style="font-size:15px;"> Sweet Jesus! What a rude jest—could he actually desire that redheaded witch?
Richard sat up, plunging his fingers back through his hair. The governess! He could scarcely believe he had actually dreamed about her—and such a hot, lascivious dream, at that. His veins were pulsing, his loins aching—and all for a woman the very sight of whom raised his ire.
She was irritating, infuriating. He scarcely knew her—he did not even know her given name—but what he did know he disliked. She was overbearing, opinionated, unwomanly. Richard paused. He had to change that thought: she was unwomanly in manner. In appearance she was deliciously curved, even in the plain, dark sort of dresses she wore. In appearance she was…beautiful.
He sighed, flopping back on the bed and staring sightlessly above him. For a moment he gave himself up to thinking of the way she looked—the springing flame-colored curls, the vivid blue eyes, the pale skin as lustrous as satin. He thought of her as she had appeared in the dream, the warmth in her eyes that he had never seen, the softening of her mouth in desire. He remembered the feel of her beneath him, the trembling excitement of touching her….
Cursing, he sat back up. What the devil was he doing? How could he think of her? Dream of her?
It had been years since he had had that sort of dream about any woman but his wife. From the moment he met Caroline, he had been faithful to her. It had not taken a tremendous effort; quite frankly, he had not wanted any woman but Caroline. And after her death, he had no longer cared about anything or anyone. No woman had stirred him, and the few times he had felt desire, it had been merely an animal instinct, directionless lust, or, sometimes, like now, a dream. But in those dreams, it had been Caroline to whom he made love, and he had awakened, not only sweating, but crying, too.
Guilt twisted through him. He loved only Caroline, desired only Caroline. Even putting aside the bizarre fact that it was the governess who was the subject of his imagination, it shocked him that he had dreamed about another woman. But he knew that if he were honest, he would have to admit that he had had lustful thoughts about Miss Maitland even when he was awake and rational. He knew that others would tell him his wife had been dead for four years, that it was only natural for him to find another woman attractive, even to think of the pleasure of bedding her. Less than a year ago, he remembered, his brother-in-law Devin had pointed out to him that it had been Caroline who had died, not Richard, and that no one expected him to never look at another woman.
But, as he had told Dev at the time, he felt as if he had died, too, that night four years ago. Without his wife and daughter, his life was ashes, and every day held the same empty, lifeless round of activities, worth nothing except to say that he had made it through another day.
How, then, could he now feel desire for another woman? Caroline was the only woman he had loved, could ever love.
The dream had been an aberration, he told himself. It was bizarre and unreal and clearly the opposite of what he really felt. After all, he disliked the woman intensely. The desire, he thought, must have been spawned in some strange way by the intense anger he felt for Miss Maitland. He did not understand it, but that had to be the reason. It was the same sort of thing as the way one laughed sometimes when what one really wanted to do was cry or scream. It had to be. Anything else was impossible.
With a sigh, he lay back down, turning onto his side, and set his mind to thinking of something, anything, besides Miss Maitland. Sleep, he found, was a long time coming.
Richard sat in lonely splendor at the dining table the next evening. He looked down the length of the gleaming mahogany table and thought, not for the first time, how foolish it was to sit here by himself to eat at a table and in a room meant to accommodate a small army of people. A huge silver epergne graced the center of the table, filled with fruit, and silver candelabras, each as ornate as the epergne, were spaced down the length of the table, candles ablaze. Two footmen stood at the ready, should Richard require something not on the table.
It would make more sense, Richard knew, to put a table in one of the small rooms downstairs and eat there, but Baxter, of course, would be horrified at the idea of his not dining formally. There were, after all, certain standards to maintain when one worked for a duke.
Richard began to spoon up his soup. He wondered idly where Miss Maitland took her meals—in the nursery with her charge, he supposed. It must be difficult for her, he thought, living in that odd limbo occupied by governesses, where one was neither a servant nor a member of the family, especially for someone like her, who came from a good family and had even had her season in London. Surely she must miss the life she had once had—doubtless that was one reason she had turned so sour!
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