Civilians did not understand this place where he was as sharp as the knife he wielded. And they certainly couldn’t comprehend the danger they were in from the simplest human interaction. A hand extended in friendship would be seen as an attack. A smile was a lie to cover betrayal. And even the scent of a woman was a misty fog that concealed danger.
And an embrace—well, that wasn’t simple under normal circumstances.
He hadn’t come to Diana’s bedroom to report. It was a ruse. He didn’t see her as a commanding officer, but he knew the value of doing something innocuous in order to protect what was most valuable. But never during his entire military career had anyone asked for an embrace. Never had he been in this place in his mind and yet assaulted by the softness of a woman’s plea or the scent of her body.
She looked up at him. “Please,” she said. And he knew what that request cost her. She’d fought so long to be a woman in control. To ask for his embrace now meant she was in desperate need.
He touched her arm, wrapping his larger hand around her slender forearm. He knelt before her, so close their bodies could be entwined. But all he could do was hold her arm because she was not part of his dark place. He could not touch her softness when he was this sharp. He could not have a woman so perfect when he was so ugly.
And yet here she was, bowed before him in her pain. When she gripped his shoulders to pull herself up, he supported her without thinking. He could not let her fall, so he wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her as they both stood together. He felt the soft press of her breasts. He felt her hand wrap around his neck as she pulled him down. He went because he could not refuse her.
An embrace, body to body for comfort. And yet he felt so much more. Every part of him bristled with a wariness that only made his perception of her all the more intense. He felt her breath catch when he pressed his lips to her hair. And he felt the grip of her fingers as she pressed her body intimately close.
He pulled her higher on his body, his groin thickening as she rolled over him. His thoughts narrowed down to her hair, her grip, her breath. She unbalanced him with urgency, and he stumbled slightly beneath her weight. He spun them around, pressing her against the wall while shutting the door with a quick flick of his wrist.
The door banged into place, and he flinched. He tried to pull away, but she would have none of it. Her body was shuddering against his. Reaction? Need? He had no idea. He knew he was vulnerable with his back to the room. She could be hurt, and he could not allow that.
So, he set her apart from him. And while he searched every shadow, he knew that he was undone. No soldier allowed himself to be distracted as he had. No warrior protecting anyone put his back to the room while taking his fill of a woman, no matter how tempting. It had only been a hug for comfort. She’d been attacked. Every man, woman, and child would need to be held after a thing like that.
She touched his back with a tentative stroke.
“Lucas? What are you looking for?”
Threats. Attackers.
“Nothing,” he rasped. There was no one there. Then he glanced at the door and remembered how it had slammed shut. “We made noise,” he said.
He felt her look at the door. He didn’t know how he felt it. She had only her hand on his back, but he knew when she looked and realized what they’d just done.
“Oh God,” Diana whispered. “What is happening to me?”
It was the aftermath of battle. He’d seen countless men indulge in every aspect of the body as a way of suppressing what had happened, what might happen tomorrow, and what couldn’t be accepted by any rational, moral person. He would not read anything more into it than that. So rather than think of Diana and all his confusingly aroused thoughts of her, he focused on his immediate task. Had anyone heard him slam Diana’s door, and did it matter?
“It’s quiet,” he said. He went to the door and eased it open so he could look through the crack. He scanned the hallway. “No one is there.” He listened to the steady snores of her husband. “His lordship rests—”No, wait.Oscar wasn’t sleeping. His gentle breaths were interrupted by a wet cough followed by a low moan. He turned to Diana. “Is that normal for him?”
He glanced back at her long enough to see her frown and shake her head. That was enough for Lucas. He moved quickly to his lordship’s bedroom door and eased it open. The smell hit him first. The man had fouled the bed. But that didn’t stop him from checking every shadow before he let Diana into the room.
She brushed quickly past him as she headed to her husband’s side. “Oscar?” she said. “Oscar!”
She flipped back the bedcovers and gasped in horror. There was blood in the sheets where he’d fouled the bed. Diana grasped the bed pull and hauled on it hard, even as she was touching her husband’s face.
“Oscar! Oscar, wake up!”
But the man’s eyes didn’t open, even when Lucas lit an oil lamp set by the door. He could see the panic in Diana’s eyes as she shook her husband’s shoulders. He knew it was too late. Death was upon him. They only waited for the rattle that would signal the end.
“Oscar!”
Footsteps came running up the stairs, and Lucas turned to see who approached. His lordship’s valet and the butler, Simpson. He let them hurry inside and watched when they recognized what was happening.
“Quickly!” Diana said. “Fetch the doctor!”
It wouldn’t help. Indeed, even as Simpson ran back to do as she asked, he heard the rattle. A gasp and a choke combined. Diana heard it, too, and she grabbed her husband’s hand.
“Oscar, breathe! You must breathe!”
Some things couldn’t be ordered, and Lucas kept an eye on the shadows and the valet, just in case. But he was also aware of the tension in Diana’s body. The horror in her eyes and the way she put a hand to her husband’s chest, hand flat, fingers extended.
“Oscar, please. Not like this. Not…” Her voice broke. “Oscar…please breathe.”
