Page 53 of His Haunted Duchess
How awkward. Caroline dabbed at the stickiness but missed. She couldn’t quite catch it without a mirror.
“Is it still there?”
Frederic leaned forward on the stool. In an adroit move, he brushed his hand against her face, gentle as the wind, removing the offending speck.
Caroline started.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I didn’t mean to astonish you.”
Frederic wiped his hand on a napkin. Philip helped himself to another piece of pie, slathering it in a layer of blueberry jam that might have easily coated three such morsels.
“You looked like you had seen a ghost, Caroline. You should know there’s no such thing, or so Frederic says. But come! There are more flavors to try, and we can’t possibly waste good pie crust.”
Caroline flushed. They took turns, slathering and commenting on pie and jam, until Caroline’s stomach simmered in contentment and Philip’s blueberry jar had nearly been scraped clean.
Caroline stood, stifling a yawn.
“Thank you, gentleman, for the excellent refreshments and entertainment.”
Philip and Frederic stood. Frederic took her hand in his own. Caroline caught her breath, remembering the day of the proposal. She pushed the memory away. He dropped her hand, bowed politely, and gestured her out of the room.
“Good night, Your Grace,” he said. “Sleep well.”
CHAPTER 17
“Mother! No!”
Caroline sat bolt upright in bed, putting her hands to her clammy face. She had been having the nightmare again—the dark, swirling, inescapable dream that haunted her sleep. She struggled to control her breathing. It was so real—so vivid! The thrash of the dark waves pulsed over her skin.
She passed a weary hand over her eyes. She needed a relief—a distraction. A new book from the library would do. She stepped into her bedroom slippers, passing her bedside table, piled high with similar titles, and passed into the hall.
The nightmares had been going on for weeks now. Since the wedding, almost every night her dreams were stalked by storms, wind, loss, and strangers. She yawned, shuffling her way forward in the darkness.
The life of a duchess was demanding, it was true—far more demanding than she had anticipated. Most of the day she spent either in social calls or answering a copious amount of correspondence. More than once, she had drowsed at her desk over a flood of notes, requests, and clerical responses.
Lady Felicity Flounters seemed intent on writing to her at least once a week if not more frequently. Dutifully, Caroline responded, though her notes grew shorter and shorter in length as the recipient’s demand for them increased.
Frederic, too, spent most of his daytime hours away from Highcastle, traveling to visit various friends and acquaintances or meeting with his business connections. Caroline heard, in offhand comments made at tea tables, of the places he frequented. They sounded respectable enough to her relief.
She creaked open a hall door. No one stirred. Nor should they—any person of sound mind would be asleep this late in the night.
It was better, she told herself, the less time she and the duke interacted. He seemed, to her observation at least, completely unaffected by her curse and went about his daily business as usual. Their sporadic interactions were civil—amiable, even—and also appropriately brief.
Fortunately, visiting her aunt and Winifred fit perfectly with her recurring trips to London. They, observing her sanguine and cheerful look, prodded her with no obtrusive questions as the months went by. She drank her tea and thanked them silently.
Even with visits home, she still searched for hours of brief repose—of quiet moments when the wind and waves didn’t stalk her troubled sleep. They were becoming fewer and fewer.
She reached the library and pushed the door open, rubbing her eyes with her hands.
Light flooded into the hall. Frederic looked up from the chair where he had been sitting.
“Caroline, I had assumed you were in bed.” His eyes narrowed as they traced the dark circles under her eyes and her disheveled hair. “Is anything the matter?”
She avoided his eyes.
“No, no—all is well. I was just coming for something to read, that’s all.”
She wrapped her arms into the robe and moved toward the shelves, examining the titles. She was willing, at this point, to read anything except Virgil, for whose strict verse she hadn’t been able to develop a taste even after nightmares.
