Page 70 of The Dreaming Beauty
“It won’t hurt anyone because the information is strictly for me.” He lowered his voice. “For as long as I can remember, I have been plagued with recurring nightmares. Lord Cadogen has encouraged me to find answers, to find myself help. After you and I became friends, I wrote to tell him I wanted to give the whole business up. There is no cure that I can find, no understanding for it. You have nothing to be afraid of concerning your own dreams. You don’t have to tell me anything.”
Tansy had forgotten to breathe, and she had to take a gasp of air. “You—you are telling me the truth?”
“What reason would I have to lie?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know who you are anymore. I barely know who I am.” Everyone she had ever trusted seemed to betray her—with lies of omission or otherwise.
“I am the same person you knew yesterday. I don’t know everything you have done inyourlife, and that is all this is.”
“You have no more secrets you are keeping from me?” Lord Cadogen had hinted otherwise. Would Marcus tell her? Her aunts had not told their secrets until forced to do so, so why would he?
“There is one more,” he said. “My family is not even aware of it. You must swear, for your own safety, not to tell anyone.”
She folded her arms, her patience waning. “What is it?”
He glanced around to reassure himself that no one was listening. “I used what I learned in my philosophy studies to help protect our country in the war.”
She blanched at the implication, putting together his words and the ones she had overheard from Lord Cadogen. “So you’re a spy?”
“Not exactly.” He rubbed his forehead. “It’s more that I try to uncover the spies. To determine whether they’re lying or whether they’re trustworthy.”
“How do you do that?”
“Just as I have studied dreams, I have also spent a great deal of time learning patterns of speech or behavior a person shows when they lie. It’s not an infallible method or even the best method for every case, but mine and Lord Cadogen’s results are too successful to ignore. Many lives have been saved. But if word got out, our enemies would be on their guard and attaining information would only grow harder.”
Tansy did not even bother to mask her surprise. “How often do you do this kind of work? It sounds dangerous.”
“A few times a year. The Great Powers want to ally together and will be negotiating how to do this in the coming months. I do not foresee my services being needed after that. There is a potential for danger, but we are careful.”
She could hardly take it all in. “I can see why you kept this from me, and I suddenly understand Mr. Robinson better.”
“Mr. Robinson? The pugilist?”
She sighed, some of her ire leaving her. “The very man who caused the uproar at the Bellvues’ party, yes. He’s also the man who proposed to me shortly after I caught him kissing another woman. He told me I had kept him at a distance, and he was right on that score. I had secrets I planned never to tell him, just as you kept things from me.”
“The man was a simpleton to throw away a chance with you, but this is nothing like that.” He stepped closer to her. “You have no reason to believe me, but I did plan to tell you about my nightmares. When everything came out about your parentage, there was simply never a good time.”
She wanted to believe him, but he didn’t say he would’ve told her about his espionage. She stared at his clear eyes. He was good at his core, but he’d still betrayed her trust. But then, she had not told him everything either. “Like you said, you have no reason to lie to me. We have asked a great deal of you, and you’ve never asked anything of us in return.” She took a deep breath, knowing that if she were ever to fully open her heart to someone, she could not continue to harbor secrets of her own. Trust went both ways.
“I too have nightmares.” She ducked her head as the words tumbled out of her mouth, as though they’d been bursting to be free. “You may think me visionary, or you may call me mad, but my dreams are as real as I am standing here. Most are snatches of memories that replay while I am asleep, but sometimes... sometimes, I dream of things that warn me of the future.” She blinked a few times and cast her eyes to his. His face was closed, not appearing at all shocked by her disclosure. “You believe me, don’t you?”
His features softened. “If you tell me it is so, I believe you.”
Such complete faith touched her, inviting her to share more, as if she could further convince him of her sanity and her gift at the same time. “The painting I did of Rose Cottage—I painted it years before I ever saw it. Well, I did see it, but not in person. I saw it in a dream.”
“Your dream led you here?”
She nodded. “I knew I would discover the answers of my parentage here, and I did. It took me longer than I expected, but in the end the premonition proved correct.” She paused, almost nervous to ask such a personal question of Marcus. “Are—are your dreams of the past or the future?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. I have spent years trying to understand them, and frankly, I don’t care anymore. I want them gone, but even more, I want a life without me obsessing over them.”
She could see the pain behind his eyes, and she longed to ease it for him. “I have felt that way before. Perhaps if we talk about them together, we might make sense of them. I can tell you about mine, and we can see if there are similarities.” Bravery had never been her strong point, but she had already dragged him out of the view of others. Before she could overthink it, she reached out and slid her hand into his. It reminded her of the day he’d weaved their clay-covered fingers together, and then her mind went to their kiss.
Marcus stared at their hands lightly clasped. Her heart pounded to be touching him at her own initiation—to be touching him at all.
Then, as quick as she had been to take it, he withdrew. Her hand fell limply, coldly to her side as he stepped back, away from her.
The rejection stung, and she did not know how to respond.
