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

His hands remained by his sides.

She sat bathed in sunlight and it harshly illuminated the suffering that had started to dig its way into her face. Her eyes were sunken in the sharp bones of her face, her once gently rounded cheeks were harsh angles that stretched her skin till her cheekbones were angry slashes across the sides of her face. The black-violet shadows under her eyes were the only color. Even the rose-pink of her lips seemed now to be just another shade of white.

It was a face that haunted him even as he searched his brain for some way to draw her away from the demons that were eating her alive; draw her toward him.

But he had no answers. He had to look away from her before he could find his voice.

“You’re not eating enough,” he said gruffly. “That dress looks like its hanging on a corpse, not a woman.” He couldn’t help but smile a little grimly at the lie. She had lost weight and it worried the hell out of him, but not for one moment did he think she looked like a corpse. She would always be the most beautiful woman Robert had ever seen.

She shrugged her shoulders carelessly. “I’ve not been hungry.”

“I don’t care if you are hungry or not,” he roared, his anger igniting in a second, a grim reminder of just how close to the end of his tether he really was. “You will eat properly or I’ll tie you down and force-feed you myself.”

“How very husbandly you sound. Roger would be pleased,” she said sneeringly, her smile darkly amused.

And that was the ultimate problem, Robert realized with sudden certainty. She thought he was Roger’s man and nothing he said or did would penetrate the shell she had built around herself while that viper whispered his poison into her ear. He began pacing, his hands clenched helplessly by his sides.

“I don’t just sound husbandly, Imogen, I am your husband, your lord and master, if you prefer. As such, I want you to eat more than the sparrow portions you have been subsisting on. By my return, I will expect you to have put on all the weight you’ve lost. No, I want you to have put on more than that. I want you to be so fat that I will never have to worry again. Am I being understood?” His anger reverberated around the room.

“Of course,” she said silkily and Robert knew she hadn’t heard a word. She was set on going to hell her own way and not a thing he said would make one jot of difference to her.

He paced back to the fire.

“I’m only taking Matthew with me,” he said tersely. “Gareth will be left in charge of the garrison.”

She nodded her head mutely and they lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. He longed to say something. Or perhaps he just longed to hear her say something voluntarily to him or even longed for her to come over to him and let him hold her in his arms for a moment.

But longings were not reality, Robert thought hollowly, as she serenely dismissed him with a quiet, emotionless, “God speed, Sir Robert.”

He should have been used to it by now; her rejections should have long since lost their sting. They hadn’t. A fresh flash of pain struck him deep in his gut as she cast him aside once more. He bowed formally over her hand. Her skin felt icy cold under his warm lips, her face carefully blank when he looked into it, drinking in this last sight of her before turning and leaving the room.

Once the door closed behind him he couldn’t stop the fury that built up inside him like an inferno, demanding an outlet. A volley of swearing filled the hall.

“I’ll take that to mean that you two haven’t sorted anything out,” Mary said dryly as she walked toward him.

“There is nothing to sort out, apparently,” he snorted derisively, knowing it for the lie it was. “I can’t remember a time when I have ever been subjected to such politeness before.”

Mary’s brow dropped in concern. “Aye, but there is a wealth of pain behind that politeness.” She shook her head. “I’m worried sick, I don’t mind telling you. I have never seen her like this, never this bad. Oh, he’s hurt her before, but this time”—she shrugged her shoulders helplessly—“it’s like he’s destroying her.”

Before Robert could say anything, she poked a finger into the center of his chest. “And what I would like to know is: what are you going to do about it?”

Robert gave a shout of bitter laughter. “Mary, you seem to have mistaken me for an active player in this farce. I’m just a very bewildered member of the audience, like you.” He shook his head and rubbed a tired hand over his eyes, trying not to notice its slight tremble. “Quite frankly, Mary, I don’t have a clue as to what I should be doing.”

“Neither do I, but I’d like to suggest that running to London ain’t the answer,” she said stoutly.

“I’ve been summoned, and there is sod all I can do about it,” he muttered, feeling strangely defensive in the face of Mary’s righteous indignation. He would never understand how this one old woman always managed to put him on the defensive.

“Well, take her with you, then. I don’t want her left alone, not while she is this fragile.”

“Hardly alone,” he said wearily, but Mary just ignored him.

“She was alone in this Keep for years,” she said earnestly, “regardless of how many people lived here. She was like a sleepwalker. Till you came along. You made her alive. She was starting to return to what she had been before she lost her sight and it did my old heart good to see it. If you did it once, surely you can do it again, if only you would try.” She grabbed his arm. “Please try.”

He looked down at the old woman’s determined face