from her cares, did she know the touch of questing hands. Hands which did not confine themselves to the repetitive cycle of proper dreams but became progressively more creative with each occurrence, seeking intimacies longingly remembered. And, later, initiating her into new mysteries of pleasure far beyond her girlish imaginings. Pleasures which reverberated through her whole body, shimmering sparks of desire expanding into crashing waves of exquisite passion until she was lost to an overwhelming burst of sensuality she had not known existed. Not even that one treasured night in La Coruña.

Many times Julia had told herself one was not supposed to
feel
dreams. Nicholas was not actually there in her bed. He was a product of her fevered imaginings, nothing more. And yet…she felt the rush of cold as bed covers were stripped away. As strong hands roamed her body, hot breath warmed her ear and curled her toes. Nicholas’ face materialized out of the dark. With a mouth bending to hers in a kiss which spoke of passion yet to be unfurled before moving downward in featherlight caresses to seize upon a breast, sucking away what little remained of Julia’s feeble attempts at rational thought.

Unlike the times The Dream expanded into acts of love of which she had never heard, tonight was like her first night with Nicholas. Gentle intimacy building to passion and mutual urgency. To blind, all-consuming need of the man who was the center of her life. Tonight, the portion of love she had held back in her dreams when she thought him dead expanded into full bloom.

A stab of pain. A gasp escaped her lips. Pain was never a part of her dreams. Her body, grown accustomed to celibacy, was protesting an urgent invasion with nearly as much resistance as if she were still a virgin.

It wasn’t possible.

Julia clasped her arms around the solidity of the heavy weight pinning her to the bed. Her eyes flew open. By the time she realized her dream had become reality, it was far too late.

She welcomed him, this man who was her husband, giving of herself with all impediments washed away by love. No longer a green girl, she opened to him, meeting every touch, every stroke with an urgent response of her own. Intense joy filled her, with nothing held back. If this was all the love she was to have in her life, then she would make the most of it.

They clung together at last, ragged sobbing breaths still shattering their bodies. Nicholas’ long sandy hair fell over her breast, his sweat-glistened face lay against her shoulder. What had begun as a dream had become startlingly solid, tangible proof she was as bound to this man as it was possible to be.

Gradually, as their labored breathing dwindled into silence, Nicholas forced himself back to a world which contained something other than two people and a bed. With a groan he rolled over onto his back, one arm across his eyes to shut out the harsh reality of his own unconscionable behavior. “What witch’s brew is this, my girl?” he murmured, as yet more dazed than angry. “I fall asleep in my bed, I dream a dream I’ve had countless times before and I wake…here. Would you care to tell me just what in the name of God or the devil is happening?”

As he spoke his voice grew stronger. With his last words he rose above her, pinning her wrists to her sides. “Answer me, dammit! How did I get here?”

As baffled as he, Julia stared up at him, scarcely noticing the punishing grip on her arms. “You say you dreamed? A dream you’ve had before?”

“Yes,” he hissed between his teeth. As Nicholas vividly recalled the content of those dreams, a slow flush spread up from his neck, creeping to the roots of his tousled sandy head. The thought of what he had just done—and done a hundred times over—with his colonel’s innocent child pulled a heartfelt groan from the depths of his soul.

Fascinated, Julia ignored his anguish. “Am I in your dreams?” she ventured.

Nicholas gazed at her wide blue eyes, the long brown braid still lying over one bare shoulder, the familiar features of her face. The cold horror began to fade. This was Julia. His friend. His wife. He loosed his grip on her wrists, reaching out to pull the covers back up to her chin. The view, he growled to himself, was far too distracting for a man with a problem to solve. “Yes,” he murmured, frowning in thought. “In every dream. It was always you.”

The mists of love were dissipating, allowing an idea that set Julia’s mind racing. “Did the dreams seem real, Nicholas? As if we were really together? And did we sometimes do…um…other things? Things beyond my experience?”

Nicholas balked at a path that was clearly leading toward a realm of experience a hard-headed pragmatic soldier wished to know nothing about. “How the hell would I know what is beyond your experience?” he barked.

Thoroughly angry, Julia pulled herself up against the pillows, not forgetting to keep a good grip on the bed covers. “You, Nicholas Tarleton, are the only man I’ve ever been with in my life! And
my
memory is quite clear. Don’t you see? They’re
your
dreams, not mine. Oh, I have them too but somehow, some way, I’m having
your
dreams for there’s no possible way I could know some of the positively shocking things you’ve expected me to do!” Unable to look at him, she studied the quilt as she felt red suffuse her whole body. “It wasn’t so bad when you were in the monastery,” she conceded, “but later… Do men and women really do those things, Nicholas? Or was it all imagining?”

Ignoring her questions, which were altogether too uncomfortable, Nicholas went straight to the heart of the matter. “You’re saying you have dreams too?”

“Oh, yes. They began about three months after La Coruña—perhaps shortly after you awoke in the monastery? They’ve been with me ever since. As often as once or twice a week, though there were none these past days in London. I felt so alone. Bereft. But tonight it suddenly came tumbling back. Or so I thought. I suppose it was the same for you. Except…we made it real. You cannot call the witchery mine, Nicholas. It is you who left your bed and came to me.”

“At the witch’s call!”

“If there’s witchery, it’s you who did the conjuring!”

“Enough.” Nicholas pressed a hand to his forehead, which was beginning to protest his night on the town. “Whatever the cause—and I cannot deny something inexplicable has happened here—it would seem we are in a devil of a coil.”

The possible repercussions of a not-so-phantom lover who sleep-walked had already occurred to her. “Which is why,” Julia stated with a cool efficiency belying her infinite hurt, “we must discuss where I am to live. Since you do not wish me to be independent, I must find a quiet place where I may wait until I am free to live as I choose. I was thinking of Bath, for I am told it is quite lovely. Then again I fear there will be too many people with too many questions. Perhaps the Devonshire coast. I have always loved the sea.”

Julia had her chin up, pride furled into full armor. She stared straight ahead, pointedly ignoring the totally nude body of her husband sitting by her side. He could not, after all, hurt her any more than he already had.

She was wrong.

“Don’t be absurd!” Nicholas retorted. “I didn’t come chasing over half the countryside looking for you so you could go haring off again. You’ll go nowhere but The Willows, my girl.”

Words of protest tumbled out in a stream of nerves. “You’ve windmills in your head, Nicholas Tarleton! How can you even think such a thing? Crawl back to Grantley—the discarded wife! To Ebadiah Woodworthy’s smug smile, the sniggers on the street, the tabbies whispering behind their hands, the pity of my tenants?
Your
tenants. I arranged the altar flowers, for heaven’s sake. I took baskets to the needy. Gave jobs to as many as I could. I founded a new industry, Nicholas! And all for
your
people. Imagine—just try to imagine—the humiliation of living there as nothing more than your humble pensioner. By God, I’ll not do it, Nicholas! You can’t expect me to stoop so low.”

As Julia railed at him, she gradually became aware of what she was seeing. Nicholas. All of him. The white of his body strongly contrasting with his sun-bronzed extremities. He sat facing her, hip to hip, only a few layers of fabric separating their nakedness. This man had just made love to her and yet he had the incredible insensitivity to demand she suffer the final scourge of becoming a nobody, an outcast in the first place she had ever been able to call home. He was…
despicable
!

She loved him to distraction.

To his credit, Nicholas considered his wife’s protest. He had thought only to protect her, to honor the guardianship he had pledged, the vows he could not remember. That she would be horrified, humbled, humiliated by his plans for her never entered his head. Unfortunately, it was possible her objections might have merit. But not when weighed against the alternative of allowing her to disappear into the English countryside where he could not protect her. This was a battle he had to win. By fair means or foul.