Mark of Caine Trilogy: Book Two: Whispers in the Shadows (Victorian Villains) by Lloyd Catherine

Author:Lloyd, Catherine [Lloyd, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Writewood Creations
Published: 2016-05-20T04:00:00+00:00

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TANNER WRESTED her flailing arms down and crushed her against his chest. “Laura, wake up! Wake up! You are having a nightmare.”

Her eyes fluttered opened. Tanner’s marred face appeared in her field of view.

“No! No!” She raised her hands to defend herself.

“Laura, calm down, you are safe—it was only a bad dream. There, there, why are you crying?”

“The dream … it was not the baby behind the wall. It was me. I saw the face of the man sealing me up—the man was you, Tanner.”

Tanner pushed away from her and hunched against the window, back lit by the green glow of gaslight in the fog. His chest and legs were bare. He wore light linen briefs.

“It was only a dream,” he growled. “It means nothing.”

Laura dropped her gaze. Her cropped hair felt cool and strange. She had washed her face before bed and removed the stable boy’s clothing. Her nightgown was a shirt of Tanner’s that she had found in the bottom of a trunk. Her legs were bare and her breasts moved under soft worn material. A shirt he had worn many times, it was marked with his scent.

Could the man who had begun to command her thoughts, her body, and her soul also be her murderer? Was she too infatuated with Caine to see the truth?

“A dream,” she managed to say. Her throat was tight. “Yes. I am sorry I woke you.”

“Laura.”

His voice strained toward her and she looked up. Tanner’s eyes glowed in the half light with a rare beauty. “I am not the man in your dream. I do not have it in me to hurt you. I tried and it ripped me to pieces. My face is marred, my word is not. You have my word.”

He bowed his head and pressed his fingers to his eyes. His black hair hung in a tangled screen over his face. Laura crept near and knelt on the bed between his strong thighs. She brushed his hair off his perfect face.

“You think I am a liar, a traitor, a hysteric spinning tales. With so little to please you now, you have even more reason to regret marrying me,” she said.

Tanner lifted his head and gazed into her eyes. Reflected in his black depths was all that he felt for her and all that she felt for him.

Laura held herself very still, as did Tanner. Between them hung the unspoken.

“I regret nothing, Laura Mayhew. But I like you too well to own you as my wife.”

Her stomach congealed and rolled. “What—what are you saying?”

“The dream was an omen. I am not good for you, Laura. The sooner we part, the safer you will be.”

“I love you.” She said the words all in one breath. “I have from the first. I don’t blame you if you doubt my feelings, I don’t understand them myself. I only know I suffer a terrible ache in my body—here—,” she jabbed her fist in the soft hollow between her ribcage, “when I think I’ll never see you again.

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