Truth Within Dreams (12 page)

“I do have a question for you.” Harrison pulled Henry from his reverie. “You’ve had your heart set on Miss Baxter all these years. Did you ever once give the woman an inkling of your feelings?”

“No,” Henry said defensively. “I knew we couldn’t marry, so there was no sense in pursuing her.”

Harrison leaned back in his chair, lazily propping one booted foot atop the other. “But you meant to marry her when you thought you’d taken her virtue.”

Henry turned and paced in front of the fireplace. “There wasn’t any choice, you see?”

“And how, pray tell,” Harrison drawled, “did you intend to go about being married to the lovely Miss Baxter, given your vow to never slumber near a woman? Separate chambers?”

“That wouldn’t stop me from making a fool of myself. If I started sleepwalking again, I could turn up anywhere.”

“Separate residences, then?” The fire caught the white of Harrison’s teeth as he gave a teasing grin. “How far do you suppose you could go on foot in your sleep? Perhaps you could set Miss Baxter up one mile beyond your highest estimate—unless, of course, you think you may saddle a horse and ride in search of your bride during an episode, in which case you might have to tuck her away in another county.”

In spite of his bleak mood, Henry laughed. Leave it to Harrison to punch holes in his ridiculous ideas.

“And since you aren’t actually sleepwalking again, there’s no need to resort to such absurd measures,” Harrison said, wiping his palms as though settling the matter. “Oh,” he frowned, “I forgot. Not only are you not sleepwalking, you didn’t actually ravish Miss Baxter, either. I suppose you’ll be just as happy letting her get on with marrying her old goat, or some other fellow.”

Remembering the way Claudia’s supple skin heated beneath his hands on the riverbank, the way her body had become wet and ready for him—for
him
, not for blasted Sir Saint—nearly had Henry running for his horse. When he’d awoken that morning and found her in his bed, everything in Henry’s world fell into place. They’d already shared a lifetime of friendship. God (and Claudia) willing, they’d share a lifetime more.

Arms crossed, Henry glowered down at his friend. “I damned well won’t just let her marry some other sop.”

Harrison gave a small nod. “Well, then, I suppose you have a wife to claim.”

Henry sniffed. “I suppose I do.”

• • •

As it turned out, Claudia should have asked Claude for a temporal guideline more specific than
soon enough
, because weeks passed with no word from or regarding Henry.

Patience wasn’t Claudia’s strong suit, but she did try to muster some. The last thing Claude said before leaving for his new life in Somerset had been:
Give him time, Claude. He’ll come around.
But it had been two fortnights with nary a sight nor sound of him. And just when she thought she’d mastered a sort of mental tranquility, who should come calling but her erstwhile fiancé?

Sir Saint, too, had been in absentia the past four weeks, thankfully. When he materialized in the doorway of the music room, where Claudia was spending a rainy afternoon half-heartedly practicing the pianoforte, she launched into a funeral dirge. Her fingers plunked out the minor chords in time with his slow progress across the room.

“You might’ve been a credible governess, my girl, with such skill to recommend you. Good thing I’ve swooped in to rescue you from such a drear fate, what?”

She accepted his odd compliment with a regal nod. Having avoided her first appointment with the parson’s trap, she could spare him a touch of benevolence. Today, he’d left off his musty old satins for a more sober costume of dark blue coat and buff breeches, with a camel waistcoat and white cravat. With a start, she realized he was attempting to imitate the popular dandy style.

It was pathetically touching, in a way, how hard he was trying.

“I’ll come straight to the point,” he said when she abandoned the death march. “Are you, or are you not, increasing?”

“Heavens!” Claudia bleated. “What a question!”

“I suppose it’s my right to know what manner of goods I’m acquiring.”

Claudia shot to her feet. “You’ve no such right! And you aren’t acquiring any goods, if by
goods
you mean me.”

The old man smirked knowingly, the expression of an aged Lothario unimpressed with her dissembling. “Come now, my dear, you know the score. You’re still betrothed to me, which is a sneeze shy of being my wife. Your father insisted on giving you time to nap a kid off De Vere.” He rapped the end of his walking stick against the floor to punctuate his speech. “It’s been plenty long enough, now, and word has it that scoundrel has scampered off to parts unknown. I wager you’re happy to have a constant beau such as m’self, now.” He gave her a shrewd look. “So, did you miss your monthly, or not?”

At Claudia’s stricken expression, he moderated his tone. “I assure you, it’s nothing to me if you have. I don’t understand the Puritanical mania that’s overcome Society. In my day, we knew better than to wonder aloud where little Johnny got that red hair, when Papa’s is black as coal, and Mama’s yellow as a canary. Always good to add a little pinch of salt to the pot, I say. Makes the whole dish better, what?”

Mystified by the concept to which Sir Saint had just alluded, Claudia sat with her lips slackened for the space of several seconds.

“Close your mouth, gel,” he snapped.

“Sir Saint,” she said, rallying her senses to the task at hand, “do you mean to say you harbor no objection to me bearing a child not of your blood?”

“Isn’t that what I said?” he demanded hotly. “I’ll take a stab, m’self, but as long as you catch, it’s nothing to me who throws the seed. The more hands working the field, the better.”

Claudia’s disgust raised to unprecedented, soaring heights. Her blood boiled so in her cheeks, it was a wonder steam didn’t pour from her skin. “Sir Saint, you have just subjected my person to several unflattering comparisons, not to mention the insult you have paid my principles! When I marry, I have no intention of keeping an illicit gentleman friend, and I cannot countenance a husband who would treat the vows of holy matrimony with such blatant disregard!”

Tuggle frowned. “Are you saying you’ll not marry me because I’m
too
permissive?”

Whatever does the trick
, she decided. “You have it precisely, sir. And now I must bid you a good day, and goodbye forever more.”

With a haughty lift of her chin, she flounced into the corridor, where she plowed straight into her mother.

“There you are!” Lady Baxter proclaimed. “You’ll never guess what I just heard from Ferguson, who had it from Mr. Airedale, the cheesemonger, who made his delivery to Fairbrook before—”

“Mother!” Claudia interjected, her patience fully eroded by both the irksome guest and the whole trying circumstances of late. “What is it?”

“Henry De Vere is home.”

It was a lot of commotion that pulled Henry from his hard-earned rest. His eyelids nearly groaned when he forced them open, and his muscles, sore from several long days of travel, protested at being forced upright. His bleary vision struggled to focus in the darkness. It was either still night, or the sun had been extinguished in an apocalyptic catastrophe.

In either case, there was no call for the ruckus coming from elsewhere in the house. There had been a pounding, someone using the iron door knocker over and over, as if to rouse not only Fairbrook’s inmates, but also the souls of all those buried within ten miles of the house.

Henry scratched idly at his bare chest, placidly reasoning whatever emergency had brought company at this unholy hour would be dealt with by others. Being the younger son had some advantages, after all.

Around him, the house came to grudging life. Someone from the maids’ chambers made her way down the servants’ stairs, which passed behind his wall. Meanwhile, the pounding at the door stopped when another someone—a footman, most like—opened it. Voices rose in consternation, a male and a female, engaged in a duet of acrimony.

Henry heard Duncan growl as he stomped past his room. The noise must have roused the elder De Vere, and the midnight exigency almost certainly required the baron’s personal attention, in any event. From the entry hall, Duncan’s voice bellowed for quiet. Meanwhile, his younger brother relaxed back into his pillows. His jaw creaked in a mighty yawn. Morning would be soon enough to learn the outcome of this drama, before presenting himself at Rudley Court to begin his campaign to win Claudia.

He must have dozed off almost immediately, for he was once more rudely awakened by his door being flung open. Duncan held a candlestick aloft. The flickering light made the features of his face seem to wink in and out of existence above a body wrapped in a thick dressing gown. “You’ve a caller, Henry.” From behind him, he produced a cloaked female.

Claudia, naturally.

“You may have heard the gentle tapping of her summons,” Duncan drawled. “Once she’d roused the household, Miss Baxter bullied her way past our brawniest footman, performed an impressive feat of evasive maneuvering to circumvent another footman and a maid, and demanded an audience with you at once. Had I not taken your hellcat into custody, I’ve no doubt but that she’d have continued menacing the staff. She seemed singularly determined to announce her presence to every body within these walls.”

Duncan handed Claudia the candle and nudged her into Henry’s room. “The two of you will remain in this chamber until this mess is sorted out. I’m going back to bed. Tomorrow is the Sabbath, and I expect to hear the banns read, or I’ll know the reason why.” With that he departed, one final slam of the door putting a full stop on the evening’s hullabaloo.

There was a moment of awkward silence following Duncan’s departure. With one hand, Claudia reached up and released the frog holding her cloak closed at her neck. Henry knew a second of anticipation, watching the heavy garment slide down her back to the floor. Beneath it, she wore one of her simple dresses and sensible half-boots. He didn’t know what else he’d have expected, but it wasn’t such a perfectly ordinary-looking Claudia to show up in his room at—

“What’s the bloody time?” he inquired.

She used the candle to light several others, filling the room with a cozy glow. “About half-one.” When she finished lighting the candles, she helped herself to a drink from the glass of water on his bedside table.

Lowering to a chair facing the bed, Claudia unlaced her boots, removed them, then raised her skirts to untie her garters and roll down her stockings. Every inch of exposed, creamy skin raised his level of alarm, as well as his heart rate.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “Everyone in the house knows you’re in my room. You can’t do this. You must go.”

The smile on her lips seemed different from those he’d had from Claudia in the past. It was a touch winsome, a touch mischievous, but there was something new and secret there, too, something knowing and fully feminine.

Without a word, Claudia continued shedding her attire. She was far too innocent to know the art of undressing for a man’s appreciation. Claudia went about disrobing in a straightforward fashion, neatly folding her garments and piling them on the clothespress as she went. And it drove him wilder than any contrived seduction could ever hope to do. He was hard before she’d shucked her chemise. She unpinned her hair, allowing a single, heavy braid to fall over her left shoulder. On silent feet, she came to the side of the bed, naked.

Henry threw back the covers and rose to meet her. He grabbed her arms, simultaneously longing to hold her close and pitch her out the door. The weeks of his absence should have been time enough to get his thoughts in order, but they hadn’t been. Anger and hurt and lust and longing all roiled through his gut. And even though his conversation with Harrison had helped him put his mind in order, Henry had thought he’d have the benefit of a respectable hour before having to carry out a conversation with her.

“Claudia, why are you here?” he asked.

She blinked up at him, her eyes round and trusting. “I’ve come to do this.” She slipped from his grasp and fell to her knees before him, her eyes level with his erection.

Merciful God
. It was another Claudia dream. He was going to spend in his sleep and wake, alone, with a mess on his stomach.

But his dream took an unexpected turn when Claudia clasped her hands together at her chest and gazed up pleadingly.

“Henry De Vere, I’ve come to offer my sincere apology. I’m so sorry for the trick I played with the pig’s blood. It was beastly selfish and I—”

He took her hands and hauled her to her feet. “Sweetheart, I can’t hear a word you say in that position.”

Not that this was much better. She was fantastically, gorgeously naked. Her breasts, full and firm, begged for his mouth like the most succulent pears. And then, suddenly, she was in his arms. His hands circled her waist and pulled her against him as she threw her arms around his neck. Oh, she was a warm and delightful woman. His cock brushed against the soft brown curls on her mound—death by intimate tickling.

She trembled in his embrace. “I’m so sorry, Henry,” she said, her voice thick with unshed tears.

As angry as he’d been, he still couldn’t stand to see her in pain. “Hush now,” he murmured. One hand stroked her back, the other cradled her head to his torso, then worked into her hair and rubbed her scalp.

Claudia’s hand came to rest on his chest beside her face. Her fingers curled; her nails grazed lightly across his skin. “No, please let me speak, Henry. I’ll never be able to look myself in the mirror again if I do not get this out.”

“Go on, then.”

“I was desperate not to marry Sir Saint.”

“I know, lamb.”

“But I couldn’t see any way out of it. Then you came that day, and I had the idea.” By the shift in her tone and the hitch of her breath, he knew tears had started falling. With the backs of his fingers, he lightly brushed the moisture from her cheek.

“I wasn’t trying to be cruel to you. I swear I didn’t know you or anyone else would think you’d abused me. I would never,
never
want anyone to think ill of you. I just … I hoped if I made them believe I was ruined, then I wouldn’t have to marry him. But, Henry?” She lifted her head to look up at him.