Once Upon A Dream (24 page)

A great sigh went out of the child as Sedgemere sat on the edge of a low cot, arranging Ralph in his lap.

“You lot,” he said, gesturing to Ryland and Richard. “Get over here. We have a mystery to solve. Miss Faraday, your powers of deduction
are required in aid of our task.”

Anne took a seat on the opposite cot, because Ryland and Richard had tucked in on each side of their papa. The picture they made, three handsome little
redheads clustered around their blond papa, all serious focus on a missing duck, did queer things to Anne’s heart.

She had no powers of deduction, but her predicament didn’t call for any. She was not simply attracted to Sedgemere, she loved him. This slightly
tousled fellow was the true man, not the wealthy aristocrat, but the conscientious parent, Hardcastle’s devoted friend, Anne’s lover—her
wooer. Sedgemere’s passion was a sumptuous pleasure Anne would never forget, but the devotion to his children, to finding a missing duck, would hold
her heart captive forever.

“Now,” Sedgemere said. “We’ve cleared the room of spies and spectators. If you wanted to hide a duck somewhere that would cause a
great commotion and embroil the duck’s owner in terrible trouble, where would you boys stash the duck?”

“Not in my rooms,” Richard said. “Maybe in the governess’s rooms?”

“The governesses would be shrieking the house down by now,” Ryland observed. “Josie’s not the quietest duck.”

“We have to find her,” Ralph said. His hand came up, thumb extended as if headed for his mouth, but Sedgemere gently trapped Ralph’s hand
in his own.

“Miss Faraday,” Sedgemere said, “where would an errant duck cause the staff or guests the greatest disruption? Where would a duck be the
worst possible surprise?”

Four sets of blue eyes turned on Anne as if she knew the secret to eternal happiness and how to remove an ink stain from a boy’s favorite shirt. If
she failed them—

“The linen closet on the floor that houses the young ladies,” Anne said, rising. “I know exactly where it is too, because it’s
around the corner from my own rooms.”

“You fellows stay here,” Sedgemere said, depositing Ralph on the bed. “If Josie should come waddling home, she’ll be upset, and
only Ralph will be able to catch her. We’ll report back shortly. Miss Faraday, lead on.”

   Sedgemere extended a hand, and Anne took it. She ought not to have, not in front of the boys, not without an adult chaperone. But all too
soon, she’d have to tell Sedgemere they could never be married, and so she took what she could, and clasped his hand.

“A damned duck,” Sedgemere groused, though he wanted to howl with laughter. “A damned duck has attached itself to my nursery retinue and
I had no idea. A damned female duck.”

“Josephine sounds like a boy to me,” Anne said. “The lady ducks have the louder, more raucous voices, rather like debutantes.”

Anne’s voice was soft, tired, and determined, and her grip on Sedgemere’s hand secure. He could hunt ducks with her all night, all year, for
the rest of his natural days. Voices came from around the corner, and Sedgemere pulled Anne into an alcove inhabited by a pair of Roman busts.

Miss Higgindorfer and Miss Postlethwaite went giggling past, extoling the virtues of
His Grace
’s
manly physique and lovely dark
hair.

“Poor Hardcastle,” Sedgemere whispered. “You check the corridor.”

Anne did, her stealth worthy of Wellington’s pickets. She gestured Sedgemere out of hiding, but he first tugged her back into the alcove and stole a
kiss.

“For luck,” he said. “My son’s happiness and his entire regard for his papa rest upon locating this prodigal duck.”

“The linen closet is just down here,” Anne said.

And the damned closet, as it turned out, was locked. “Boys can’t get into a locked closet, and I doubt—”

A soft, plaintiff quack sounded from the other side of the door. Anne’s lips quirked as she fished at the base of her braid and produced a hairpin.

“One carries extras,” she said, “in case another lady might have need, or a duck might be trapped behind a locked door.”  She
applied the hairpin to the lock, and the latch lifted easily.

They couldn’t leave the door open, lest the duck fly off, so Sedgemere wedged himself through the door and towed Anne in after him.

“Gracious, it’s quite dark,” she said.

Sedgemere looped his arms around her. “And the blasted duck has gone quiet, but we did find her, so perhaps another kiss for luck will produce
complete victory.”

He had not the first inkling how to find a duck in a tiny, pitch-dark room, but finding Anne’s mouth with his own involved no effort at all, only
pleasure. He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, until her back was against the shelves of sheets, towels, and bedclothes, and the scents of lavender
and laundry starch had become Sedgemere’s favorite aphrodisiacs.  

He was on the point of opening his falls when a soft quack sounded near his left boot.

Anne’s sigh feathered past his cheek. “I told you I think he’s a boy duck. He just sniffed at my ankle.”

“There’ll be none of that,” Sedgemere said, stooping to pick up the duck. “The only fellow who’ll be sniffing at your ankles
is me, madam. This is not a small duck.”

The bird snuggled into Sedgemere’s grasp as if weary of being at liberty. Sedgemere, however, was not weary of kissing Anne, so he leaned in for
more, kissing her around the duck.

“We should go,” Anne whispered, her hand framing Sedgemere’s jaw. “It’s late, and the boys will worry.”

“We should be married,” Sedgemere said, as Josephine quacked her—or his—agreement. “Even the duck agrees.”

“I cannot marry you, Your Grace.” She kissed him lingeringly. “I am needed in my father’s house, and you should marry a woman of
some consequence.”

The duck quacked again, not as softly.

“Do you think I’m after your money?” Sedgemere asked. “I have no need of it, Anne. I need only you. The boys love you, you will
make a fine duchess, and I—”

The door opened as the Duchess of Veramoor’s crisp voice rang out. “I knew I heard something quacking. It appears, though, that we’ve
found ourselves a duck and a duke—among others. I must say, this is most irregular. I do not recall a duck on my guest list.”

Anne ended up holding the duck, stroking her fingers over Josephine’s soft, smooth feathers, while the Duchess of Veramoor paced the boundaries of a
private sitting room.

“Sedgemere, you are found in a linen closet kissing the stuffing out of an unmarried woman of good birth,
at my house party
. A duck is no
sort of chaperone, and I’ll not be able to keep the Postlethwaite creature quiet.”

For Miss Postlethwaite had been at Her Grace’s elbow when the linen closet door had been opened. Josephine had honked a merry welcome, and
Anne’s future had been destroyed.

More destroyed, which was semantically impossible.

“I was in the act of making Miss Faraday an honorable offer,” Sedgemere said. “She had yet to fully explain her response.”

Anne had been on the verge of explaining her way right into His Grace’s breeches. She cuddled the duck, who bore that indignity quietly. They’d
both had a challenging evening, after all.

“Sedgemere, you do me great honor,” Anne said, gaze fixed on Josephine’s bill, “but I cannot marry you. I have explained that
I’m needed at my father’s side.”

The duchess sat, so Sedgemere had room to pace. “You think I’m in want of coin,” he said. “That’s the only explanation I can
fathom. You are confused by the events of the evening, and your normal common sense has deserted you. I do not care that much,”—he snapped his
finger at Anne, and Josephine made as if to nip at him—“for your wealth.”

If only it were that simple. “Sedgemere, I am old enough to know my own mind, and we would not suit.”

A great, big, fat, quacking falsehood, that. Even the duchess looked impatient with Anne.

“We won’t sort this out tonight,” Her Grace said. “I will speak to the Postlethwaite girl tomorrow. A maid outside Miss
Postlethwaite’s door will ensure my guest does not roam before breakfast, but that’s as much as I can do.”

Sedgemere paused at the window and twitched back a lacy curtain. From this side of the house, he’d have a view of the moonlit lake.

“You might remind Miss Postlethwaite,” Sedgemere said, “that if she speaks a word against Miss Faraday, nothing I could say or do would
stop Hardcastle from offering Miss Postlethwaite and her entire set the cut direct.”

Anne took heart from that observation, because Hardcastle would also cut anybody who spoke a word against Sedgemere.

“Do you love another, Miss Faraday?” the duchess asked.

What an appalling question. “I am not
in
love with anybody save Sedgemere.”

Ah, God, a mistake. A mistake brought on by the lateness of the hour, forbidden passion, and stray ducks.

“Are you with child by another?” Her Grace’s tone brooked no dissembling, but her gaze was kind. “Young ladies can be taken
advantage of, and you are honorable enough not to put a cuckoo in the Sedgemere nest.”

Sedgemere’s gaze was stricken. He dropped to the sofa beside the duchess like a rock flung into the lake.

“
Anne
?”

“Sedgemere is the first man to turn my head in more than five years. I have not behaved well, and I do apologize for abusing your hospitality, but
that is the extent of the situation. I’ll leave in the morning, and you may put it about that I enticed the duke to a dalliance, for that is the
truth.”

Anne had no experience enticing anybody to do anything, though, so the truth was unlikely to be believed.

“Sedgemere, do not try to hector the woman into becoming your wife,” the duchess said, getting to her feet. “Miss Faraday’s mother
was equally resolute once her mind was made up, else she would never have married Hannibal Faraday. No family wants to see a daughter married off to an
impecunious banker, but Fenecia was smitten. Miss Faraday has her mother’s pretty looks, I’m told she has her mama’s aptitude for
numbers, and apparently, she has her mother’s independence too. Off to bed with you two—separate beds, if you please.”

Her Grace swept out, a small, forceful woman, who hadn’t been surprised or even disappointed to find lovers in her linen closet kissing over a stray
duck. If Anne were ever, through some miracle, to become a duchess, she’d aspire to such savoir faire.

In the present situation, however, it was all she could do not to cry.

“Give me the damned duck,” Sedgemere said, “and do not think to hare off in the morning, like a naughty schoolgirl. If you run, the
Postlethwaite creature will set the dogs of gossip upon you, but her aspirations in Hardcastle’s direction will keep her quiet for the duration of
the gathering.”

They had a small wrestling match over the duck, mostly because Anne wanted any excuse to brush hands with Sedgemere. She’d apparently achieved the
goal of rejecting his suit. Now all that remained was to survive a few more days, enduring the fruits of her victory.

After escorting Miss Faraday around the lake, Hardcastle bowed the lady on her way. This involved ignoring the despairing glance she sent toward
Hardcastle’s oldest and dearest pain in the arse, for Sedgemere was on his full ducal dignity on the far side of the terrace. His Grace of
Sedgemere’s excuse for spying on Miss Faraday—this time—was that most pressing of errands, accompanying a duck on its constitutional.

“I know not which of you is the more pathetic,” Hardcastle said, crossing the terrace. “The house party ends tomorrow, and you’re
reduced to taking the air with an anatine companion. Where is your courage, Sedgemere? Storm the castle walls, sing the die-away ballads beneath the
lady’s window, muster a bit of derring-do.”

Hardcastle had been introduced nearly two weeks and an eternity of tedium ago to Josephine. She waddled about in the grass below the terrace and would
likely be as glad as Hardcastle to quit the party.

“How is Anne?” Sedgemere asked.

“Miserable. The only topics about which I can inspire her to discourse are canal projects and housing developments.” The lady was also willing
to listen to anything, anything at all, related to Sedgemere. His upbringing, his antecedents, his impatience with foreign languages, which Hardcastle
attempted to redress by constant references to Latin.

“Then she and I are both miserable,” Sedgemere said, lowering himself to the top step, as if he were a small boy, willing to sit anywhere on a
summer day, provided he sat
outside.
“The only hypothesis I’ve concocted is that Anne fears I’m seeking her hand to gain control
of her dowry. This is patently false, of course, also insufficient to explain her behaviors.”

Hardcastle’s delicate ducal ears were not equal to hearing the details of those behaviors. He’d attempted a late-night stroll around the lake
several evenings ago, and had had to change his route not far from the house.

“You might try asking Miss Faraday why she’s refused a life basking in your cherishing regard,” Hardcastle suggested. “At least on
the topic of compound interest, she’s blazingly articulate.”

“Hardcastle, have you been at the brandy this early in the day? Anne is not a solicitor, to be bored with your talk of business.”

Josephine quacked, flapped her wings, and went strutting across the grass in the direction of another duck who’d come wandering up from the lake.

“Anne is a banker’s daughter,” Hardcastle said. “Can you imagine what the dinner conversation with her dear papa is like?
Prinny’s debts, Devonshire’s racing wagers, the latest gossip on ’Change?”

“She’s humoring you, Hardcastle,” Sedgemere snapped. “Tossing conversational lures that will tempt you away from your pettifogging
Latin aphorisms. What are those ducks about?”

The other duck was craning its neck and flapping its wings. Josephine carried on like a fellow who wanted to cut in partway through a waltz but
couldn’t attract the dancers’ notice.