Pieces of the dream returned to him. Had he been calling out loud enough to bring down a servant from the floor above? Good heavens. He had not had night terrors since boyhood. He supposed with the recent stress it was not surprising they had returned. But the loss of the ship was not the heaviest weight on his chest, not the elusive, nagging thought flitting just out of sight and recall.
When had the dream changed? He had been clashing swords with Preston, both men trying to reach the gangplank and block the other’s escape, when he’d heard a female voice, calling to him. Margaret. He had recognized her voice with a start. What was she doing aboard his ship? How had she gotten there? He looked wildly this way and that, trying to locate her. Was she trapped among the rapidly amassing wreckage of toppled masts and rigging that had once been his prized possession?
He’d tried to call to her, his voice coming as if through a sea of uncarded wool. She would never hear him over the roar of the fire, the crack and bang of falling timber.
Preston took advantage of his distraction and drove his sword deep into Nathaniel’s chest. His heart. Breaking. Oh, Margaret, why? Though she had destroyed his happiness and dreams, still he must rescue her. He ran across the deck, hand to his wound, and pushed a fallen mizzenmast out of his way. The smoke burned his eyes and seared his throat. So dry.
“Where are you? We must disembark. I cannot save her.”
Then suddenly, miraculously, she was in his arms. Safe. Their embrace had felt so real, so sweetly, painfully real. And suddenly the past evaporated. She was there with him, and that was all that mattered. He would not waste one moment. He pulled her close, relishing the feel of her against him. He pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her deeply, as he had long dreamed of doing . . .
Dreamed . . .
Disappointment drenched his soul. It had only been a dream. A delicious, torturous dream. Had there even been a woman in the room? An innocent housemaid come to empty his slops only to be shocked and appalled by his crazed, groping behavior? He had long promised himself he would never trifle with anyone in his employ—that he would respect the female servants as he did the men. Be the benevolent master his heavenly Father was to His servants.
Nathaniel ran a hand over his face. Paused to feel his lips . . . lips he was so certain had been pressed to Margaret Macy’s. What had he done—how would he ever explain? He wasn’t even sure which girl it was. The poor thing might be gone by breakfast, after telling a shocked and disapproving Mrs. Budgeon how he had molested her. Or might she keep her post in desperation, but avoid him in terror all her days at Fairbourne Hall?
He grimaced again, trying to remember exactly what had happened, to sift out fact from fiction, reality from dream, and wishing to block the whole episode from his mind. Would he never be over Margaret Macy? How did she manage to torment him over the distance of years and miles, wherever she was now?
But the longer he ruminated, the more the dream faded and the events blurred, until he was not certain a maid had been in his arms at all. In the dim dawn light his room seemed undisturbed. If only his heart and mind could claim as much.
He looked toward the door. Shut. Would a maid have bothered to close it were she fleeing in fear? Unlikely. So perhaps no one had even yet been in his room.
He glanced across the bedchamber in the other direction, and glimpsed water cans on his washstand. His heart fell. He rose and crossed the room as though approaching a trap about to spring. He hoped against hope these were the cans from the night before. He dipped in his finger and winced.
Still warm. Very warm.
After that, Nathaniel had climbed back into bed and lay there for a time, praying. He must have fallen asleep, for when he opened his eyes again, the sun was shining through the windows, brightening his mood, as did the cheerful birdsong. Arnold came in with a tray of coffee and the newspaper and went about setting out his clothes. He seemed the same as always. No disapproving looks or news of a housemaid giving notice.
“And will you be riding this morning, sir? Or fencing?”
“Hmm? Oh. Riding, I think.”
Everything was as it should be. The same as the day before and the day before that. Perhaps a maid had brought in water as usual but otherwise it had all been a dream. He was really quite sure of it now. What a relief. No apologies to make. No woman in his bed. No ghostly Miss Macy with ethereal blond hair whispering to him in the night that he was safe. That she was safe. Perhaps it was a sign. God was telling him he was finally past it. His heart was safe—Miss Macy fared well wherever she’d gone, and was none of his concern. Everything was fine. It was time for Nathaniel to get on with life in the here and now.
Invigorated at the thought, Nathaniel threw back the bedclothes. He swung his legs over and for a moment sat on the edge of his bed, bowing his head in thanksgiving for a new day. The sunlight splayed over his nightshirt-clad knees. Something shone on the plain white fabric like a thread of a brighter hue. He pinched the errant thread between thumb and forefinger, preparing to toss it in the rubbish basket, but stopped. Instead, he lifted the thread before him and in the shaft of sunlight saw it was not a thread but rather a long hair. A long blond hair.
He frowned. Who among his staff had such hair? None that he could think of, though he made a practice of not looking often nor directly at the young women in his employ. He supposed it might have come in by way of the laundry. He would not recognize the laundry maids if he passed them in the street. Or perhaps Lewis brought home some lady’s hair upon his person and it had transferred to Nathaniel via the laundry. Lewis, he knew, had no lack of female admirers of every description. But even as his logical mind tried to reason away the blond remnant, to avoid linking last night’s dream with its subject, he could not succeed for long. He had dreamed of blond Margaret Macy, only to awaken with a long blond hair in his bed? Dear God, have pity on a poor sot. What sort of sign was that?
Margaret pressed two fingers to her lips, still tender from Nathaniel’s kiss. A pair of fingers was not so much different than a pair of lips, she reasoned, but somehow the pressure of her fingers, once soft, now already beginning to roughen, felt nothing like his lips had—firm, smooth, yet punctuated with scratchy whiskers on chin and cheek. Just thinking of it caused her to experience anew the sweet heady tension, the hammering heart rate, the delirium of thought and emotion. She had never felt that way in her life and wondered why.
Margaret had been kissed before. She thought back to Marcus Benton’s forced kiss not so long ago, his fingers biting into the tender skin of her upper arms. But that act had evoked revulsion, anger, fear . . . not the dreamy longing that lingered over her now, that languor of limb and mind. Marcus’s had been an act one wished to forget. Nathaniel’s a moment to savor and relive. She told herself she was being foolish. For he had not known what he was doing. If he had known it was her, really her, he would never have kissed her, held her with such urgency. But he had been dreaming of kissing her, so did that not mean something . . . something wonderful? She thought she had killed any feelings he’d had for her. But perhaps she had been mistaken.
How different she would feel if she believed Nathaniel Upchurch had tried to kiss Nora, a defenseless housemaid. She thought of Lewis’s flirtatious past and Marcus’s outright seduction of girls who felt they had little choice. Margaret thought she understood for the first time why Nathaniel Upchurch never really looked at, and certainly never ogled, his servants. It was to her advantage, for he had not looked at her directly enough to recognize her.
She wondered what it would be like to kiss Nathaniel when he was fully awake. She doubted she would ever know. For awake and in his right mind, a gentleman like Nathaniel Upchurch would only kiss his wife with that measure of unguarded passion. She’d had her chance to be his wife and had spurned it, spurned him. A choice she was beginning to truly regret.
Nathaniel asked Hudson to ride with him that morning, and the steward happily obliged. They rode away from the estate and cantered along a country lane, scaring up grouse and pheasant. Then they slowed their mounts to a leisurely walk, enjoying the swish of horsetails against dragonflies, a gentle September breeze, and companionable silence.
Finally, Nathaniel began, “What do you suppose it means, Hudson, when I dream of a beautiful blond lady and awaken to find a long blond hair in my bed?”
Hudson chuckled. “My goodness, sir. What vivid dreams you must have!”
“You have no idea.”
Nathaniel was confident Hudson knew he was not suggesting he had actually had a woman in his bed. Since his change of heart on Barbados, he had made every effort to keep his ways pure. He asked, “Have we some blond housemaid I am unaware of?”
“You seem unaware of all the maids, sir, if I may say.” Hudson paused to consider, staring up at the blue sky as though a staff roster were written there. “There is a scullery maid with fair hair, but hers is a rather short mop of curls. The laundry maid’s hair might once have been considered blond, but it’s all but grey now. And your sister’s hair is a rich coffee brown.”
Nathaniel gave his steward a sharp look, and Hudson turned away, face reddening. “Not that I have cause to notice.” He cleared his throat. “I can think of any manner of ways a stray hair might have ended in your bedclothes. I will ask Mrs. Budgeon to speak to the laundry maid straightaway, and see that she takes more care in future.”