her neck and tilting her face up to meet his. She knew him by his kiss, soft and sweet and persuasive, but Thomas didn’t like to kiss. Everything had changed, though, and she was dreaming, happy, feeling more alive than she’d ever felt before as she burrowed against him, his arms holding her close, and she slept, she slept.
She was cold. She was alone again. Thomas had left her, and the bed was hard beneath her, too hard, and someone was shaking her, hard. Her eyes flew open, she looked up into Viscount Rohan’s cold face, cold eyes, and she knew.
“Wake up,” he said in a rough voice. “You were dreaming.”
She managed to scramble away from him, her brain still fogged from sleep. And then she realized it hadn’t been Thomas at all, it had been Rohan who’d slept beside her. Rohan, not Thomas—who was dead, who wasn’t coming back—and to her complete shame a harsh sob broke from her throat, followed by another.
It was nothing compared to the horror in his face at her tears. “For God’s sake, Charity, it wasn’t my fault,” he snapped. “I was asleep, as well. You were the one who curled up beside me. I didn’t know what I was doing.” Another sob came from her chest, and he looked even more harassed. “I hardly meant to kiss you, but in truth you were climbing all over me, and I was three-quarters asleep myself.”
Her stomach hurt, her chest ached, and she wrapped her arms around her body, trying to force the overwhelming sorrow back into the secret place where she kept it locked, but it was too strong. She swallowed, but looking at him made it even worse, because he wasn’t Thomas, and because she wanted to kiss him, not Thomas, which was the final betrayal.
She’d almost managed to get it under control by biting down on her lower lip, when he ruined it all by saying, “It was nothing. It was just a kiss.”
And the dam broke, and she howled, throwing her hands over her face, weeping into them helplessly as Thomas’s elderly, dear, choleric face faded from her memory. She knew she should stop, calm herself, but the release of tears was a blessing. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she cried, but letting go felt good, and too bad if Rohan felt uncomfortable. She needed this.
She drew her knees up and pressed her face against them, sobbing and gasping, unable to calm herself. And then she looked up at Rohan’s horrified face, and managed what was no doubt a ghastly smile. “It’s…not you,” she managed to choke out between sobs and struggles for breath. “It’s Thomas.”
“Your husband?” he said, clearly confused. “Why are you crying about him?”
“I miss him!” she wailed.
He stayed perfectly still, and she stopped thinking about him, concentrating on her own misery. Through her blinding tears she could see the quizzical expression on his face, but she simply turned away, trying to burrow into her grief.
His hands startled her, but she was past fighting. He pulled her into his arms, but there was nothing lascivious about it. He simply folded her against him, his strong arms wrapped around her, protecting her as she had dreamed, and his heart beat strongly against hers as he tucked her head against his shoulder and pulled her onto his lap.
She should have struggled. Her tears should have dried up in outrage and she should have managed to break free from him, at least a small shred of her dignity intact. But she was lost, sobbing in his arms, sobbing for her husband, her dear friend who had unexpectedly become everything to her and then left her.
Rohan didn’t say a word. No soothing noises, no “there theres.” Just voiceless comfort as she finally released the last of the sorrow she’d kept bound up for so long.
He seemed to sense when she was ready to move away. All she had to do was tense her muscles and his arms loosened, and she knew he would release her as soon as she made a move to climb off his lap. Which she certainly should do, but instead she lifted her tearstained face to look at him.
There was no triumph in his eyes, no air of superiority. He simply looked at her, still and silent, and she suddenly remembered the kiss in her dream, a kiss that had come from him after all, not Thomas. The feel of male arousal against her hand.