Truth Within Dreams (2 page)

He plowed through the crowd and took a seat. After catching the attention of the barmaid and ordering a bottle of gin, he started to relax. A frisson of something good and welcome went through his limbs. It wasn’t Rudley Court, but in its way, this blasted table was every bit as familiar and safe.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you back at our rooms until tomorrow,” Harrison said. The caramel-hued eyes of Henry’s friend gleamed with interest; a lascivious grin split his face. “What are you doing here? Did you wap her into oblivion, make her plead for a reprieve from the ministrations of your
arbor vitae
? What was it like? What was
she
like?” With the back of his hand, Harrison slapped at Henry’s arm. “What were her bubbies like? Use plenty of adjectives.”

Henry winced. “You sound like Sheri. I don’t want to talk about it.” He tipped back a kick of liquor, grimaced at the sharp burn, then poured himself another.

After tossing that one down the hatch and reaching for the gin again, Harrison put a restraining hand on the bottle. “Easy does it, friend o’ mine. Sorry if my questions offended. Why the race toward oblivion?”

Propping his elbows on the age-darkened plank of the tabletop, Henry pressed the balls of his hands into his eyes, wishing he could scour the vision of Kitty’s horrified expression from his mind. “Something happened,” he muttered miserably.

“Did you …” Harrison began in a low voice. “Did you fail to sail the ship into port?”

Henry’s head snapped up. Glowering darkly, he poured more of the clear liquor into his glass, then offered the bottle to Harrison. His friend shook his head, pointing out his own mug of cider.

“No trouble at sea,” Henry reported. “Good winds, full sail, all that.”

Scratching idly at his stubbled chin, Harrison made a thoughtful sound. “Came off too soon?”

Henry hunched over his glass. “No.”

“Then what the hell was the problem?”

“I fell asleep,” Henry said. “Things got … queer.” Sighing in resignation, he spilled the whole, sordid story.

Making good use of Sheri’s birthday gift, Henry had happily rid himself of his virginity with the delectable Kitty. Submitting himself to her tutelage, he’d indulged in hours of bed play and achieved multiple climaxes, each more intense than the last, until, finally, he fell into an exhausted slumber beside his buxom companion. He’d come to abruptly at the sound of Kitty Newman screeching. “Stop! Stop! What are you doing, you disgusting gony? Get away from my slippers! I paid a fortune for those!”

He’d blinked, surprised to see that he was clear across the room from the bed. Had this been his own lodging room, it occurred to Henry that he’d have been in the exact location of his chamber pot. But he wasn’t in his room. Instead, he was doing something unspeakable to Kitty Newman’s expensive slippers.

“Just a moment,” Harrison interrupted. “You took the piss on her shoes?” he tilted his head thoughtfully. “Well that’s certainly not the worst thing she must’ve seen in that profession, chap. In fact, I bet she’s gotten any sort of strange request—”

Henry’s cheeks flamed. He shook his head emphatically. “I didn’t …” He took a deep, calming breath. “That wasn’t it.”

Harrison’s eyebrows rose, but despite the curiosity on his face, he gave Henry a small, sympathetic smile. The two young men had shared a lodging for some months. In that time, Harrison had retrieved a half-naked Henry from the quadrangle, stopped him from attempting to climb out the window, and prevented several other fiascoes. Harrison always treated Henry’s episodes with care and discretion. Even now, he didn’t pry for more details than Henry was willing to share.

“I see,” he simply said. A lengthy silence fell.

“I’m never going to sleep with a woman again,” Henry vowed.

Suddenly, his mind once more returned to Rudley Court. In his mind’s eye, Henry saw Claudia Baxter’s sweet, guileless face smiling up at him. Her fun-filled schemes never failed to raise his spirits when they were low. A painful yearning pinched his heart.

I want to go home
.

Harrison rolled his eyes. “Come on, Hen, it couldn’t have been
that
bad.”

“It was,” Henry insisted, once more hearing Kitty Newman’s berating voice ringing in his ears, resurrecting all the night’s humiliation. “I mean it, Harry. I will never sleep beside a woman again. I’m broken.” A lump formed in his chest. “Who could ever want me?” he challenged his friend. “Who could ever want this?”

Six years later

The night was stormy, and most certainly dark. And while others might see such weather as portentous of some grave misfortune, to Miss Claudia Baxter, the rain and howling wind were as welcome as a surprise inheritance from a heretofore unheard-of uncle. The appearance of the storm had gifted Claudia an opportunity to deliver herself from a dreadful fate. Not one to ignore such a cosmic boon, she had, over the course of the last two hours, feverishly stitched together an idea.

It was a rather slapdash plan, Claudia allowed, as she padded away from the kitchen with a small bottle of pig’s blood gripped in her fist. But with her wedding to Sir Saint Tuggle and his fifty years’ worth of dental negligence less than a week off, what choice did she have? At this point, Claudia would have happily run away with a band of Gypsies, had any been so kind as to pass by Rudley Court. Sadly, Roma were thin on the ground in Wiltshire just now, so Claudia was left with a madcap scheme and a vial of blood.

Her bare feet made no sound as she crept through the sleeping house. She and her twin brother, Claude, had discovered—and thereafter avoided—every creaky board and groaning hinge in a childhood spent terrorizing their way through six governesses.

She made her way up to the bedchambers, keeping a keen eye out for Ferguson. The butler’s highest calling in life was the preservation of Rudley Court and he’d been known to patrol the halls at least twice per night. In years past, that duty had meant defending the house against the ravages of nine Baxter children, Claudia and Claude being numbers eight and nine.

Luck was with her; Ferguson was nowhere to be seen. Claudia followed the path running down the center of the corridor rug, worn thin by decades of young Baxters and their guests. She stopped outside a guest room door and was startled by a sudden fluttering in her middle. There had been no doubts or fears until this very moment. The little bottle grew slippery in her hand. She passed it to the other and wiped her palm against her dressing gown.

If only her parents hadn’t agreed to Sir Saint’s proposal, then Claudia wouldn’t have been driven to these desperate measures. But she had failed to make a match during her Season. She’d been just another Baxter, with unremarkable looks and an embarrassingly large family. Her two thousand pounds were nothing to brag about, and most of her gowns were handed down from her sisters. Claudia had never been the prettiest, the richest, the most fashionable. And so her Season came and went without a single proposal.

In the five years since, Claudia had resigned herself to the role of spinster aunt to her growing herd of nieces and nephews. Every family needed one, she reasoned. But then, two months ago, disaster struck in the doughy, stinky form of Sir Saint Tuggle. Sir John Baxter had accepted Sir Saint’s suit without so much as a by-your-leave from his youngest daughter. Claudia had been informed of her betrothal over the fish course that night.

Sir Saint was due to arrive tomorrow afternoon and stay at Rudley Court until the wedding, and her many siblings would likewise begin trickling in over the course of the week. With the house full of people, Claudia would have no more opportunities to evade this marriage. She was out of time. Unless she took her fate into her own hands, she would become Lady Tuggle in a few days. As her intended had told her, she could look forward to producing Sir Saint’s heir, followed by a lifetime of rusticating. There would be no house parties or Seasons in Town or trips abroad. Sir Saint’s gout prohibited anything resembling fun from touching his life. She was too young to surrender to such a dreary existence. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t.

Steeling her resolve, Claudia turned the knob.

She slipped into the room and leaned against the beveled wood, allowing her vision to adjust to the darkness of the bedchamber. Outside, the storm still raged. A flash of lightning revealed the bed, as well as a pair of top boots carelessly discarded in the middle of the floor. Plunged once again into darkness, Claudia made her way forward, careful to avoid the boots. One noisy stumble would ruin everything.

With her free hand extended, Claudia reached the bed and felt her way to the top of the covers. A soft exhalation of breath made her heart leap.
It’s only Henry
, she reminded herself.

“Only Henry” being Mr. Henry De Vere, whose family’s estate, Fairbrook, adjoined the eastern side of Rudley Court. He was twenty-five, two years older than the twins, and had often been about when they were children, tossed in with the Baxters like just another puppy in the litter. Back then, Henry and the twins had been thick as thieves, roaming the countryside and playing games of Claudia’s invention. Henry usually sided with her in disputes between the twins and had never let Claude exclude her from their play. Perhaps understandably, she’d developed a touch of hero worship where Henry was concerned. He was her very own champion. As she grew into adolescence, she couldn’t help but dream he might come courting some day.

Claude and Henry had gone to Harrow together, and then Henry went off to Oxford. After that … well, Henry never did come courting. He’d remained a good friend, one she was always happy to see when he visited, but she had long since abandoned fantasies of her next-door neighbor returning the kind of affection she’d carried for him all these years.

Just back from London, Henry had come by earlier today to show off the new horse he’d purchased at Tattersall’s. It was the first time Claude and Claudia had seen him in six months. Horse talk had led to tea in the library, which led to an invitation to stay to supper, and then the storm set in and Henry was stuck at Rudley Court for the duration—the unexpected event around which Claudia had hastily formulated her impromptu plan.

Earlier in the evening, when she’d broken the news of her betrothal, Henry’s brows had drawn together. “A bit long in the tooth, isn’t he?” Henry had asked. Just then, Claudia had wanted to throw her arms around his neck and weep. But the moment passed. He had kissed her cheek and wished her happiness, yet she was sure she’d seen a shadow cross his green eyes.

He would want to help her avoid this marriage, Claudia was certain, even if he didn’t approve of her methods. But he would go along with her, as he’d always done.

The long, low mound of his shadow was on the opposite side of the bed. Claudia peeled back the counterpane, revealing the white bottom sheet. She worried at her lower lip while she dithered about what to do. Having seven older siblings meant she was more knowledgeable about particular matters than most young, unmarried ladies. Still, she wasn’t entirely certain where to put the blood.

In the regular order of things, the fluid would be beneath her, she decided, in the region of her bottom. She tried to picture where that would be, were she lying on the bed—which she would be, in a moment. That was stage two of The Plan.

She let out a huff of annoyance. This was taking too long. “Bother,” she muttered. It would be easier to place herself in the bed first. Then she’d know for sure how to set the scene.

Claudia set down the bottle of blood and untied the sash around her waist. Her dressing gown fell to the floor, leaving her in just her chemise. The decision of what to wear for the occasion of her ruin had caused a moment of consternation, but in the end she decided her usual night rail was too prim for what was meant to look like a night of wanton debauchery.

She crawled onto the bed. The mattress shifted under her weight and Henry’s head tossed. Claudia froze, not even daring to breathe. As she knelt there, staring into the darkness with her bottle once again firmly in hand, Claudia realized she could use Henry as a guide.

When she was sure he still slept, Claudia pulled the counterpane back farther, revealing the side of Henry’s body.

Henry’s
naked
body.

Claudia gulped convulsively. She hadn’t reckoned on encountering an unclothed man tonight, no matter what she meant to portray via The Plan.

It didn’t matter, she told herself. Henry was asleep and Claudia would soon be—well, maybe not asleep. It would be difficult, knowing she shared the bed with a naked man. But she had to carry on. It was this, or climb into bed with Sir Saint.

Claudia unstoppered the bottle, but then guilt seized her guts, staying her hand. It wasn’t just her who would be affected; Henry, too, would be subject to scrutiny. But she remembered the time a dozen years ago, when Henry had taken the blame for breaking Lady Baxter’s porcelain fruit bowl, even though it was Claudia who had been pretending it was the hat portion of her regimentals during a battle reenactment in the parlor. He’d thought nothing of subjecting himself to Lady Baxter’s ire to save Claudia from punishment.

But perhaps there was a better way. She hadn’t explained her predicament to Henry, hadn’t enlisted him in her cause. It was one thing to subject herself to her parents’ disapprobation; it was another thing entirely to rope Henry into it without his permission.

Henry rolled onto his side just as lightning flashed. For an instant Claudia was blind, but the image of Henry De Vere’s body was seared onto the backs of her eyelids. His torso was sculpted with broad shoulders and lean muscle, tapering to a flat stomach and narrow hips. Even relaxed in sleep, the muscles of his chest looked hard beneath a taut covering of skin. Thank heavens, his heavy thigh draped just so, concealing his most private area. Claudia was already stunned by what she’d seen; anything more intimate might cause permanent injury to her nerves. Memory provided a picture of Henry’s handsome face: loose waves the color of ripe wheat falling about his ears, high cheekbones and an easy smile, hooded green eyes brimming with laughter. How on earth had she never suspected that familiar face was connected to a body straight off of Lord Elgin’s Greek marbles? Probably, she realized, because she’d never given much thought to what a man’s body looked like. Henry was beautiful, a word she never thought to apply to a man.