Page 50 of Lady Beast's Bridegroom
The first speaker declared, “Everyone knows she was badly burned in a fire. I admire her courage in coming out into Society at all, let alone continuing after those horrible people defamed her. It is not as if she shows her scars. That might be a bit hard to take if they are as bad as people say. Although how people are to know is beyond me. Anyway, she wears those lovely masks, which almost make me wish that I had something to hide.”
A man’s voice, ardent with feigned passion, immediately said, “Only your radiant beauty, fairest of all.”
Another man’s voice. “But what about the rumors about her and Captain Forsythe? Perhaps you can put the other attacks on her virtue down to spite—and given the source, I tend to agree with you. But Forsythe broke off his engagement as soon as Ransome left London and has been in and out of the lady’s house at every hour of the day and night.”
The old saying was true: eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves. Or perhaps it was not true, for the first speaker scoffed. “Have you seen Lord and Lady Ransome together? If ever there was a love match, it is those two. That’s one of the reasons I disbelieve those who say her scars are truly hideous, for no one can doubt that Lord Ransome worships the ground she walks on, and I daresay he has seen everything she has to show.”
“You and I could have a love match,” crooned the first man. “Let these two walk on and I will show you.”
“Oh, do give it a rest, David,” the first lady replied. “But David is right, you slow pokes. Kitty, surely you have rested long enough. Let us go and find the center.”
Regina raised her eyebrows at the names. As the people on the other side of the trellis walked away, their friendly bickering trailing behind them, Arial said, “You know who they are, do you not?”
“Probably, but I’m not going to tell you, Arial. If you do meet them, you will find it easier to ignore their opinions if you don’t know they have them.”
Her smile was kind, if a little condescending. “You may only show half your face, my dear friend, but that half shows everything you are thinking.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
In Peter’s dream,he was a boy again, and Three Oaks was burning. His sisters were inside. Even in the dream, he knew that the house that burnt was not Three Oaks, and that he had had no sisters when he was a boy. Still, the dream imperatives ruled, and he rushed into the house.
It was full of smoke and noise. The roar of the fire. Timbers creaking and crashing as they burned. He dropped to his stomach and wriggled across the floor. He was eerily alone. But his sisters were here, somewhere above stairs. He filled his lungs and charged up the main staircase then dropped to the floor again, under the worst of the smoke. He found his way to the schoolroom, the flames licking at his heels and cutting off their escape.
Inside, Viv and Rose were playing at tea parties. He rushed across the room to the windows and began to tug at the bars. The girls asked what he was doing. “We have to climb out the window to escape the fire,” he told them, and then let out an agonized cry of warning when Rose ran to the door and opened it.
Instead of the wall of flame and heat he expected, there was nothing. Just the passage that led through the children’s wing, with the nursery paintings on the wall, and a badly worn strip of carpet.
Viv and Rose watched him as he peered along the passage towards the stairs. No fire. He could not hear it, nor could he smell it.
“There was a fire,” he insisted. “You were in danger. I came to rescue you.”
The girls sat back in their little chairs. “We do not need rescuing,” Rose assured him. “We are well.”
Viv produced another cup and saucer, though he couldn’t see where it came from. “Shall I pour you a cup of tea, Peter?”
Rose touched the cup and it disappeared again, followed by the saucer. “He does not have time for that, Viv. He has to save Arial.”
“Oh, yes,” Viv agreed. “Peter, the fire is in London.” A frown marred her brow. “Or perhaps on the road from London?”
Rose shook her head. “It does not matter. Peter needs to go to London to find out. Arial is in danger. Hurry, Peter.”
The scorch and thunder of the fire surged around him again, and he stood in its midst as the house crashed around him and Viv and Rose sat in a bubble of peace and harmony, playing at tea parties.
He woke with his heart pounding and his lungs screaming for air. Arial was in danger. He was on his feet and halfway across the room before his conscious brain tried to tell him that it was only a dream. Even so, he was more than half-inclined to ride immediately for London, just to be sure.
Both sisters were now well on the mend. He wasn’t needed here, and he needed his wife. On the other hand, she was probably on the way to Greenmount, two days journey from London. And would she even want him? In London, there had been a distance between them, and he had to admit it was largely on his side. It was hard to be in love with someone who had married you as a convenience.
He had not made up his mind when both Viv and Rose told him that they had seen Arial in their dreams, in both cases in jeopardy and calling for Peter. In Viv’s dream, she was drowning in the lake at Hyde Park, and Viv’s sister Laura was in a boat, pushing her under with an oar. Rose dreamt that she was tied up in the Tower of London, and the executioner was on his way with an axe.
Peter could find common-sense explanations for all three dreams, but he put his doubts to one side. He was going to London.
When he declared his intentions to Edwards and asked for a message to be sent to the stables, he caught a flare of alarm in Edwards’s eyes. “Are you sure that is wise, my lord? The young ladies…”
“Are on the mend,” Peter said, firmly. “I want my curricle at the door in thirty minutes, Edwards.”
The butler bowed and went off with the message. Peter returned upstairs to say goodbye to the girls. “I’ll bring Arial back with me within the week,” he promised.
The curricle was waiting at the front door. Edwards stood by the groom who held the horses. “Is all well, my lord?” Edwards asked.
