Page 36 of Wedding the Widow

“Really, Jemmy, you are too easily baited.” She laughed and plucked the letter from his fingers. “Did you see she asks to meet you in the morning? At breakfast.”

“Yes, I saw that.” Jemmy sighed and unclenched his hands. He must remain calm. “But what else have you heard, Georgie? You must know I am on tenterhooks. Did you speak with her? Is she truly ill?” Why would no one reassure him of her good health? Fear gripped him at the thought she had fallen gravely ill.

“I did talk with her, Jemmy.” The teasing look vanished from his sister’s face. “And I can assure you she had no illness. She is very tired and is taking dinner in her room, but that is all.” She gripped his arm. “You can rest easy on that score, my dear.”

The tension easing all through him, Jemmy suddenly found himself seated in the chair Lathbury had vacated. “Then why did she swoon in church?” There must be something more to it than that.

“Women swoon all the time.”

“They do not.” He thought back. Had he seen many women faint? Or had he paid no attention? “Do they? I don’t recall ever having seen one do so. Have you ever swooned?”

“Oh, yes, lots of times.” Plopping onto the chair across from him, Georgie nodded enthusiastically. “Sometimes for real, but quite often just for effect.”

“For effect?” Deuced odd. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Ladies pretend to swoon sometimes to assure gentlemen that they are fragile flowers.” She wrinkled her nose. “But then other ladies give you smelling salts, which are not nice to smell at all.”

“They pretend?” Why had he never known this?

“Yes, but there is no harm in it.” She shook her head, her face sober. “However, sometimes a lady’s clothing will become too warm, or a day is hot, or you walk too fast and get out of breath and just, well, faint. It truly is a quite common occurrence.” She cocked her head, slightly frowning. “You really have not seen a woman faint before?”

“Not that I recall.” Perhaps he’d not paid attention to such things, or else . . . “Are you telling me the truth, Georgie?”

“Did you not see every woman in the church pull out her vinaigrette?”

That he remembered. He’d thought it odd at the time as well. Apparently, he’d been lucky up until now not to have seen a woman so indisposed. He hoped Elizabeth was not one to swoon often. Her collapse had frightened him as nothing else ever had. “Yes, I did see that. How interesting. I hadn’t noticed ladies doing that before this either.”

“There is a lot you need to learn about ladies, Jemmy.” Georgie smiled and stood, bringing Jemmy to his feet. She rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Starting tomorrow morning.” A swift embrace, then she ran nimbly out of the room.

With a sigh, Jemmy retrieved his drink and refreshed it from the library’s cut-glass decanter. This might be the only way he would make it through tonight in order to face Elizabeth in the morning.

Chapter 14

For at least the twentieth time, Elizabeth turned over in the bed, trying to get comfortable. The clock on the mantle softly chimed the hour, the second time it had done so since she’d awakened from a curious dream about Dickon.

She’d dreamed about her late husband many times since the tragic day she’d learned of his death. Dreams where he acted courageously on the battlefield, dreams in which they’d danced at their first ball, shared their first kiss. In all the dreams she’d had, however, she’d never heard his voice. He would smile at her, and she could almost feel the touch of his hand, his lips. Every time, she’d awaken with tears trickling down her cheeks or discover her pillow cold and damp where they’d fallen.

This dream had been very different.

She stared up into the still blackness, her heart beating loudly in her ears, remembering. This dream had begun as many of her dreams did, on the battlefield at Waterloo. The acrid smoke of gunfire and artillery hung low, like a smudge, over the gouged and torn field, almost as thick as soup. Glimpses of men fighting appeared as though vignettes in a play, revealed by the capricious swirling fog. She was tramping across the battleground, clutching a dark red shawl about her shoulders, searching for Dickon. She’d had no fear for her own death—she was invincible in this dream—only of not finding her husband before it was too late. Directly ahead of her, the smoke cleared momentarily, and she saw Dickon, his red officer’s uniform smudged with dirt and soot, standing amid a circle of blue-clad French soldiers, all dead. He turned to her, his sword bright with blood. With a crisp wave of his sabre, he saluted her, gave her the boyish grin she loved so much, then returned his attention to the next wave of blue-clad men attacking up the hill.

Even in the dream, she had feared she would see him wounded, struck in the head with the bullet that took his life. But the swirling mist covered the scene as the dream changed and a hand on her shoulder shook her awake.

She opened her eyes on the small rose garden she’d tended so lovingly in Russell Square. She was seated on the small stone bench under the trellis by the rear door, roses of all description riotously in bloom. Pinks, whites, reds, yellows—some roses she’d never planted there—were blooming everywhere.

The hand on her shoulder tightened, and she turned her head to find the warm, familiar gaze of adoration from Dickon’s deep blue eyes. “Elizabeth, my love. Were you asleep?”

A thrill of hope surged through her. She had been asleep, been dreaming this whole time that Dickon had been killed. But now she must be awake, for she could hear him, hear the beloved voice, so deep and tender. Clasping his hand, she gave joyful thanks to God that her nightmare was finally over.

Her gaze shifted from his dear face to his uniform, torn here and there with cuts, stained with blood and dirt. She glanced down to her own ragged appearance, the blood-red shawl she had never possessed covering the black crepe gown of her early widowhood.

“Yes, my love. I have been asleep for a long time, it seems.” Tenderly, she cupped the beloved face, so strong and handsome, even streaked with sweat and grime and the hideous red. “But I am awake now. Oh, Dickon.” She leaned her forehead on his, all her sorrow and hurt pressing against him. “I have missed you so much. Please don’t leave me, my love.”

He raised his head, his kind eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. “I am yours forever, my darling. I will be with you always. For as long as you continue to love, my love for you can never truly die.”

He tried to lean away from her, but she pulled him back. “One kiss, my love. One kiss, I beg of you.” The pain in her chest from unshed tears might crush her.

Dickon laughed and pulled her full against him. “You were ever greedy of our kisses. How can I resist you now?”