The Pleasure Trap (33 page)

They both cried with happiness, but when Eve undressed for bed that night, she began to feel like a dog in the manger. So much happiness was going around, and none of it was sticking to her.

After slipping out of her gown, she paused. She was thinking of Lydia. She debated a moment, pulled on her robe, and padded along the corridor to Lydia’s room. When she knocked on the door, all she heard was a muffled sound. Eve took that to be an invitation to enter.

Lydia was standing by the window with one hand parting the gauze drapes. “I can’t stop thinking of Robert,” she said. “I keep watching, hoping there has been a mistake.” Her voice cracked.

Eve quickly crossed to her and gathered the weeping woman in her arms. She didn’t know where she found the soothing words. Lydia cried as though her heart would break.

Eve smiled in her sleep. She held a baby in her arms,
her
baby, and her name was Antonia. Dark gray eyes looked deeply into hers, and little Antonia gurgled with delight. She was dressed in a long, lacy Christening robe with little pink bows sewn to the flared skirt. Eve had sewn on those bows herself.

“Where is Papa?” said Eve to her child, and she looked around the vast interior of what turned out to be a church.

She was in the narthex, and down the length of the center aisle she could see the priest at the Christening font, waiting patiently for her to bring her daughter forward. But where was Ash?

Then she saw him, sitting in the front pew, flanked on either side by a small boy. One was fair and one was dark. Eve’s brows knit together. Why wasn’t she there with them?

As the priest went forward, Ash and the boys stood up. Ash put his hand on the head of the taller boy. “This,” he said to the priest, “is my son Harry, and,” turning to the smaller boy, “this is Percy.”

Percy?
Eve was puzzled. Where had that name come from? There were no Percys in her family or Ash’s as far as she knew.

“What is the name of the child who is to be baptized?” asked the priest.

“Antonia,” said Eve.

No one seemed to hear her. In fact, she might as well have been invisible.

Her heart plummeted when someone she had not noticed before, a young woman on Ash’s left side, got up. She, too, had a baby in her arms. Eve looked down at Antonia, but, as is the way of dreams, Antonia was no longer there.

“The baby’s name,” began the young woman, “is—”

“This is a dream, isn’t it?” Eve said in a hollow voice. “I’m dreaming.”

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a whirlwind surged into the church, carrying everything before it, and Eve was left in a swirling mist.

“Get back here, Ash Denison!” she cried out. “I want my babies, do you hear? You bring my babies back to me!”

She awakened with her heart pounding, tears streaming down her cheeks, and the fierce resolve that when she next saw Ash Denison, she was going to throttle him.

It was the night of Liza’s ball, but in light of recent events it was decided not to hold it in the picture gallery but in a marquee on the lawns. This informal setting was enthusiastically endorsed by one and all, especially Eve. She could not think of a ballroom now without suffering a fit of the shudders.

She kept glancing at the entrance for Ash. He’d promised that he’d be here for Liza’s big night, and Ash always kept his promises. She’d found a quiet spot beside a potted palm, with Miss Claverley to keep her company. Lady Sayers, as the hostess, had no time to sit down.

The dancing had yet to begin, and Eve’s gaze moved idly among the crush. Anna and Lydia were in conversation with Leigh Fleming. Things had worked out well for both Lydia and Nell. Anna had added them to her little menagerie of broken-down donkeys, and they were all due to leave for Cornwall in the morning. If worse came to worst, thought Eve with dry humor, maybe Anna would adopt her, too.

Miss Claverley let out a long, happy sigh. “I knew it would come to this.” She gestured to two couples who were forming one of the sets for the first country dance. “Didn’t I tell them both that they would find their heart’s desire?”

Eve looked where her aunt had indicated. Amanda was radiant as Philip led her out, while Liza looked so grown up and demure beside the tall, smiling figure of Dr. Braine that Eve hardly recognized her—or him, for that matter.

She hoped Liza didn’t become too demure.

Miss Claverley leaned toward Eve. “Now it’s your turn, and remember, when you love someone, don’t leave it till it’s too late to tell them. Ah, here is Ash now.”

Before Eve could respond, Miss Claverley was swept off on the arm of Constable Keble. Eve was rooted to her seat, lost in the awful memory of that dream. Suddenly rising, she squared her shoulders and pushed through the crush till she came to Ash. The babble of voices made conversation impossible, so she grasped his wrist and dragged him out of the marquee. Tables and chairs were set out on the lawn, and she led him to a quiet spot, then turned to face him.

He made some amusing remark about masterful women, but she wasn’t listening. Without preamble she said, “Tell me you had nothing to do with the dream I had the other night.”

He looked stricken. “What dream?”

She thumped him on the shoulder with her open palm. “I can see by your face you know what I’m talking about. The dream where you stole my baby—yes, and my sons, as well. Who was that woman sitting beside you in the pew?”

Before she could thump him again, he captured her in his arms. Between hoots of laughter, he got out, “That was Lady Dorothy Baird. She’s been trying to lead me to the altar for years, but I’ve always managed to escape her clutches. Last night, in that dream, I kept thinking,
Don’t panic, it’s only a bad dream, and if it isn’t, Eve will come to your rescue.
And you did. When I wakened, I felt as though I’d escaped a fate worse than death.”

A dizzying happiness spread through her and she laughed, then she slipped her arms around his waist and dropped her head on his chest. “Oh, Ash,” she said, “I’ve been such a fool. I could no more live without you than I could live without the air I breathe.” She looked up at him. “All the difficulties I saw in our path seem as nothing compared to what I felt in that dream when I lost you and our children. I love you, Ash Denison, and I want you to know it before I’m struck with lightning or meet with some equally horrid end.”

His eyes glinted down at her. “You’re not saying that just for the sake of the children, are you?”

Her cheeks dimpled. “They were adorable, weren’t they? But who is Percy? Where did that name come from?”

“A fallen comrade. He was too young to die.”

She gave him a hug. To honor a fallen comrade was so typically Ash. He hadn’t got to be the darling of society through his charm. Charm was easy. What Ash had went bone deep. Now, why did that make her want to cry?

He tipped up her chin. “If we’re going to have those adorable children, we have to get married. You realize that, don’t you?”

Her brows rose. “Isn’t there something you’ve forgotten?”

He cleared his throat. “You have my heart. What more can I say?”

“You can do better than that.”

“I love you, Eve.” He scratched his chin. “And I’m not saying that just for the sake of the children. You’re a tigress in bed.”

She looped her arms around his neck. “I’m saving myself for marriage,” she quipped.

He smirked. “I have a special license in my pocket, so we can be married as soon as you like.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Anna and her little troop stayed on for the wedding, which took place three days later in Kennington Parish Church with only a few close friends and family members in attendance. Lady Valmede was there, Ash having made the journey into the southern counties not only to see Colonel Shearer and Lady Trigg but also to apprise his grandmother of his forthcoming marriage to Eve.

The wedding breakfast was held on the lawns of the Manor and was so informal that no one thought it odd that three donkeys, one little foal, and their mentors, Anna’s boy and Dexter, had the run of the place. Dexter’s presence was a great concession from Anna.

“Everyone should get married,” Ash told Eve. “It gives a man purpose, something to work for, ambitions. That was what was lacking in my life. In fact, you once pointed it out to me.”

“And I was wrong,” she said emphatically. “I take it back. You have a vocation, Ash, and that is worthier than ambitions.”

“A vocation?” He gave a disbelieving snort.

“You’re a buttress, the champion of everyone who needs a friend, and if that isn’t a vocation, I don’t know what is.” She was thinking of his mother and brother and all the people whom he’d helped, including Nell. Her gaze came to rest on Anna. “You’re the champion of lost souls, that is what you are.”

“And I think you need your head examined.”

As they drove away in the carriage that was to take them to Richmond, Eve felt so happy, she was surprised she didn’t burst from it. They would all be reunited in Cornwall at Anna’s farm when they went for a little holiday after the harvest was in. And next year, they’d all get together for the symposium.

She breathed deeply. The whole world smelled fresh to her.

“What are you thinking?” Ash asked.

“Can’t you read my mind?” she quipped.

“I’m working on it. So far, all I can read are your dreams.”

“It’s not supposed to work that way. You’re not supposed to read
me.
”

“Nevertheless, that’s what happened. Aren’t you glad that I can? I know I am. My dreams were never so interesting until I met you.”

She gave up trying to figure it out. Maybe her Claverley cousins could explain it to her. “Glad?” she said. “That’s too tepid a word. I’m humbled. Are you sure there isn’t a wizard hiding somewhere in your pedigree?”

“Not that I’m aware, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I fathered a wizard or a witch or two during my lifetime.”

Her jaw went slack. “If I thought,” she said slowly, “that we were going to make babies who would all turn out to be wizards and witches, I’d divorce you tomorrow and enter a nunnery.”

“And give up Harry and Percy and Antonia? Not if I have anything to say about it. Besides, I am not so fainthearted as you.” He patted her hand. “The idea appeals to me. Just think. With a little practice, I might get inside our daughters’ heads and know where they are, who they’re with, and what they’re doing. What father wouldn’t find that appealing? Of course, I would give our boys more leeway. Boys will be boys.”

This provoked a scornful laugh. “If one of them were gifted, I mean
really
gifted, he’d turn your thoughts on and off as though you were a tap.”

“Piffle. That’s sheer prejudice on your part. I’ll work at it. I got into your head, didn’t I? You Claverleys think you’re so special.”

She looked into his eyes, saw the laughter mocking her, and collapsed against him in a fit of giggles. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she said.

About the Author

Elizabeth Thornton was born and educated in Scotland and now lives in Canada. Ms. Thornton has been nominated for and received numerous awards and is a seven-time Romance Writers of America RITA finalist. When not writing, her hobbies include reading, watching old movies, traveling to the UK for research, and enjoying her family and grandchildren. For more information, and details of
The Pleasure Trap
contest, visit Elizabeth Thornton on the Web at
www.elizabeththornton.com
.