She smiled at him, that same enigmatic tilt of her lips with which she had answered his every expression of concern since their marriage. Far too self contained. Especially since they had returned to London.
Throughout the long days and nights they had spent in Scotland, Annie had slept on the floor beside his bed, his hand held tightly in hers. Sometimes she dreamed. And when she did, she would come into his arms like a child, her cold body sheltered against the fever ridden heart of his. Half delirious, he would hold her as she trembled with the force of her memories.
And even then, knowing the thing she feared, in his baseness he had wanted her. He wanted her now. She was his wife, and yet she was not. And he had finally been forced to acknowledge she might never be.
