Midnight Eyes. Sarah Brophy
was still reeling from this shock when Robert had calmly announced that he wanted everyone present to pay their respects to the new master of Shadowsend Keep and to his wife. Robert then led her to a chair near the fire without a word and through everything that had followed he had remained standing stiffly at her side. Mary had stationed herself at Imogen’s other side like a silent sentry, but Imogen had felt her trying to give her comfort and strength.
What followed was a hideous confusion. Each person came forward, bowed respectfully, then left the room. There were so many people that Imogen very quickly became confused, but pride wouldn’t let her show it.
Through it all she felt their eyes upon her, felt each of them trying to see her fabled deformity. Some of them knew, and soon they all would. Instead of an easily dismissed mystery, she would become a part of their known world, the Blind Lady of the Keep. It would be the death of the little false dignity anonymity had left her.
When Mary softly told her that the last of them had gone by, Imogen could have cried with relief. Instead she had stood briskly and imperiously, and demanded to be taken back to her bedroom. Robert immediately stepped forward.
She felt his warm hand on her arm and was almost seduced by it but her fear was too raw. She refused to be fooled by the comfort he offered. She shook off his hand.
“No. I want Mary.” Her voice wavered, but she lifted her chin defiantly.
She clearly heard Robert’s breath whistle between his teeth in shock, but he quickly hid his irritation at her public rejection. “Of course,” he said quietly, but it seemed to roar through the silent room.
Imogen pretended not to notice and regally walked from the room as she had been taught all those years ago, but once in her chamber she dismissed Mary as soon as she could. She needed more than anything to be alone with the chaos that now filled her.
She collapsed into a chair, covering her face with her hands, feeling more afraid than she had ever before in a life filled with fears. She now had fear about what was real and what was false in this world turned strange.
She had almost believed in that kiss.
For a moment she had almost believed that it wasn’t all an elaborate game. She had almost lost herself in the man. Almost.
It was pitiful, really, that she had been so easily absorbed into a dream world of his making. She should be grateful for the prying stares of the guests she had felt pulling away the layers of her skin. They had forced her to return to the harsh light of her reality.
And the reality was that they had all wanted to see Lady Deformed, wanted to feel that vague, tantalizing thrill that came with touching her corruption. Perhaps they had even been a little disappointed that her disfigurement hadn’t been more apparent, that they couldn’t actually see her ugly darkness. She could never let herself forget that, no matter how tempting it was to do so.
Her deformity was the darkness that only she could see but for a moment Robert had blinded her even to that and she couldn’t allow him to have that power over her. She could never allow herself to lose sight of what she had become, of who had made her that way.
She must never forget that Roger had robbed her of her vision, robbed her of her youth. She should never forget that the man who had taken her very life away from her was the same man who had sent Robert to her dark prison. If she forgot, Roger would win.
She sighed. It sounded simple but was so hard. It had been too long since she had been held, too long since she had felt the warmth of another’s concern. The forgetting was all too easy. Her reality seemed less real when she found herself drowning in Robert’s roughly tender charms.
And losing herself in that charm could prove deadly.
Robert walked up to the large desk in the center of the room. It was dusty from disuse, but the quality of the oak furniture was evident, he thought with some satisfaction, and he was making sure that the dust wouldn’t last long.
He had given his orders and he expected them to be obeyed. He wanted the Keep cleaned from top to bottom and he had made it painfully clear that there wasn’t one inch of his new home so insignificant that it wasn’t worthy of his inspection.
He looked after what was his.
He ran his hands over the oak table, trying to fire a flare of ownership, trying to find satisfaction in all that this morning’s vows had brought him, but instead a hollow feeling seemed to have lodged itself permanently inside of him.
That emptiness had flickered into life when Imogen had coldly rejected his help, and it had grown to crowd the day.
He had tried to fight it, tried to deny the sudden hollowness of his victory. He had called everyone in the keep together and issued their new instructions, had sorted out the arrangements for a suitable wedding feast that evening and had set about cleaning up the stables in preparation for the horses he had coming in easy stages from the Welsh borders.
Everything was being done as he had commanded.
Even now he could smell the succulent aromas of the feast being prepared in the great hall. No, his great hall, he corrected himself sternly, but the long-awaited concept was stillborn in his mind, swamped by the image of Imogen’s cold face as she had told him he was surplus to requirements. He had not been prepared for the dismissal, not after that all-too-brief kiss they had shared.
Just remembering it brought a pulsing heat to his loins. Holding her in his arms, feeling the innocent heat of her lips under his had shifted the universe. He had forgotten bargains, forgotten his name, and forgotten all but the bit of the world that he had enclosed in his arms.
And then she had turned from him, rejected him.
His mind relentlessly circled the memory. He couldn’t seem to let it go, even though he knew he was behaving like a half-starved dog with a bone.
“My lord,” Mary said quietly from the door that he had left half open.
She was obviously uncomfortable and not sure how to approach the lion in his den. Good, Robert thought savagely, even as a heated flush of embarrassment climbed his neck at being caught staring broodingly at a dusty table. He sat down on the chair behind the table and held his breath as the furniture creaked ominously, horrified at the prospect of being thrown onto his rump in front of this supremely dignified woman. His luck was in, however, and the chair held.
“What do you want, Mary?” he growled.
“I just thought you might like to know that my lady is having a rest before the feast.”
Robert raised his eyebrows in surprise. He never believed for a moment that Mary genuinely thought he needed to know such pointless information. She flushed under his scrutiny and started to shuffle her feet. Her very apparent embarrassment made her look a little more human.
“Is there something more important you have come to tell me, or have you just temporarily lost your mind?” Robert murmured.
It was the opening Mary had apparently been waiting for. She stepped fully into the room and closed the door firmly behind her.
“I just wanted to know if my lady had offended you too deeply.”
He shrugged his shoulders with a careful negligence. “No more than she intended to offend me, I am sure.”
Mary shook her head and frowned in exasperation. “She didn’t mean to be offensive, my lord. Can’t you see that she was reacting, not acting? She wasn’t thinking about you at all.” Her voice pleaded to be understood even as it lectured.
Robert smiled faintly. “I had gathered that much. Her indecent rush to leave the hall was, I felt, a fair indication of her extreme lack of interest in her husband.”
“No!” she said sharply. “That’s not it. You don’t understand. It wasn’t a rational thing. She was too afraid to be logical.”
“Afraid! What had she to be afraid of?” he snapped out bitterly. “I have yet to do anything