One Night for Love

Perhaps in a way her manner of coping was not unlike Lauren's…

He lost his courage suddenly—or what little of it he had found with that first question. Had he asked, she would perhaps have told him the rest. All the atrocious details of what she had suffered and endured and survived. He did not want to know. He could not bear to know. Even though he realized that perhaps she needed to tell.

Ah, Lily, and you spoke of cowardice?

He stroked her cheek and her jaw with the backs of his fingers and then set them beneath her chin to lift it. 'You have nothing to be ashamed of, Lily,' he said. Did she feel ashamed? But she had fully expected that he might divorce her for adultery. 'You did no wrong. I was the one who did wrong. I am the one who should feel shame. I should have protected you better. I should have guessed that they would attack the center of the line. I should have realized that there was a chance you still lived. I should have moved heaven and earth to find you and ransom you.'

'No!' Her eyes gazed calmly into his. 'Sometimes it is easier to find fault and place the blame—even on oneself—than to accept the fact that war just does not make sense. It was war. That is all.'

And yet she blamed herself, as had been apparent the night before last. She blamed herself for cowardice in not fighting for her virtue, in not dying with the French prisoners rather than submit. And he could not accept the excuse of war as absolution for his own guilt.

He had thought himself recovered from his wounds. She looked as if she had none. But perhaps in reality they were two wounded people who must somehow find pardon and peace and healing together.

But to do that they surely needed to have everything in the open between them. Yet he could not bear to know…

He lowered his head and touched his lips to hers. They were soft and warm and yielding. And her eyes, he saw when he drew back his head to look into them, were deep with yearning. He kissed her again, as lightly as before until he felt her lips cling to his own and press back against them—just as they had when he had drawn her beneath his blanket in his tent on their wedding night.

Ah, Lily. He had missed her. Even believing her dead, he had missed her. His life had been empty without her. There had been a void that nothing and no one had filled or would ever have filled. But she was back. Ah, she had come home to him. He set his arms about her and drew her against him. He parted his lips over hers.

And found himself fighting a wild thing, who clawed at him and pushed him away in panic, making mewing noises of distress. She whirled away from him across the room and set a chair between them. When he stared at her in shock, she was staring back, her eyes huge with terror. And then suddenly she shut them tightly, and when he would have spoken, she pressed her hands over her ears and continued with the noises. Shutting him out. Shutting herself in.

He turned to ice inside.

'Lily.' He used the only voice he knew instinctively she would recognize and respond to—his officer's voice. 'Lily, you are quite safe. My honor on it. You are safe'

She fell silent and after a few moments took her hands from her ears. She opened her eyes, though she did not look at him. They were huge and blank, the terror and everything else erased from them, he saw in some alarm.

'I am sorry,' he told her. 'My deepest apologies. I did not intend either to hurt or to frighten you. I will never do anything… physical to you against your will. I swear it. Please believe me.'

'I am afraid,' she said, her voice toneless. 'So afraid.'

'I know.' All of his earlier questions had been answered more forcefully than if he had articulated them and she had answered them in words. She was maimed as surely as a soldier who had returned from the wars with missing limbs—more so. He was afraid too—mortally afraid he would never be able to atone. He took a deep breath and used his officer's voice again. 'Look at me, Lily.'

She looked. All the vibrant color she had gained from her escapade on the beach had fled from her face. She was pale and haggard again.

'Take a good look,' he told her. 'Whom do you see?'

'You,' she said.

'And who am I?'

'Major Lord Newbury.'

'Do you trust me, Lily?' he asked her.

She nodded. 'With my life.'

It was an answer that terrified him—he had betrayed her trust once with appalling, incalculable results—but he could not afford to show his own weakness at the moment. 'I will not promise never to kiss you again,' he said, 'or never to do more than kiss you. But I will never do either without your full, free consent. Do you believe me?'

She nodded again. 'Yes.'

'Look about you,' he commanded her. 'Where are you?'

She looked. 'In the cottage,' she said. 'At Newbury Abbey.'

'And where is that, Lily?' he asked.

'In England.'

'There is no war in England,' he told her. 'There is peace here. And this little portion of England is mine. You are safe here with me. Do you believe me?'

'Yes,' she said.

'Let me see you smile again, then,' he said.