Mirror of My Soul by Joey Hill (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

her into the bathroom for Sarah or Leila to care for more intimate requirements.

Tyler would have willingly done it all, but he was overruled by the two women who agreed that Marguerite needed to be the one to give her permission for that. Otherwise, he never left her. He laid her on a blanket in the garden by the statue while he worked with his orchids. Let her sleep on the sofa in his office or gaze out the window from the recliner as he made phone calls. Put her next to him in a chair in the solar as he ate breakfast and coaxed her to take a few bites. She chewed and swallowed without interest as the sun shone through the paleness of her skin. He was beginning to feel like he had a mannequin he moved around the house with him. It was dark outside and dark in his heart.

When he watched Komal drive back down the driveway five days later, he fought a weariness that threatened to make him weak. Marguerite needed his strength, not his impotent rage at a man who was dead. She’d killed him, slain her own dragon so it seemed, but as Komal had said, she’d discovered the dragon lay not in the man, but the memories that would not let her go.

He turned, went back in and up to the bedroom. In the growing evening, Sarah had turned on the side lamp and he saw she was brushing Marguerite’s hair, combing it out on the pillow, lifting her head as needed to straighten out the snarls.

“It’s as lovely as the manes of those horses you see in the arenas, the Lizzie horses I always call them. I thought it would soothe her to have it brushed.” She put it into a loose braid, bound it with a piece of ribbon she’d found somewhere in the nooks and crannies of domestic supplies he knew nothing about. “I gave her an extra pain pill while you were with Mrs. Gupta. She seemed a little more uncomfortable tonight, I suspect because of the rain we’ve been having. It should make her sleep more deeply.”

Her sharp eyes studied him. “Maybe you should take one, too.”

Tyler shook his head. “Thank you, Sarah. I’m sure she’ll thank you, too, when she’s able. I’ll sleep with her now, so go find yourself some rest. We’ll take it slow in the morning. A late breakfast. If she’s up to it I’ll spend the day with her in the gardens.”

“All right then. You just call us if you need anything.” She slipped out, closing the door.

Tyler stripped out of his clothes, slipped in behind his unconscious angel. He touched the hollow of her neck, just above the cross and the ring strung on Sarah’s necklace. The diamond sparkled at him. As he caressed her there, another thought occurred to him. When he settled in behind her, he laid the curve of his hand from thumb to the end of his forefinger around the matching curve of her throat, where the heel of his hand pressed on the ring and cross, making her feel their presence as well as 192

Mirror of My Soul

his presence in the area where she’d always been most emotionally as well as physically responsive.

Her body trembled, a soft murmur, a quiet plea. “Ssshhh…” He wrapped his other arm around her waist, brought her in close to the heat of his body. “I’m here, Marguerite. Your Master is here.”

* * * * *

He felt the touch on his shoulder, insistent, and then a sharp blow, almost as if he’d been shoved, hard. A brief flash of a face he’d seen before, but whose name he didn’t know. He started awake, realized he was alone.

Years in military operations where he had to come awake with all his senses ready for battle kicked in. He understood in a blink the bedroom door was open and he was alone. He lunged out of the bed.

She stood on the railing of the landing, the marble foyer twenty feet below her. The sling on her arm had dropped on the floor. How she’d even gotten up there with the type of injuries she had he didn’t know, but she was motionless on her perch, staring at something just above her through the arched window that availed him a sight of the night sky. She opened her arms, the white satin robe he’d left on her fluttering out on either side of her like angel wings.

There were ten yards and a corner from the hallway to the landing’s catwalk. He covered the ground as if he had wings himself. As her body fell forward, he was already there, seizing her around the waist and spinning them, lifting clear of the rail and putting her on the carpet, pulling her off with enough force they both tumbled. He kept grim hold of her though, until he realized she wasn’t fighting him. The glaze of sleep cleared from her eyes. She looked startled, then that distant look came back into her gaze. She’d been asleep. She’d been fucking sleepwalking, the extra dose of the strong painkillers apparently allowing her to perform a feat that would have been prohibitively excruciating if she’d been conscious.

He pressed his forehead down on hers as she lay beneath him, relaxed, her

breathing already even again, while his heart raced so fast he thought he might be having a minor heart attack. Fortunately, he felt no numbness in his arms. Lifting her in them, he took her back to bed. This time he used her robe sash and bound their hands together so she couldn’t leave again without his knowledge. He needn’t have taken the extra precaution, however. He stayed awake until dawn brought light into the room again.

* * * * *

In the morning, he was able to get her to sit up so he could take her into the bathroom and let Sarah assist her there.