Midnight Eyes by Brophy, Sarah (well read books .TXT) 📕

and her voice rose shrilly. That wouldn’t do, she thought with numb panic. She couldn’t let him know just how much she was hurting and she tried to draw herself back under control, but she wasn’t as good at it as Robert was. “He just wrote to ensure my well-being. And yours, of course. That is all. I didn’t bother with the expense of more parchment for a reply.”

She heard the rustle of his feet through the rushes as he began to pace the length of the room, perhaps trying to expend some of that ever-present restless energy she had come to know so well.

For a moment she envied him that energy, envied him the release that mindless movement would give. She seemed frozen to the spot. In the absence of that release, the pain grew until it was almost too great for a mere mortal to support. She was being suffocated by her absolute stillness.

“Damn him,” Robert swore suddenly, causing Imogen to flinch when he reached out and grabbed her shoulders in an almost-painful grip. “He is nothing to us, has no power over us, do you understand me? Believe me when I tell you that you have nothing to fear.”

Imogen found herself cringing away from the contact.

Roger had won. He had tainted it all, tainted her life with Robert. She couldn’t stop her shiver of revulsion at the corruption that she could feel growing deep inside of her and yet some part of her mourned as Robert dropped his hands quickly to his side, stung by her blatant rejection.

A silence stretched between them and it grew into a chasm, a chasm Imogen knew she could now never bridge, even if she had wanted to.

“Obviously there was more to this message than you have said.” Robert’s kept his voice carefully neutral. “I think I might just go and have the message read to me.”

Imogen shook her head jerkily. “I wouldn’t bother. There is nothing in it to cause any excitement.” She felt no triumph in the knowledge that she wasn’t lying. The poison wasn’t to be found in the words but in the bitter memories they evoked.

Robert’s silence spoke eloquently of his skepticism, but Imogen didn’t have the strength left to try and convince him otherwise. Let him read it, she thought listlessly. It would change nothing. The life that had filled her for months disappeared all at once and without it she barely had the strength to hold up her strangely hollow body.

“Do what you will. I think I will retire for the night,” she murmured in a faraway, world-weary voice.

“I’ll join you when I’ve got everything sorted down here. I’ll just go and get Mary to take you up.”

She waved him away. The thought of being close to anyone just now, even the loyal Mary, made her skin creep. “I can manage the stairs by myself.” She walked slowly to the door, trailing a hand along the wall.

“It doesn’t matter, you know” Robert’s voice sounded strangely hoarse.

“What doesn’t?” she asked lifelessly.

“Whatever he’s said and done; it doesn’t matter. He has no power over you or I. Not here, not anymore.”

She nodded her head obediently, but her heart knew that he was lying. Roger held her still, held her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. He would continue to hold her, no matter where she went, no matter how far, he would hold her until the day he killed her.

Robert lied.

The next morning she woke to the feeling of bile rising from her stomach. She only just made it to the chamberpot in time and seemed to spend a lifetime emptying the entire contents of her stomach and much more besides.

She slumped down onto the floor beside it and rolled herself into a ball, waiting for the nausea to end, waiting for the room to stop spinning. She rocked herself slowly, trying to absorb the silence and emptiness of the bedchamber into the chaos of her mind.

Robert was already gone and if she hadn’t lain awake all night in their bed listening to the regular sound of his breathing, she might never have known that he had been there at all. He had risen silently long before dawn and dressed without a sound. She had listened to the sudden stillness that had filled the chamber moments before she had heard the door quietly close behind him.

Only then had she dared to allow herself sleep.

To have woken up with this all-consuming sickness was a perfect end to a perfect night filled with Roger and the cold fear he had mercilessly brought back into her life, she thought listlessly. There was no longer any room left in her heart for anything else, no room in her mind for thoughts that weren’t tainted by that fear.

She even feared to sleep. A part of her longed for the oblivion that it promised but, as she knew all too well, the second she sought its refuge, the nightmares would take control.

More than anything, it horrified her to think of what she might do in their power. In that place of perfect weakness she might try to climb into Robert’s arms in search of his strength. She longed for the strength to be found in his embrace.

It was a strength she could no longer afford to count on.

The uncertainty Roger had fed her with such relish was spawning its dark fruit, she realized, with a nearly hysterical giggle that ended in a final dry retch into the chamberpot.

She closed her eyes for a moment, moving seamlessly from black to black, but even in that darkness, the dawn had to be faced. It took a great act of will to drag herself from off the floor and away from the stench of the chamberpot.

She had no idea how to live in this strange new day. It was entirely alien. Gone was the light and energy that had been slowly penetrating her darkness. She barely had the will to move one foot after the other,