The Cure for Dreaming(7)

“Well,” I said, “I should probably—”

“You looked beautiful on that stage tonight, Olivia.” Percy turned toward me, briefly illuminated by a delicate strand of moonlight that stole through the clouds.

I sat up straighter. “I did?”

“Yes.” His eyes—black in the night, a beguiling greenish-brown in the daylight—stayed upon me. “I don’t know if you remember it, but that hypnotist laid you out between two chairs. You were as stiff as a board, with only your neck and your ankles supported, and you were as lovely as Sleeping Beauty.”

I snickered. “I was?”

He scooted closer to me on the seat with the soft whisper of leather. “My father leaned over to me and said, ‘Now, that’s womanhood perfected, Percy my boy. That’s the type of girl you want. Silent. Alluring. Submissive.’”

My stomach lurched. I tried to appear unfazed by his father’s words, but my mouth twisted into an expression that must have looked as if I were swallowing down those milky gray eggs from the courthouse attack.

Percy laughed. “I said those were my father’s words. Not mine.”

“Oh.” I sighed. “I’m glad. You don’t think women ought to be silent and submissive, then?”

“You are silent, Olivia. I’ve never heard you speak one word in any of the classes we’ve had together.”

“That doesn’t mean I like to be silent.”

Unfortunately, my argument ended there, and I indeed fell silent again. As did Percy.

Down the street, a dog howled. A pitiful wail.

“‘Listen to them—the children of the night,’” I said before I could think to regret quoting Dracula in the middle of an already awkward moment.

Percy straightened his neck. “What did you just say?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What about nighttime children?”

“Oh . . .” I wrapped my arms around my middle. “I just . . . I have a strange attraction to horror novels.”

“Which ones?”

“I’m reading Dracula . . . for the fourth time.”

“The fourth time?” He whistled and shifted his knees in my direction. “Doesn’t the library mind you checking it out so often? I’ve heard it’s all the rage.”

“I saved enough money to buy my own copy as soon as it showed up in Harrison’s Books last year. Have you read it yet?”

“No.” He tugged at his stiff collar. “My father only allows classic literature in the Acklen household. Friends have to sneak me copies of anything new and exciting.”

“I could lend you my copy if you’d like.”

“Really?” He scooted another inch my way. “You’d help corrupt me?”

I sputtered a laugh. “Dracula may frighten you, but I doubt it will corrupt you. At least . . . I don’t think it will. There are some . . . scenes . . . I suppose some people would find . . .”

“What?” He tilted his head. The right corner of his mouth arched in a wry smile that Frannie would have hated. “What types of scenes are there?”

My face flushed. “I’m not going to say. You’ll just have to read them.”

“You’ll definitely have to lend me your copy, then. Show me what I’m missing.” He pressed the side of his arm against mine, clearly meaning for me to feel him.

I froze. My heart rate doubled, and I was certain he could detect my pulse jumping about beneath my sleeve, even with all that fabric separating us.

“Well . . .,” he said.

I lifted my eyes. “Yes?”

“I suppose I should help you down before the vampires crawl out of their graves and drink your sweet, invigorating blood. What do you think?”

I nodded. “I suppose you should. There aren’t any Van Helsings in the neighborhood.”

“Who?”

“You’ll see.”

He shifted his weight and climbed out his side of the buggy, another smile half hidden on his face in the moonlight. His leather soles squished toward me through the shallow mud; then he stopped below me on the damp sidewalk and hooked his fingers around the crisscrossing metal next to my arm. “Thank you for letting me drive you home.”

I folded my hands in my lap to keep them from trembling. “May I ask you something about that?”

“Yes.”

“Um . . . well . . .” I drew a breath that made my tongue go dry. “You didn’t ask to drive me here merely because you liked how I looked when I was in that trance, did you?”

“Well . . .” Percy beamed at me in a way no one ever had before, his head tipped to the left, his dark eyes glassy and wistful. “You really were a beaut up there, Olivia. You should have seen the way the lights shone down on your black hair and your sleeping face.”

“But have you ever felt—” My skin warmed over. Words wilted at my lips, but I forced myself to finish my thought. “You’ve never seemed to notice me before this evening. Am I only attractive to you because I was lying unconscious across two chairs on a stage?”

“No . . . that’s not . . . I just . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d never thought of you that way before. You’ve always simply been . . . Dr. Mead’s daughter.”