She eyed her plate. “I suppose I do dream at home. But I don’t recall them, and I don’t find myself waking from them repeatedly. And…never mind.” She huffed out a seemingly self-conscious laugh and, using the edge of her knife, slid more eggs onto her fork.
She had a very pretty way of eating, sitting straight and erect and carrying tiny tidbits to her lovely lips on her fork. She didn’t hunker over her plate as a man might, shoveling food into his mouth like some kind of animal. No, she ate as if performing the measured steps of a dance.
Did all ladies eat that way? He could not recall. But here, now…He could practically see her practicing, a heavy tome balanced atop her head.
And he was staring again.Snap out of it, man.
“And?” he prompted, his voice brusque, though he suspected that had more to do with his annoyance at himself. He didn’t know who he was around Annabelle.
Her gaze snapped to his face, blue eyes startled.
Hardly surprising. He tried again, this time, composed. “I would like you to go on. Please.”
Her expression softened, for lack of a better word, as if she found the notion of his interest in hearing what she had to say, alien, and nice.
“Very well. I dreamt of when I was young. My governess, Miss Jenkins, was there, and I was…like before.” Her wispy brows furrowed, and she began cutting her ham into tiny bites with intense concentration, as if the task required all of her focus.
“Like ‘before’?”
Her face flushed a deep crimson. “That’s not important,” she muttered, sawing away at the pork. “The main thing is that the dream was not at all pleasant.”
“In other words, you had a nightmare?”
“Not so much a nightmare, but definitely unpleasant. I awoke in the night, relieved to be done with it, but when I resumed sleeping, the dream persisted.” She blew air out her cheeks and shifted her gaze to his. Wide, guileless, bottomless pools of blue. “Have you ever experienced the phenomenon, Lord Randall?”
He shook his head.
“It’s like…Oh, I know. Say, you have a ball to attend, and everyone awaits you in the foyer, but you’ve misplaced your dance slippers. You look, and you look, and suddenly hours have gone by, and still, no slippers.”
“Sorry, I can’t relate,” he said dryly.
She scowled at him. “Very well. A constellation of stars is due to arrive, and someone’s removed your precious apparatus.”
“Removed my apparatus?” he choked out on a burst of laughter. Good God, his apparatus. He poured himself more coffee. “Yes, now that Iwouldfind disastrous. Even a missing telescope would be cause for alarm.”
The look she sent him was equal parts confusion and suspicion, as if she sensed he teased her, but couldn’t work out precisely how.
“So, you dreamt you were late for a ball last night?” he asked, redirecting her thoughts.
A shuttered look crossed her face. “No. I was…searching for someone. I’d won at marbles—”
“Marbles?”
“I was quite good at marbles,” she said, sounding pleased with herself, then muttered under her breath, “because of the patch, no doubt.”
“Patch?”
She huffed out a breath. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Sorry. Won’t interrupt again.” He mimed buttoning his lips, and she sent him a look of silent rebuke—or tried to. He saw the glint of humor in her eyes before she lowered her lashes.
Then her expression turned somber. “I’d won, but not fairly. I’d cheated. Instead of triumph, remorse filled me. I thought, if I could just give the winnings back—the marbles,” she explained. “But I couldn’t find anyone, and they were so heavy. I searched, and I searched, wanting to make it right. But I never could.”
His humor faded. “It was just a dream, Annabelle.”
She nodded, scooting her eggs and now-decimated pork around on her plate.
He didn’t like seeing her like this. It caused an ache in his chest he didn’t care for in the slightest. “I still say you brought it on yourself, skipping dinner,” he said, mostly to distract her.
