A Lady's Escape by A.S. Fenichel

Author:A.S. Fenichel
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-04-11T11:29:42+00:00

Chapter 13

Millicent had lost her mind. It was the only explanation for having walked down the hall in her borrowed nightgown and knocking on Preston’s door. Yet here she stood looking at him in the open doorway. His bare chest heaving with deep breaths as if he’d run a mile to reach the door. “I’m sorry to wake you.”

Scanning the hallway behind her, he opened the door wide and stepped aside for her to enter. “I wasn’t asleep. Why are you crying?”

Beauty followed her in but curled up in the corner and returned to her sleep.

He brushed Millicent’s tears away with his thumb and let his hand linger on her cheek.

It was instinct to lean into the touch. So safe and right and yet so wrong. “I’m afraid to close my eyes.”

He nodded, took her hand and led her to the bed. He sat on the edge, so she did too. “I understand. You should never have had to endure the horrors of last night. I imagine it will linger with all the survivors for a long time.”

“When I close my eyes all I see is those people running and pieces of buildings falling from the sky and that poor man in the mud. I couldn’t help him. You don’t want me to help you find a wife. Maybe I can’t help anyone. Maybe it’s all just a dream that I made up in my head and can never come true.” She buried her face in her hands. Everything she’d ever wanted was falling to pieces around her. If she couldn’t manage her first Everton assignment, she would get no more. She would fail. Unbearably, her life had fused with the explosions and death of the previous night, and she was helpless to change anything.

Easing her hands away from her face, he took them in his. “Millicent, I don’t know exactly what you’re talking about, but more than the incident of last night seems to have spurred this hysteria. Why don’t you tell me what you mean by the dream in your head?”

His brown eyes sparkled in the firelight from the hearth, and worry lined his forehead. Telling him her dreams was foolish. He would laugh at her and never take her seriously again. It was how everyone reacted to a woman wanting more than a husband, money and children. “I have no desire to get married and live in England for the rest of my life, raising children and walking three steps behind a man.”

Eyebrows raised, he said, “Any man who would keep you back is a fool who doesn’t deserve you.”

The way he said it, she almost believed him. But men often said such things in the dark when they thought sex might be in the offering. Sex had ruined her life when she was too young to know better. However, pleasure lurked in Preston’s eyes, and it was difficult to resist the temptation to have one night to savor for the rest of her life. One beautiful affair that could carry her through the lonely times.

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