Truth Within Dreams (11 page)

Lorna Dewhurst ducked her head, her freckled cheeks made pink by so much attention. “Thank you, gentlemen, but it’s Cook who deserves your approbation.”

“Sissy, what’s app-ro-bay-shun?” asked the child seated to her left.

“It means ‘compliment’ or ‘approval,’ Daniel.”

The boy, who, at the tender age of eight, outranked everyone else in the room, tilted his head, his lips screwed up in thought. Then he smiled. “You all get an
approbation
from me for being so nice to Sissy.”

The men chuckled and rapped their knuckles on the table.

“All right,” Lorna said. “Come along, Daniel. It’s time for bed.”

The men rose as Lorna stood. Daniel made his way around the table, bidding each gentleman a good night. Harrison and Norman both shook hands with the lad. Sheri gave him a sharp bow and a very correct, “Good evening, my Lord Chorley,” which sent Daniel into peals of delighted laughter. Brandon bent to give his young brother-in-law a hug, a sight that had the other Honorables raising their brows at one another. Half a year of marriage had wrought quite a change in their friend, whose profession as a surgeon had heretofore kept him a bit detached from others.

When the boy baron came to Henry, he butted his head into Henry’s stomach.

“Daniel!” Lorna gasped. “No!”

Henry gamely clutched his abdomen and let out a dramatic groan. “
Oooo!
I am slain. Gored by the fiercest bull in Toledo.” Then he wrapped an arm around the lad’s head and ruffled his hair.

Squealing, Daniel squirmed out of his grasp. “We’ll play again tomorrow, won’t we, Henry?”

“I will be avenged!” Henry proclaimed, finger raised. Then he grinned. “Sleep well, Dan.”

As Lorna led Daniel from the dining room, Henry turned to find his friends’ attention had settled on him. “What?”

“The fiercest bull in Toledo?” asked Norman, brow raised.

“Henry and Dan, is it?” Sheri drawled. His quizzing glass made an appearance before his eye as Sheri trained his gaze on Henry. “On rather intimate terms with the local aristocracy, I see.”

Henry scoffed. “Oh, stuff it, the lot of you. The boy needs companions. Brandon doesn’t mind that I play with the lad, do you, Bran?”

“Of course not,” said their host, as he led the men from the dining room to the library. There, he poured a measure of Madeira for each of them, the fortified wine having been recently imported by De Vere and Sons.

Looking around the room at his friends made Henry feel a little nostalgic for the old days in Oxford. Back then, The Honorables met at The Hog’s Teeth tavern, where they’d quaffed cheap ale and cheaper gin. It was there that they’d given their group a name,
The Honorables
being an acknowledgment of the fact that despite their noble lineages, none of the five friends stood in line to inherit their families’ titles. Rather, each bore the legal title The Honorable. Even Sheri was only Lord Sheridan by courtesy. On legal documents, he was The Honorable Mr. Sheridan Zouche, just like the rest of them.

“What I do mind,” Brandon said, snapping Henry out of his reverie, “is the fact that you’ve been at Elmwood for nearly two weeks now, with no explanation as to the purpose of your unexpected visit, nor any indication of when you might away.”

Henry shifted in his seat. “Can’t a fellow visit friends just because he enjoys their company? If I’m an imposition here, Bran, I’ll leave at once.” Although, it was a little rich for Brandon to insinuate Henry was not welcome, not when he’d invited the rest of The Honorables out to spend a couple days in the country with them.

“Smooth your hackles, De Vere,” Brandon said, one hand extended. “You are always welcome here. Lorna enjoys your society immensely, and Daniel will be inconsolable when you go. If it were up to him, he’d install you in the nursery as his live-in playmate.”

Norman cleared his throat and propped his chin on one of his large fists. “Henry, what Brandon is trying to get around to is that—and please tell me if I’m misrepresenting your opinion, Dewhurst—is that you seem to be hiding from something here at Elmwood. Brandon says you’ve not spoken to him about whatever it is that’s got you in a lather, nor have you confided in any of the rest of us via correspondence.”

Henry’s lips pinched. “So you’ve all decided to descend upon me
en masse
and make me … what? Bare my soul?” He leveled an angry glare upon each of his friends—
friends
, hah!—in turn. “And what makes you so sure I have some deep secret weighing heavy on my mind and heart, hmm? If anyone has a secret to share, it’ll be you, Norman.” He jabbed a finger at his large friend.
Friend
… hah! “No one should be that tall. Or that calm all the time. It’s unnatural.”

A heavy sigh was the big man’s only response.

“Henry.” It was Harrison’s quiet voice. He sat on the edge of the glow cast by the fire on the grate, half of his face in shadow. “We’ve known you a long time. We’d like to help you, if we can.”

“Well, it’s obviously a woman,” Sheri announced. With the hand holding his glass of wine, he made circular gestures in Henry’s direction. “Just look at him. Tell me he doesn’t have that same, tragic air Brandon had when he wasn’t sure about Miss Robbins.”

The others scrutinized Henry as though he was one of Brandon’s surgical specimens under glass. Damn Sheri and his preternatural sense about women!

“By Jove, I think you’re right,” Brandon murmured. “Lorna said she thought it would be a woman, but I told her no, Henry would take to falling in love like a duck to water. Hmm.” He frowned. “It appears I was wrong.”

“Yes,” Henry said, throwing his hands wide, “you were wrong. Well done, my fine fellows, you have found me out. I’m laid low by my love for a woman. Congratulations to you all.” He lifted his glass in a mocking salute. “Truly. I mean it.” He tipped back his drink and drained the contents.

“Is it that country girl of yours?” Sheri asked. “Miss Baxter?”

“Of course it is.”

Sheri turned in his seat. “I knew it must be,” he told Harrison. “They’ve been friends since childhood. It’s sickeningly perfect.”

And it
was
sickeningly perfect. Or it would have been, Henry thought bitterly, if Claudia hadn’t misled him in the cruelest way imaginable.

“So now you know,” he said. “I’m in love with Miss Baxter, but I haven’t yet the security to propose. Being near her, but unable to lay claim to her, was driving me mad. So I came here.” Henry dearly hoped the men would accept his explanation and leave off their interrogation.

Sheri nodded. “Just as I thought.” He stood and smoothed a hand over his waistcoat. “Gentlemen,” he said, giving the room a mocking bow, “I bid you all a good night. And to you, young Henry, I offer my condolences.” He clapped a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “I’d hoped, being the youngest of us all, you’d have kept me company in bachelordom longer than the rest of these good chaps. Alas, as in nature, it is the young and the weak who are picked off the herd first.” He shot a look at Brandon then strolled from the room.

“Well,” Norman said after a moment, “on that note, it’s bed for me, as well. I must head back to London first thing. I’m helping prepare a case and have to meet with the barrister at noon.”

Brandon was next to go, making excuses of tiredness, but obviously just eager to join his wife.

That left Henry and Harrison. The two men sat in silence for a time. “Just like the old days,” Henry said.

“Being left behind, you mean?”

Henry nodded. Not only had Harrison and Henry lodged together during university, the other three men were older, and went down from Oxford two years before the others. Henry loved all of The Honorables as brothers, but the bond he shared with Harrison was closer than the rest.

Harrison got up and retrieved the decanter of Madeira from the sideboard. He refilled Henry’s glass, and then his own.

“Have you thought any more about coming to work for me?” Henry asked.

“Henry.”

“I know it’s not the horse farm you want, but I haven’t got one of those lying about. I really think, though, that within a few years, you’ll have the capital you need to buy yourself a pretty piece of land and the ponies to begin your stock.”

“Hen.”

“We’re pushing east, and I could really use a good man I know and trust to—”

“Henry!”

At last, Henry’s eyes snapped to Harrison. His friend’s brown gaze was bemused. “What the hell are you going on about?”

Henry rubbed his forehead, sighed. It was no use trying to prevaricate with Harrison. “She set me up.”

Harrison paused with his glass halfway to his mouth. “How so?”

Fortifying himself with a long swallow of wine, Henry explained everything. He told Harrison about waking up to a bed full of Claudia and blood, and what he—and everyone else—thought he’d done. What she’d
made
them think he’d done. How he spent the next two days in hell, convinced the Baxter clan would be justified in having him castrated, drawn, and quartered—and that he wouldn’t even have tried to stop them. Only his driving need to try to make things right with Claudia, especially if she was with child, had kept him from throwing himself off the nearest cliff.

“It was utterly devastating,” he said, “thinking that I’d hurt her—
her
. My Claudia. My girl.” He cast a pained look at Harrison. His friend was leaned forward, forearms propped on his knees, his steady, serene gaze a sharp contrast to Henry’s agitation.

Hopping to his feet, Henry paced to a bookshelf, pulled out a volume at random, then shoved it back in place. “How could she do that to me? It was everything I used to hate and fear about myself. It was humiliating. It was—”

“It was like Kitty Newman all over again,” Harrison interjected.

Involuntarily, Henry’s shoulders hunched. “Yes,” he quietly agreed. “Like Kitty Newman. But worse.”

The other Honorables had long known about Henry’s somnambulism, but only Harrison knew the details of Henry’s disastrous encounter with the courtesan all those years ago.

“I’m surprised you remember her name,” Henry said. “You were good enough never to mention it again, and God knows I’ve tried my best to forget.”

“It was a memorable story.” Harrison’s tone was dry. “Although you never did say what you did to her slippers.”

Henry barked a laugh. “Nor will I.” He stood in front of the fire and stared into the glowing depths. His eyeballs seemed to draw back into the sockets at the heat; Henry forced his lids to remain open. “Did you know, I’ve kept the vow I made that night? That was the only time I ever attempted to sleep with a woman? I mean, actually
sleep
. There’s been coitus, of course, but slumber is always a solo event. This thing with Claudia just goes to show why I’ve been right to avoid it.”

“But nothing happened.”

Rounding on his friend, Henry issued a scoff of incredulity. “Nothing happened? Did you hear a single word I’ve just said?”

Rising, Harrison came to stand next to Henry, his palms extended to the fireplace. Snakes of light danced through his dark blond hair, which was on the long side, like Henry’s. “I heard you tell a tale of falsehoods. You did nothing wrong, Henry. In fact, I’d say this Miss Baxter of yours did you a favor.”

“How do you suppose?”

Harrison’s mouth quirked in a half-smile. “Consider this: You have never attempted to sleep in a bed with a woman since the Kitty Newman debacle, correct?” Henry nodded. “But you did sleep with Claudia, didn’t you? And nothing bad happened. Nothing bad that
you
instigated, anyway.”

“I didn’t think of that.” Henry rocked back on his heels, his hands deep in his trouser pockets. “But it doesn’t change the fact that she orchestrated this whole mess. The whole of Wilmsford-Upon-Avon thinks I’m a degenerate. I don’t know how I can ever show my face there again.”

Harrison tilted his head. “Don’t you?” Henry caught a glimpse of something deep in Harrison’s caramel eyes, some knowledge he’d never been able to pinpoint. “You know Claudia Baxter, Henry. You’ve known her since you were on leading strings. Is she the sort to plot the cruel scheme of which you accuse her?”

Once more peering into the fire, Henry considered Harrison’s question. God knew he’d been caught up in plenty of Claudia’s schemes over the years. From battle reenactments to new trees to climb to pranks on her governess or his tutor, she’d always had something up her sleeve. “But her games were always meant in fun,” he murmured. “She never set out to hurt anyone.”

“And you have always been her friend,” Harrison pointed out. “From what you’ve told me, she holds your esteem in as high a regard as that of her twin brother—perhaps higher.”

Henry inhaled sharply and looked at Harrison. “Higher? But why …? And if so, then why this abominable stunt?”

Harrison lifted his chin. “What is happening in Claudia’s life? There must be something afoot.”

Henry exhaled a snort. “Her parents were about to marry her off to a wretched old goat. I put a stop to that.”

“Why?”

“Because …” His voice trailed off. Excuses about a potential child and promises made to a woman intoxicated with laudanum crossed his mind, but Henry opted to tell the bald truth. “Because I couldn’t bear the thought of her married to another man.”

“Does Claudia know about your sleepwalking?”

At this, Henry grimaced. He’d never told her about it, and he’d sworn Claude to secrecy, not wanting to seem diminished in her eyes.

A smile, rueful somehow, crossed Harrison’s features. “Don’t you see, Henry? Claudia didn’t set you up for some sort of sleep-raping witch hunt. She trusts you implicitly. However ill-conceived it may have been, she tried to arrange a scene to get out of an arranged match, and it got away from her. Doesn’t that seem more likely than the malicious plot you’ve imagined?”

Claudia’s words from her drug-addled state returned to Henry:
I don’t want to marry him. I despise the thought of it. I would be terribly unhappy.
Even the memory of those bleak words caused his heart to lurch. In desperation, she had turned to him. Henry had always played along with her plans in the past; why should she have thought it would be any different this time, in her direst hour, especially if she knew nothing of his somnambulism?