Page 66 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)

“An independent woman, my dear, is one who makes her choices freely and has the luxury to choose what will make her happy. That does not mean that she fails to heed the requirements or wishes of those who are dear to her, or that she ignores either her sense of honor or her deepest feelings. She takes all such matters under consideration. You expressed the thought earlier that I might be disappointed in you. I tell you now to your head that the only way you can disappoint me is by settling for second best when true happiness lies right within your grasp.”

Daintry swallowed hard. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you? Then perhaps you had better consider the matter a bit more carefully.

I must go and change my gown. Lionel Werring is going to dine with us this evening, and he has invited me to drive into Bodmin with him and back beforehand so that I can select a book from the subscription library there. ”

Feeling a sudden, strong need to get away from the house, Daintry sent an order to the stable to have Cloud saddled, went to her bedchamber to change to her habit, and was halfway down the stairs when she thought of Charley.

Realizing the little girl would think herself ill-used if she were to discover her aunt had gone out without her, Daintry went back upstairs.

When she entered the schoolroom, Miss Parish looked up from the atlas she was perusing and said cheerfully, “Good afternoon, Lady Daintry. Here is your aunt come to visit you, Charlotte.”

Charley got up at once from the bench by the schoolroom table where she was working, and Daintry said, “I wanted a gallop, so I came to see if you would like to ride with me.”

“Oh, yes!”

Miss Parish coughed behind her hand and said apologetically, “I’m afraid not today, my lady. She has got a little behind in her work, you see, and must make up the lessons she missed.”

Grimacing, Charley plopped back down on the bench by the long table, saying crossly, “Papa came up here this morning! Can you credit it, Aunt Daintry? It must be the first time he has ever set foot in the schoolroom, and it had to be today. He is no longer here, of course, for he and Mama have gone to Plymouth to look for their house for the summer, but before he left, he came to see me, and why? Just to blight my life, that’s why. ”

Daintry chuckled. “You have no one to blame but yourself, darling, but if I remember correctly, you have complained any number of times that he pays no heed to you. I should think you would be grateful for his attention.”

“Not this kind of attention,” Charley said.

“I’d have liked it much better if he had taken me to Plymouth to help look for a house, but of course, there was no reason for him to think of any such thing, and when I told him I wanted to go, he just said such matters were no business of mine. So here I sit.”

“Well, if you get caught up today, we can ride tomorrow,” Daintry promised. She left at once, just as glad to have the time to herself, and was soon lost in her own thoughts.

When she returned, refreshed by the exercise but without having come to any acceptable decisions, she found Charley at the stable feeding carrots to Victor and talking with the stableboys.

Learning that it was nearly dinnertime and remembering that Sir Lionel Werring was to dine with them, Daintry did not wait for her but hurried inside to change her dress for dinner.

She had no more opportunity to be alone with her thoughts until she lay in bed that night, but though she had meant to sort things out then, she was much too tired to do so, and soon fell fast asleep.

The dream began in darkness with a sense of someone touching her cheek, a weight pressing into the bed beside her, and the terrifying, breath-stopping memory of Seacourt’s attack.

Panic-stricken, she could not see at first, nor could she scream, for no sound came out when she tried, but the terror ebbed almost as swiftly as it had come.

There was no reek of brandy, and the fingers touching her cheek were gentle, unthreatening.

The weight beside her shifted and she went perfectly still, but she knew now that there was no cause for alarm.

A finger moved toward her lips, and she remembered Seacourt again and the way he had clamped his hand against her mouth, but though she still could not see, she knew the presence in her bed had nothing to do with Seacourt.

The finger touched her lower lip, and as though the touch had somehow been a signal, a golden glow began to fill the room, moving from the walls toward the bed in a way that no light she had ever seen before had done.

She still could not see the face beside hers, but she knew its features as well as her own, and when the glow finally touched his hair, revealing reddish highlights, she was not the least bit surprised.

He shifted his weight, moving over her to kiss her, and she felt herself respond, her whole body leaping to meet his.

His lips were gentle, soft, and tender, tasting her mouth, her cheeks, and even her eyelids, and then she felt his hand on her shoulder, moving toward her breast. Instead of fear, she felt longing, and moved her own hands to caress his body.

He was naked. His skin felt smooth to her touch, and warm, but even as she became aware of those sensations, his fingers touched the tip of her right breast, and she realized that she was naked too.

Her nipples tingled, but the caressing hand moved lower, to the tangle of curls where her legs met, and then he was touching her where she had once thought no one but a villain would touch her, but instead of recoiling, her body moved to meet his fingers and the warmth that spread through her was as nothing she had ever experienced before.

She moaned. The sound was audible, and his lips moved back to capture her mouth.

His tongue plunged inside, and the fingers of his roving hand moved inside her too.

She lost all sense of what she had been doing to him, too enthralled by the sensations he stirred in her, for his hands were everywhere now, caressing, possessing, and arousing her tingling nerves to ecstasy.

When his hands stopped moving, her body stirred of its own accord, and his hands moved again.

The next time they stopped, she encouraged him with caresses of her own, and suddenly, almost overwhelmingly curious, she began to use her hands to explore his body, savoring the hardness of his muscles, his broad chest, his flat stomach, the tightly curled hairs of his—

She awoke sitting straight up in bed with sweat streaming from her body.

The room was darker than it had been in the dream, and she knew that she was completely and utterly awake.

Just thinking of the dream made her tremble, for she could still feel his caresses and her body still felt naked and vulnerable, although her nightdress covered her from neck to toe.

Her breath came in sobs, and she wondered what on earth had possessed her to dream such wanton things, but one thing was perfectly clear.

Under no circumstances could she marry Penthorpe.

Her sleep after that was fitful, but when she awoke the next morning with the smell of hot chocolate filling her room, she could remember no other dreams but the one she was certain she would never forget.

Stealing a look at Nance, who had moved from setting down the tray to open the curtains, she wondered if the woman would sense any difference in her.

Daintry was certain that she ought to, since she felt as if everything that had been done to her and that she had done ought somehow to be imprinted upon her for all the world to read.

“So you’re awake, are you?” Nance said. “Let me straighten them covers for you, my lady.”

She stayed very still, watching Nance, but the woman appeared to see nothing amiss, merely asking if she had learned some new way to drink her chocolate that would allow her to do so lying down, or if she meant to sit up like a Christian.

She sat up hastily, causing the newly straightened blankets to slip, which stirred a tingling in her breasts that made her feel as if she had been caressed again.

It was as if Deverill had suddenly appeared in her bedchamber.

Her cheeks burned at the thought, and as she took her chocolate from Nance, the woman put a hand on her forehead.

“Look a mite feverish, you do, miss,” she said. “Are you feeling quite the thing?”

“Oh, yes,” Daintry said, surprised that her voice sounded normal. “The room is a trifle warm, don’t you think?”

“Don’t feel it myself,” Nance said, “but then, I was just at that window, and there’s a bit of a breeze blowing across the moor and black clouds gathering overhead. Don’t feel much like spring this morning. Will you be getting up at once, miss?”

“Yes, please. I’ll want some writing paper, ink, and wafers, too, Nance, if you will send for some.”

“Lady St. Merryn ordered gilt-edged cards for your wedding invitations, Miss Davies told me. Ever so pretty they must be.”

“Well, they are not here yet, and I want to write a letter in any case, not invitations. And it will do you no good to pry, Nance, because I do not mean to tell you any more than that.”

But when the materials were brought to her, it occurred to her that her task would not be as easy as she had hoped.

Though she had decided her best course lay with writing to Penthorpe and being as candid with him as she could be, she had no idea where to direct her letter and dared not ask her father.

The most she could do was to write to Deverill and tell him she had discovered the key to the feud.

But that course, too, carried with it certain difficulties.