Scoundrel in My Dreams

by Celeste Bradley

  Lady Lambert joined Wilberforce and Lady Madeleine, smiling after the children. “She believes him every time. One day she’ll notice that Evan has never voluntarily eaten a carrot in his life.”

  Wilberforce bowed his ladies into the dining room and set about his usual impeccable performance of his duties. The attic would wait.

  For now.

  Twenty-five

  As soon as Jack could shake off Aidan and Colin, he made for Lementeur’s establishment. Jack found the man serving a stout dowager tea and compliments and no doubt charging the woman her weight in gold for the privilege.

  The woman didn’t seem to mind.

  Once he’d spoken to Button’s man, Cabot, Jack stayed in the background as Button effortlessly fobbed the lady off on his extraordinarily handsome assistant.

  Cabot leaned close, poured another cup of tea, and murmured something that made the woman, who was seventy if she was a day, bat her eyelashes and lick her lips.

  Button whisked Jack away to his office, which was surprisingly ordinary and cluttered. Thousands of sketches of gowns were pinned to the walls, even layered several deep. Stacks of invoices and ledgers covered the ornate French desk, competing for space with inkpots and jars of brushes.

  Jack was now quite convinced that for all his breezily avaricious manner, Lementeur worked hard for his living.

  “My lord, what might I do for my favorite customer?”

  Jack regarded Button helplessly for a long moment. How could he say it?

  “Er . . . my friend needs another dress. At once.”

  Button smiled genially. “Of course. Might I ask . . .”

  Please don’t ask. Jack’s encounter with Laurel on the floor had left him both heated and chilled with memories.

  “. . . was the gown in some way unsatisfactory?”

  Jack cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. Embarrassment was becoming almost familiar again. “I—ahem—the gown was . . . ruined.”

  A sly gleam flared in Button’s eyes, matched by the merest twitch of his lips. “Indeed? How delicious.” He bowed. “I shall take it as a compliment to the chef, as it were.”

  Jack turned his gaze toward the ceiling, unable to meet Button’s knowing eyes. “I don’t suppose you have another one lying about?”

  Button leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingertips together. “I believe I might have an appropriate garment on hand, but it means I must ask another valued client to wait. . . .” His voice trailed off expectantly.

  Jack slid his gaze to meet Button’s. “Cutpurse.”

  Button’s puckish face creased in delight. “I’m so glad we understand each other, my lord.” He stood. “Let me speak to Cabot for a moment. Please, allow me to get you some coffee while you wait?”

  Jack wasn’t sure what was in the coffee, but he drank four cups and ended up spending three times what any sane man should spend. Then, at the last moment, when his carriage was once more packed with more parcels than he remembered ordering, it seemed that the evening gown he’d asked for was actually ready as well. Such speed seemed rather miraculous, but for the fact that Jack was quite sure he’d paid for an entire regiment of seamstresses to work all night.

  “Would you like to see it, my lord?”

  Jack blinked owlishly. He’d been deluged with color and fabric choices for nearly an hour. Images of gloves and stockings and obscure little lacy things still clouded his vision. “Do I have to?” Was that a whimper in his voice? He cleared his throat manfully. “I’m sure it’s perfectly adequate.”

  Button smirked. “My lord, it is just short of adequate for a royal marriage! I hope that you are escorting the lady somewhere worthy. A ball, perhaps?”

  Nothing a lady likes better than a ball.

  “Button,” Jack burst out. “I need your help!”

  Cabot slipped instantly away and Button poured Jack another cup of coffee. “My lord, I am of course entirely willing to aid you however I can.”

  “I want . . . I want to give her something. . . .” He shook his head. “Damn Bailiwick and his obsession with Fiona! I don’t even know what I’m trying to say!”

  Button tilted his head. “If I might advise you, my lord, I think you are trying to win a lady’s heart. Through the observation of many happy couples, I’ve learned that the best way to win the lady is to truly understand the lady.”

  Jack blinked. “That doesn’t help.”

  Button smiled. “Does it not? You love her, so—”

  The words shot through Jack like an arrow. You love her.

  The glittering obviousness of it nearly blinded him. I love her. I don’t simply lust after her. I don’t simply want to make matters up to her. I don’t simply want to keep Melody.

  I love her.

  And then, with a flash of light like the sun coming up over a battlefield after a long night of war, he knew.

  I always have.

  Why else would he spend so many months pursuing a shallow girl he couldn’t converse with for more than a quarter of an hour? Why else would he sit there, surrounded by other suitors, and not feel an instant of jealousy for her? Why else would he leave the parlor time and time again to seek out those serious blue eyes, wanting to watch the way they would blink dreamily up from some book, the way they would shyly light up when she saw him? Why else would he fight to keep a girl he could barely stand, if not to stay near that house and wait for Laurel to grow up?

  His heart filled like bellows, only to deflate horribly an instant later.

  Dear God, how he’d mucked it all up!

  In her bedchamber where she’d been hiding out from her wedding day, Melody twirled about the room with joy.

  “It’s so romantic! He loved her always!”

  Button followed Melody’s giddy path, holding a string of pearls behind his back. When he got close enough, he continued the tale while surreptitiously continuing to dress her. He was so close. All she lacked now was the gown itself—

  As he spoke he raised his hands to the back of her neck. “Once I gave him the gown, which I might add was one of my finest creations, he looked at me and said—”

  Melody turned to him, her hands pressed to her cheeks. “Oh my goodness! Button! I’m the elf!” She laughed out loud. “The elf is me!”

  Button sighed and smiled, dropping the pearls back behind him. “Yes, pet, the elf is you. And the magic climbing basket was the dumbwaiter and the troll whom the elf tricked into pulling her to the top was—”

  “Evan!” Melody chortled. “Oh, wait until I tell him!” Then she remembered. Her giddy laughter dried up like a spring after a rockfall. She turned to Button, suddenly ashen with horror. “I’m not going to be able to tell him!”

  Button smiled soothingly. “And why not? He’s downstairs right now, along with everyone else.”

  Melody sat down on the sofa with a flounce. Her fantastically expensive silk underskirts belled about her, then settled. She sat there, an indescribable beauty clad in the finest of underthings, with her rich cloud of dark hair woven with pearls and satin cord and her face, her lovely, heart-shaped face that had long grown out of the round cheeks of childhood and let her exquisite bone structure emerge, gazing up at Button with the saddest blue eyes he’d ever seen.

  “I can’t tell him because I’m never leaving this room. Ever.” She took a great shuddering breath. “Oh, Button, I can’t go through with this!”

  Button squatted down to look into her face, though it was hardly necessary. She had her father’s height. “Mellie-my-love, my Mousie, my pet. Why can’t you go through with it?”

  She only shook her head and quickly looked away. “Just . . . finish the story, Button, please?”

  Button sighed and sat beside her on the sofa. He tucked her sad, lovely face into his neck, making a mental note to himself that he must change his surcoat before the ceremony for all the tears that had soaked into it this day, and carried on with the tale.

  “His Lordship went back to the clu
b with his purchases and . . .”

  Outside Lementeur’s, Colin and Aidan struggled to blend into the crowd. Aidan read a news sheet and Colin pretended to be vitally interested in a window display of ladies’ cosmetic preparations. “Do y’think Pru uses all this stuff?”

  Aidan glanced into the window. “Not a chance.”

  Colin frowned and looked at his friend. “Why not?”

  Aidan blew out a bored breath and turned his news sheet to read the other side. Again. “Because Pru is dead stunning fresh out of the bath.”

  Colin nodded absently. “That’s true. . . .” Then, “Oy! That’s my wife you’re talking about! How would you know something like that?”

  Aidan rolled his eyes. “Because you carry on about it every time she takes a bloody bath, you dolt.” He shook his head. “Mooncalf idiot.”

  Colin subsided, reassured. “Well, if I’m a mooncalf, then you’re a panting pup. Every time Maddie walks across the room, you follow her with your eyes as if she’s a sweetmeat and you need to dab at your chin. Sickening, it is.”

  Aidan grunted dismissively and Colin turned his gaze back to the window display, where he could see a reflection of the storefronts across the street. Amusing as such Aidan baiting was, Colin was more worried about what Jack was still doing in the dressmaker’s shop.

  “He’s been in there for an hour. He usually lets Pru and Maddie pick out Melody’s things anyway.”

  Aidan didn’t look up. “Maybe he’s feeling inclined to spoil her right now.”

  Colin shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably. “Can’t say I blame him. Do you think we could stop by the confectioner’s on the way back to the club?”

  Aidan grunted. “No need for that.”

  Colin turned a scowl on him. “I think I have as much right to spoil her as anyone! I can buy her sweets if I like!”

  Aidan didn’t meet his gaze. “I already put an order in this morning,” he admitted.

  Colin’s irritation left him in a breath. He knew Aidan felt as deeply as he did. “I don’t suppose—”

  “Heads up,” Aidan hissed, and raised his paper high to cover his face. “Here he comes.”

  Colin kept an eye on the reflection and watched Jack climb into the carriage. They were close enough to hear the creak of the springs as he settled his large frame into the seat and to hear him order Brown’s as his destination. Once the carriage rolled away down the Strand, Colin let out a breath.

  “Well, he’s gone. And you know what that means.”

  Aidan lowered his paper. “What?”

  Colin shot his friend a dry glance. “It means we have to hire a common hack. Jack drove us out here, remember?”

  Twenty-six

  That evening, Jack frowned at himself in the mirror as he tried to tie his cravat. This was the first time in years he’d regretted his lack of valet.

  “I ought to have had Button dress me as well,” he muttered.

  “I like Button! Button makes dresses for Gordy Ann!”

  Gazing past himself in the mirror, Jack watched his daughter use his second-best cravat as a . . . shroud? Possibly, for Gordy Ann looked rather like an Egyptian mummy at the moment.

  Or possibly an insect cocoon. Sometimes it was difficult to follow Melody’s train of imagination. “Gordy Ann looks . . . splendid.” That should cover any number of possibilities.

  “Splendid!” Melody seized the word and practiced it. “Splendid Gordy Ann!”

  Melody sat on the bed with her little feet wide apart and her little brow furrowed in concentration as she rewound the cravat and held it up for his inspection. “Papa, look! Look at Gordy Ann!”

  Jack turned away from the mirror to fulfill his parental duties. “Indeed.” He nodded solemnly. “I have never seen Gordy Ann look more . . .” He was running out of superlatives. “Splendid,” he said again, somewhat weakly.

  Melody found that entirely satisfactory. “Splendid!”

  As Jack turned back to the mirror and his inexplicably reluctant cravat, he pondered the fact that “splendid” now no longer sounded like a word at all.

  That would have made Laurel laugh once upon a time.

  Jack found himself positively panting to hear Laurel laugh again. He wanted to see her smile more than anything—a real smile, the wide, glowing one she’d blessed him with last evening when he’d given her Melody for the night.

  He hoped that his little Bailiwick-inspired plan worked. The fact that not long ago Jack would have thought any plan conceived by the enormous underfootman should be avoided at all costs did not escape him. However, he knew when he was bested, and Bailiwick looked to be far closer to getting his love than Jack himself was. A man had to know when to bow to the master.

  Melody was rocking the strangulated Gordy Ann and singing her favorite pony song. Madeleine had a theory that the frequency of this song was a hint. Pru refused to believe Melody was subtle enough for hints. She said the child was more likely to point at ponies and ask directly. Jack merely awaited the signal, for he had already purchased a stout, gentle little pony gelding whose markings exactly matched those of Evan’s sleek mount, Ramses.

  Melody was going to love it. Evan was going to die of horror.

  It occurred to Jack that he probably ought to inform Colin and Aidan of his surprise, before Melody ended up with three ponies.

  “You have a lovely voice, Lady Melody.”

  “I know.”

  Jack turned to look at her over his shoulder. “Lady Melody, one says ‘thank you’ when one receives a compliment.”

  “Thank you,” Melody repeated automatically. Then, “What’s a commple-mint?”

  “Compliment,” Jack repeated carefully. “It is when someone says something nice about you.”

  Melody unwrapped Gordy Ann to begin again. “Mama sings the beautifulest.”

  Jack’s hands stilled. “Does she?” Had he ever heard Laurel sing? No. She had always stayed in the background, uninterested in competing with Amaryllis for attention.

  Seized by a sudden desire to hear Laurel sing, Jack lost track of his cravat tying once again. “Blast!”

  “Blast!” caroled Melody. “Blast! Splendid! Commplemint!” Then, absently as she played with her rag doll, “You and Mama should get merry, Papa. Then Mama could come out of the tower.”

  The room seemed to turn. Jack leaned his hands on his dressing table and took a deep breath. He was too full of conflicting emotions, incredible as that seemed. He was nervous and eager and worried all at once, while beneath that, happiness and pure male panic swirled together rather sickeningly.

  I love her.

  Of course, that ringing, bell-like thought was always followed by the heavy, gloomy reverse.

  She hates me.

  He finished with his cravat and pulled on his evening coat. Turning to his daughter, he held out his arms. “What do you think?”

  She clapped her hands. “Splendid, Papa! Gordy Ann thinks you look splendid, too!”

  Jack swallowed and hoped that once he got upstairs to the attic the opinion would be unanimous.

  Laurel lighted another candle of the ones that she’d found with her breakfast tray that morning and turned back to the book she couldn’t put down. It was more of a bound manuscript than a published novel, scribed in a clear masculine hand.

  There’s a book I shall lend you. . . . My Lady’s Shadow.

  Laurel could scarcely turn the pages fast enough. It was a thrilling tale of a brave and clever woman who sought to outrun a mad wolf who had taken her scent and would not leave her trail.

  On the chase, the woman found love and succor with a feudal lord, but even the lord could not prevent the wolf’s fanatical pursuit. The heroine was dragged into the wolf’s den and imprisoned there.

  Even as Laurel read, the lord’s child fell into the jaws of the wolf. Laurel’s breath caught and she slammed the book shut. My Lady’s Shadow.

  Madeleine. Aidan. The Badman.

  Melody.

  Laurel
gazed into space. “I think I might be ill,” she whispered to the empty room.

  This was the wolf’s den. That was why Melody had been reluctant to exit the dumbwaiter that first day, why she’d needed reassurance before she’d spent the night in the attic.

  Laurel stared down at the book. She couldn’t bear to read another word.

  Neither could she bear to stop.

  Reassuring herself that Madeleine, Aidan, and Melody were fine now and that Jack had solemnly vowed that the Badman was most thoroughly and completely dead, Laurel opened the book and began to read once more.

  When Jack tapped at her door she nearly died of fright. “Come in,” she called breathlessly.

  Jack entered, carrying something as usual. Laurel gazed up at him, her eyes wide and blinking as she was torn from the story. “Wimbledon just shot the wolf!”

  For some reason, Jack paused to gaze at her for a long moment. Then he ripped his gaze away and strode to the bed. “His name is Wibbly-force, actually—or rather, Wilberforce.” He placed the large box on the bed and returned to the door. “I’ll be back for you in half an hour,” he told her. “I . . . I hope you like it.”

  It wasn’t until Jack had left the room and locked the door behind him that Laurel realized that he wore full evening dress.

  And he looked bloody wonderful in it, too.

  Though the box on the bed showed no marks on the outside, it was the same color and style as the ones labeled: L. Only Lementeur could have enticed Laurel away from the book before she was finished. However, beneath all her cleverness, she was still very much a girl. She bit her lip and ran across the room.

  When she lifted the lid, her breath left her in an exhalation of bliss. With shaking hands, she reached into the box. Someday, somehow, if she ever met the great Lementeur in person, she was going to cover his face in kisses!

  It was a dress.

  Better call a swan a duck than to call this confection of sky blue silk a mere dress! Laurel stripped down to nothing, then pulled on the stockings that were so finely knitted that she could see the pink of her flesh through them. She knotted the garters above her knees and smoothed the stockings with a wondering touch.