span of time, he held her to him, caressing her back, her spine. He had never felt a greater protective surge than he knew now over the woman in his arms. He wanted to keep her here forever. To promise her she never again need know fear. To erase her every nightmare.
They had fallen asleep naked after their last bout of lovemaking, too tired to return to their respective homes once more. And that meant there were no barriers between them. His chest absorbed the rapid thuds of her heart, growing slowly more normal as the panic receded.
He would not push her to speak or to share her nightmare with him. The cause was clear—Southwick. And it pained Tom mightily to think that mayhap their frank conversation earlier had caused her to revert to painful remembrances of the past in her sleep. He told himself it was not his place to pry. That he was here to comfort her. That they had agreed to a two-week affaire of nothing more than the mutual slaking of desire.
“I have embarrassed myself quite thoroughly, I fear,” she murmured into his neck.
“Never,” he vowed, his hand settling beneath the fine strands of her unbound hair.
Her natural waves sifted through his fingers. He was no longer tired. Indeed, he felt he could spend the rest of the night like this, holding her to him, comforting her. Chasing her ghosts.
She was silent for a while longer. He continued stroking her hair, holding her tight. Allowing her to take her time.
“Tom?” she asked, her voice hesitant, interrupting the murk of the night once again.
“You needn’t say another word,” he told her.
The last thing he wanted was for her to feel pressured to unburden herself to him any more than she already had.
She took a deep breath. “I want to. I…I think it may help me to speak of it. Unless you are tired. How presumptuous of me.”
“Tell me anything you like, darling.” Once again, a fierce, protective rush overwhelmed him.
Mine said something in his heart. Beat. Beat. Beat. Mine.
“It was an old nightmare.” She shivered, and he gathered her closer. “I have not had it for some time. I was back at Willdon Hall. My only happiness there was in tending my herb gardens, but Southwick forbade me from working in the dirt. He said it was beneath me. He—he caught me one day, secretly tending to my herbs.”
By God. Tom was not a man prone to violence. But the sudden urge to beat Lord Southwick roared to life within him yet again. He tamped it down with great effort before he could find his voice.
“Was your nightmare about that day?” he asked softly.
“Yes.” Her breath hitched again, as if she battled against a sob. “He came upon me. He was meant to have been gone, seeing to the purchase of a horse. But one moment, I was happily tending my herbs, and the next, he was there. He destroyed my garden. He was so angry, so vicious and cruel. Southwick could not bear to be undermined. The rules were his, and everyone had to obey. Anything less deserved punishment.”
Tom had no words.
What could he say? What could he do to ameliorate the suffering she had known at the hands of her bastard of a husband? He searched inside himself, but could not find a suitable answer.
“I am so sorry, Hyacinth,” he whispered, still running a hand over her hair, soothing her in any way he knew how. “I cannot begin to imagine what you endured.”
“It is over now. In the past.” She moved, the warmth of her breath leaving his throat. Her lips pressed to his cheek in a chaste kiss. “Thank you, Tom. You are the finest gentleman I have ever known. Protector of lost pups and ladies.”
He could not stifle his smile at her words. “Nonsense. There is nothing fine about me. I am a scoundrel who attempted to break up a marriage. A disgrace to my grandmother. A sower of scandal. A fool who spent the last few months drowning himself in his sorrows. To say nothing of the callous fashion in which I initially treated my lovely new neighbor.”
Hyacinth kissed his jaw, her lips curved in what he knew instinctively was one of her brilliant smiles. She was always smiling. Always happy. Always sweet and kind and good. When she had absolutely no reason to be, after the manner in which she had been so disgustingly ill-treated by the man she had