WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE

by When Dreams Come True(Lit)

  His criticism hit its mark. Pierce knew he shouldn’t have kissed Eden in public. He’d been caught up in the joy of the moment. However, he should have been more protective of her. “Miss Eden is none of your affair. Nor will I allow any man to cast a shadow across her name.”

  “It’s not us gossiping,” Lord Danbury hotly denied. “It’s others. We are your friends. But be cautious. After all, no one knows Miss Eden or her family. She appeared out of nowhere.”

  “Yes, Penhollow, you must be careful,” Harry agreed. He scooted to the edge of his seat to add in a confiding tone, “After all, a man of your wealth is a prime target for all sorts of scoundrels, male and female.”

  Pierce sat back in his chair and stared at him in disbelief. “Let me see if I understand this correctly. You’re saying that without benefit of compass or map, Miss Eden maneuvered the boat toward a tiny cove that I haven’t visited in—How long has it been, Harry? Two years? Just so she can snare herself an earl? And, of course, she had to be sure to arrive at the right time. After all, two hours later and she would have missed us.” He paused. “Do you really believe that is possible?”

  Harry shifted uncomfortably. Lord Danbury studied the floor.

  Pierce brought his hands down on the desk. “Your suspicions are ridiculous.”

  “Perhaps so. But it still doesn’t preclude the possibility that she turned mercenary once she saw how much she had to gain,” Harry said, defending himself. “And she’s succeeding. I watched you in church with her yesterday. I saw the way you looked at her and how close you stood next to her. Today, you were out riding with her most of the morning. I’ve never known you to waste a morning on anything resembling pleasure, Penhollow. Work has always come first. It’s obvious she’s charmed you, and all we are asking is that you be cautious.“

  Pierce felt dangerously close to losing his hold on his temper. “Do you think me stupid?”

  Lord Danbury cleared his throat and shook his head. “No, no, it was your mother’s idea. She asked us to speak to you—”

  Harry interrupted, coming to his feet and leaning across the desk. “No, I don’t think you’ve lost your head, not yet completely. But she’s a lovely piece, Penhollow. The sort that sets a man’s blood racing. Be careful.”

  Pierce studied him a moment before saying softly, “No, you should be careful. If you value my goodwill and friendship, you will not speak a word of this matter again to anyone. I will call out the man who slanders Miss Eden’s reputation.”

  Harry straightened and rubbed his palms nervously against his leg. “I mean no insult, Penhollow. My words are motivated by our long-standing friendship. I’m concerned for your position and your reputation. You’ve worked hard to build both. I know what they mean to you.”

  “And you hope I don’t throw them both away?” Pierce finished, the anger boiling inside him.

  Lord Danbury and Harry wisely kept silent.

  Pierce smiled grimly. “I believe this interview is at an end. You will understand if I don’t show you to the door.”

  Harry opened his mouth as if he were about to say something else and then changed his mind. “Very well, Penhollow.” He headed for the door.

  Lord Danbury hesitated. “Penhollow, you understand I’m only doing this because your mother asked me to. I mean, you won’t forget that you promised to work with my agent and help drain that field with that new method you’ve fashioned?”

  “I will help, Danbury,” Pierce said coldly. “But I advise you to stay out of my affairs.”

  “Penhollow, I was caught between two women, your mother and my wife. What would you have me do?”

  “I’ve already told you what I want from you.”

  “Yes, yes, that you did,” Danbury said, bowing his way out of the room. A second later, he was gone and Pierce went in search of his mother.

  He found her in the Garden Room doing needlework. Mrs. Ivy sat with her. “Leave us,” he ordered the dresser.

  Startled, Mrs. Ivy looked to his mother. At her nod of assent, the dresser hurried from the room. Pierce shut the door behind her.

  “You didn’t have to ask her to leave,” his mother said without looking up from her embroidery hoop. “You can say anything in front of Mrs. Ivy that you wish to say to me.”

  He didn’t answer her immediately. Instead, his attention was on the scene out in the garden. Eden was there, following the gardener as he clipped dead rose heads. Pierce couldn’t hear her words but he knew she was asking questions. A second later, the gardener handed her the snips and she began clipping the roses while he supervised.

  Eden’s concentration was completely on her task. She didn’t wear a bonnet and the sunlight highlighted the auburn in her dark hair.

  Desire, lust… and another emotion he didn’t dare put a name to yet, flared inside him. He took a step toward the window.

  His mother’s voice intruded on his thoughts. “She’s a complete hoyden.” She lifted her nose disdainfully. “She’ll freckle if she isn’t careful.”

  “I had two callers this afternoon,” he said without preamble. “Lord Danbury and Captain Dutton.”

  “Did you?” Lady Penhollow asked with interest.

  He faced her. “You know I did. You probably knew the minute they stepped into this house and you also know why they came.”

  She set the needlework aside. “They are worried for you. All your friends are worried.”

  “You asked them to speak to me. You’re the one who is worried.”

  For a moment, he thought she would deny it and then the set of her jaw turned stubborn. “I am. This woman isn’t good for you. We don’t know who she is or who her family is.”

  “That doesn’t matter, Mother—”

  “Yes, it does! It’s important not just to you, but also to me.” She rose from the chair to emphasize her point.

  Outside, Eden laughed at something the gardener said before trying her new skills on another rosebush.

  Since Eden had come into his life, his whole house seemed full of laughter; the servants acted happier. He heard their voices often and caught them smiling at each other. He hadn’t realized before how silent and lonely Penhollow Hall had been when there was only his mother and himself.

  “It’s important what other people think of us,” his mother said, coming to stand by his side. “If you aren’t careful, you will lose your chance at a match with Victoria Willis.”

  “Mother, I have told you numerous times, I have no intention of offering for Miss Willis.”

  “But it would be a good marriage,” she protested, deliberately blocking his view of Eden with her body. “You would be respected by all of our friends, and Miss Willis has a nice dowry. It’s everything I could wish for you.”

  “What about what I wish?” he snapped. “As for friends, are you completely blind? The Willises and the Danburys and the others aren’t our friends. Where were they when father was gambling away everything we owned? Or when he became too ill to walk? Did Mrs. Willis come knocking at your door then? Or were you invited to tea by Lady Danbury or Lady Baines?”

  Her complexion paled and her blue eyes, so much like his own, burned with fury. “Your father shamed us. As long as he was under our roof, they couldn’t risk their reputations and be seen with us.”

  “What nonsense!” he exploded. “They turned their backs on us, on you—because they didn’t think you were good enough for them. Perhaps you want to forget what happened, but I will not. I remember the day you went to church and they snubbed you, right there in the Lord’s house—how old was I? Eight? And you were so hurt you wouldn’t step a foot into the church again until five years ago when I forced you to go.”

  She shook her head, denying his words. “That was a long time ago. Our circumstances have changed.”

  “They tolerate us, Mother, because they want something from us. Danbury needs my advice and Baines wants the income from colts sired by Cornish King. They know that if they treat you the way they did in the p
ast, I would cut off all support.”

  “No,” she answered in a petulant voice. “They’re my friends. They accept me. They’ve forgotten who I am.”

  Pierce swore under his breath. She was a fragile shell of a woman really, who’d never been able to stand against the injustices in her life. It made her dislike of Eden all that much more incomprehensible to him.

  He took her hand and led her back to the chair. He sat in a chair opposite hers. “The time has come for us to talk, Mother.”

  She folded her hands in her lap. “We are talking. And I think you should send Miss Eden away. I think you should marry Miss Willis.”

  “The devil take Miss Willis—”

  “Pierce, you can’t talk about her that way!”

  “I don’t want to talk about her at all! I’m talking about you and Father, and the day they snubbed you in church. I want to talk about your taking to your room and not coming out until after Father died.” He paused, remembering. “Mother, my father was a complete blackguard, but nothing he ever did frightened me the way your rejection of me did.”

  “Reject you—?” She shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes. “No, it was him I rejected. Not you. Never you. Tell me you believe that.” She reached for his hand. “I must hear you say you believe me. I love you and only want what is best for you.”

  “Mother, what is best for me is not Victoria Willis. I have no desire to marry a woman I don’t love. I saw what such a marriage did to you and I don’t want it in my life. You and Father had nothing. I want everything.”

  The tears spilled over. She pressed the back of her hand against her cheeks to stop their flow, before saying, “It wasn’t like that, Pierce. Not completely.”

  “Then how was it? You never talk about it. There isn’t a person in this house brave enough to mention Father’s name in your presence.”

  She sat back in her chair, her shoulders slumped. “I had no fewer than five offers for my hand in marriage when I met Garret Penhollow. I fell in love with him, Pierce, from the moment I first saw him. Passionately.” She smiled at the memory, then her smile flattened into a bitter frown. “But he was the wrong person. I wasted myself on him. It turned out that all he wanted was my money and an heir. Once I’d given him these things, he left me.”

  She looked up at her son. “I’m not completely heartless. But I’ve made the mistake of falling in love with a person I didn’t truly know and I don’t want to see you do the same.” She nodded toward Eden. “Beware of this woman. Be careful of her. She’s too lovely, too stirring, and far too available.”

  “I’m not a fool, Mother.”

  “Really, my son? Are you going to deny that you almost live to see her smile? Or that she’s the last thing you think of as you drift off to sleep? Or that if you had your way, she’d be lying beside you?”

  Now it was Pierce’s turn to feel uncomfortable. He came to his feet. Eden and the gardener had moved on to another part of the garden.

  “You are still searching for information on her, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “I have dispatched messengers to London searching for news of a missing girl,” he answered.

  The lines of his mother’s mouth tightened cynically. “Promise me you’ll wait until they return and we have information verifying Miss Eden’s background before you do anything rash.”

  “Anything like what?”

  “Like offering marriage.”

  Pierce shook his head. “I’ve never mentioned marriage.”

  “Oh, it’s there in your eyes every time you look at her. You’re the kind of man, my son, who champions those who are weak and in need. You like protecting damsels in distress. I pray you are not protecting the wrong woman.”

  “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” He left the room without giving his promise.

  Not far from Portsmouth, Nasim and Gadi were being chased off a local squire’s property.

  “You bloody foreigners! Stay off my land or I’ll bloody shoot you,” the squire shouted, brandishing an aged blunderbuss in Nasim and Gadi’s direction.

  The two Arabs rode off until they were out of sight. This was their third brush today with angry Englishmen. Yesterday, they’d almost been escorted to the parish jail when the house they had approached to ask questions in their search for the virgin turned out to be owned by a magistrate.

  Their flowing robes, dark skin, and accents made them immediately unwelcome in a countryside far away from the sophistication of London. Then when they mentioned they were looking for an English girl, the yokels’ mistrust turned to violence.

  “This is not working,” Gadi said.

  “We must find the scent of her trail. That’s all,” Nasim said.

  “We have no trail,” Gadi answered grimly. “England is a big country. It could take us years to find her.”

  “It could,” Nasim agreed. “There must be another way.”

  They rode back to the inn. The innkeeper’s wife met them at the door. “We’ve had complaints about you,” she said rudely. “The whole countryside’s talking about your hunt for a girl. An English girl. You can get out now. You’ll not be staying under our roof.”

  Gadi started to growl at her, but Nasim placed a warning hand on his arm. He bowed to the innkeeper’s wife. “We understand and appreciate your hospitality for as long as it has lasted.”

  She snorted at that. “Get out. Now.”

  The two men went up to the room to gather their belongings. “Why must we let her talk to us that way?” Gadi demanded behind a closed door.

  “Because we are strangers. But worse, we are missing something here, Gadi, something important,” Nasim said thoughtfully.

  “Do you believe they could be hiding the virgin from us?”

  “They know nothing of her. No, my thoughts are spurred by your comment that England is a big country. You are right, my friend, we can’t continue to go from house to house. It is a waste of our time.”

  “Then what shall we do? We cannot return to Ibn Sibah empty-handed.”

  “Think! The virgin has no money, no family, no friends except one person.”

  Gadi frowned. “I do not know who that person is.”

  Nasim leaned across the table. “Madame Indrani.”

  “Ah, yes,” Gadi said, starting to see the direction of Nasim’s thoughts.

  “Why should we attempt to search this plague-ridden country when the girl has no choice and must return to Madame Indrani eventually?”

  “But what if she doesn’t? What do you think Madame will say when the virgin shows up on her doorstep? She will turn her out or slit her throat so that no one can trace the girl back to her. Madame Indrani knows the wrath of Ibn Sibah!”

  “Perhaps the girl makes up a story. One Madame Indrani will believe.”

  Gadi considered that for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  “I do. The key to the girl’s whereabouts will be with Madame Indrani. I feel it here.” Nasim touched his heart. “And here,” he added, touching his temple. “Besides, if we do not find the girl, Madame Indrani should pay back her price. Do you not agree?”

  Gadi’s lips curved into a genuine smile. “If we have the money, then Ibn Sibah will be disappointed but not angry. I agree most heartily, my friend. Perhaps it was even a plan between them from the first?”

  “That thought crossed my mind also, except how would Madame Indrani know about the storm? Let us ride to London. There we will find the answers to at least some of our questions, no?” Their decision made, they packed their few belongings and left the inn.

  Chapter 12

  The next week was the very best in Eden’s life, in spite of Dr. Hargrave’s daily examinations filled with questions for the paper he was writing and his doses of castor oil.

  She was in love. She no longer worried about the future, but lived for the moment and the chance of being with him.

  Betsy didn’t have to wake her in the mornings. Usually, Eden was up and dressed in the worn brown hab
it well before Betsy knocked on her door. She loved her morning rides with Lord Penhollow because it was the two of them, alone. Otherwise, Lady Penhollow hounded their every opportunity to be together. Even if they met by accident in the hall, Lady Penhollow often appeared.

  Eden spent her afternoons doing parish work or working in the garden. In a matter of days, she knew almost every villager in Hobbles Moor and felt a welcome part of this small community.

  After dinner, Lady Penhollow chaperoned Eden and Lord Penhollow while they played cards or read aloud to each other. One night, Eden gave a small concert for the servants. Lucy, the cook, had been moved to tears.

  At night, in bed, Eden would relive the whole day in her mind. What he’d said, how he’d looked, how he’d reacted to what she’d said… She felt keyed-up and restless, waiting for the morning to come and another opportunity to be with him again.

  When sleep did come, it was filled with intense, erotic dreams that left her aching and hungry for more.

  But there were no more stolen kisses. She knew he wanted her. She could read his hunger in his eyes and feel it in the way his body tensed whenever she’d “accidentally” brush against him. In the mornings, he didn’t appear to have slept any better than she had.

  So why did he hold back? Was he still waiting for her to tell him the truth? Or was there something else?

  In those wee hours in the morning when she’d wake, her body feverish and hot, she knew nothing would assuage it but his touch. She toyed with the idea of telling him the complete truth and offering to be his mistress. But there was something selfish inside Eden, something that wanted to believe in the power of the Widow Haskell’s charms.

  God help her, she wanted to be this man’s wife.

  This morning, she was helping Mrs. Meeks, Lucy, and the kitchen maids pack hampers of food for the charity cases in Hobbles Moor. At Penhollow Hall, charity was given freely to all.

  This attitude was just one more reason why she loved Pierce Kirrier, the lord of Penhollow.

  Pierce. Even his name was strong and masculine.

  Lucy interrupted her daydreams. “I never thought I would miss rain. You know, we haven’t had any for a week or so. ”Course, it’s a perfect day for a picnic.“