Chapter 14

The wind played havoc with the candle Abby clutched in her hand as she tip-toed down the corridor of the dark, silent Hall.

One would have thought that so many hours of dancing would result in exhaustion, but no. Sleep had eluded her for hours, and she was no closer to dozing off than she had been when she’d first retired.

The ball had been a resounding success, and the dowager had been beside herself as she spoke of the sensation Abby had been.

Yet Abby had not cared about being a sensation. She hadn’t cared that her dance card had been quickly filled.

The only dances she’d cared about where the ones in Robert’s arms. The opening cotillion and then, even now her heartbeat picked up, the supper waltz.

Abby had known at the beginning of the dance that her heart had been in very real danger.

And just as she’d suspected, when Robert had placed a hand around her waist to waltz with her, she had fallen hard and fast into love with him.

It was folly. Abigail knew that.

Robert might be opening up more. Smiling more. Even leaving wildflowers in his line of vision.

But he was a long way from someone who would open his heart to her. And she still didn’t even know why.

James had said that Robert’s story was his own to tell.

Yet he’d never given any indication that he would tell her. And she couldn’t very well ask him!

How could she love a man who was so closed off to her, to everything? Yet love him she did.

So, here she was in the middle of this gigantic house, all alone and trying to remember the way to the kitchen.

Perhaps a hot drink would send her off to sleep.

It was better than tossing and turning in any case.

Cupping a protective hand around the flickering candlelight, Abigail moved on once again…

Straight into a table.

Biting her lip to keep from crying out and waking the entire household, she hopped around, grasping her toe, and cursing the table that had sprung up from nowhere.

The candlestick fell to the ground with a thump, and she was plunged into darkness.

Only the moonlight shining through gaps in the drawn curtains gave any sort of relief from the black.

It was no use. She was cold and grumpy, and all she had for her efforts was a sore foot.

Giving her plan up for a lost cause, Abby turned to make her way back to her rooms.

A sudden sound halted her in her tracks, and she listened closer.

Had that been a groan? Where had it come from?

There!

The groan sounded louder still, and the air squeezed from Abby’s lungs.

Whatever or whomever was making such a noise was obviously in extreme pain, and it hurt her heart to hear it.

A sudden shout rent the air, and Abby jumped from her skin.

It was coming from behind the door just beside her.

These were the family quarters.

She had been put near the dowager when she’d arrived, and James had been put in a room closer to Robert’s.

Another groan made Abigail’s heart twist painfully.

The voice was male. And she didn’t think it was James.

She should leave. Just turn around and leave.

She absolutely, positively could not enter a man’s bedchamber in the middle of the night. Or at any time, really.

She knew this.

Walk away, Abby, she told herself sternly.

And then, he cried out. “Please, no.”

It was the most desolate, bleak thing Abby had ever heard, and she couldn’t bare it.

Without giving herself a chance to change her mind or garner a modicum of common sense, Abigail twisted the doorknob and pushed Robert’s bedroom door open.

Her heart was hammering so loudly in her chest that she was sure it would wake Robert and everyone else in the house.

But no. The night remained silent and still, save for the harsh breathing and occasional whimper from Robert.

Abigail stepped inside the room and then froze at the sight before her.

The curtains in this room had been left open so the pale moonlight illuminated the space, giving Abigail a clear view of what was inside.

Her first thought was that it clearly wasn’t a master bedroom, given that it was the same size as her own bedchamber.

Her second was that she needed to get out of there. Fast.

Robert had obviously been unsettled for quite a while, judging by how the coverlet was twisted around his body.

His naked body.

Abigail’s throat dried, and she found herself frozen to the spot.

The covers lay around his stomach, and she gave a prayer of thanks for that, at least.

Somehow, she didn’t think his waking up to find a woman in a dead faint at the foot of his bed would be a positive experience for any of them.

But his muscled torso and arms were in full view, and though she knew she was courting danger, Abigail couldn’t help herself. She stepped closer, her eyes fixed on the man lying before her.

She knew she should be ashamed of herself. Abigail had never considered herself to be voyeuristic, and she had certainly never considered herself the type of woman who would sneak into a man’s room to ogle him.

But she’d never seen anything so—so beautiful! It was an odd way to describe a man of such size and strength, such blatant masculinity. Yet it was true.

The sinewy muscle, the smooth jaw, the mussed hair. It was beauty in its rawest form.

Robert suddenly groaned again, and the sound forced Abby into action.

What on earth was she thinking?

She dragged her eyes from Robert and made to move toward the door.

But just then, he shouted, “Stop!” and Abby spun round, thinking he was speaking to her.

No, he was still asleep. But Abby’s relief was short lived.

In her haste to turn around, she’d trodden on her night rail, and she stumbled forward, toward the bed.

This was going to end badly.

Abigail pitched headfirst toward where Robert lay oblivious.

Luckily, she managed to land on her knees so that her entire body didn’t fall on top of him where he slept.

Unluckily, she ended up directly beside his face.

She hit the ground with a loud thump, and instinctively reached out to break her fall.

To Abby’s utter mortification, Robert’s eyes snapped open just as her hands landed on either side of his head, and her face stopped inches from his own.

She watched as myriad emotions flicked through his eyes.

There was the leftover horror from what was evidently a terrible nightmare, then shock, presumably because he didn’t usually waken to an unwanted face inches from his own. Finally, a desire so potent that her knees turned to liquid. Which was unfortunate since they were supporting her.

The fraught silence was broken only by Robert’s laboured breathing. Abigail had stopped breathing the second his eyes had opened.

Finally, when her nerves were stretched to their breaking point, Abigail couldn’t take it any longer.

“Robert, I—”

She didn’t even get a chance to finish whatever she’d been going to say.

With a muffled oath, Robert reached out a hand and pulled her face toward his for a wild, passionate kiss.

Robert wondered briefly if he’d finally descended into complete madness.

He had been in the throes of an ever-worsening nightmare.

And he’d thought he’d woken up.

Yet clearly not.

His nightmare had become his deepest fantasy. For it truly felt like he was kissing Abigail Langton.

And this dream felt more real than even the nightmare of moments ago.

The Abby of his dream gasped, and Robert took the opportunity to delve his tongue inside her mouth, tasting her and driving himself mad with desire.

God, he never wanted to wake up.

With a groan, he reached down and plucked her up from her prone position beside him.

What had she been doing on the floor, in any case? That was a first in the many dreams he’d had about her. So too was the realness of this one.

He wrapped his arms around her and rolled so she was underneath him, lowering his head to place a trail of kisses along her jaw, as he’d been desperate to do for weeks.

Her moan of pleasure filled the room, causing an answering painful lust inside of him.

Robert opened his eyes to gaze down at her, and—

Wait.

He opened his eyes to gaze down at her…

He opened his eyes!

Robert’s thundering heart stopped dead in his chest as reality came crashing down around him.

Dear God. This was real. It was no dream. He was kissing Abigail. In his bedchamber. On his bed.

Robert jumped from the bed, staggering to the window, putting some much-needed distance between him and the woman who’d been haunting his dreams for weeks and had now, somehow, become very, very real.

He struggled to catch his breath as his sleep-fogged mind tried to make sense of what was going on.

Abigail had by now scrambled to her feet and was standing on the other side of the bed, staring at him, her eyes impossibly big in the moonlight.

A good thing, too, that the bed was now between them, for if she’d been any closer, Robert couldn’t guarantee he’d have the strength to keep from reaching for her once more.

“Abigail.” Desire made his voice gruff. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“No, I’m sorry,” she blurted, and even in the darkness, he could sense that her cheeks were flaming. “I shouldn’t have come in b-but…”

She trailed off, and Robert felt a sudden dread.

“Why did you come in?” he bit out. He didn’t mean to be so sharp. But Robert’s ghosts were his own business. And the last person he wanted to see that side of him was the woman facing him, though he couldn’t say why exactly.

“I heard s-something. You sounded—that is, there was m-moaning and a shout and—”

She paused in her stuttering, and Robert felt a wave of shame wash over him.

He hadn’t shown vulnerability to anyone since his childhood, and it made him feel defensive and deuced uncomfortable to know that the woman he—

He shied away from that thought before it could fully form.

This situation was bizarre enough without adding to the tense emotions flying around the room.

What he needed was to get her out of her, because he was acutely aware that they were still in his private rooms, and acutely aware of what they’d been doing only moments ago.

And then there was the small matter of his being completely naked.

His control could only last so long.

“My apologies for disturbing your evening, Miss Langton.”

“Miss Langton?” She sounded shocked by his formality.

But she didn’t know he was hanging on by a thread.

“Robert, you’ve just—that is we’ve just—”

“Abby.”

He interrupted, and even he could hear the desperation in his tone. But if she was going to start rehashing what had just happened on that bed, no amount of furniture between them was going to stop him from picking up where they’d left off.

And the fact that he sensed she wanted to as much as he did wasn’t helping his control in any way.

“Please, for the love of God, do not speak of what just transpired here.”

“Why not?” she demanded, and he couldn’t help but smile.

She was an utter tearaway. He knew of no other woman who would find herself in such a precarious situation and not run away crying, or swoon from shock or some such nonsense.

No, Abigail would argue with the devil himself if the mood took her.

Robert pinched the bridge of his nose, struggling to maintain his composure.

“Because,” he bit out. “It’s bad enough that we’re in my bedroom in the middle of the night, with no one around but us.”

He stepped away from the window, closer to her, though he knew damn well he shouldn’t.

“It’s bad enough that I feel like my entire body is going up in flames every time I touch you.”

He stepped closer still, until it was only the bed between them.

“And if you don’t leave now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep my distance as I should.”

That would surely scare her off.

Abigail gazed at him for what seemed like an eternity before she shocked him yet again as soon as she opened that bloody mouth of hers.

He watched as her chin titled up in what he was coming to recognise as a mark of defiance.

“Why should you keep your distance?” she asked boldly, and that barely banked fire of lust roared to life inside him.

But he’d heard the slightest tremor in her voice, and it was enough to make him hang onto the last remnant of self-control.

“You don’t know what you’re asking, Abby,” he told her softly. “You’re an innocent. Pure.”

He laughed but there was no humour in it.

“You don’t want to be sullied by a monster like me.”

“You’re not a monster, Robert,” she protested immediately, and he hated how much it affected him, hearing his name on her lips. Because it made it so much harder to send her away.

“Trust me, sweetheart. I am the closest thing to a monster you’re ever likely to meet.”

She opened her mouth, no doubt to protest. But he didn’t give her the chance.

“You need to leave while I still have the strength to let you walk away from me.”

He watched her watching him.

He prayed that she would leave. Hoped that she would stay.

Finally, without another word, she turned and fled the room.

And Robert tried to ignore the pang in his chest as he watched her go.