Where Dreams Begin(62)



“The way Lady Holly appeared,” Elizabeth remarked sourly, “it will take at least two or three days before she's ready to set eyes on you.”

Before Zachary could respond with an appropriately sarcastic rejoinder, Paula took her disgruntled daughter's arm and tugged her away toward the family parlor. “Come, Lizzie…we'll both have a relaxing glass of wine. Heaven knows we both need it.”

Heaving a sigh, Elizabeth followed her, stomping away in her ball gown with all the grace of an infuriated eight-year-old. Were it not for his own turbulent emotions, Zachary would have smiled at the sight. He went to the library for a drink, stopped at the sideboard and poured something from a decanter. Downing the stuff without even tasting it, he poured another. However, the spirits failed to warm his frozen insides. His mind sorted busily through a deluge of words, grasping for an apology that would make everything right again. He could tell Holly anything but the truth—that he was jealous of George Taylor, that he wanted her to stop mourning for her husband, when it was clear that she had dedicated the rest of her life to his memory. Setting his glass down with a groan, Zachary forced himself to leave the library. His shoes felt as if they had been made with lead soles as he hoisted his feet up the grand staircase toward Holly's private rooms.

Holly nearly stumbled in her eagerness to step over the threshold of her private apartments and close herself inside. Mindful of Rose sleeping peacefully just two rooms away, she tried not to slam the door. She stood very still, with her arms tightly bunched around herself. Her mind rang with echoes of every word she had just exchanged with Zachary Bronson.

The worst part was, he hadn't been entirely wrong. The gray gown had seemed exactly right for this occasion, for just the reason he had suggested. It was elegant and stylish, but not so very different from the circumspect Half Mourning garments she had worn during the third year after George's death. No one could find fault with it, not even her own beleaguered conscience. She was more than a little afraid of fully rejoining the world without George, and this was her way of reminding everyone—including herself—of what she had once had. She didn't want to lose the last vestige of her past with George. There were already too many days that slipped by without her having thought of him. There were too many moments when she felt a heady attraction to another man, when she had once thought that only George could stir her senses. It was becoming terribly easy to make decisions for herself, on her own, without first considering what George would have wanted or approved of. And that independence frightened her fully as much as it pleased her.

Her actions of the past four months had proved that she was no longer the sheltered young matron, or the virtuous, circumspect widow that family and friends had approved of. She was becoming another woman entirely.

Stunned by the thought, Holly didn't notice her servant Maude's presence until she spoke. “Milady, is something amiss? A button loose, or a trimming—”

“No, nothing like that.” Holly took a deep breath, and then another, anchoring her roiling emotions. “It appears that my gray gown displeases Mr. Bronson,” she informed the servant. “He wants me to wear something that looks less like mourning.”

“He dared…” Maude began in astonishment.

“Yes, he dared,” Holly said dryly.

“But milady…ye're not going to oblige him, are ye?”

Holly stripped off her gloves, threw them to the floor and kicked off her silver slippers. Her heart was pounding with the remnants of fury, and a nerve-rattling excitement like nothing she had ever felt before. “I'm going to make his eyes fall out,” she said curtly. “I'm going to make him sorry that he ever said one word about my attire.”

Maude stared at her strangely, having never seen such an expression of feminine vengeance on Holly's face. “Milady,” she ventured cautiously, “ye don't seem quite yerself.”

Holly turned and went to the closed armoire, turning the small key in the door and opening it. She extracted the red gown and shook it briskly, giving it a quick airing. “Hurry, Maude,” she said, turning her back and indicating the row of buttons that needed to be unfastened. “Help me out of this thing quickly.”

“But…but…” Maude was dazed. “Ye want to wear that gown? I haven't had a chance to air it properly and press the wrinkles—”

“It seems to be in good condition, actually.” Holly inspected the billows of glowing red silk in her arms. “But I wouldn't care if it was one big ball of wrinkles. I'm going to wear the blasted thing.”

Recognizing her determination, though clearly not approving, Maude sighed gustily and set to work on the back of the gray gown. When it became apparent that Holly's prim white chemise would peek out over the low-cut bodice of the red silk, Holly stripped off her top undergarment. “Ye're going without yer chemise?” Maude gasped, thunderstruck.

Although the servant had already seen her in every stage of undress, Holly blushed all over, until even her bare br**sts were pink. “I don't have any chemises cut low enough to fit beneath this.” She struggled to pull the red gown over her torso, and Maude hastily moved to assist her.

When the gown was finally fastened and the red velvet sash was tied neatly at her waist, Holly went to the mahogany-framed looking glass. The succession of three mirrored ovals joined together afforded a complete view of her appearance. Holly was startled by the sight of herself clad in such rich color, the red strikingly vivid against her white skin. She had never worn anything quite as bold as this for George, a style that displayed the snowy curves of her br**sts and the top third of her back. Her skirts moved in a fluid, rippling mass with each step she took, with each breath she drew. She felt vulnerable and exposed, and at the same time strangely free and light. This was the kind of gown she had worn in all her forbidden daydreams, when she had longed to escape the dullness of her ordinary life.

Lisa Kleypas's Books