She hated to do it but had no other choice. She threw her balance to one side and brought her knee up high and hard and fast.
With a cry of pain, James let go of her and fell to the floor. Daniella jumped over him and crouched beneath the window ledge. If he came at her again, she would push him through it. If it came down to her life or his, she chose hers.
He moaned and writhed but didn’t get up again. He was firmly wedged in front of the door and unless she wanted to scale the night-dampened wall in her nightgown then she was trapped in the room with him.
As she looked around for something heavy enough to knock him out with if she had to, he groaned again and rolled to face her, his cheek against the flooring timbers, his hands on the part of him she had hurt the most. Not his nose.
“What the devil did you do to me?”
Her mouth dropped open. “What did I do? I was defending myself against you!”
“What happened?”
She shook her head in disbelief. He really had been sleeping? She’d heard of men who had committed violence while asleep but had never really believed the tales.
“First you called me Marie and then you tried to kill me!” Her throat and neck hurt so much it was a wonder she could breathe at all.
“Daniella…I… God, I’m sorry. Are you hurt?”
“Of course I’m hurt, you ass! You almost strangled me in my bloody sleep.”
He rose gingerly, unable to take more than a step before bending and swearing softly. As he approached her again, she held the dagger at the ready. If she shoved it in the side of his neck, he would die. She’d done it before and it required more aim than strength or finesse.
“I’m not going to harm you, Daniella.”
“Excuse me if I don’t believe you,” she retorted, lifting the dagger higher and acquiring a better grip on the weapon.
He changed direction and went to sit on the end of the bed, his head in his hands as he stared at the floor. She relaxed, but only slightly.
“This has happened to me before.”
She had to really listen hard to hear what he said—and swallow her horror when she understood.
“The first time was when I was recovering from a bullet wound in my leg. I met your father not long after that.”
“What happened?” she asked, not sure whether to believe she was out of danger or not.
“I was in a tent with the other sick and wounded and the doctor gave me laudanum to dull the pain after they dug the ball out. I told them I didn’t need the drug but apparently a man doesn’t get a choice when faced with an English surgeon bent on saving his life.”
He sighed. “I remember sleeping so heavily, I knew I had to be dreaming when Marie showed up that first time to haunt me. She was dead. I saw her die. But when I came to, I found I was strapped to the cot. All around me was carnage. They told me I had risen from my bed and started to chase an imagined foe around the tent. They told me I had stabbed one man and injured five more. I was called home before the army could figure out just what to do with me, their broken assassin.”
“Why weren’t you imprisoned?”
“It was confirmed by the doctor that having sufficient laudanum in my body to keep three men down was reason enough not to completely hold me accountable for my actions. I did spend my last two weeks as a military man in a prison cell.”
“You said that was the first time?”
He nodded.
“How many times have you done it since?”
When he met her eyes, Daniella recognized desolation in them. “A few. I sleep with the door barricaded from the outside some nights, and others I simply don’t sleep at all.”
“But you have slept these past two nights just fine. Is there something that triggers it?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t sleep. I haven’t slept in nearly a week. Sometimes it happens when I am under a great deal of pressure or am anxious. I did come up with a handy trick to ensure I do not fall too deeply asleep and that is what I have used these nights past.”
“What is it?”
“Usually I sleep on rocks.”
“Rocks? I don’t understand.”
“My bedroll has little sharp rocks sewn into special pockets so that I never get a good night’s sleep.”
She digested that. “This worked for you in the war?”
He shook his head. “I was still in the prison cell awaiting a decision when the letters came to bring me home. I don’t think they would have let me go back into the field as the Butcher after that. Also, I had attacked my fellow soldiers for no reason at all. Most men were scared of me; others wanted to lock me up forever. Hobson was the only loyal man who vowed to fight on with me. My career was over no matter what happened after that day.”
“And you were called home before any court-martial?”
“Yes. There was a letter. I’m sure my elevation helped my superiors put my crimes out of their minds.” She could almost taste his sarcasm. “Dear Major James Frank Trelissick,” he continued as though he read straight from the missive. “You are being recalled to your family under the most desperate of circumstance. It is with great sadness that I inform you of your brother’s and your father’s deaths.”
The anguish he must have felt. All at once his military career over and his family half gone, the title in his hands but smattered with blood.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, Daniella.” There he went deciphering her thoughts again.
“How could I not?”
He chuckled then but it lacked any trace of
