His hands on her hips began to slide down once more, so slowly that she felt something within her tighten more and more with every inch of her that he touched. She felt a gush of wetness between her legs and she waited, nay, she wanted him to touch there. As he moved his hands closer and closer, and his fingers began to slip into the curls there, he kissed her neck. A moment later as his fingers slid deeper into that heated, aching cleft, he nipped at her shoulder, letting his teeth graze lightly over her skin there.
It was as though icy water had been thrown on her in that moment. Worse than that, flashes of Sandy and their weddingnight poured into her mind, terrifying her with memories of his teeth on her skin. Bites and cuts and blood filled her vision until she could only scream out against them.
“No, please, no!” she screamed as she pulled from his embrace and ran to the other side of the room, backing up against the wall, as far away as she could get. Robert’s face changed into Sandy’s and back again until she felt as though she would faint. He approached slowly, holding out his hands to her, but her mind could not make out which one stood there before. Terror wracked her with tremors until she could not see anything at all in the room. The blackness covered over her.
29
He caught her before she hit the ground. ’Twas becoming a habit he thought gone with her pregnancy months ago. Robert recognized the terror as her face drained of blood and her eyes rolled back in her head. If he had not witnessed it before, he would not have believed the speed at which she went from awake to unconscious. Scooping up her slight weight, he laid her carefully on her bed. He drew the edges of her gown together and tied them more securely so that her breasts were covered.
After tossing a sheet over her and then a blanket, he pulled one of the chairs close to the bed and sat to wait. Holding his head in his hands, Robert took some deep breaths and blew them out. His body still hummed with the passion she’d aroused. He was hard, rock hard, but that was dwindling by the moment. The sight of her face as some memory returned to haunt her was something he would never forget. And he hoped to never see it happen again.
The pounding in his head began anew and he thought about lying down. Looking around he realized that the bedding he used was not pulled out yet. He smiled half-heartedly as he comprehended that she meant her words—he was not welcome there. Robert reached under her bed and pulled the blankets and piece of carpet out, intending to place them before the hearth. Her gasp alerted him that she had awakened.
Before he could sit back up, she had scooted back up against the headboard on the other side of the bed and had dragged all of her covers with her. Her eyes were filled with fear as she watched him. He decided to wait and say nothing until she had calmed down. Every move he made startled her,so he sat as motionless as possible on the chair. Finally, after several minutes had passed, she whispered his name.
“Robert?”
Her breathing was still ragged and her face had not regained its color. Clutching the covers like a shield to her, she pushed the hair back from her face and looked around the room. He could see the confusion on her face.
“Aye, Anice. ’Tis me. How do ye feel? Would ye like something to drink?” He began to stand until he saw her shaking increase. He sat back down and waited.
“What happened? I remember your kisses and then the blackness. What happened to me? Oh, dear God, what did I do?”
Her question ended with her voice cracking. She started to cry and it broke his heart to hear. She had tried, she had tried for him, and now her pain was so clear and visible to him that he wanted to sob for her.
“Ye did nothing wrong, Anice. Truly, the fault is mine for trying to force ye to do something ye are plainly no’ ready to do. Can ye forgive me?”
“But you did not force me, Robert. I wanted to try... I wanted to try for you and...” Her voice descended into sobbing once more. “Wait,” she yelled, kneeling up in front of him. “I know what it was! Your teeth! You bit my shoulder and the blood...”
She grew nearly hysterical now, grabbing and tugging on the laces he had just tightened. Tearing the gown from her neck, she rubbed her neck and shoulders and looked at her hands. Obviously, she did not believe what she found, for she repeated it over and over until she was shaking and sobbing so badly she could no longer control her hands. Realizing that she was far past his abilities to help, he strode to the door and walked into the hall, calling for a servant. Sending the man off to bring Moira as quickly as possible, he returned to find her still rubbing her neck and still examining her hands.
“Anice, I have summoned Moira to help ye. All will be well, I promise.”
She rocked on her knees and clutched her hands to her chest. The only word he could understand was blood. He couldonly imagine, and only if he forced himself to it, what Sandy had done to engender such a reaction in her to the touch of his teeth on her skin. Robert knew without a doubt that he himself had not bitten her. His teeth did nothing more than rub over her shoulder, something that women in his past had found to be pleasurable. Some memory of some horrible act had flooded back to her in that moment and brought the terror alive in her again.
Not for the first time, he wished Sandy were alive so that he could kill him in some torturously slow way. His hands clenched to fists as he continued to watch her frantic motions. He would like to hold her securely in his arms until Moira arrived, but he feared that an embrace of that kind would scare her even more.
After what seemed to be an eternity, he heard a soft knock at the door. Anice was kneeling, still mumbling, on the bed. He crossed quickly to it and opened it for Moira to enter. Pol nodded to him and did not try to enter. Closing the door, he pointed to the bed across the room. Moira looked at him for a moment and then walked to where Anice was on the bed. Using that calm, commanding tone of hers, she asked Anice what had happened.
“He bit me, Moira. Can ye no’ see the blood on my neck and on my hands?” Anice held out her hands to Moira. There was nothing on them.
“Let me see yer neck, lass. Here now, I will clean it for ye.”
Robert watched grimly as Moira went through the motions of cleaning a wound that did not exist. He clenched his teeth together, all the while fighting the urge to roar out his own anger.
“He tore my skin, Moira. With his teeth. He bit until I bled. Promise me ye will stop him. Ye canna let him do this again. Struan promised me....” She rattled off the words, never pausing, and with an accent that he had not heard from her before. Robert realized that she normally spoke in a very unaccented, formal Gaelic, but she slurred her words now as most people he knew did.
“Sit back, Anice. I will fix ye a brew to help ye with thepain,” Moira directed as she poured a cup of wine from the pitcher on the table and took out a packet of herbs from the leather pouch she wore around her waist. “Drink this, lass, and let it rid ye of yer pain.” Moira lifted the cup to Anice’s mouth and Robert watched as she drank every drop of it without resistance.
“Will ye have to stitch it again, Moira? Haes he torn it open?”
He shivered at her words. She was clearly in the past, reliving the days after her wedding. She did not look at him at all, focusing only on Moira. ’Twas a good thing, for he was not certain he could even speak to her. He crossed his arms to control his own horror.
Nothing could lessen his guilt.
He had brought her to this state. Oh, he had never expected something like this to happen; he truly would never want her to suffer in this way. But his lust for her and his demand that she try to be a real wife to him had caused this. He was just as responsible for her pain now as Sandy was all those months ago.
“Nay, lass, no’ this time. ’Twill heal quickly enough,” Moira reassured her. “Lie back now and let me fix the covers around ye so ye can get some rest. Let the brew warm ye inside, Anice.”
