A Season to Be Sinful by Jo Goodman Page B

her.
    As proof of that, Sherry moved the basin and decanter from the bed to the nearby table, tucked the covers about her, then eased himself into the rocker at her side.
    The boys ran off to gather their bedding, and Sherry prepared himself to begin another death watch.
    She was floating in a sea of cream and white silk. Her body was weightless. She drifted without direction. Her hair fanned out around her like the radiant red rays of dawn. It rippled and dipped on the undulating tide of the milky sea.
    She let herself be carried away by the slow-moving current. Turning. Bobbling. There was nothing to stop her. Nothing that could stop her. She was insubstantial, a spirit now free of her corporeal self.
    It was curious to her that she could sense this so clearly, still more curious that she could observe it at the same time. It was as if she had two perspectives at once: one from within and one from above.
    Thinking about it disturbed the flow, and for few moments she bumped along unevenly. It ended only when she set her mind at peace again and allowed herself to be carried away. Her brief exposure to the turbulence had placed the fullness of understanding in her mind. There was a direction she was taking. Her journey had a purpose.
    All that was required of her to be on her way was that she not resist.
    Bloody hell.
    Lily sucked in great draughts of air as she tried to catch her breath. She coughed, choked, and thought she would finally retch in an effort to clear her lungs for the air she needed. Her body ached. There was no part of her that did not feel battered or bruised, but it was under her ribs that she felt as if shed been skewered with the heated end of a poker.
    She drew her knees up and bowed her head. She would happily become a hedgehog and reveal only her prickles, never the soft underside of her belly. Had she ever promised herself that before? She thought she might have. She thought she might have broken her promise.
    She was weak willed, she realized, without the resolve that marked a person of good character. Already she was thinking about the currents of heavy cream and how she would let them carry her away if she could find them again. She would drift toward the light if she could catch that tide a second time.
    The tide she caught was one of pain. There was nothing for it but that she ride it out. Her dry lips parted on the sound of her gasp. She thought there might be tears, but none came. That made her feel better, stronger somehow. She could manage as long as she did not give in to tears. There was some part of her that recognized it as a sea she could drown in.
    Lilys eyelashes fluttered, then lifted. A sliver of sunlight was revealed by a narrow part in the curtains. Her eyes followed the beam of light to the floor where it brightened a patch of burnished gold fringe on the area rug. She contemplated the light and the fringe and the rug for a long moment before allowing her vision to broaden and absorb far more of her surroundings.
    Below the bank of windows a niche was carved out for an upholstered bench. Its blue-gray damask covering matched the curtains there and the ones drawn back at the head of her bed. The fabric was embossed with a swirling pattern of willow leaves that the light breeze from an open window seemed to set in motion.
    The rooms wainscoting was a darker shade of walnut than its appointments. The top of the vanity was neatly arranged with several small crystal perfume bottles, an intricately tiled wooden box, and a vase filled with a spray of freshly cut lilacs. An oil painting of a grand country estate in summer, vibrant with its verdant hillside and halcyon sky, had been placed above the mantelpiece, a position of some honor in the room.
    There was an escritoire situated against the wall near the windows Books and figurines were kept in the glass case above the desk. From the middle shelf, a porcelain doll peered out, her head cocked at an angle so that her painted expression