How would she be able to listen to the addresses of the unknown Earl of Everett sometime within the nexttwo months?
Perhaps by morning, she thought, addressing herself firmly to sleep, she would be able to see the dreamin better perspective. Perhaps by morning she wouldnot be so achingly and foolishly in love with a dream.
The next day was far milder than the last. At least the wind was not blowing with such force. She wouldgo for a ride, Daphne decided after an early luncheon.She would ride along the top of the cliff and breathein some fresh air. Perhaps she could get rid of theterrible burden of last night’s dream. She would takea groom with her—perhaps the elderly one she hadspoken with the day before. Miss Tweedsmuir, shewas fast discovering, was not an outdoor person. Eventhe stroll they had taken about the courtyard duringthe morning had brought a martyred expression to herface. And Mr. Tweedsmuir had ridden out on somebusiness.
The door into the tower had not been there this morning, of course. The first thing Daphne had donewhen she woke from a surprisingly sound sleep to findfull daylight streaming through her window, was tojump out of bed, race to the door, and peer out andto her left. There was only a blank wall at the endof the passageway. Indisputably blank. There was nopossible chance that any shadows hid the existence ofa heavy oak door.
And so it really had all been a dream. She had known it, of course. After she had closed her dooragain, she had lifted her hands self-consciously to herbreasts. There was no lingering soreness to suggestthat a man had held and fondled and kissed and suckled them just a few hours before. She did not touchbetween her legs, but she stood very still, pulling inwith inner muscles, trying to feel the awareness thata man had been there not so very long before, movingthere in the vigorous act of love she could rememberso clearly. But her body felt unused. Virgin.
It had all been a dream. Of course it had. How could she even for a moment have hoped—though shehad told herself that she was doing no such thing—thatit had been real? How could she even have thought itdesirable that it be so? To have been mistaken for aman’s wife. To have been bedded so very, very thoroughly because of the mistake. To have lost her virtueto another woman’s husband. To have risked bearinghis child. She could clearly remember begging him—or had it been Margaret begging?—to put his seed inher. Daphne would never even have thought thosewords, let alone spoken them aloud. Dreams werestrange things.
As she rode out, hatless despite Miss Tweedsmuir’s reproachful glance and hint that dear Miss Borlandhad perhaps forgotten to put on her riding hat, shetried to forget those words and the passion with whichshe—or Margaret—had spoken them. She tried to forget everything that had happened. Erotic dreams mustbe sinful, she was sure. They were certainly notseemly. How would she ever be able to bear the ordinariness of a real marriage if in her dreams she builtsuch expectations?
She had known for a long time what happened between a husband and wife in the marriage bed. On two separate occasions—and feeling a fascinated guiltboth times—she had watched two of her uncle’s dogscoupling and had realized that much the same processmust be involved when a man and a woman were inbed. But those couplings had been over in a matterof seconds or at the most in one or two brief minutes.She had never dreamed—and perhapsdreamed,wasan appropriate word—that so much could precede theactual coupling. So much that had been delightful beyond words and that had made the final joining ofbodies so unbearably sweet.
Perhaps in real life lovers did not play like that. How would she be able to bear real life? And perhapsreal life would not even have a husband to offer her.If she could not bring herself to marry the Earl ofEverett, or if he would not marry her, then she wouldbecome a governess. Governesses rarely married.
How could she go through life without experiencing that again?
Someone was galloping up beside her horse. The groom. And he was clearing his throat apologeticallyand suggesting that perhaps it was a little reckless forMiss to be galloping on such uneven ground and soclose to the edge of the cliff. Daphne smiled her apology and reduced her horse’s speed to a safe canter.She had not even realized that he was galloping. Thegroom faded to a respectable distance behind heragain.
But it would not even be enough, she realized suddenly, to experiencethatagain. Not with just any man. It was with Justin she wanted to make love. Itwas Justin she loved. Her heart ached for him. It hadbeen like a lead weight in her bosom since she hadrisen that morning and seen that blank wall andknown that there was no way back to him. She wasstill as hopelessly in love with him as she had beenbefore she fell back asleep last night.
She was in love with a dream man. Deeply. Irrevocably. She had made love with him. She had given herself to him, opened her body to him, received himand his seed inside herself. More than all that—shehad given all of herself, not just her body, and hadfelt him give all of himself. She could not do any ofthat with anyone else. She felt as closely bound to himas if he really were her husband. She longed for him,felt that she could not live without him.
The fresh air unfortunately had not done much good, she thought ruefully as she turned finally forhome. She would have to try the power of commonsense over the coming days. Common sense did notusually fail her. She had had a heap of it ever sinceshe had been old enough to realize that she could notexpect a great deal of life because she was poor. Ithad been as simple as that. Life had been very simpleuntil Mr. Tweedsmuir had turned up on Uncle Cyrus’sdoorstep.
There was a strange carriage standing outside the carriage house next to the stables. She looked inquiringly at the groom as he helped her down from theback of her horse.
“The Countess of Everett, miss,” he said.
“Oh.” Daphne’s heart sank. Her future mother-in-law come to look her over? And she was rosy-cheeked and doubtless rosy-nosed, too, from her ride. Her hairwas probably a riot of tangled curls. She hurried inthe direction of the great hall, hoping that she couldslip up to her room and somehow restore herself to asemblance of respectability before entering the dreadpresence of his mother.
She hated the poor man even though she had not yet set eyes on him. And his mother.
The Countess of Everett was beautiful. And young. If she was the earl’s mother, Daphne thought whilemaking her curtsy in the drawing room where MissTweedsmuir had been entertaining the visitor, thenthe earl himself must be an infant. Heavens, hergrandfather was trying to marry her off to a boy.
“Ah, lovely,” the countess said, getting to her feet in order to cross the room, and extending an eleganthand to Daphne. She was smiling. “And what anawful thing to say aloud. It quite gives me away, doesit not? I have been hoping that my son’s selected bridewould be young and lovely, almost as if those twoqualities are the only ones that matter. And what haveyou been hoping with regard to me, my dear?”
“That you would not be a dragon,” Daphne said,noticing the grimace of embarrassment on Miss Tweedsmuir’s face.
The countess laughed. “I don’t believe I am,” she said. “But that will be for you to decide. Come andtalk to me, Miss Borland. Daphne, is it not?”
Daphne followed her across the room and seated herself before acceptingacup of tea from MissTweedsmuir. She felt almost as if she were the guestand the countess the hostess.
“It seems very ill-mannered of my son to be from home,” the countess said, picking up her own abandoned cup and sipping from it. “He needed to spenda week or so in London, and we really did not expectyour arrival quite so soon. I hope you are disposedtoward marriage, Daphne, and have no attachment elsewhere?” She raised her eyebrows, but did not waitfor a reply. “It is high time my son was married—heis twenty-six years old.”
The countess must be at least forty-three or forty-four, then, Daphne thought irrelevantly. With her golden blond hair and flawless complexion and slimfigure she did not look nearly so old.
“Of course,” the countess said, “he is very eager to acquire Roscoe Castle. Even more so than his fatherwas. Sometimes I think he is almost obsessed with theidea.”
So he would wish to marry her even if she looked like a gargoyle, Daphne thought.
The countess laughed. “I have stunned you into silence,” she said. “I am sure he will be equally eager to acquire you, Daphne—as a bride. Come, tell mesomething about yourself.”
Daphne did, and the conversation continued for almost half an hour. At least, she thought after a while, if it was of any importance whatsoever, she was goingto have a mother-in-law she would like.
The countess got to her feet eventually and took her leave of Miss Tweedsmuir. She smiled at Daphne.“Don’t have my carriage brought to the door,” shesaid. “Stroll to the carriage house with me, Daphne.”
