I rolled down my sleeve and fastened the button. The treatment was already making me clearheaded. I peered at Edward, the flesh-and-blood young man in my room, not the dream specter. Whatever he and Father had spoken of, he wasn’t going to tell me.
“Well, I’m sorry. If I’d known that’s how he would react—”
“Don’t. It’s hardly your fault.”
I ran my fingers around the worn box edge. “I suppose you’re going to tell me your suspicions were right. That only a madman would live out here.”
His fingers traced circles on the desk. “It’s not just him, Juliet. They carry an arsenal just to step outside. What are they so afraid of?”
I drummed my fingers on the box nervously. Remembering how in my dream the light from the swinging kerosene lamp lit his face as his hands traced over my na**d skin.
“Did you undress me last night?” I asked bluntly.
He couldn’t hide his surprise. He ran his hand over the tangled hair on the back of his neck. “Undress you?”
I squeezed the box, feeling foolish, like I had tested a theory too early. “Never mind,” I said quickly.
“Why would you think . . . ?”
“I woke up in a nightdress I didn’t put on.”
For a moment his eyes searched mine, trying to peer into my head. Studying the sound of our silence. His lips parted, asking a question without ever saying a word.
Would you want me to undress you?
He’d hinted at his interest, but how could he expect me to think about such things at a time like this, when I’d just met my father after years apart? And there was Montgomery to consider, and that near kiss, and Edward didn’t even begin to know me. If he knew some of the things I had done, the dark things I sometimes thought, he’d change his mind.
“I didn’t undress you,” he said, and the silence that came next was heavy between us.
Breath slipped from my lips, pressed by some invisible force. A connection was growing between us, pulsating between us, in time with the beating of my heart. That might not be my last dream about Edward Prince, I realized. And the next one might not be unwelcome.
Fifteen
WE LEFT MY ROOM and found Father and Montgomery in the main building. The entire ground floor was one large, high-ceilinged room with wide shutters angled to let in air but keep out the sun. A dinner table sat behind a seating area with a fireplace and stone mantel. A simple staircase led to a second-floor landing with two more shut doors, and another door on the ground floor that might have led to the kitchen. The furnishings were an eclectic mix of fine but threadbare Rococo-style furniture and a few crudely handmade wooden chairs and tables. In the corner was a piano, its black wood dented and one leg broken, but polished to a high gleam. A sigh slipped from my lips. A breath of elegance whispered here that I hadn’t expected to find.
Montgomery looked up from cleaning a rifle on the table. He jumped to his feet, wiping his hands on a rag. Just seeing him made me blush, remembering the near kiss in my room that had unwittingly transformed him to Edward in my dream.
But maybe I’d been misinterpreting. Maybe Montgomery had just been caught up in the dizzying memories of the past, and it hadn’t meant anything more. I’d been the one practically throwing myself against him, after all. The ways of men and women were such a puzzle. And I could barely decipher my own feelings, let alone anyone else’s.
Father put down his book and looked me over. “Ah, you’re wearing one of Evelyn’s dresses. She didn’t like it, I seem to recall. Too plain. Come sit and have a cup of tea. You’ve missed breakfast by a few hours, I’m afraid.”
My feet stumbled into the room on his order. A strange sensation overcame me, as though I were stepping into a memory. Something about the placement of the furniture perhaps. Or the smell of Father’s tobacco. Something from long ago that had sunk into that delicate space between the conscious and subconscious.
I rested my fingertips on the back of the sofa, trying to remember. The feel of the worn velvet evoked shadows of a memory. I stared at my fingers. Had I seen that sofa before?
The memory almost surfaced, but one of the island natives entered, frightening it away. Dressed in a loose cotton shirt and old blue military trousers, he carried a tea tray and sandwiches. I tried not to stare. Balthasar and the little boy were abnormally hairy, but this man hadn’t a hair on him. Instead, his scalp was covered with lumpy, flesh-colored skin like scales. He was thin, normal height, with nervous eyes, and whereas the others lumbered with their strange legs, he slunk about. He set the tray on the coffee table too abruptly, rattling the cups. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt, where I saw that the scaly affliction continued to his fingertips.
“Ah, thank you, Puck.” Father smiled.
The man’s shifty eyes looked me over, like he’d never seen a woman before. For all I knew, maybe he hadn’t. He slunk off toward a back room, and I let out an exhale.
A clock on the mantel ticked loudly. Tick, tick, tick. Like the pulsing of my veins. “Where did you get this sofa, Father?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you remember. You were so young.” At my questioning look, he motioned to it. “It’s from the house on Belgrave Square.”
Belgrave Square. Now I remembered. The sofa, the green chair, the writing desk by the window. This had been our furniture. The same sofa I used to nap on as a little girl. A tear in the fabric ran along the seam. I slid a finger over it, as if by magic I could sew it shut. “Everything was auctioned off years ago. How did you find it?”