by Jo Beverley
Now Gwen wondered what happened in dreams if people touched, if people kissed. Nothing, of course. She leaned forward and gingerly touched her lips to his. She'd half expected him to be insubstantial as mist, but his lips were sleep-soft and warm beneath hers. The bristle around them was rough, though, and prickled at her skin, making this all seem very real indeed.
Telling herself dream-kisses didn't count in any scale of right or wrong, Gwen balanced herself further forward and pressed her lips a little harder, wishing she knew more of the business. It seemed a terrible shame that she was going to waste this unique opportunity because she hadn't much idea of what to do.
His eyes fluttered open. Before she could react, hard hands trapped her, tipping her down onto his chest. Then he blinked, squinting. "Gwennie?"
Gwen felt horribly embarrassed, as if she'd been caught truly kissing a man in his sleep. "You're dreaming, Drew."
"That's certain sure." He let her go and sat up, rubbing his hands over his tired face, then blinking at her again. "What the devil...?"
Free, perhaps for the only time in her life, to do as she wished with him, Gwen captured his hands. Strong hands, rough with calluses. "Don't think about it, Drew. Don't worry. It's a dream." Greatly daring, she raised one hand and kissed his knuckles. "Have you missed me at all, all these years?"
Dark lashes rose from dark blue eyes. "Have I...? Oh, Gwennie." He freed a hand to touch her cheek as if he too feared she would melt into mist. "More than you can know." He traced her jaw, her nose, her eyebrows, every touch sending a shiver through her. "I wonder if you really look like this now. You're twenty, aren't you? Quite grown up."
"Too long in the tooth for you?" she teased.
He grinned, looking briefly more like the Drew she remembered. "Too pretty in the tooth." He rubbed his knuckle against her lips, against her teeth. "Too pretty by far. No." With both hands, he cradled her head, fingers playing restlessly against her scalp. "Too beautiful. God, Gwennie, you've grown into a beauty."
"That's what the Lady said."
"What lady?" But he didn't seem to care. He was looking at her lips. "A dream..." he murmured, and drew her head down to his.
She couldn't keep her balance, and so collapsed on top of him to be rolled half under as his lips claimed hers in a rapid education in the art of kissing.
Far a moment, Gwen's conventional upbringing stiffened her, urging her to object. But then she realized she didn't have to protest or protect herself. This was a dream. She could let him do as he wished. Let him push open her mouth, tease her teeth then her tongue, overwhelm her with his hard and rather pungent body. Baths must be rare in an army, but she didn't care about that either.
This was Drew and if he stayed away, if -- worse still -- he returned with a fashionable wife, she would still have this to remember.
Her hands were in his hair, her mouth was rapidly learning how to savor his, when she startled under a new strange sensation. His hand had found her right breast. Even through the sturdy cloth of her walking dress, his touch was raising sensations she had never imagined.
He drew back from her lips, eyes crinkling with warm appreciation. "Beautiful all over. Gad, Gwennie, you're all grown up."
"Of course I am."
"Are all the boys in the dale mad for you, damn their eyes?" His hand returned to her breast, stroking there. "Would I were in the dale again, with you in my arms in truth..."
Gwen wished she could touch him as boldly as he touched her.
Why not? This was a dream, after all.
No one would ever know.
She threaded her hands into his hair and kissed him back, then let her hands slide down inside his shirt to his muscle-hard shoulders and his satiny back, moving beneath him as his hands and mouth tormented her....
He groaned. Pulling their mouths apart, he whispered "Gwennie, sweet Gwennie. How I've missed you. How I've dreamed...."
She cradled his face. "Then why not come back, Drew? We're all waiting for you to come back. You're the Lord of Elphindale now...."
No. That hadn't been quite what she'd meant to say.
He laughed. "That nonsense." His mind was clearly on other things, such as the curve of her neck, which he was kissing and teasing with tiny, sparkling bites. "That's the trouble with the dale. Stay there too long and a person starts to believe..." His fingers traced down the back of her gown. "So many buttons."
"The dale is beautiful." At that moment, Gwen didn't care a fig for the beauty of the dale, and yet the words spilled from her. The Lady was speaking through her...?
"You are beautiful," he whispered, and unfastened the first small button."
"Drew..."
"Sweet Gwennie. Let me. Let me see you..."
"Promise to come back to the dale..."
"Anything."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
He'd have said anything, she knew, to still her protests. Hastily, clumsily, he was unfastening her dress, drawing it down, exposing her light corset and shift, exposing her breasts to his rapt eyes and the night air. Then he was kissing her there, licking her, sucking her....
Gwen squeaked with surprise, then hastily covered her mouth. They were alone, but there had been other men nearby. Even in a dream, perhaps they could be interrupted.
She did not want any interruption.
In a state of shocked wonder, she held his head close to her breasts, stroking his hair and skin, relishing the hot weight of his body, and letting him create magic. She could have stayed like that for hours, for eternity, but he pushed back to look at her.
She could see that his weariness had fled, replaced by wondering delight and the flush of desire. She was fiercely glad to be giving him that, even in his dreams.
"You may be twenty but you're still an innocent, aren't you, Gwennie?" Before she could object or apologize, he said, "Hush. I'm glad. I'm glad to see that dazed look in your eyes. I want the honor of awakening you, if only in a dream. How much further can we go in a dream, I wonder?"
"As far as we want, I suppose," she whispered daringly.
He smiled in a devilish way that was so familiar it almost made her cry, and shifted to slide his hand under her skirt, up her leg, until he found her left garter. He tugged until it came undone, then pushed her stocking down, his hand rough against her calf.
Next, watching her as if he expected her to object, he pushed her skirts up so she felt the night air, to look at her legs. She could imagine herself as he saw her, sprawled like a wanton, breasts and legs naked to his eyes, his touch, his mouth....
And she didn't care. She loved it because of the way he looked, because of the hunger in him.
"Ah, Gwennie. You are perfect." Slowly, his hand moved up again, to tug at her drawers. "You are mine. Mine for all time...."
But then his eyes began to drift shut.
"Drew?"
His hand stopped, went slack and then he relaxed back onto the ground, eyes shut once more.
"Drew!" She shook him, thinking he was sick, or dying.
Then he began to turn mist-like in her hands.
"Drew!" she screamed into the shower of light that carried her back to a glade Elphindale.
Chapter Six
She was kneeling on the cool grass weeping when her father's touch on her bodice stung her back to the present.
The real present.
This was no dream.
Or perhaps that had been a dream....
She leapt to her feet, twitching her clothing out of faery hands and hastily restored her bodice. "I suppose you watched all that."
"No, child," said her father.
"But can you now give the Lord of Elphindale to another?" asked the Lady, in the manner of one who complacently knows the answer.
Tugging her bodice straight, Gwen faced the Queen of Faery. "Yes, if he wants another."
"Don't lie to yourself, Kerrigwen." With disdain, the Lady waved her away, and her father began to guide her out of the gla
de.
Gwen stopped as she realized that her right stocking was down around her ankles. She looked around, but saw no sign of her simple garter. Could she really have left it in a dream?
Her father held something before her, a strip of frivolous pink silk. Lacking choice, she used it to tie up her plain cotton stocking. As she did so, she thought back to the dream that she feared had not been a dream.
She had visited Drew in a camp waiting for battle.
She turned back to the Lady. "Will he be safe?"
The Lady raised her brows in mild astonishment. "Can you doubt it? We are not yet powerless. The Lord of Elphindale could walk through a hail of shot and be untouched. As could you."
"What, then, of his mother? She died before her time."
"An unfortunate necessity. She loved her child too much, and hated the dale."
Which, thought Gwen, showed the other side of the glittering coin. She spoke her fear out loud. "If Drew's death became a necessity, he too could die before his time."
"No," said her father. "He is the only Lord of Elphindale, and the bond holds. We must protect him."
There was comfort in that, and Gwen hugged it to herself as her father led her through the woods, which gradually became familiar again, until they heard voices calling her name.
Men were indeed out searching.
She turned to him. "I'm finding it hard not to think of this as a dream."
"Perhaps it is, daughter, but dreams are sometimes real. Try not to be seen in the light, but look in your mirror when you get home."
With that he was gone, and Gwen became aware of a soreness on her face. Drew's stubbly whiskers! How could a dream lover abrade her skin? How could she be transported to an army camp in Europe?
Her agitation was probably what the searchers expected, though they all expressed surprise that she had managed to get lost. Once home, she claimed an extreme headache made worse by light, and soon found herself tucked into her bed in a dark room.
Once she was alone, however, she lit a candle and looked in the mirror to inspect a distinct reddening of her skin. Her lips were fuller than usual, too. Swollen by Drew's kisses.
It's was impossible!
Yet her body had experienced new sensations tonight. She had been visited by sensual dreams in the past, embarrassing dreams, but they had all been vague since she had no knowledge to wrap them around. There had been nothing vague about her dream tonight, about the feel of a hard body, the smell of stale sweat, and the exploration of an urgent mouth.
So, what did that make of the rest of it, of her faery father and the Lady, and her destiny?
She went to her discarded clothes and found one gray woolen garter and one pink silk ribbon.
They had said it was her destiny to marry the Lord of Elphindale.
Drew.
She hugged herself, swamped by a blend of horror and longing. There was nothing she wanted more than to marry Drew Elphinson, and their encounter tonight had only enriched that longing.
As it had been designed to do.
On the other hand, she could imagine nothing more appalling than trapping any man into marriage against his will.
In fact, she thought with determination, she wouldn't do it no matter what Faery wanted.
Chapter Seven
Gwen soon began to wonder whether Faery could truly be resisted.
The Duchess of Sommerton, a very grand lady, suddenly remembered her dear school friend, Amelia Carstairs -- now Forsythe -- and invited the lady and her daughter to visit her in London. Gwen argued forcibly that they hadn't the money for it.
"But it would be an opportunity for you, dear," said her mother, fingering the expensive stationery. "The dale is a wonderful place, but you are going to wither into a spinster here."
"Grow into a healthy and happy old maid, you mean," said Gwen briskly.
"You'd miss the chance to have children. My life would have been poorer for not having you, my love." Gwen's mother looked at her with a frown. "You're not... you're not waiting for Drew, are you?"
"Drew!" Gwen wished she wasn't turning red, but it was only days since that extraordinary dream. "Of course not. I merely think it would be intolerable to be in London, poor as church mice, dependent on the duchess for every little thing."
"I do have some money put aside...."
"You can't spend your savings. You know that when Drew marries we might have to leave." With these arguments, Gwen managed to persuade her mother to refuse the invitation.
There, she thought with relief. Faery's plan -- if such it was -- had been firmly blocked.
A month later, her mother startled her by rushing up to her in the garden, cap all askew. "Gwen! You'll never guess!"
She was so agitated it was impossible to tell if she were pleased or distraught.
Drew, Gwen thought. Dead?
"Five thousand pounds!" declared her mother, waving a letter.
"What?"
"Isn't it remarkable? Suddenly a few weeks ago, I took it in my head to buy a lottery ticket. I asked the Elphinson man of business in Derby to handle it. And now he writes to say the ticket was drawn, and I have won five thousand pounds! I will write back to tell him to have the money deposited in London."
"London?" asked Gwen, dazed and fearing the worst.
"Why, yes! There can be no objection now to our taking up the duchess's invitation. And you will be able to have the prettiest dresses available! Oh, I do believe your poor, dear father is watching over you."
As Gwen's mother hurried away, more animated than she had been in years, Gwen thought she was probably closer to the truth than she knew. But it wasn't poor, dear Grayson Forsythe who had a hand in this. Faery was not so easily blocked.
At least Drew was still abroad, she consoled herself, and with Napoleon on the loose, likely to stay there. She hated the thought of Drew in battle, but if Faery was to be believed, he was in less danger from canon than he was from her.
Then in June, the Battle of Waterloo put a definitive end to Napoleon Bonaparte, making it more than likely that Major Sir Andrew Elphinson would sell out and return to England.
Glaring at the days-old paper containing the glorious news of victory, Gwen wondered exactly how much of the battle had been the work of Wellington, how much of Faery. Though the rational part of her mind kept struggling to assert that she was the victim of some kind of hallucination, in her heart she believed that she -- and the whole world as well -- was being ruthlessly forced to serve one particular end.
She put the paper aside and went to look out of the lead-paned window at the fertile valley of Elphindale. To preserve all this, perhaps to preserve England, Britain, the world, she was supposed to entrap Drew and live with him here in a marriage entwined with faery glamour.
It was horribly unfair. She might have minded less if she were indifferent, but that dream encounter had shown her that she truly loved him, loved him more deeply than she'd ever imagined possible. Wasn't it possible that he truly loved her? The way he'd reacted in the dream could indicate that. He hadn't been indifferent, at least.
But she couldn't be sure that the man in that dream had been Drew at all. If she believed anything, she had to believe that a faery creature had impersonated her father once, so another such could impersonate Drew. On the other hand, she couldn't believe that the man in the tent had been a deceit. Her every instinct, her heart, told her it was Drew, and he had wanted her.
In the coach to London, Gwen held onto that belief. It became almost like an incantation to be murmured day and night as she was welcomed into the duchess's mansion, then dragged around London in a frenzied acquisition of all the latest fashions.
Really, deep in his heart, Drew wanted her.
After all this, she didn't know whether to be glad or sorry that Drew didn't seem in any hurry to return to England. Nothing was heard from Major Sir Andrew Elphinson other than a brief note to say that he had come through the battle with hardly a scratch.
* * *
Then one day in Hookham's, Gwen's mother exclaimed, "Andrew! How lovely!"
Gwen turned, heart suddenly spinning like a whirligig, to see her destiny take leave of a group of people. He was in civilian clothing and strolled across to them, handsome, dashing, and looking politely pleased to see them, but no more than that. His eyes, still blue, still fringed by those dark lashes, moved over Gwen with only the mildest of smiles, then settled affectionately on her mother.
With the memory of their encounter in his tent so fresh in Gwen's mind, it was like a slap in the face.
This was the man she'd lain with, kissed, and permitted all manner of liberties. Imagination could not have produced so exact a picture of his present looks. She had kissed those lips, that chin, that neck. She knew the shape of him beneath starched linen and superfine coat. The memories were drying her mouth and, she was sure, had brought a fiery blush to her cheeks.
And yet he seemed to feel nothing!
After a few exchanges of conversation, the forthright duchess said, "Do you not recognize Miss Forsythe, Elphinson? I understand you haven't been to your Derbyshire estate for some years. Gels blossom fast in their youth."
Drew turned, and Gwen prayed at least for her childhood friend. But this man eyed her casually. "Not recognize Gwennie, your grace? Impossible." But then he took her hand and raised it to his lips -- not a thing done any more between acquaintances. "She's certainly blossomed."
For a moment, desperation allowed her to hope, but then the tone and the look in his eye crashed on her. It was not the way a gentleman looked at a lady. She snatched her hand back, fighting a need to be sick.
She had to say something. "How are you, Drew?"
It sounded normal to her ears, but she had no idea what she looked like. Thank heavens the duchess's creams and lotions hadn't made much impression on her brown skin. If she was white as a sheet underneath, it wouldn't show.
"Oh, very well indeed." He was still smiling, but looking at her in that way, as if she were a lightskirt. "The luck of the Elphinsons, you know. I wonder, dear lady, whether my luck will hold."
