Page 11 of The Witching Hour
He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen, with his warm blue eyes and his lips curved into an inviting smile. So very handsome…
She let herself dream, becoming lost in her memories as her eyelids grew heavy. James had been so tender with her then, with such a deep, endless capacity for love. Oh, he fumbled at times with the poignancy of his emotions, in the way of a man who felt them deeply but had never been taught to express them, but she felt his love for her in a way she might not have done if he’d been able to speak glibly of it.
She’d never seen anything like him before. Or since, come to that.
And wasn’t that the answer she’d been seeking? She’d wanted a guarantee of happiness, some sort of promise the love she’d had such a tantalizing glimpse of wouldn’t desert her and James again, but there were no guarantees—not on the living side of things.
No, toliverequired bravery, the courage to take a leap of faith, but there was time to think of all that later, when she wasn’t so sleepy, her eyelids growing heavier, dropping closed...
She woke sometime later to a rushing sound and icy drops of rain blinding her.
What in the world? She struggled upright, the bark leaving long, painful scratches on her back. The moonlight had vanished, giving way to a downpour. The wind had risen, and the long, thin branches of the weeping willow were whipping around her, tearing the spear-shaped leaves free and tossing them into the whirlwind.
How long had she slept? What time was it? It was too dark to tell, but her limbs were heavy with what felt like a long period of sleep. And was that the faintest lightening of the sky to the east? The sun was creeping closer to the crest of the horizon…
She leapt to her feet in a panic. The witching hour had passed, and she was still wandering, and far from her bed. It was a transgression, a serious one—she knew it, somehow, though it had never been explained to her, knew it deep inside herself, in her chest where her half-living heart beat out a staccato rhythm.
She must get back to her bedchamber at once, because if she didn’t…
No, she wouldn’t think of that.
Sheets of rain rain doused her as she shoved the willow branches aside, soaking her nightdress and plastering it to her shivering flesh, but she didn’t heed it, just ran blindly for the footbridge, the ground now a puddle of slick mud under her feet.
She was halfway across the bridge before she realized her mistake.
She couldn’t have been asleep for long, but somehow in that time the creek had swelled to the size of a river, and the foaming, thrashing water had reached the underside of the wooden slats of the footbridge at her feet. It was battering angrily at the flimsy boards, threatening to overturn them at every moment and send her plunging into the rushing water below.
Oh, what was she to do?
Should she go backwards, or forwards? She glanced over her shoulder, but the weeping willow seemed a long way away, and in front of her a blur of flattened grass and smashed red poppies just as far.
She was in the exact middle of the footbridge, her only choices to go back, move forward, or remain frozen in the middle, clinging to the rope railing, her knuckles white and her heart so frozen with terror she couldn’t move, couldn’t take a single step in any direction, but could only stand there, motionless, the wind whirling in a frenzy around her.
* * *
James woke slowly,the warm tendrils of the loveliest dream he could ever remember having still wrapped around his heart.
He’d dreamed Sylvie was kissing him, her sweet pink mouth clinging to his, her tongue fluttering shyly against the seam of his lips, seeking entry, his own lips parting instantly in response as his hands dropped to the gentle swell of her hips, pressing her closer, closer, closer against him, her slender curves a perfect fit for his angles.
Desire tightened his belly, and he closed his eyes tightly, desperate to keep drifting in the memory of her taste, the scent of her surrounding him, but he was swimming toward consciousness, the warmth of the dream fading, a vague sense of foreboding taking its place.
Sylvie…
Something was wrong.
The thought was in James’ head before he was even fully awake, the bedchamber still dark around him. He blinked against the shadows pressing against his eyes and patted blindly at the bed around him, searching for Sylvie’s wasted form under the pile of blankets…
But she wasn’t there.
He jerked fully awake in an instant, and leapt to his feet.
Empty. The bed was empty.
How a lady meant to be destined for her casket could have wandered from her bed was a question for another time, perhaps a question destined to remain unanswered forever, because making sense of this no longer mattered. All that mattered to him, all he cared about was finding her.
But where? Where did a man look for his half-deceased wife? The music room, perhaps? But no…no, that wasn’t it, he could feel it in his bones, but if not there, then where? God, he didn’t know, he couldn’t think, only…
What had he been saying to her, before he’d fallen asleep?
