Page 82 of Marry in Secret
She tilted her head and eyed him cheekily. “I won’t go wearing this in front of the manservants if you promise not to walk around like that in front of the maids.”
He glanced down, and she laughed and tossed him a towel.
“I wish now I hadn’t asked Kirk to collect us here this morning,” she said. “He’ll be here at eight, and we don’t have time to do anything but dress, I’m afraid.”
They went upstairs to dress. “I’m sorry about waking you last night,” he said as he sorted out the clothes he’d tossed down so carelessly the previous evening.
“Thomas, darling, dreams happen. You can’t help them.” She slipped her chemise on over her head and fastened the drawstring. “Do you have dreams like that often? Bad ones, I mean.”
He forced a smile and lied. “No, mostly I dream of you.”
She wasn’t fooled. “I’m serious, Thomas, how often do you have nightmares?”
He pulled on his breeches. “Don’t worry, I’ll sleep in the other room.”
She frowned. “You’ll do nothing of the sort.”
“I don’t want to disturb you.”
“It’ll disturb me far more if you sleep in the other room.” She stepped into the skirt of her riding habit and fastened it. “How often do you have bad dreams?”
He lifted a weary shoulder. “Often enough.” He stamped his feet into his boots.
“Are they coming more often or less often since you arrived home?”
He thought about it. He hadn’t had one for a few days. On the fishing boats, and when he first arrived in England, sleeping on Ollie’schaise longue, he’d been jerked out of sleep a couple of times a night, enmeshed in some frightful dream.
She could call them nightmares, but the things that came to him in the night had happened, they’d actually happened. Not so much dreams but haunting memories.
But come to think of it, in the last week or so they’d occurred less frequently.
“They come and go,” he said evasively. “No pattern that I can see.” Another lie. He knew full well what had brought on last night’s little horror. He’d booked his passage. He was going back there.
“Perhaps if we look for a pattern we might find a way to make them come less often. It might be something you ate, for instance. You ate more than usual last night.”
“It wasn’t anything I ate.”
“It’s worth trying, though, isn’t it?” She did up the buttons of her tightly fitted jacket, then pulled a brush through her hair. Effortless beauty at this time of the morning.
“What if they don’t go away? What if they keep coming?”
She shrugged. “Then we learn to live with it.” She gave him a stern look. “But you don’t apologize for them, and you don’t sleep in another room, is that understood?” She slipped her arms around him. “We’re in this together, Thomas.”
Thomas squeezed her tightly. The optimism of the ignorant. No point in arguing.
“Now hurry up. Kirk will be here any minute. I did say, didn’t I, that he’s bringing a mount for you?”
“No, you didn’t.” He dragged his shirt over his head, tucked it in, buttoned his waistcoat, and shrugged himself into his coat. It seemed to have a few wrinkles. Lying on the floor all night would do that, he supposed. Normally he was very neat and tidy with his things; most seamen were.
Then again, most seamen didn’t have to contend with the sight of Rose dressed in nothing but a flimsy wisp of outrageousness and lace.
He brushed at the wrinkles with his hands. It didn’t make much difference.
She looked at him and burst out laughing. “We’re going to have to get you a valet, first thing. Today if possible.”
“It can wait. There’s no hurry.”
She shook her head. “Thomas, you need a valet now. You’ll need him to help you prepare for the ball.”
