“There’s nothing to worry about. My interest is strictly professional. I’m merely doing what Latham asked of me.”
“Ah. Are you certain?” Nelson persisted.
“I am,” Sebastian affirmed. “I behaved toward her as I would any debutante I danced with at a ball.”
But is that true?
He had asked to call on her, something he was certain Latham hadn’t expected of him. He’d have to explain to Latham his reasoning for it. But first, he’d have to explain it to himself.
I’m not smitten, he told himself. I’m simply concerned about the welfare of a young lady, the sister of a good friend.
He kept telling himself that for the rest of the night.
Chapter Three
The Next Day
“Milady, your mother wishes for you to join the family in the breakfast room,” her maid said, opening the curtains to let in the morning light.
Katie had spent another restless night full of bad dreams and poor sleep.
“Do you have a preference for what you’d like to wear today?”
“I think the rose pink,” she murmured.
“An excellent choice,” Millie said. The maid laid her dress on the white damask chair in front of the fireplace and placed the matching shoes beneath the chair on the blue-toned Aubusson carpet.
“Thank you, Millie,” Katie said as she rose from the bed. “Let Mama know I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“Yes, milady. I’ll be back in a few moments to help you dress,” the young maid said, closing the door behind her.
Katie hoped to avoid discussion of the Duke of Clarence’s ball. Even though she’d managed to get through it, despite her near fainting episode. Thanks to her friends and the mysterious Lord Soren. She couldn’t help but think of him as mysterious even though she now knew who he was.
Her breath had caught in her throat from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him at the ball. Yes, Lord Soren was extremely handsome, tall, and broad-shouldered, but she’d never experienced such a visceral reaction when his eyes had met hers.
Then, later on, when she was in the midst of that fainting spell, he appeared by her side, and she felt a sense of calm wash over her as well as a keen awareness at the same time. Smoothly and without drawing attention to her, he’d tucked her arm through his and escorted her and Paula to a seating area so that she could recover from her dizziness.
And then he asked me to dance…
The waltz had been both exciting and unnerving, and she didn’t know what to make of it. As he twirled her around the ballroom, the energizing heat of his touch made her tingle from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
Being in his arms made her feel safe and protected on one hand but also exposed and vulnerable on the other. Was Lord Soren’s potent effect on her due to her anxiety and nervousness at being back out in Society after a year of grieving Wendel’s death or was she experiencing a true attraction that was completely new and unique?
But even after what turned into a magical outing, the bad dreams returned. In last night’s dream, she’d recalled ripping the pearls from her neck and throwing them at the thieves. Perhaps it was the shock of seeing Lady Whiner with her broken pearl necklace. She’d also seen brief snatches of faces that flashed through the dream. Was she seeing the faces of the thieves?
She’d awakened before dawn, weeping, her nightgown drenched with perspiration, unable to recall those faces clearly. This time she did not weep tears of helplessness, this time she wept tears of anger. Why had the dreams come back and who were these faces?
Katie washed her face and went to her desk and pulled out her journal. Determined not to forget her dream, she wrote down the details she could recall, trying to describe what she had only seen in quick flashes.
The pages and pages of notes from previous dreams had not offered much nor helped find the men responsible. But last night felt different. It was as if her mind was forcing her to recall something.
Sitting in front of her fireplace, she leaned back in her chair and thought back to that night. There had to be a connection to her dream. She needed to overcome this paralyzing fear, or she could never live a normal life.
Are my dreams trying to tell me something that I missed before?
She did recall that the attack had not felt random. It felt as though the thieves had been waiting for them, even though she couldn’t remember their faces. But no one had believed her when she suggested it. Even her brother had dismissed the notion when she’d approached him a few weeks after the attack.
“Do you know how many people are robbed and assaulted in London each year?” Thomas had said in response to her suggestion. “Thieves lie in wait, looking for an opportunity to pounce. Wendel exercised poor judgment when he led you to that darkened street corner. He left you both vulnerable to just such a theft. He should have known better.”
