Bound by Wish and Mistletoe (Highland Legends #1.5)(34)
“I can only think of everythin’ I do like. Above all things I like and desire, one has risen to the top. You.”
She blushed and looked away, the intensity of his gaze heating her insides. She tore off and consumed another bite of bread, barely chewing, finding herself hungrier than she’d realized. He chuckled softly and picked up a wineskin, pulled out its cork, and handed it to her.
As she swallowed down the tart wine, Robert stifled a yawn. Unable to help herself, she pulled the flask from her lips, yawning unabashedly.
“Lie back, Susanna. Rest. We’ve had a long and eventful couple of days.”
She slid further down on the bed and rested her head on one of the feathered pillows while Robert stood and transferred all the food to the table by the hearth. Her eyelids drifted closed as he settled beside her and tugged gently at her shoulder. She turned toward him on a sigh, nestling into his side, reveling in his immense warmth.
“And one incredible night,” she murmured.
She drifted off to the feel of him pressing his lips to the top of her head as he whispered a tantalizing promise.
“’Tis the first in a lifetime of nights yet to come, my love.”
Yet even in the warm protection of his embrace, menacing shadows hunted her in her dreams...
Sticky webs tasting of fear and malice sucked her under until she gasped for air, for freedom. Her father’s maniacal bellow resonated into the nothingness, and she clamped her hands over her ears, terrified. Afraid to close her eyes, she stared as a foreboding silhouette materialized up a bleak stone wall, the snarling profile of a furious man seeking retribution.
Dougal.
His twisted shadow stretched taller, creeping onto the ceiling until it hovered over her, a specter threatening the nightmare of a torture worse than death.
She ran.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Robert awoke to a constricting feeling. His eyelids popped open, and he launched away from something clutching his neck. But as he took in the foreign surroundings, he exhaled all the air in his lungs at a wonderful sight.
Sitting upright, an ivory sheet drifting off the curves of her breasts, was the most beautiful woman. His woman. Her hair was mussed from sleep, her cheeks were pinked, and her heavily lashed eyelids fluttered open then drifted shut again, as if the effort to see was too great.
“Robert? Is somethin’ amiss?” she asked in a soft, sleepy voice.
“Nay. Not a thing.” He smiled, and crawled beneath the covers once again. Susanna curled up into his side, yawning against his chest.
“I dinna sleep well. I had bad dreams I canna seem to remember.” She tightened the arm she’d stretched across his chest for a brief moment before relaxing.
He rubbed his hand up and down her back, soothing her. The gentle creature he held in his arms may have had a dark past, but he swore her present and future would be filled with light. To carry out his endeavor, he needed to learn more about her.
“Susanna, tell me about your mother,” he said, cringing as he heard the words, hoping the topic wouldn’t change her sleepy, pliable demeanor.
Instead, she pressed closer against him, wrapping an arm around his chest and holding him tight. He sighed, thrilling over her possessiveness.
“Mama was the gentlest of souls. Givin’, no matter who received what she offered. Forgivin’ and lovin’,” she said, her voice growing softer.
“She’s no longer...here...is she.” What started as a question fell flat into a statement. He knew. The fighter beneath her delicate exterior never would’ve left behind her beloved mother, the one person in the world, it seemed, who’d shown her kindness and love.
“Nay.” Susanna’s voice cracked.
Warm tears fell onto his chest and tracked down the side of his ribs. He made no move to stop the flow, only squeezed her shoulder in support.
“I doona know all that happened. Only that...he...called for her in the middle of the night. He did so often. She’d always returned before sunrise. That time...she never returned.
“When I demanded to see her, he led me down to the chapel. Dressed in a gown of white I’d never seen before, she lay upon a long table as if sleepin’. Her eyes were closed and her hands had been folded across her chest.
“Everythin’ I’d held dear and sacred in my world vanished the moment Mama left this Earth. She knew it would happen. Although he never lifted a hand to me, he did to her. He’d made certain no marks showed, but she’d come back battered and bruised beneath her clothin’.”
Robert exhaled a puff of air, disgusted by the knowledge that anyone would treat another soul with such hatred and disregard. “Susanna, I’m verra sorry.” He tightened his grip on her.
She took a deep breath. “She made me promise that when she died—not if, but when—I was to leave the verra same night. I followed her instructions, takin’ nothin’ with me but a horse from the stables and enough food to make it to safety, wherever and however far away that happened to be.”
“You nearly ran me down, gettin’ there,” he quipped, smirking.
She gave a soft laugh and sniffled. “I dinna mean to, and yet, it turned out to be the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.”
Staying within his embrace, she shifted onto an elbow and gazed up at him. Her cheeks were shiny from her tears, her dark lashes stuck together from the wetness. “You are a wish I made. The verra thing I’d prayed for.”