Susan Spencer Paul by The Heiress Bride

Author:The Heiress Bride
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-11-03T06:59:20+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Lying in the darkness, his head pillowed atop his clasped hands, Hugh tried, for the fifth time, to make himself sleep. He closed his eyes tightly and began counting.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…”

No, that wasn’t right. He opened his eyes and tried to recall what his mother had told him when he was little. Her soft voice and even softer hands were easy to recall; he would never forget her tender gentling of him after he’d waken from one of his bad dreams.

“Count back from one hundred, Hugh,” she’d say, stroking her beautiful fingers slowly through his hair, “and before you reach one you shall be asleep.”

It had always worked. He would begin to count aloud, and she would stay beside him, stroking his hair, keeping him safe, until he’d unwittingly fallen to sleep.

He closed his eyes once more and tried again as he now remembered it should be.

“One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven…”

“It’s all right, my Hugh. It’s all right, son. Go ahead and cry.”

“No,” Hugh said aloud, and began counting more loudly, “Ninety-six, ninety-five, ninety-four…”

It didn’t work. His mother was gone. Dead. Strong arms circled him in his memory, holding him close, rocking him, soothing him while he cried and cried and…

“No!”

He sat up.

“Damn!” he swore, swallowing hard and trying to force his breathing to slow. He worked at calming himself for several long moments, then he lay down again, shut his eyes and took up counting from the beginning.

“One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six…”

He tried to force his mind to concentrate on the numbers, but still the memories rose up to torment him.

A long arm reaching out to hug him, the warm, deep laughter, the words. “You rascal, Hugh Baldwin! I should turn you over my knee for giving me such a fright!”

And him laughing…laughing as if he had a right to laugh with this man. “You were scared, Father! You were scared!”

“I’m never scared!”

“You were scared for me!”

More laughter. Why had he ever laughed with that bastard?

“I wasn’t scared,” his father had insisted, “I just didn’t like the thought of my Hugh being up so high!” Then he’d taken Hugh up in his strong arms, hugging him and shaking him with violent affection so that his skinny little-boy legs had whipped back and forth until he had laughed…laughed…

“No!” he shouted into the darkness, bolting up in the bed again.

Hugh didn’t let himself think this time. He threw the covers aside and got out of the bed.

Standing by the only opening in the room, a small window more suited for defense than for letting in light and air, he drew in his breath with forced slowness, calming himself, easing the pain of his body and mind.

What he needed, he thought as he ran his damp hands through his tangled hair, was a fight…a good, hard, wearying fight. That would fix him for a while, or at least would tire him enough so that he could sleep.

Of course, there wasn’t much chance of finding a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.