Wicked Deception (Regency Sinners 4) by Carole Mortimer

Author:Carole Mortimer [Mortimer, Carole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carole Mortimer
Published: 2017-11-21T18:00:00+00:00

“Ralph has suggested we might all like to take a picnic down onto the beach today.” Heather smiled brightly as she handed Maxim the cup of tea she had just poured.

Maxim had been surprised to find Heather seated at the breakfast table when he entered the family dining room only minutes earlier. For the other days of his stay, she had always breakfasted in her bedchamber.

Could this change have anything to do with the fact her perfume permeating his bedchamber showed she had so obviously been in his room during the night? Brought there by his shouts in the throes of his nightmares…

“Heather—”

“I believe Ralph has the ulterior motive,” she continued lightly, “of wishing you to help him learn to fly the kite he received for Christmas from my parents.”

“We need to talk,” Maxim maintained in the face of her inconsequential chatter. “About last night.”

Her gaze became guarded. “What of it?”

He sighed heavily. “You came to my bedchamber during the night.”

Her eyes widened. “Not for any nefarious purpose, I assure you.”

“I never for a moment assumed it was,” he drawled self-derisively.

Heather busied herself pouring her own tea as she avoided meeting his gaze. “I was awakened by your shouting. When I came to your bedchamber, it was obvious you were having a nightmare. My mother told me long ago that breathing in the smell of a pleasant perfume might dissipate bad dreams.”

Maxim drew in a sharp breath. “Did you see…”

“I saw nothing but you thrashing about beneath the bedcovers, obviously in the grip of an unpleasant dream,” she stated firmly. And untruthfully. Those scars she had seen upon Maxim’s body were imprinted upon her brain, and she had no doubt they would remain so for the rest of her lifetime. “Your modesty is safe from me,” she added mockingly, knowing from Maxim’s scowl he had no wish to discuss those numerous scars.

His jaw tightened. “You would not have seen anything you have not seen dozens of times before.”

Except those scars. Horrendous, disfiguring scars that must have caused considerable pain when they were inflicted.

Both her brothers had spent several years in the English army, fighting against the despot Napoleon. Jory had even received a French saber wound on the calf of one leg, which he would show off proudly at the slightest encouragement.

Maxim’s scars, apart from the one circumventing his waist, were nothing like that but more uniform in appearance. Except for the ones that looked as if he had been attacked by rats or wild dogs.

She suppressed a shudder, not at the disfigurement, but at the pain Maxim must have suffered to have received such scars, and the nightmares that now haunted him.

Which was not to say she did not intend to make enquiries that did not include Maxim. She accepted, from his guarded reaction to her knowing of his nightmares, that Maxim did not wish to discuss the reason for them with her. But she fully intended to learn when and under what circumstances Maxim had received these terrible wounds.

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