The Darkest Hours
The darkness of the room was as much a blessing as the fact that he was insensible from the drugs. She lay there with him on the bed, his head cradled on her breast, her fingers trailing gently through his hair as he slept. He'd managed to stay awake long enough for them to have a terribly erotic necking session but the painkillers and alcohol had taken Mason before they'd gone too far. And in truth, Caroline wasn't entirely sure she was sorry for it.
I was her obsession once. And if marrying you regains me that status, then make no mistake. I'd prefer to have you willing, but I'll just as easily marry you as a widow.
You're a monster, Caroline. Never mistake what you are.
He was right. Dear God, but he was right. Silent tears had already dried in salty trails down her face. Her skin felt raw from wiping them away. George's words continued to gnaw. She couldn't get them out of her mind.
"I've seen your flag on the marble arch... Love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah...."
The lyrics to a ballad that she knew by heart played through her mind and Caroline turned her face into the top of Mason's head, trying to stifle the sobs. Her arms tightened around him and even in his haze he responded to the motion, rousing from sleep to whisper, "Caroline?" Her chest convulsed beneath his head and he was instantly far more alert than a man on a mix of painkillers and alcohol had *any* right to be. He shoved up onto his elbows, one hand coming up in the darkness to cradle her cheek and finding it soaked with tears. "Baby, talk to me," he whispered.
She didn't need to hear to know he was asking her what was wrong, and she shook her head 'no' but couldn't find the words for the choking lump of horror and grief clogging her throat.
"Why won't you let me *help* you?" Mason grimaced. It's not as if she could hear him and with no light but the half moon coming in the window she couldn't see his lips. He moved to gather her tightly to him, feeling the tremors ripping through her body. "God, sweetheart, what are you *doing* to yourself?" he asked with no hope of an answer. He hated seeing her this way.
She held him for a long time, her crying so broken-hearted that his guts were tied in knots. He couldn't take it anymore. Finally untangling himself from her, he leaned over and turned on the light. Her face was puffy, her eyes bloodshot, her nose red. And she was still the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life. "Caroline, you're going to make yourself sick, honey. You've *got* to tell me what's going on," he insisted, taking her wrists in his hands. "*Talk* to me."
Caroline shook her head and said softly, "I .... I did something tonight. Something that I'm ashamed of. And God help me, Mason, I'd do it again if it meant... keeping you safe." She reached up and cradled his face in her hand, lashes spiked and waterlogged.
"I don't understand," he said slowly. A frown was pulling his brows together. "This have something to do with that .... *guy*?" He hadn't liked the man to start with, and Caroline's reactions had been off-kilter all the way through. He'd never seen her as livid as that soldier had made her tonight, and up until the moment she'd turned her eyes on him.... he'd never seen the cold edge of rage that she was capable of. It didn't change his opinion of her -- or rather, it didn't change it in a negative light. But ... it did give her more complexity and depth than he'd realized. What he'd seen in her eyes in that moment had been.... well, let's just face facts. Caroline Thibideaux was born into one of the oldest families in Natchez, one of the oldest families in Mississippi to be quite blunt, and with that upbringing came some amount of regality. He'd just never seen it in her, that ruthless streak.
She leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth gently. "What happened to you today will never happen again, Mason," Caroline swore softly. "You don't need to worry about him. He was handed his walkin' papers this evening and shipped out of town on a rail." There was still something in her tone, something in her bearing, that made him wonder what she wasn't saying. Did he want to know what strings she'd pulled to get a man of that rank transferred? Or should he merely let it lie?
She kissed him again and Mason allowed himself to be derailed for a time by her sweet mouth. When he pulled away, she looked up at him and begged softly, "Make tonight go away, Mason? Please? I choose you." God forgive her. "For always," she whispered. against his lips, drawing him back to the pillows with her.
"Well remember when I moved in you, and the Holy Dove was moving too? And every breath we drew was Hallelujah...."
Her last thought before he took her away from the horror and the tears was a prayer to God to protect this man who was willing to give so much for her... who claimed he was willing to kill for her. She hoped that if he ever found out what she'd done this night he would understand.
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