She didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t quite ready to tell him of her curse. “I had a nightmare, but when I awoke I thought… I thought I was back there again. You were holding my wrists and shaking me. That man didn’t…they never… I wasn’t touched in that way. But I… When I first arrived, I used to cry out in the night. Occasionally, I would fall so they…they cuffed me to the bed. It was only for a year and then–”
“A year?” he roared behind her.
“It’s all right, Lucas,” she said, patting his arm. She didn’t want to upset him. “Mrs Tadlow would tell me stories all night and with these, I learned to keep quiet. Then they left me alone. You should know that Mrs Tadlow was a barmaid in her early years; hence the vocabulary I learned from her is not always…appropriate. Five years passed by in that place – the days melded into one interminable span of deafening grey. Then, my father died. Mrs Tadlow knew, isn’t that ludicrous? She told me the day before she herself died. A week before I was released. It was almost as if she was waiting to know I’d be safe. I always wondered about her own problem, whether it was all in her mind or not. But she knew…”
Rosalind shivered and breathed deeply, listening to the sounds in the room – they were all from Lucas. His strained breathing, the rustle of his jacket as he moved his arms more tightly around her, and she swore she could hear his heart thud an erratic rhythm. “My father’s holdings passed to Benedict and he investigated the regular payments being made to the asylum. We had a small family anyway, but everyone was told I…that I had died.”
“Now I understand your loyalty to Stone. He took you away from that place.”
“Yes. He believed in me, and he didn’t care about my problem. He gave me my freedom.”
Finally, she twisted in his lap and faced him. “I do not tell you any of this to gain your sympathy or your love. It is so you understand why we cannot be together.”
“But–”
She placed a finger over his lips. “Last night, I thought…I thought all would be well. That maybe I wouldn’t have to tell you. I love you, but after the dream, you must realise – God, I hit you – you must realise that it cannot be. I am telling you all this so you understand. It is not you that is at fault. It is I.”
“Rosalind. It makes no difference. I still love you.”
“And I knew you would say that because that is the type of man you are. But I haven’t told you all, and I know that in time you will take a disgust of me. If we married and people found out I’d been in an asylum, you would not be allowed to practise medicine and you’re an earl…we would be outcasts–”
The damn man laughed, and she tried to wrench from his grip, but he held her tight. “I work in the poorest of areas most of the time, the charity hospitals, nobody would give a damn, and I bloody hate society. Look at my face. I couldn’t be more of an outcast, and you are forgetting that I just don’t care – you are too important.”
She was about to argue, tell himwhyshe’d been in the asylum, her cursed dreams – he didn’t seem to understand, but at that moment a hand grasped the back of her head and he smothered her lips with his own.
It wasn’t a simple kiss. He tasted, he nipped and then he went back for more, never letting her breathe, although she would have gladly gone without air for this kiss. He moved on, mouthing along her cheek and eyes.
“I love you, Rosalind. I told you yesterday and I say again. Nothing will stand in the way of my love for you, nothing. My Rosalind, my sweet Rose, my…Rosie.”
She stiffened. Nobody had called her that for thirteen years. It had been her mother’s pet name and her whole body seized. She opened her eyes. He was staring at her, his frown heavy, his lips slightly parted.
“Rosie. You’re my Rosie.” It wasn’t a question.
She tugged herself from his arms and stood, stumbling back. Oh God.
“Your hair isn’t curly.”
How did he remember that?
His gaze roamed over her features: her lips, her hair, but mostly the eyes.
“I should have remembered the green. Like an oak leaf in the height of summer. I remember your father… But why the asylum? What was wrong with you?”
“What was wrong?” she yelled. “That night, Lucas, in the nursery, do you not remember why my father threw me in there? Because Isawhim kissing my aunt and then that night, in the same way, Isawyou in the fire. I felt the heat. That’s my problem, my curse: Iseethings…in my dreams, things that come true. It isn’t natural. My father…my own father called me insane.”
Surely Lucas would now understand.
“Goddamn it, you saved my life.”
She felt like screaming. “It’s a curse, Lucas. Last night, the nightmare? I dreamed of a man digging in the woods and you saw how I was… I wake screaming in fright. I cannot… I will not let you tie yourself to such a woman. I’m unnatural, an aberration! One day, you will look at me, if you don’t already as my father did, in fear and disgust. One day, you will see what I am. A burden to my mother, a witch to my father. And I…I cannot bear that.”
She spun and he made a grab for her skirts but she dashed them away. He knew it all now and he would understand. There was no point dragging out the heartache and anguish. In the morning, he would probably shake her hand and thank her for telling him.
She flew up the stairs to her bedchamber, fumbling with the handle, before slamming the door behind her.
