The Rake and the Recluse REDUX (a time travel romance) (73 page)

She shook her head.

“No, of course not,” he grumbled. He went to his portmanteau and pulled out a clean white shirt and pushed it toward the little hand that grasped the edge of the thick counterpane.

She took it, the blanket slipping just a touch before she caught it back up.

Perry looked around the room again, then moved toward the dressing screen in the corner. “I’ll just go—” He motioned to the screen as he pulled a pair of under drawers from his bag and stumbled behind it. He stared into the dark corner, one hand on each wall, and breathed as deeply as his rattled nerves would allow. He shook his head and pulled the drawers on under the robe, wishing, for once, that he’d packed pajamas, but he always thought them an unnecessary bother.

He leaned one shoulder against the wall as he listened to her small sighs and grunts as she tried to get the shirt on. He turned and peered around the screen. The tented counterpane in the middle of the bed shook and moved as though there were a wrestling match beneath it. He smiled as he saw the soggy chemise tossed out to the floor with a wet thwack, then the wrestling match continued.

The blanket stilled and he turned quickly, averting his gaze. She cleared her throat and he looked around again, finding her on the bed, her hair a mess, his white shirt engulfing her petite frame, the counterpane pooling around her legs. He swallowed hard, struggling to remember who she was and who he was.

He walked slowly to the chair next to the fireplace. “So, would you like to tell me what caused the ruckus?”

Her smile faded instantly. “I’m not accustomed to being…tended. I mean, beyond—” She waved her hand in a circle. “The girl would not listen. She insisted on washing me, and I just—” She cleared her throat. “She scratched me. I—it, um… the sharp—” She stopped, looking up.

Perry wanted to reach out and hold her, protect her, but he forced himself to remain still, watching as her mind wrestled. He tried to show his understanding, hoping his patient expression would calm her.

“I was walkin’ home from the dairy after Mama sent me to fetch milk. Of course, what else would I do at the dairy?” she said nervously, twisting her hands in the blankets. “He offered to bring me home. I refused. I didn’t know him. It wouldn’t be proper.” She inspected her hands for a while, then spoke again, so softly he could hardly hear her. “I thought that he’d left, but he’d waited. He grabbed me by my hair and rode on.” She stroked the long strands and looked out the window. “He took me to the wood…”

Perry followed her gaze, saw the night deepen its folds across the countryside, the pinpricks in the blanket of night twinkling their innocence over the meadow behind the inn. She took a deep breath and turned back to him.

He looked on her with care, diligently controlling his expression. He had been informed of her injuries in general terms. He understood how they were likely caused, he could see the scars left behind, but he wasn’t aware that Lilly had ever told anyone exactly what had happened. He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to be the keeper of this knowledge, but he didn’t want to stop her, either, because he could see she needed this. He could feel it in his bones.

Perry sat back in the chair, his legs crossed at the ankles and stretched out before him, his hands clasped at his waist, eyes on her; waiting, hypnotizing, imploring, demanding—patiently. The next breath she took seemed to take all the air from the room, and his own lungs stilled.

“He pulled me into the forest. I screamed, but nobody heard. At least, I thought I’d screamed.” She looked up at him for a moment. “I remember screaming, I do. I remember it—but nobody came.” She glanced down as her breath hitched, and she picked at a loose thread on the blanket, then simply said, “I tripped, fell. He took me.”

Perry moved then, his discomfort of mind too great for his body. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and lowered his head to his clenched hands. She waited. He looked up slowly. The next rushed from her.

“He, mmm, he used the crop when I would not do as he said. I tried to fight him, you see, but he dinna like that, or, mayhap he did because— Well.” Her eyes filled with tears and her voice trembled as her chin shook. “Do men like that?” she asked earnestly.

He could feel the strain in his features, knew he attempted to shake his head. Didn’t believe he was successful.

She shrugged and looked back to her hands which were busy unraveling the edge of the counterpane. “There was a picnic there. Where he had stopped. He took a bottle from the basket and broke it against a tree. He—ah…” She trembled violently, gathering her knees up and hiding her face for a moment. “I tried to get away, I did, please believe me, I tried. But he dragged me back, pushed my face into the ground as he—”

Perry stood. He felt his muscles twitching with the tension, his feet not following his command to remain still as he strode across the room and sat on the bed next to her. He reached out, his hands hovering mere inches above her, then they grazed her arms as she jerked away.

He was afraid to touch her, afraid to hold her, but needed desperately to comfort her somehow, to make her feel safe. He had tried to be patient, but he couldn’t listen to this. He couldn’t hear this, not from her. His brain finally snapped back into control and he gathered her trembling form into his arms.

She jumped at his touch and tried to push away but he held her, controlling her fighting limbs as he held her gently but securely, whispering tenderly. He wasn’t sure it was the correct thing to do, to resist her fight, but it was what felt proper.

“Hush, Lilly. You were so brave. You
did
scream and you fought, and it
was not
your fault. You were good, you were strong, you tried, it was not you. It was him, that horrible wretch of a man. It was all him.”

He took her face between his palms and looked into her watery brown eyes. He felt her struggle to remain still. “You carry no fault for this.
He
carries it,
all
of it.” He closed his eyes, suddenly realizing how Gideon had felt when he’d figured out what Hepplewort had done to Francine. Hepplewort hadn’t even completed the task with her; Lilly, on the other hand, had suffered the brunt of that man’s anger because of that loss.

“I shall never know the love of a man,” she whispered.

Perry studied her face, counting the small scars that crossed her cheeks. He ran a finger over each one.

“Show me,” she whispered.

He leaned back. “What?”

“Show me, please— Show me what it means to be loved, to be cherished. Help me forget that…man. Help me,” she pleaded. “I can feel him all over me, touching me.” Her hands moved over her body anxiously. “I can feel him surrounding me, the way he felt on me,
inside me
—” The last she nearly screamed as her body shook violently and she begged through her tears.

Perry shook his head. “I cannot do that, I— You need to find someone else. You
will
find someone…”

“I’ll never find someone so long as any touch makes me jump, so long as the closeness of another person frightens me. You see how I fight, and I don’t mean to, not with you. I’ll never be all right, not until someone shows me what it
means
to be all right. Please, please show me. You are practiced, you know how to make a girl feel important. You can help me. I believe you can teach me how to feel…right again,” she beseeched quietly.

“Lilly, I cannot, I— I have never had a relationship of import. I have never taught a soul a thing. I cannot be the one you need, you must find—”

She shook her head stiffly. “No, I want
you
to show me, I trust
you
. This is no relationship. That should make it easier, because I don’t expect anything from you but a tender touch, a caress, a bit of care. ‘Tis why it must be
you
, because you can do that, without expecting it to be anything else—”

Lilly looked into his green eyes and could see the tumult, the thoughts wrestling between what was right and what was proper.

Perry was disheartened by her final words, that he could take her without expecting anything from her, that he could show her what love felt like without actually giving his heart, or taking hers. She was right, of course, he knew this, but with Lilly it wasn’t what he wanted.

He wanted more for her, he wanted better for her, someone who would care for her, love her, take her to wife. She deserved more. More than him.

His hand went to his face, rubbed his eyes, closed them tight against the sting of the truth as he held her at a distance. If only for one night he could shake off the invisible binds that held him from her, this small damaged woman he had no right to touch, no right to care for. How had it come to this in one night, that he was irrevocably drawn to protect and honor her wishes? He opened his eyes, lit with the fire of his pain, and lowered his mouth to hers gently.

Her eyes fluttered shut.

He brushed his lips across hers to warm them for a stronger kiss.

She flinched.

He shook his head. “Lilly, this is impossible. You ask the impossible. You will find someone to help you through this, but it won’t be me. It can’t be me. I’m sorry. I understand your pain—at least I believe I understand what it is you wish for. But I simply cannot do what you asking of me.

She pulled away then, turning and lying down on the bed. She gave him her back and nothing more. His hand reached out to her, only to stop a mere breath away from touching her. He should go.