Chapter Sixteen
Lord Mark Rydell’s Bloomsbury residence
Half-past three in the morning
A moan jostled Judith’s slumber. A wistful dream of a broad meadow filled with wildflowers and dozens of Highland Ponies dissipated in a vapor as an almost instinctual urgency, a sudden spike of fear, pierced her sleep.
Judith jerked awake and pushed up on the pillow just as a wild kick from Mark threw her leg off his.
That urgency seized her again, and Judith rolled away, throwing aside the covers and bounding out of bed on the far edge away from him.
Mark screamed, a wild sound of terror and pain, as his hands clawed the air.
Then one fist thudded against the headboard as the other slammed into the mattress.
His eyes snapped open, but their stare was of unseen horror.
Another bellow of fear blasted through the room, although Judith doubted he heard it.
Because Lord Mark Rydell was still very much asleep.
Memories of Edmund’s violent nighttime fits flooded Judith, and she looked around, desperately searching for anything that would help.
There. On top of his wardrobe, a thick quilted blanket lay neatly folded.
Rushing to that side of the room, Judith bounced up on her toes several times until her fingers snagged the heavy cover, and it tumbled down on top of her.
She gathered it, doubled it over, then held it in front of her and waited for a small moment—a second—a breath of calm in the chaos.
He continued to thrash for what felt like an eternity, his eyes staring into the unknown, but finally that moment came, a brief interlude as he panted, his body trembling as if pain consumed him.
Judith took her chance.
*
Pain seared through him as his body slammed to the ground, the rearing, wounded horse looming above him.
He screamed as another explosion sounded, the compression throwing the horse off balance, its hooves skidding as its body fell toward Mark, the ominous shadow of its bulk growing ever larger as it fell towards him.
He flinched, then stilled, unable to move away from the collapsing beast.
A solid weight suddenly covered him—but not the horse, which fell to his left, shrieking in pain but alive and struggling to regain its feet. It writhed ever nearer, but the weight over him held him down. He pushed against it, but his arms felt clamped to his side.
Then he heard his name.
Distant. From within a thick fog of smoke.
Again.
Then the confinement around him tightened. Firm but soft. Not a weight of war, of danger.
Comforting. Safety.
“Mark.”
His body shuddered as darkness overwhelmed him. The fight left him, and he relented, going limp. Surrender.
“Mark.”
He opened his eyes.
*
Judith watched him carefully. He had come to himself, awake, but she could see in his eyes the confusion and uncertainty of what he saw.
Her, on top of him, having wrapped him in the thick blanket, mounting him and encircling him with her arms and legs, holding on as if he were one of her wild ponies, bucking to throw her off.
But he did not.
She had called his name, quiet but persistent, until he had gone limp beneath her.
They stared at each other. As his breathing eased, Judith slipped off his side of the bed, her feet cushioned by the thick carpet of the room.
She peeled the heavy blanket away and draped it over the bench at the end of the bed.
Mark watched every move, silent. Judith looked around and, spotting a glass and pitcher of water on the shaving stand, filled the glass and bought it to him.
“You should try to sit.” She held out the glass. “Water will help with the dry mouth.”
His eyes still on her, Mark pushed up in the bed, bracing his back against the headboard, sweat coating his face and neck. He reached for the glass, drinking as if he had been a week without. She brought him another.
“What did you do to me?” His words, low and hoarse, held more curiosity than accusation.
She crossed her arms, hugging herself against the sharp memories.
“Edmund. He had those nightmares. The flailing fits. The doctor suggested that heavy bedclothes had helped some of his other patients—also veterans of war—something they had discovered by accident during one particularly cold winter. I had my maid sew two quilted blankets together, filling several of the quilted pockets with buckshot. It took a bit of experimentation to get the distribution and weight correct—so that he didn’t roll out of bed or suffocate—but we finally found a combination that worked.
” She shrugged. “It helped most nights. He slept under it in the winter and kept it handy during the summer. It was not a solution—the nightmares persisted to the end—but it was . . . an aid.”
“You got on top of me. You held onto me.”
Judith gestured toward the foot of the bed. “I did not believe that blanket would be enough.” A sudden thought occurred to her. “I did not hurt you, did I?”
He shook his head, still looking somewhat stunned. “You were not afraid?”
The question puzzled her. “Why would I be? Afraid of what?”
He blinked, his mouth tightening. “I can be . . . violent.”
She shrugged. “Fighting demons usually is. But you were not fighting me.” She smiled. “And, if you remember, I can be rather quick on my feet.”
That smirk flitted across his face but did not linger. “Judith—”
She stepped closer, understanding. “This is why you did not want me to stay.”
He nodded, a touch of normalcy returning to his face. “I did not intend to sleep, but sometimes, I drift off. I have no desire to hurt you. Or frighten you.”
Judith reached and brushed his hair away from his face. “My darling, it takes a great deal more than a thrashing nightmare to frighten me.” She kissed him, a butterfly caress of his lips. “Do you take to the streets to stay awake?”
“The theater. The gambling hells. To see Stella.”
“So the problem is not that you cannot sleep. It’s that you do not want to.”
“It is rather treacherous territory.”
“Ah. Perhaps we can discover other entertainments.” Judith clambered over him, plumped pillows against the headboard, and snuggled in next to him. He watched every move, and as she took his hand and entwined their fingers, that smirk returned.
“Has anyone ever told you how retiring and demure you are?”
Judith laughed, squeezing his hand. “No. Not even in my first season. My only season. My mother considered one of her greatest failures to be that she could not convince me to keep my mouth shut. I learned the strictest posture and a mincing walk. I learned to play the pianoforte—somewhat—and to dance. I can tell the difference between a teaspoon, a soup spoon, a bullion spoon, a cream-soup spoon, and a dessert spoon, and where they go in a place setting. I have read Shakespeare, Plato, Defoe, and the novels of Mrs. Burney. I have studied Locke, Hume, and the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Astell. But I can barely thread a needle and have a serious distaste for being bored. I could never play the coquette. Despite Mother’s best efforts, I found the innocuous chitchat encouraged for young women to be nigh on intolerable.
She once called me a harridan. But how often can you discuss the latest hat style before becoming as mad as the king himself? ”
Mark shifted on his pillows to face her more directly. “I can honestly say I have never discussed hat styles with anyone but my hatter.”
“As it should be.”
He studied her a moment, his eyes narrowing. “Is that why you think you were Edmund’s second choice? Because you are clever and outspoken?”
Judith closed her eyes. The question took her breath away. How could he have possibly remembered that? “I was not his second choice.”
“Nor should you have been.”
“I was his fifth choice.”
A sharp intake of air made Judith open her eyes. He seemed truly surprised.
“You cannot possibly know—”
“He told me. Our first years were . . . unpleasant. He had been a second son, a widower with few prospects. He was far more interested in a bedmate and a mother to his sons than a wife who could manage his house. I know whom he courted and who rejected him because he made me aware of each name. No one thought he would be the earl, and he often threw up to me that if he had waited another year, he could have had his pick of eligible women.” Judith looked down at their clasped hands, unsettled by how much saying it had caused a deep ache in her chest.
“Then he was a fool.”
Mark’s kindness eased that ache a little, and Judith shrugged, looking at him again. “I made an excellent countess, and we grew to care for each other. I threw myself into running the household, and he grew to see value in that, if nothing else.”
He shook his head, then sat abruptly sat forward, twisting toward her and taking her face in both hands, pulling her close.
“You are so much more than that.” Then he kissed her, pressing his lips against hers in a firm, determined way.
His fingers curled into her hair, tugging the locks as his tongue pressed into her mouth.
With a moan, Judith surrendered into the kiss, the pressure on her scalp igniting a fire deep in her belly, and heat bloomed between her thighs. She thrust her tongue against his and wrapped her arms around him, her fingertips digging into the muscles of his shoulders.
Then he was gone—his absence so sudden that Judith cried out as he pushed off the bed. Mark stared down at her, his breath coming in deep gasps.
“What are you—”
He held out a hand. “Do not move.” He looked around, then scooped up her stockings from the floor and tossed them on the end of the bed.
Then he opened the dressing room and pulled the sash from a banyan hanging on a peg behind the door.
He disappeared inside a moment, then returned with the sash and one of his white ascots, both gripped in his left hand.
His smirk returned as he came to the side of the bed, those blue eyes gleaming.