Once Upon A Dream (3 page)

Robert was indeed asleep, curled up in a ball on his bed, one flushed cheek visible, his blond hair hopelessly tousled, the covers drawn up to his ears
despite the stuffiness of the room. Of his daughter there was no sign.

"Georgette?" he whispered, his eyebrows raised.

"She went to sit with you," Mrs. Harris whispered back, looking suddenly alarmed.

"Did she indeed?" he said. "But she did not arrive. Why am I not surprised? One thing is certain, at least. She would not have ventured out of doors."

And it was not a large inn. She might be watching the cook prepare dinner and asking a million questions. She might be grilling any groom who was
unfortunate enough to be indoors about his duties. She might be exploring the attics or the cellars and finding bats or mice or people to question. He went
to find her.

She was down in the dining room, talking with a lone lady who was having her tea there—the same lady who had arrived at the inn just after them, if
he was not mistaken.

"You have been interesting company," she was saying, demonstrating a great deal of kindness and forbearance since her words suggested that his daughter had
been with her for some time.

"So have you," Georgette replied and caused her father to close his eyes for a moment, appalled by her presumption.

The rain sounded louder down here, perhaps because there were more windows.

"Georgette!" he said, approaching the table with long strides. "Here you are, you wretched child, bothering a fellow guest, as I might have expected."

She looked up at him, guilt written all over her face. The lady turned her head too. She had been wrapped inside a gray cloak when he saw her earlier, with
the hood over her head. She was clad now in a stylish blue dress. Her fair hair was simply and neatly worn. She had a pleasing, good-humored face with
fine, intelligent-looking gray eyes. Her hands, lightly clasped on the edge of the table, were slender and ringless. She was, he guessed, about his own
age, which was forty. He remembered that she had a low, pleasant speaking voice.

"You must be Mr. Benning," she said. "I do apologize for keeping your daughter here and causing you worry. She has been kind enough to bear me company
through the return of the storm. Being stranded unexpectedly is a tedious business, is it not, though it is to be hoped we are not doomed to be stranded as
long as Robinson Crusoe was on his island."

That was the book Georgette had tossed aside earlier and declared to be stupid. She must have told the lady about it—and no doubt about everything
else that occupied every last corner of her crowded mind.

"It is kind of you to be so gracious, ma'am," he said before turning his eyes back upon his daughter, who was smiling brightly in the hope, no doubt, of
averting any wrath he might still be feeling. "You were fortunate, Georgette, not to be snatched by some villainous cutthroat and borne off across his
horse's back, never to be heard from again."

"Oh, Papa," she said, "what villain would be out in this weather? I have been making the acquaintance of Miss Thompson, and I have been eating her cakes,
though I did not intend to and did not even realize I was doing it until I noticed the sweetness in my mouth. I thought you would be cross if you
discovered that I had invited myself to tea, whereas you would not be quite so annoyed at my merely holding a friendly conversation with a fellow guest who
was alone and in need of company to keep her mind off the thunder."

She smiled even more brightly.

He set a hand on her shoulder. "You certainly will not want any more tea, then," he said. "Probably you will not even need any dinner this evening. Perhaps
I will have it served just to Robert and Mrs. Harris and myself."

"You would not do that, Papa," she said, her tone wheedling. "I am sorry to have worried you, but Nurse was looking exasperated because Robbie was taking a
while to go to sleep and I wanted to sit on his bed to soothe him but I was fidgeting instead, and then I was fidgeting on my own bed because I had nothing
to do. I decided to go to your room, but then I remembered that you were nursing your bad temper, mainly on account of Robbie's having been terrified and
my having asked you a stream of questions about thunder and lightning and why they do not usually happen together even though they are really the same
thing. So I decided to be considerate and leave you alone and came down here instead."

It was appalling to think of what she was revealing to Miss Thompson—
you were nursing your bad temper.
Out of the mouths of babes…

"You have my thanks," he said dryly. "But now you may go back up to reassure Mrs. Harris, whom I left a few minutes ago in a state of alarm. Tiptoe and
whisper, however. Robert is asleep."

She went.

"Miss Thompson," he said, "I do apologize, both for my intrusion and for your having had to put up with my daughter when I expect you were looking forward
to a relaxed and quiet tea. She is…difficult. And precious," he hastened to add, though he could hear exasperation in his voice.

"Oh, very precious, I think," she said, her eyes twinkling at him and revealing rather attractive fine laugh lines at their outer corners. "And, yes,
difficult, I can imagine, to the people who are responsible for her upbringing. I found her a delight."

"It is remarkably decent of you to say so," he said. "Had you been expecting to reach your destination today?"

""I had," she said, looking ruefully toward the windows. "It is not going to happen, however, and my hope is now fixed upon tomorrow. One day's delay is
tedious. Another would be severely annoying."

"And a great deal more delay, as was the case for Robinson Crusoe," he said, "would be plain stupid—in my daughter's opinion, anyway."

She laughed. "I must confess," she said, "that it was never my favorite book."

"Or mine, though it is utter heresy to say so of an acknowledged classic." He laughed with her. "But I believe it was my saying so that persuaded Georgette
to choose it as one of her traveling books."

"That is perfectly understandable," she said. "You are on a long journey?"

"We have been on the road for three days," he said. "This was to have been the last. But someone important—I cannot for the life of me remember
who—once said that the only thing we can confidently expect of life is the unexpected. I have lived long enough to know that he was quite right. Or
perhaps it was a she. It is foolish of us ever to expect that life will proceed according to our plans and expectations. Miss Thompson, I realize that I
have bespoken the only private parlor this inn boasts. I suspect the dining room will be filled later. My children will be eating their dinner early. I
would prefer to dine later especially if I can prevail upon you to join me. Perhaps it is impertinent of me to ask when we are strangers, but the
circumstances are unusual."

She hesitated visibly. It was not at all the thing, of course, for a single lady to dine alone with a single gentleman. But the circumstances were indeed
beyond the ordinary, and he could almost see her weighing that fact against the alternative, which was to dine alone in a small and potentially crowded
dining room.

"After having tea with your daughter," she said at last, "I do believe I would find it quite flat to dine alone, Mr. Benning. Thank you. I will join you.
At what time?"

"Eight o' clock?" he suggested. "The children will be ready for bed by then."

"Eight o' clock it will be," she said.

He bowed and returned upstairs. He must take Georgette to his room and do something with her for a while—play chess, perhaps. He had a traveling set
in his bag, and she was getting good enough at it that he was beginning to enjoy their games. He had never simply allowed her to win. She would know and
would scold him. But in the foreseeable future she might win without any help at all.

I found her a delight,
Miss Thompson had said, and she had seemed to mean it. He had not come across many adults who shared her opinion, though a number of people were polite and
pretended to be charmed by her. Miss Everly was one such person. She smiled whenever she encountered his daughter, and called her a sweet child—an
inappropriate description if ever there was one. Through part of the London Season that had recently ended he had considered Miss Everly as a possible
candidate for his second wife, though he had never taken the step of actually courting her. It was her mother who had suggested a boarding school for the
child she always referred to as
dear Georgette
.

He opened the door of the children's room quietly. Robert was still asleep. Georgette was perched on the side of his bed, patting his back through the
bedcovers. Michael was always touched by the tender devotion with which she treated the sibling who was as different from herself as it was possible to be.
His guess was that she was trying to make up for the fact that Robert had no mother. Though she did not either, did she?

She would have quite an adventure to recount to her mother and sisters when she arrived at Lindsey Hall, Eleanor thought as she changed into her gray silk
with the white lace collar and sat for Alma to brush out her hair and coil it into a more elegant knot than usual high at the back of her head. She would
not after all arrive tomorrow all grumbles about the storm and the tedious night she had been forced to spend on the road. Instead she would make much of
describing her tea with the large platter of dainties worthy of the finest pastry cook and Georgette Benning for company. And she would make a riveting
story of her invitation to dine tête-à-tête with the child's handsome and charming papa in his private parlor.

She hesitated before reaching into her bag for the velvet box that held her brooch, which Alma proceeded to pin between the lapels of her collar. It was
her one valuable piece of jewelry, a cluster of pearls given her by Christine and Wulfric for her birthday two years ago. She did have another precious
piece, but only she ever saw the diamond betrothal ring she had worn on a chain about her neck ever since she had removed it from her finger after
Gregory's death at the Battle of Talavera—oh, a long time ago when she was young and full of dreams of endless love and happily-ever-after.

She hoped the brooch was not too elaborate for the occasion, though the thought amused her. Even if she had rings and bracelets and earrings to match, she
would still look the prim, middle-aged spinster schoolteacher she was. The invitation to dine was merely the courtesy of a gentleman who wished to repay
her for entertaining his daughter this afternoon. Or perhaps he felt that dining with her really was preferable to dining alone or eating early with his
children. Whatever the reason, she was thankful to him. The inn was indeed full and the dining room would be crowded. She would be self-conscious sitting
alone at a table there. She had never before stayed on her own at an inn.

She sent Alma off to her own dinner in the kitchen and went downstairs, smiling inwardly at the flutter of nervousness she was feeling, as though she were
on her way to keep a romantic tryst. Thank heaven no one could read her thoughts. The innkeeper was hovering at the bottom of the stairs, and it was
obvious he had been waiting for her. He bowed, led the way to the private parlor, tapped on the door, and opened it.

"Miss Thompson, your lordship," he announced.

Your lordship?
The gentleman was not simply Mr. Benning, then? He was not alone, either. The children were with him, Georgette all flushed and eager as she jumped to her
feet, the little boy clearly alarmed as he scrambled up from his chair to press against her side and clutch one of her puffed sleeves, one eye hidden
behind it. He did indeed look younger than his five years. He was a thin-faced, mop-haired, big-eyed child—the hair very blond, the eyes dark
brown—and purely adorable. The remains of a meal were spread on the table.

"Oh," Eleanor said, "am I early?"

"You are not," the gentleman assured her, getting to his feet and making her an elegant bow. "We are late. Bedtime is never actually bedtime in our house
or wherever we happen to be. It is always half an hour or so later. My children are experts at delaying the inevitable. True, Georgette?"

"But it was not me this time, Papa," she protested. "Robbie wanted to have a look at Miss Thompson. He had only the merest peep when we arrived here."

The little boy's second eye disappeared behind her sleeve as though to give the lie to her words, but it reappeared almost instantly and gazed unblinkingly
upon Eleanor.

"My son and heir, Robert Benning," his father said. "Miss Thompson, Robert. Now would be a good time to make your bow."

The eye disappeared again and his father sighed.

"He is shy," Georgette explained. "There is nothing wrong with shyness, is there, Miss Thompson? If there were no quiet people in the world, there would be
no one to listen to those who have not a shy bone in their bodies. Like me. It takes all sorts to make a world, do you not think?"

"I do indeed," Eleanor said. "I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Robert, and I shall assume that in your mind you have bowed to me. Are we not
fortunate that the storm is over and seems to have no intention of returning? We must hope for sunshine tomorrow morning to dry the roads."

The child peeped again.

"Nurse will be very cross with me if I do not send you up immediately or sooner," Mr. Benning said, addressing his children. "Say good night to Miss
Thompson."

Georgette said it at some length, and the little boy spoke for the first time.

"Will you come up to kiss us, Papa?" he whispered.

"Wild horses would not stop me," his father said. "But it will be after I have dined with Miss Thompson, and by then you will both be fast asleep. In the
meanwhile, I will kiss you now."

The little boy scurried over to him, clutched the outsides of his breeches, and raised his face, his lips puckered. Mr. Benning bent to cup his face and
kiss him and then tousle his hair, which actually looked more like soft blond down than hair.