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

good at this sort of thing, she realized, with some satisfaction. She didn’t need as much help as she had at the start, much to Matthew’s relief, no doubt, she thought with a grin.

As the day’s travel started to disappear from her skin she let out a long sigh of satisfaction.

It felt so good to be somewhat clean again, but she couldn’t stop a wicked part of her mind longing for a proper bath. As she lifted her heavy hair off the back of her grimy neck she indulged herself in the tantalizing fantasy.

She inhaled deeply and could almost believe that she smelled the scent of warm roses. She heard the ghost of a large crackling fire in the babbling of the stream and it seemed to warm the skin of her shoulders and face. So real was the fantasy that she was sure that she could feel the hot water all round her, moving over her naked body in lazy, sensuous waves.

The image was so seductive, she found herself doing something that she hadn’t done in some time. She tried to draw on her dwindling store of visual memories to create a proper vision to go with the imaginings of her other senses.

Those memories were now graying and faded, but it was so much like being able to see that it hurt eyes accustomed to the dark. She closed them instinctively, going from black to black.

It was nonsensical, but it seemed to work. Suddenly her mind glowed with pictures of an intensity that would never have existed in the real world.

The fire was vibrant with all of the shades of red and orange she had ever seen. It illuminated the room of her memory with the penetration of sunlight. It was a strange room, a mixture of childhood memories and fantasies of her bedchamber at Shadowsend.

She saw herself in the bath, and was surprised that in her mind’s eye she was no longer the girl she had last seen. No, she was seeing herself as the woman she might have become.

If in her mind she was a woman, then it was only right that in the shadows of her memory there stood a man. Even though, frustratingly, he stayed just out of reach from the fire’s glow, Imogen knew it could only be Robert. The light of the fire played oddly over his naked body, darkening his pale skin till it blazed like polished bronze. Her brow furrowed as she struggled to create a body she had never seen, but she couldn’t seem to bring him into focus. She might know him as she knew no other soul, but her mind lacked the memories to draw him for her. He belonged to her darkness.

Everything she knew about him had nothing to do with how he looked.

She knew the smell of him, the taste of him on her tongue, knew the sound of his laugh, knew the feel of his body as it moved over hers, knew the feel of his skin under her palm, knew the shape of his face under her fingertips. She knew all of that and more but couldn’t begin to imagine what his face looked like. She just didn’t have the memories to imagine what she had felt so often with her hands.

A feeling of exasperation filled her as she realized that she didn’t even know the color of his hair, didn’t know if the soft waves on his head matched the springy mat that covered his chest or whether it was a slight shade darker, like her father’s had been. She didn’t know if the love of her life had laughing blue eyes or forest green ones.

She let out a small groan of frustration as the vision began to break up under the weight of her ignorance. She had to grit her teeth against the foolish urge to call back the Robert of her visions. She wanted to demand that he step into the light so that she could at last see the face of the man she loved, but it was too late. He was gone and once more the shadowed fog filled her.

She wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to hold on to the warmth as long as she could. She sighed shakily, trying to draw some consolation from the fact that what she hadn’t been able to see with her memories, she had known with the touch of her hands and lips. Even at this distance, those memories were able to light in her a desire that accelerated the beating of her heart. She caught cold rushing water in her cupped hand and splashed her face, hoping to clear her head, wanting to freeze the lingering desire that could have no conclusion.

She crawled carefully back from the edge of the stream before standing slowly and drying herself on the corner of her cloak. She had already called to Matthew that she was finished when the babe suddenly started to move. She stood absolutely still, caught by the wonder of the strange, new feeling of another life moving inside her.

That wonder must have manifested itself on her face, because Matthew’s voice was threaded with concern when he reached her side.

“Imogen, what the hell is it?”

The words to explain the sensation escaped her, so instead she grabbed his hand and placed its gnarled strength over the fluttering movement.

For a moment his brow crumpled in confusion at the strange action, but that confusion quickly cleared when he realized what he could feel.

“My God,” he whispered in awe and moved his other hand to the center of her back, holding her body still, but he was still barely able to feel that small, miraculous movement. Suddenly he lifted his hand away as if burnt. “Damn,” he whispered angrily. “Damn, blast, Holy Mother of Christ and shit.”

It was only then that Imogen realized that she had inadvertently told Matthew her secret. She winced as he continued to swear with increasing creativity, but she couldn’t help