Once Upon A Dream

by Mary Balogh, Grace Burrowes

  “This is the most magnificent clover I have ever seen,” she said, shoving it before Sedgemere’s eyes. “Don’t you agree, Your Grace?”

  Sedgemere closed his hand over Anne’s, more warmth, more strong, sure wrapping of his fingers around a part of her person. She kept hold of the boy with her other hand, which left her no means by which to hang on to her wits.

  “That is…” Sedgemere’s brows drew down, brows very like those on little Ralph. “That is a fine clover. I’m sure it’s redolent of good luck.”

  “It’s green,” Ralph said.

  “Redolent is not a color,” Sedgemere began. “The word comes from the Latin verb redolēre— ”

  Because Anne was out of hands, she nudged Sedgemere’s boot with her toe. “Of course it’s green. Your papa means that this clover reeks of luck.” She took a sniff, then held the clover under the ducal nose. “It’s lovely, wouldn’t you agree, Your Grace?”

  Sedgemere took a cautious whiff. “I have never smelled a luckier clover, Miss Faraday.”

  Ralph’s smile was bashful. “I found it myself.”

  “Then you must keep it,” Anne said, dropping the boy’s hand. “This is the most special lucky clover I’ve ever seen, and you found it.”

  Anne could feel Sedgemere’s lectures ready to rain down, about gentlemanly generosity, trifolium whatever-um, and grass-stained knees, of which Ralph had two.

  “You must keep it, Miss Faraday,” Ralph said. “I found it for you.”

  Anne fluttered, she gushed, she sniffed at the clover, then thanked Ralph from the bottom of her heart, while Sedgemere shifted from boot to boot. When Ralph had galloped back to the clover patch, Anne fetched her reticule off the bench and tucked the clover between the folds of one of Papa’s letters.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said to His Grace, “tell me Ralph is a silly little child. He’s a fine boy, and he brought me a lovely clover. He got my name wrong the first time only because he was excited, you see, and if you must inflict Latin on him, then you make it special, a secret he shares only with you. He’s a small boy, not a duke, so you must speak English to him, not duke-ish.”

  “Miss Faraday.”

  Anne jerked the strings of her reticule closed. “Thank you for a lovely outing, Your Grace. I will take my leave of their young lordships before I go in.”

  “Madam.”

  Anne had to get away. Had to answer Papa’s letters before she tore them to bits. Sedgemere wanted to woo her, while she wanted… children, a husband, a home of her own. Mundane blessings every girl was raised to treasure.

  “Anne.”

  She looked around for her hat, then realized the tongue-tied Lord Ralph had left it halfway across the garden at her request.

  “Your Grace?”

  He drew her to the back of the arbor, a shady, private place where a lady could gather her composure.

  “My son, my Ralph, who barely says a word if his twin is in the same room, is now standing a full two inches taller because of you and your silly clover. He spoke to you in sentences. I heard him, and if you only knew how long… he’s shy.”

  Sedgemere’s words were entirely understandable, but he’d again acquired the quality of a storm cloud, billowing with emotions, raising the wind, lightning visible, thunder threatening, and yet not a drop of his finer sentiments hit the earth.

  Insight struck like a thunderclap. “You worried about him,” Anne said. “You’re smart enough as a parent to worry about the child who’s quiet.”

  “I was quiet,” Sedgemere said, jamming his hands into his pockets. “A ducal heir cannot be quiet. He must be studious, though practical. Intelligent, but not academic. Well-read, without being bookish. He must command the respect of all, while trusting none.”

  “He sounds like a very dull creature,” Anne said slowly, “a miserable creature. Lord Ralph is three removes from the title, though.” In the next instant, she knew, simply from the set of Sedgemere’s jaw, that he had been three removes from the title too, and the progression from younger son or nephew to duke had been miserable and dull indeed.

  Also lonely.

  “Oh, Sedgemere.” Anne wrapped her arms around him and hugged him as tightly as she’d wanted to hug Ralph when he’d brought her his clover. “I’m sorry.”

  Hugging Sedgemere was like hugging a surveying oak, like trying through weightless emotion to sway a landmark valued for its very immobility. Anne hugged him anyway, grateful for the sheltering privacy of the grape arbor.

  Sedgemere was not a monument to ducal consequence and titled self-importance. He was a papa consumed with worry, and trying, by Latin and lectures, to safeguard children who’d someday have to muddle on without him.

  “My mother taught me numbers,” Anne said, resting her cheek against Sedgemere’s lacy cravat. “She was desperate for me to learn numbers, because Papa is a banker, and without numbers, I’d have no way to understand him. I don’t hate the numbers, but I’d rather have more memories of my mother, not my math teacher.”

  A hand landed on Anne’s hair, gentle as sunbeams. “Hardcastle says the same thing. He lost his parents, and wishes not that his father had had more time to show him how to be a duke, but rather, had had more time to show him how to go on with the present ducal heir. Little children come without instructions. A grievous disservice to those raising them.”

  And to the small boys and girls.

  Sedgemere’s arms had stolen around Anne, and she remained in his embrace, the benevolent breeze whispering through the greenery around them, honeysuckle gracing the moment. This was not kissing, but Anne most assuredly felt wooed.

  “They’ll be back,” Sedgemere said, “and not a four-leaf clover will survive in Veramoor’s gardens.”

  “We must treasure the ones we come upon today,” Anne said, “or over the next two weeks, for they might be all the lucky clovers we shall ever find.”

  Sedgemere stepped back, a trailing vine of grape leaves brushing his crown. “You’ll give me two weeks, then? Two weeks to win your friendship, and whatever else I might entice from you?”

  Dalliance was the name for what lay between the mercenary interest of a mistress and the marital commitment of a wife. Temporary passion, stolen moments, lovely memories.

  Bearable heartbreak.

  More than Anne had ever thought to have, much less than she wished for, and probably far less than Sedgemere intended.

  “A ducal dalliance,” she said. “Those must be the best kind.”

  His gaze cooled, suggesting Anne had disappointed him. That hurt, but leaving him at the end of two weeks would hurt more. Never kissing him again, never tasting his passion, or hearing his confidences again, would have hurt most of all.

  * * * * *

  Sedgemere chatted, socialized, and was amiable, in so far as he was capable of such nonsense, all the while intercepting debutantes intent upon making off with Hardcastle’s bachelorhood. The job was taxing, when what Sedgemere preferred to do was spend time with Miss Anne Faraday.

  The boys, oddly enough, provided the means to achieve that end, for Miss Faraday liked children.

  Because Sedgemere liked her, that meant he too spent time with the baffling, energetic, worrisome trio who called him Papa.

  “I would never have suspected you of such kite-flying abilities,” Miss Faraday said, linking her arm through Sedgemere’s. “Your boys will brag about you for weeks.”

  All three, even Ralph, had bellowed their encouragement when Sedgemere had taken over from Ryland to rescue a kite flirting with captivity in the boughs of a pasture oak. Their cries of “Capital, Papa!” and “Papa, you did it!” should have been audible back in Nottinghamshire.

  “They will brag about you, my dear,” Sedgemere countered. “The known world expanded when they saw you skipping rocks.”

  Miss Faraday walked along with him companionably, her straw hat hanging down her back like any goose-girl on a summer day. Sedgemere had come to the astounding conclusion tha
t Miss Faraday enjoyed touching him. Simply enjoyed touching him.

  She hugged the boys—fleetingly, in deference to their dignity, but good, solid squeezes. She patted their heads, she took their hands, and she sat right next to them on benches and picnic blankets.

  She linked arms with Sedgemere, took his hand, tidied his cravat, and even—he’d nearly fainted with disbelief—brushed a hand over his hair when the breeze had mussed it. She’d done so in the walled garden of The Duke’s Arms, but that very morning, she’d done the same thing within sight of all three boys.

  And that too, had apparently fascinated Sedgemere’s progeny.

  “I was skipping rocks before I could write my name,” Miss Faraday said. “My father wanted sons, of course. What man doesn’t? But he got me. He calls me a great, healthy exponent of the winsome gender, and made do with me as best he could.”

  Hannibal Faraday was a shrewd, cheerful soul, but what was wrong with the banker, that he couldn’t treasure the daughter he’d been given? Anne was lovely, practical, kind, and indifferent to the typical insecurities and machinations of single young women.

  “So your papa taught you to skip rocks?” Sedgemere asked. They were strolling around Veramoor’s ornamental lake, the hour being too early for the other guests to be out of bed, and too late for rambunctious boys to remain imprisoned in the nursery.

  “My papa taught me to skip rocks,” Miss Faraday said, as the path wended into the trees bordering the lake. “Also to shoot, to ride astride—my mother intervened when I was eight—and generally gave me a gentleman’s education.”

  How… lonely, for a young girl. How isolating. “The term gentleman’s education is a contradiction in terms,” Sedgemere observed. “Young boys go off to school to learn bullying, gossiping, flatulence, and drinking. Had it not been for Hardcastle—”

  “Well done, Richard!” Miss Faraday yelled. “I counted four bounces!”

  Sedgemere had used the word flatulence in the presence of a lady. A gentleman, regardless of what passed for his education, ought not to do that.

  “Well done!” Sedgemere called. “Excellent momentum!”

  “Papa says you have a good arm,” Ryland shouted.

  Richard saluted, grinning, then squatted along the lakeshore, likely searching for another rock. Ralph was tempting the ducks closer to the bank with toast pilfered from a breakfast tray, and Ryland threw sticks as far out into the lake as he could.

  “You are such a good papa,” Miss Faraday said. “The boys will recall this house party for the rest of their lives, and they’ll remember these mornings with you.”

  Sedgemere would recall these mornings for the rest of his life. As much as he wanted to kiss Anne Faraday again, he’d mustered his patience the better to study her. What single woman of common birth disdained a ducal husband?

  Why did Anne look skeptically upon him as a possible husband, when apparently, she found him physically appealing, enjoyed his company, and even enjoyed the company of his children?

  As a result of his caution, Sedgemere had spent time with the lady apart from the other guests, and in the presence of the children. He still wanted very much to kiss her—at least to kiss her—but his attraction was growing roots and leaves, blossoming from respect into admiration, from liking into warmth.

  He’d spoken of becoming better acquainted, but he’d envisioned becoming better acquainted with her kisses, with the feel of her hands in his hair. He’d not realized that watching her teach Ralph to skip rocks might also be part of the bargain.

  “I am on to your tricks, madam,” Sedgemere said. “You have the knack of finding something agreeable about the boys and praising them for it. They, who have perhaps two percent praiseworthy behaviors by natural inclination, double their efforts in benevolent directions, and thus their demeanor improves.”

  “It improves exponentially,” she said. “My mother took the same approach with me, the servants, and, I suspect, Papa.”

  Exponentially was an interesting, academic, and appropriate term, also accurate when applied to the increase in Sedgemere’s regard for Miss Faraday. He patted her bare hand, kite-flying being a bare-handed undertaking.

  “You take the same approach with me, madam.” And it was working. The boys had been so much troublesome baggage when Sedgemere had arrived. Now this hour with them was the most enjoyable of the day. He’d learned to notice and enjoy his own sons.

  Better still, his boys were enjoying their papa. Ralph had gone so far as to snatch Sedgemere by the hand and drag him to the lakeshore for Miss Faraday’s rock-skipping demonstration.

  “I think you should round up the other children in the nursery and challenge them to a raft-building contest,” Miss Faraday said, as she accompanied Sedgemere deeper into the trees. “The lake isn’t three feet deep at the center, and the weather is obligingly hot.”

  The lake was five feet deep at the center, but only at the center. “Will you kiss me if I propose a raft-building contest to our host and hostess?”

  “I will probably kiss you regardless,” the lady replied. “If the adults undertake boat races, you must be sure to assign Mr. Willingham to the same boat as Miss Cunningham.”

  “Of course.” Sedgemere would be equally sure to assign Miss Faraday to the boat he captained. “Do I take it you can swim, Miss Faraday?”

  “Like a fish, though there isn’t much call for swimming in the management of Papa’s household. This shade feels divine. If we picnic later today, we must picnic near these trees.”

  Sedgemere had positive associations with picnics. Hardcastle would chaperone, of course, and any picnic was hours of bowing, chatting, and amiability away.

  “Might I look forward to a kiss at this picnic, madam?”

  “You may look forward to a kiss this very moment, Your Grace.”

  * * * * *

  The lake had expanded the longer Anne had wandered its shore with Sedgemere. Once she and his grace reached the tree line, they’d be out of view of the house, the stable, the children, and out of reach of Anne’s common sense and her conscience. The tree line, alas, seemed to recede with each step Anne took toward it, until she and her escort finally gained the cool privacy of the woods.

  Sedgemere had played the pianoforte with casual competence when Miss Higgindorfer had needed an accompanist the previous evening. At dinner, he always sat well up the table from Anne and kept all the titled ladies tittering and smiling, though Anne had yet to see him smile.

  And he’d made no move whatsoever to kiss Anne again.

  They were wasting days, and nights, and Papa’s letters already anticipated the happy moment when Anne would be back, “where she belonged.”

  Here was where Anne belonged, beside Sedgemere on a wooded path in the Whinlatter forest.

  “I am to look forward to a kiss this very moment?” His Grace asked. “Or am I to enjoy a kiss this very moment?”

  The air smelled different in the woods, earthier. The lakeshore was ferns and rocks right up to the water rather than the pebbled beach constructed closer to the house. Birds flitted overhead, and across the lake, a duck honked indignantly.

  “You are waiting for me to kiss you?” Anne asked.

  Sedgemere’s hand trailed down her arm, a simple caress through the muslin of her sleeve.

  “Matters seem to go well when we kiss each other, Miss Faraday.” The duke bent his head as Anne leaned toward him, and the morning transformed from pretty to transcendent.

  Anne had seen such a transition before, when a young lady of her acquaintance had been proposed to at a formal ball. The smitten gentleman had gone down on bended knee, flourished a big, sparkly ring, and made his intended the toast of the evening with his gallantry. The young lady had been transfigured for the evening, not merely pretty, but luminous.

  And so the simple act of Sedgemere’s lips brushing Anne’s changed the day from a summer morning in the Lakes to a moment of heaven. He kept her hand in his, folded her fingers against his h
eart, and threaded his free hand into her hair.

  “God, the taste of you,” he muttered against her mouth. “The feel of you.”

  The feel of him, solid and familiar, but terra incognita too. Anne roamed Sedgemere with her hands, hungry to learn his contours. He was hard angles, solid muscle, and fine tailoring, until her explorations ventured from his shoulders and jaw to his hair.

  His hair was warm, spun sunshine. The boys, being redheads, didn’t have this silky, swan’s-down hair. The duke’s cravat was more frothy pleasure, sartorial exuberance in its exquisite blond lace edging and in the sheer abundance of fabric.

  Sedgemere’s tongue made entreaties against Anne’s lips, and she let him have her weight, the better to focus on the intimacies he offered. He tasted of toothpowder and of the sprig of lavender he’d stuck between his lips when he’d crossed the garden.

  Sedgemere shifted, and Anne’s back was to a sturdy tree. The squirrels and birds had gone quiet. The water lapped rhythmically against the rocks, in time with the desire beating through Anne’s veins.

  “The boys—” Sedgemere said, bracing a forearm near Anne’s head.

  “I want—” Rather than waste time with words, Anne showed him what she wanted: him, snug against her, the evidence of his arousal a reassuring reality against her belly. She hooked a leg around his thigh and got a fistful of his hair.

  This was not a tame, unplanned garden kiss. This was a kiss she’d anticipated for days and nights, a kiss that could lead to wicked pleasures and glowing memories.

  Sedgemere’s mouth cruised down Anne’s throat, the sensation maddeningly tender, then he changed direction, nuzzling a spot beneath her ear that conjured heat in her middle. Anne clutched his shoulders, lest her knees buckle, or her fingers busy themselves unfastening his clothing.

  When she found Sedgemere’s mouth, she offered him a kiss of wanton, reckless desire, for a taste of Sedgemere was a treat both luscious and bitter. She could not have him. She could only sample him, and the sheer fury of that frustration gave her desire a desperate edge.