Tempting the Bride - By Sherry Thomas Page 0,43
soft, sleepy grunt.
“Is she still awake?” asked Hastings.
“She was asleep earlier. Perhaps we are disturbing her by speaking in here.”
Helena produced another small grunt and slowly opened her eyes. Hastings took a step toward her. “Did we wake you, Helena?”
His words were soft, but his jaw was tense. In fact, his entire person was tense, as if he were about to meet a battle of impossible odds.
“You are back,” she mumbled.
She must have said something comforting, for instantly the strain in his face was replaced by a look of indescribable relief. He smiled. “Yes, I’m back.”
“I haven’t remembered you,” she felt obliged to point out.
He touched his fingertips to the edge of her bed, a startlingly intimate gesture even though he’d done nothing suggestive. “That does not in the least diminish my joy at seeing you again, my dear.”
Fitz cleared his throat. If Helena didn’t have her stitches to mind, she’d have raised an eyebrow as high as the battlements of the Tower of London. She failed to see why a man who kissed his wife like a starving man devouring a fresh loaf of bread ought to interfere when another man greeted his own wife in a most decorous fashion.
“Did you have supper, David?” Fitz asked.
“I did, thank you.” Hastings turned to Fitz. “Where is the night nurse?”
“We told her to get up and stretch her legs. She’s been cooped up in that chair for hours,” said Millie.
Hastings nodded. “I see.”
“Fitz, Millie, why don’t you two go take your rest?” said Helena. Or be up half the night with noisy indecencies, if you so prefer. “Lord Hastings can stay with me until the night nurse returns.”
At her suggestion, a number of looks were exchanged among Fitz, Millie, and Hastings. Helena was vaguely disconcerted. Why did everyone always act surprised whenever she wanted a moment of privacy with her husband?
“Well, then, David, we’ll leave her safety and well-being in your capable hands,” acceded Fitz.
Fitz and Millie kissed Helena on her good cheek before they murmured their good nights. Hastings closed the door softly behind their departing backs. “How are you, my dear?”
“Much, much better. No more abdominal troubles, only one faint bout of nausea, and…” She lost her train of thought for a moment as he came to the foot of the bed. His long fingers traced the tapering segment of the bedpost nearest him—fingers that, given that they were newlyweds, must have freely traced the curves of her body only days ago.
“And what?” he prompted.
“And—the headache is far more tolerable.”
“Excellent.” Now he spread his fingers against the bedpost. She swallowed. “My apologies for waking you up. I wanted to be back sooner, but Bea wouldn’t come out of her trunk.”
He’d mentioned the trunk earlier, to Fitz and Millie. “What trunk?”
“She has a trunk she climbs into when she is upset.”
Belatedly she realized that he looked different: He’d put enough pomade into his hair so that only the very ends still curled. The pomade also made his hair look darker, more brown than blond. “Wouldn’t she asphyxiate inside?”
“I had holes drilled in the sides of the trunk. And there is also a small opening near the bottom through which one can hand her a cup of tea and a biscuit.”
An odd child. Helena could think of nothing worse than locking herself in a trunk. “She is not like other children, is she?”
“No child is like any other, but she does lack those instincts and skills to even remotely resemble other children.” He sighed softly. “Between you and me, I have no idea whether I am doing the right thing by waiting beside the trunk and coaxing her out. My uncle would have burned the trunk, forcing her to light the match, no less.”
She didn’t know why she found his uncertainty so attractive. She supposed she must like a man who was both humble enough to question his decisions and brave enough to admit it. “Is she genuinely distressed when she goes into her trunk?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are not doing anything wrong by being patient and kind.”
He smiled again at her, a smile both tired and happy. Something tugged at her heart. She slid her fingers along the top of the bedcover. “I never had a trunk—I could not tolerate being inside one even for hide-and-seek. But we did have a very tall tree at Hampton House. When I became particularly upset for any reason, I’d climb to the highest branch and then be stuck there, not knowing how to get back