Mona, Wilfred’s wife, sat perched on the edge of Alethea’s bed, ostensibly “helping” Alethea to pack her trunks in preparation for her removal from Terralton Abbey, but in reality watching to ensure she did not pack a smaller valise she could run away with. Alethea’s task was to distract Mona and allay Wilfred’s fears of her fleeing another betrothal agreement—he had heard of Alethea’s last interaction with her brother, when she had escaped a locked room rather than falling into her brother’s plans.
“Really, Alethea,” Mona said in an affected simper, “I declare I did not see you all day yesterday.”
According to Clare, Dommick had reluctantly offered hospitality to Wilfred, Mona, and Mr. Kinnier. His mother had insisted that it would reflect poorly upon the Terralton family’s reputation if he forced them to go to the inn. At dinner last night, Lord Ravenhurst muttered about the wisdom of keeping the vipers where they could be closely watched.
“In fact, I have not seen you since we arrived two evenings ago,” Mona said. “One might almost think you had run away.”
Alethea tried to affect a dejected, capitulating attitude, but her hands trembled as she folded her petticoats. “And why should I do that, Mona?”
Mona’s mouth pinched. Alethea knew she would prefer Alethea call her Lady Trittonstone but couldn’t very well demand it. “That is what I told Trittonstone, and he was confident that if you should run away, he would spare no expense to find you.”
Anger flared, but Alethea doused it. She must not allow Mona to suspect the plan in place for today. Sir Hermes, always up for a lark and believing Dommick’s hasty, clandestine marriage to Alethea to be the greatest adventure, had driven off last night to visit the representative of the archbishop to acquire the special license. It was only as he left that he admitted that, in truth, he was friends with the man’s brother, and not the representative himself, but Sir Hermes did not believe it would cause any hindrance to his task.
Alethea had been alarmed, but Dommick had been sanguine. “Sir Hermes could convince bees to buy honey from him.”
Alethea dropped a shoe and rooted under the bed for it. “Mona, running away would be foolish. I have no wish to live in hiding like a French spy for two years.”
“That is exactly what I said to Trittonstone. And he said that he would tie up the legalities of everything to ensure that you would never get your inheritance, even should you appear on the lawyer’s doorstep the morning of your thirtieth birthday.” Mona gave a nasally titter.
Alethea’s hand clenched tightly over the shoe before she regained mastery of herself and rose to her feet.
When Sir Hermes returned today with the special license, they would gather at the rectory for the wedding. The rector, under the tender influence of his wife, had agreed to perform the service. It all now depended upon Sir Hermes.
“I wonder that I have not seen Lord Dommick today.” There was a thread of suspicion in Mona’s tone.
“I have not spoken to him since yesterday.” Alethea began sorting through her stockings. “No doubt he is unhappy that his house party is being disrupted.” Dommick had driven to his attorney early this morning to consult about her inheritance and her marriage. After the wedding, his attorney would contact the lawyer in charge of the Trittonstone estate. Dommick had said that even if Wilfred had the power to withhold her dowry, Dommick did not need her money. All that mattered would be that she would be safely married so that Wilfred could not sell her to Mr. Kinnier.
“I did invite him to the wedding,” Mona said. “He declined for himself but said his sister and mother would be glad to attend.”
Mona seemed convinced of Dommick’s indifference to Alethea. She doubted her cousin and his wife suspected their specific plans, but they certainly suspected something may be afoot.
“I expected you to have more fashionable gowns,” Mona said as Alethea shook out the green gown she had worn to the concert.
“I expect Kinnier will buy more for me in London.” Alethea slid a sidelong look at Mona, who predictably looked sour at Alethea’s change in fortunes. “Will you and Wilfred be in London this spring?”
“No,” Mona snapped.
“Ah, well. Unfortunately, Wilfred did not inherit the estate as enriched as it had been before my father’s time.”
“We have had a great many expenses associated with his new title,” Mona said irritably.
“It is perhaps just as well Mr. Kinnier has no title. Since I will be returning to town for the first time in years, no expense will be spared.”
“You certainly seem pleased now about the marriage. When Trittonstone told you, I thought you would vomit,” Mona said nastily.
“You yourself know that my cousin has no great skill in delivering momentous news.”
Mona nodded reluctantly.
“At the time, I was unaware of the pecuniary advantages of the match,” Alethea said. “However, Lady Morrish had more information as to Mr. Kinnier’s prospects.”
Mona’s eyes narrowed. “Did she?”
“Did Wilfred not inform you? It is close to ten thousand pounds a year.”
Mona’s watery blue eyes goggled at her. “Good gracious.”
Alethea knew that Wilfred’s income was no more than four thousand and possibly less since he had been forced to sell some land in order to honour her brother’s gambling debts. “When did Mr. Kinnier approach Wilfred about this marriage?” Alethea asked casually.
“How should I know? At least two weeks ago.”
After the concert and her remove from Bath? Did the timing indicate Mr. Kinnier might be the villain? Was this his next move when his hired men failed to kidnap Alethea? She supposed that kidnapping her was a great deal easier than marrying her. “Do you know much about Mr. Kinnier?”
Mona looked conscious for a fleeting moment.
So, her cousin had heard the rumour about Mrs. Kinnier’s death and yet moved forward to contract the marriage. Bile rose in her throat and her limbs felt stiff. She turned away from Mona.
“He is very gentlemanlike and amiable,” Mona said.
Alethea didn’t respond.
“Really, could you hope for better at your age?” Mona said.
“I suppose not,” Alethea replied mildly.
Mona rose. “Assisting you has made me excessively tired,” she said. “I need to lie down.”
It was late afternoon. Surely Sir Hermes had returned by now? Alethea wondered when Lord Ian would come to fetch her.
“Where is your violin?” Mona said.
“Why is it important?” Alethea asked slowly.
“Oh, Mr. Kinnier most specifically desired to make sure you brought the violin with you into the marriage. He had it mentioned in the marriage agreement.”
“My violin is not part of the Trittonstone estate,” Alethea said through clenched teeth. “It was personally bequeathed to me in a legal document by Lady Arkright upon her death.”
“All that can hardly matter since all your possessions become his,” Mona said. “Where is it?”
“In the music room.”
“Be sure to pack it.” Mona exited her bedchamber.
Alethea slumped upon her bed. Mona’s company was nearly as exhausting as the pretense of packing.
She glanced at the clock. She could no longer sit about and wait. Since Mona intended to nap, she would make her way to the rectory.
Because Mona had mentioned her violin, Alethea went first to the music room, ostensibly to fetch it. She could use a door that opened onto the terrace to make her way to the grounds and across the park to the rectory.
When she entered the music room, however, she saw a man standing before the fake violin on the table. He turned.
“Mr. Kinnier.” Alethea stood rooted to the floor.
His smile was smooth and pleasant as always, but there was a spark of exultation in his small dark eyes. “My dear. Have you come to practice?”
“I have come to pack my violin.”
“Do not let me hinder you.” However, he stood directly in front of the fake violin. Alethea was forced to walk close to him in order to reach behind him.
His hand whipped out and clenched hard on her wrist. He leaned close and said, still in that pleasant voice, “Do not offer me an insult by attempting to deceive me.”
His hand would leave a bruise, but she refused to wince. He wore some sort of perfume, but it did not quite mask the scent of tree rot about him.
She looked at him with cold eyes. “Pray, why does my violin interest you? Surely you have several of your own more valuable.”
He did not respond, but his gaze drifted down from her eyes to her lips.
Her stomach wrenched. She jerked at her wrist, but he held her fast. His head moved, and she twisted her body violently, planting one foot and kicking out with the other. His other hand grabbed hard around her waist and hauled her up against him.
She flailed at him, her captured arm moving stiffly but her other hand lashing at his shoulders, chest, and neck, with blows as hard as she could deliver. He responded by clenching his fingers into a crushing grip on her wrist, his other fingers digging into her spine.
And suddenly it was not Mr. Kinnier but Alethea’s brother, his grip painful on her left hand. The edges of her vision darkened, and she could smell the tallow smoke from the candles in her brother’s study as he savagely wrenched at her fingers, breaking first one, then the other.
She screamed.
Abruptly, she was released and she fell backward. She unconsciously braced herself with her injured hand and cried out again.
Lord Ian had filled his fists with the cloth of Mr. Kinnier’s coat. Mr. Kinnier grabbed Ian’s shoulders, and the two of them wrestled in small, jerking movements, circling about. They slammed against the edge of the desk near the window, dislodging pens and an ink stand, and pieces of music drifted to the floor.
Then Lord Ian shoved hard against Mr. Kinnier, and the man lurched backward several steps before regaining his footing. Both men glared daggers at each other, breathing heavily.
“You will leave her alone while she remains in this house,” Lord Ian said.
Mr. Kinnier straightened and yanked his coat into place. But then he looked at Alethea and his eyes narrowed, making them almost disappear in his face. “Very well,” he said through stiff lips. He turned and strode from the music room, closing the door behind him with a snap.
Lord Ian helped Alethea to her feet. “Are you injured?”
“No.” She rubbed her wrist, but no bones were broken.
“I’m sorry I didn’t arrive sooner. Ord was watching the violin and ran to fetch me as soon as he saw you enter the room.”
“I should not have antagonized him.”
“He will be a nuisance to you no longer. Sir Hermes is at the church.”
They gathered servants’ cloaks from just inside the small door that led from the house into the kitchen gardens and hurried across the park. Alethea’s heart pounded. “Mona is in her bedchamber. Where is Wilfred?”
“He was in the stables.”
The twenty minutes’ walk to the church seemed to take hours. The wind had risen, pressing the cloaks tightly against them and hampering her legs. The wind died as they entered the forest at the edge of the park, but the undergrowth tugged at Alethea’s hem and the wet leaves clung to her slippers, the damp chilling her toes.
They reached the church just as rain splattered the roof. After they rushed inside, Mrs. Coon helped them remove their cloaks. Her normally merry eyes were grave. “How I could wish this was a more festive wedding for you, my lady.”
Alethea touched her hand. “I am marrying a good man, surrounded by the people I care about. I need nothing else.”
Mrs. Coon squeezed her fingers, which made Alethea’s injured wrist twinge, and then they were in the sanctuary, with a small group of people gathered near the front.
Lucy and Mr. Collum were there, and her sister came up the aisle to hug her and kiss her cheek.
“We must hurry,” Lord Ian said. “We met Mr. Kinnier before leaving the house, and he may suspect something.”
“Then let us begin,” Lady Morrish said. Sir Hermes had a grin on his face, his cheeks cherry red with excitement.
Lord Ravenhurst offered her his arm. “If you will allow me to give you away?”
“Wait.” Clare handed her a bouquet of hothouse flowers from the Terralton Abbey greenhouses.
“Put this in your hair.” Margaret gave her a blue ribbon.
Lucy tied it into her coiled braids while Aunt Ebena fastened a pearl bracelet to her wrist. “Old and borrowed.”
“And this is new—my gift to my future daughter.” Lady Morrish fastened pearl eardrops to her ears.
“You needn’t do this,” Alethea said.
“It is a legal wedding, your family is here—almost all your family—and you are suitably decked out,” Aunt Ebena said. “We can say it was all that was proper.”
Alethea took Lord Ravenhurst’s arm and walked down the aisle to stand before Mr. Coon, who had dressed in his robes.
Dommick took her hand. He was pale, his face a mask.
Alethea turned away from him and faced Mr. Coon.
The ceremony was short and efficient, until the marriage vows. Dommick stumbled, not upon the words “to love and to cherish,” but upon “in sickness and in health.” As Mr. Coon pronounced them man and wife, she realized she had married a man who had spoken his wedding vows as a complete lie.
Empty. She felt so empty.
But she was not alone. There was a Presence, small and beautiful, in a space deep inside her. She knew it was there with a knowing deeper than knowledge.
Mr. Coon finished the ceremony, and the two of them had signed the registry when the door burst open. Wilfred rushed inside, his narrow face flushed, his pale grey eyes bloodshot, with Mr. Kinnier and Mona behind him. “What are you doing?”
Dommick faced him, placing his body between Wilfred and Alethea. “It is done.”
Wilfred stood stock-still in the aisle, rainwater dripping from the brim of his hat, his mouth contorting in a series of grimaces. “No. You had no license—”
“Didn’t you know, my lord, that I am friends with a man who represents the archbishop of Canterbury? We are quite close,” Sir Hermes said.
“I signed a betrothal agreement—”
“You did not sign one with me,” Dommick said. “It is now your own affair that you could not fulfill your side of the contract with Mr. Kinnier.”
Wilfred stood in furious disbelief, then wrenched off his hat. “Do you realize what you have done to me?” He began to roar his complaints, the sound reverberating from the church’s ceiling.
Mr. Kinnier stood slightly behind Wilfred. On the surface, his face was impassive, but an anger glittered in his eyes that made Alethea’s throat burn and a shiver course across her shoulders. Mr. Kinnier whirled around, his greatcoat capes flicking water in a graceful arc, and exited the church. Mona watched him leave with wide eyes.
When Wilfred’s language grew more colourful, Mr. Coon reacted with righteous censure. “You will not speak so in the house of God.”
Wilfred stormed out of the church, but Mona remained. Her skin seemed to tremble, and Alethea realized the woman was holding in a fury like nothing she had ever seen before.
When Mona opened her mouth, her voice was far different than Alethea had heard from her before, sibilant and awful. “You think you’ve won, but no one crosses us without repayment in kind.”
“You will leave my house within the half hour,” Dommick said.
As if he hadn’t spoken, Mona moved closer to Dommick. “I have been in the highest society in London for the past decade and have far more dangerous acquaintances than your idiot mother.”
“Get out!” Dommick shouted.
“I will ensure that your sister’s season is ruined.”
And with that terrible pronouncement, Mona stalked out of the church.
It was the most awkward, frightening, exciting night of Alethea’s life. But mostly it was simply awkward.
She sat before the mirror at her dressing table and brushed her long, dark hair. A maid had brushed it earlier, but it was something to occupy her hands.
She had been moved from the guest bedroom to the one connected to Dommick’s bedchamber via a small sitting room. The furnishings had been redone by Lady Morrish a few years ago, so they were not old or unfashionable, but the pinks and yellows of the wallpaper and upholstery were more feminine than Alethea was accustomed to.
The connecting door taunted her. Should she retire to the canopied bed or stay awake in case Dommick came through? Either option promised embarrassment and pain.
Her stomach growled. She had not eaten much of the wedding dinner prepared by Dommick’s surprised staff. There had been both an air of festivity and also a current of anxiety among the guests. Most had exulted in successfully routing Wilfred and Mr. Kinnier, but it was obvious that Clare and Lady Morrish, especially, were deeply affected by Mona’s threat and attempting not to show it.
At that moment, the connecting door opened.
Dommick wore a blue brocade dressing gown. The white of his nightshirt blazed at his throat, which made it more apparent when he blushed in embarrassment at the sight of her.
She looked away from him. “I had not expected you.”
He swallowed. “I do not wish to mortify you, but there are things . . . I do not wish the servants to gossip.” He flushed even darker than before and crossed to her bed. She saw the flash of a small knife, and he did something to the sheets and mussed her bedding.
He walked back to her, binding a small cut he had made on his forearm. “I apologize. I do not wish anything about this to embarrass you.”
Except that his presence here, doing what he had done, was embarrassing her. She could not answer him. She laid her brush down on the dressing table. Her body and her heart reacted to his presence so near to her, in so intimate a situation. Yet the three feet separating them may as well have been the lake in front of the house. She felt adrift, forsaken. She fought the tears pricking her eyes.
Then she felt the warmth of his fingers touching her hand. His touch was strong and tender, as she imagined it might be if he had come to her in love rather than this deception for the servants. He cradled her hand between both of his own, and then he raised it to his lips and kissed the back of her wrist. His lips seemed to linger, or perhaps she imagined it because she desired it to be so.
But then he turned her hand over, and she felt a warm puff of breath just before his lips touched her palm. His mouth seemed to heat her skin like a stream of hot tea, pooling in her hand, running down her fingers and across her forearm.
And then he dropped her hand. She drew it to her lap, cradling it with the other.
“Good night, Alethea.”
“Good night, Dommick.”
He left, closing the connecting door behind him.
This, then, was what her marriage was. This was what it would be to love him—this pain, this desiring more but afraid to ask for it, knowing the answer would only slice her deeply.
The soft Presence as bright and comforting as a candle flame that had sustained her throughout the wedding ceremony, throughout dinner, now flickered out.
She had never felt so alone.
Alethea woke with a start. She had not realized she’d fallen asleep. How long had it been since Dommick had left her? She rubbed at one eye while searching the darkness for the fireplace and saw the embers of the coals. Not long, then.
The low keening carried through the closed door, making her skin prickle. Was that Dommick? What was amiss? Was he injured?
She was through the door and into the sitting room before she could think further. She hesitated at the closed door to Dommick’s room, but then a hoarse cry from within made her scrabble to open it.
“No, I am able to fight, I tell you.” The earnest, frustrated voice came from the bed at the far side of the room, lit by the low-burning fireplace. Then he shouted, “David!” with the dragging desperation of a man full of terror.
She approached the bed. He appeared to be having a nightmare. Should she wake him?
Then he began to sob, deep, wracking sobs that shook the entire bed. “Champion . . . God, please . . . I can’t . . .”
She recognized the pain in his voice. It was utter despair, drowning condemnation, arid helplessness. She had felt it the night her brother sold her. Tears filled her eyes at the torment in his voice, in the sight of the curled figure on the bed, shaking with sobs.
Just as she was reaching to wake him, he spoke again, still sobbing, but this time with a small voice full of fear.
“Raven, they can’t know about this, about Bedlam . . .”
Bedlam. What had happened to him to have placed him in that asylum for the insane?
“I have to do something . . .” He broke into bitter tears. Sounding like a petrified child, he said, “Raven, I don’t want to go mad again.”
She gasped. She had not credited the rumours, assuming they were designed to inflict hurt by questioning his sanity. But this . . .
“Oh, Dommick.” She touched his shoulder.
He jerked upright, striking at her hand. He did not recognize her for a moment, his eyes wide and white in the darkness. He panted, quick and shallow like a dog.
She knew when he had woken because his breath calmed. “Alethea?”
Slowly, as though with a wild animal, she reached her hand to him. She touched his cheek in a soft, gentle stroke. His skin was cold and slick with sweat. “I am here. You are safe.”
His hand covered hers, pressed it to his face. Then he turned his head, and he kissed her palm again, his fingers tightening around hers.
He remained thus for long minutes, his breath fanning against her skin while his breathing slowed and his skin warmed. Then he looked at her. “You are cold.”
She had not noticed. She had rushed from her bedchamber without a wrapper, and now she felt the numbness creeping into her bare toes, the shivering in her torso. She saw his dressing gown thrown over the foot of the bed, and she pulled it on. The fabric was cool, but she was warmed by the scent of his musk that wrapped around her throat.
She sat on his bed and tucked her cold feet under her. “You were dreaming of war,” she said.
He stared toward the fireplace. His eyes had become dead. “Of Corunna.”
She had read about the retreat in the newspapers, and the casualties. “Captain Enlow was there with you?”
“He saved my life.” He began to rub his shoulder, although he did not seem conscious of it. “I had been injured during the retreat and lost a great deal of blood. David helped me to the port and onto a rowboat to the medical transport ship.”
His other hand, resting on the covers, suddenly clenched the bedclothes, and the pain of his memories seemed almost like a physical blow to him. His eyes squeezed shut and he bowed his head.
She touched his cheek and stroked his fisted hand, caressing him until he had calmed again. “What happened?” she whispered.
“The retreat had been . . . blood and bodies and chaos. When we finally reached Corunna, the majority of the transport ships hadn’t arrived. They ordered us to kill our horses . . .” His voice hitched. He couldn’t continue for a few minutes, but when he did, his voice was broken. “I couldn’t do it. When I was on that rowboat, Champion plunged into the water after me. He swam alongside . . .” She felt hot tears flowing down her fingers. His voice thick, he said, “Even as the transport ship was leaving the bay, he swam after us. He was trying to follow me . . .” He could no longer speak.
Neither could she. She cried with him, for his guilt and remorse, for the loyalty and bravery of an animal who did not understand why his master was leaving without him.
When his tears had run their course, she wiped them from his face with her fingers, smoothed his hair back from his forehead. He enfolded her hands in his, their skin wet with tears.
“I awoke in a London hospital crying out for him. I didn’t understand I was no longer in Spain. The battle was before my eyes as if it were happening again. I thought I was there.”
“What did the doctors do?”
“They sent me home. I hadn’t known until then that my father had died while I was recovering in London. The nightmares—the ones at night and the waking ones during the day—frightened my mother and my betrothed. They sent me to Bedlam.”
She tightened her hands around his.
“I don’t remember my time there, except that it was horrible. Then Raven came and took me away.”
Thank God. What would have happened if Ravenhurst had not saved him? She remembered Dommick’s anguished cry, I don’t want to go mad again. She now understood fully the panic behind those words. “You will never go back there. I give you my word.”
Even in the dim firelight, she saw his sadness, the vulnerability . . . and the tenderness. “I don’t want to frighten you if it happens again. The waking nightmares.”
“They will pass. They will become less frequent, and then they will become less powerful, and you will be able to break their hold over you more quickly.”
He shook his head. “It has been over a year.”
“It may take longer, I suppose. But I do think it will pass.” She hesitated, then said in a whisper, “I had them.”
His brows drew low over his eyes. “Why did you have them?”
For an instant, she smelled the smoking tallow from her brother’s study, but then the warmth and scent of Dommick’s dressing gown brought her back to the firelight. “My brother had gaming debts. He had a friend who needed to marry for some reason—he never told me. They signed a betrothal agreement—I would marry his friend, and my brother would receive half of my dowry.”
There was a grim, taut line at the edges of Dommick’s mouth as he heard this.
“I refused,” Alethea said. “So my brother sought to . . . coerce me.” She swallowed, and her left hand began to throb, faster with her increasing heartbeat. “He broke two fingers of my left hand.”
Dommick jerked in surprise, then he looked down and touched her hand. His fingertips gently massaged the two knuckles obviously more swollen than the others.
“He locked me in my room until he could procure a special license and force me to marry his friend, but I ran away. I don’t know what I thought it would accomplish, for I had no funds. My brother chased after me, but he had always been a reckless driver. His high-perch phaeton tipped over and he was thrown. He broke his neck and died instantly.”
Dommick looked astounded. “I heard about his carriage accident.”
“I had managed to get to Bath and Lucy, and then discovered my brother was dead. Two weeks later Wilfred forced me to leave my home and move to Bath, and the nightmares followed me.”
“Your Aunt Ebena knows about them?”
“Oh, yes. She ignored them and let me be, gave me time and space. And . . . she rented a pianoforte for me.” At the time, Alethea had not truly appreciated her aunt’s gesture, but a year later, with a broader perspective, she saw her aunt’s wisdom. “Then she began taking me out into society, forcing me to exert control over myself. She did not give me opportunity to be afraid.”
“And they went away?”
“Mostly. My last nightmare was this summer.”
He shook his head again, and frustration grated in his voice. “It’s been over a year . . .”
“You have friends and family around you. My family, your family, your friends and neighbors—they have changed me. They have made me stronger and brought me closer to God. They will help you heal.”
She released one of his hands to stroke his hair, his cheek, his jaw. It felt comforting to touch him, to press her fingertip to the pulse at his throat and feel the life coursing through him.
Then his hand was touching her hair, her cheek, her jaw. But his palm against her neck was far from comforting—his touch was strong and sure, different from hers, and his skin felt hot and rough against hers. Her breathing became shallow gasps, her heartbeat throbbed harder in her chest. She became acutely aware of the darkness broken only by the firelight, the unfamiliar intimacy of his bedchamber, the feel of his dressing gown around her, and the sight of his own pulse rapidly beating at the base of his exposed throat.
When he leaned forward to kiss her, she felt complete and then filled to overflowing. There was a roaring in her ears. Her hand on his throat felt the vibrations as he murmured her name. She tasted the remnants of his fear and doubt, and she sought to wash them away with the strength of her promise to never allow anyone to harm him. She would keep him safe, even from his fears of himself. She sought to convey that to him as his lips softly pressed against hers, gentle movements that at once revealed his strength and his vulnerability.
He drew back far enough to rest his forehead against hers, his hands cupping her cheeks. “Alethea, you have made a bad bargain.”
“I was about to say the same for you.”
When he laughed, she felt the rounding of his cheeks, the warmth of his breath, the shaking of his shoulders. Then he said, so softly it was almost like a thought, “I am still afraid.”
“I will protect you, Dommick.”
“Stay with me.”
Without hesitation, she let the heavy dressing gown fall to the floor and climbed under his covers beside her husband. She wrapped her arms around him.
“I want you to call me Bayard.” His voice rumbled next to her cheek.
The way they had addressed each other had been a topsy-turvy business, a mix of embarrassment and deception. But this request was more intimate than anything else that had passed between them. “Bayard,” she whispered.
His arms tightened around her.
“Bayard, I will keep the nightmares away.”