Page 96 of The Danger of Desire

“Not if I can avoid it. Too afraid of what might happen.” His throat tightened. “And now you know: Your husband is a sniveling coward at heart.”

“Don’t call yourself that!”

“Why not?” he snapped. “It’s what my mother called me.”

She gaped at him. “Surely not.”

“She put up with the dreams right after it happened, but as the weeks went on and nothing halted them, she grew impatient.” The sense of betrayal swamped him, as it always had. “ ‘Don’t be a sniveling coward, boy,’ she said. ‘Lords aren’t afraid of the dark. Buck up and be a man,’ she said.”

“Sounds like guilt to me.”

That took him entirely by surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Your mother felt guilty that she’d left you alone with that wretched tutor. And then, when she was helpless to stop the nightmares that resulted, that must have tortured her. So she lashed out atyou. Blamedyou. Otherwise she would have had to blame herself, and that is a great burden for a mother to bear.”

He just stared at Delia. “Not once in all these years has that ever occurred to me. Hell, I thought shediedashamed of me. Because I couldn’t get over the nightmares... because I flouted her moral strictures and lived wildly in London.”

“Is that why none of your family knows you still have them? Because you were hiding them fromher?”

“From all of them.” Shame clogged his throat. “She was right, you know. Iama sniveling coward. I can’t endure the dreams, so I drink and I whore and—”

“You’re merely handling it the only way you know how. That doesn’t make you a coward. A coward wouldn’t try to keep everyone else safe from his nightmares.”

Her loyalty cut through all the cruelty of his mother’s words. He cast her a rueful smile. “You can be so fierce in your defense of me sometimes. Why is that?”

“Because I see the strong man of character beneath the rakehell. I know you can get past this. You just need help.”

He snorted. “And how do you propose to help me?”

“I think you should spend your nights sleeping withme.”

The air whooshed out of him, and his heart seized up. “No.”

“Hear me out—”

“I don’t have to.” He stalked away, visions of her lying bruised and battered beneath him clogging his throat with fear. “Because there’s not a bloody chance in hell of thateverhappening.”

Twenty-Three

Panic gripped Delia as Warren headed for the adjoining door, and she raced to block his exit. “You arenotleaving! We aren’t finished.”

He scowled at her. “Didn’t you hear a word I said about nearly throttling a woman to death in my sleep? And you want me to risk that withyou? You’re out of your mind.”

She grabbed him by the arms. “You didn’t attempt to throttle me the time I witnessed you having a nightmare. Besides, I’m not some light-skirt you’ve taken to bed for the night. Nor am I a servant. I’m yourwife.”

“Which is precisely why I don’t want to hurt you,” he growled.

“You can’t be sure that you would. Or that you’d even have a dream in my presence. For all you know, sleeping with someone you... care about might change things.”

“And if it didn’t? I don’t relish murdering my wife.”

“You would never do that to me.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “For God’s sake, you don’tknowthat.”

“Not for certain, no. But I’m willing to risk it.”

“I’mnot.If I did something to you, I could never forgive myself.”