Page 61 of An Unusual Wager

Chapter Twenty-Six

Shouts woke Verity from her sleep with a hammering heart. They were coming from Jonnie’s bedroom. With her drapes closed she was in near total darkness and couldn’t hope to find her bedside candle to light in a hurry. Besides which, she might inadvertently set fire to the house if she tried.

She pushed back the covers and scrambled out of bed. Where was her peignoir? She couldn’t go in there in just her nightgown. But her peignoir eluded discovery.

Another anguished shout.

Abandoning her search for her peignoir, she ran to their adjoining door and pushed it open. There was slightly more light in here as Jonnie’s curtains had at some point been opened. For a moment she looked for him there, thinking to find him looking out of the window, but no one stood there.

She turned back to the bed. He’d thrown back his own covers, and, thankfully, proved to be wearing a nightshirt. But he was tossing back and forth, muttering now rather than shouting, but clearly very disturbed by something.

Another mysterious nightmare?

She approached the bed.

His eyes were wide open, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling as he tossed on the mattress. Her first worried thought was that his fever had returned. He was indeed flushed and hot, but she doubted it was fever. He’d been fine at dinner and even eaten something other than Mrs. Lovell’s beef broth. This heat was due to his disturbed sleep.

She caught his left hand. “Jonnie, Jonnie, you need to wake up.”

He snatched his hand back. “Leave her alone or I’ll kill you.” The words came out as an angry hiss.

She caught his hand again. “It’s me, Verity. Wake up Jonnie.”

His eyes swivelled towards her, but she had the feeling he wasn’t seeing her. “Make him stop,” he said, his voice pleading. “Don’t let him do it.”

She took his face in her hands, the stubble rough under her fingers. “Jonnie. Wake up. You’re dreaming again. Wake up.”

She could slap him again but this time, she feared, he was deeper in the dream than before and she’d read it could be dangerous to waken people suddenly and violently.

He was staring up at her, tears at the corners of his eyes. “Please. Make him stop. You can’t let him do it. You can’t.”

What to do?

On an impulse, and partly because she’d been wanting to do it for at least the last day, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his in a kiss. Under her mouth she felt his lips part, but she was inexperienced at kissing and had no idea how to respond. His body lost its rigidity as he relaxed. She straightened up.

He was looking up at her out of surprised eyes.

“Verity.” He was a little hoarse after all that shouting and had to clear his throat. “What are you doing here?”

Conscious of the gaping neck of her nightgown, she took a step back from the bed and pulled it closed.

“You were shouting again. Another nightmare, I think. I, er, I didn’t want to have to slap you again. I thought it might be bad for you.”

He put his good hand to his lips. “So you kissed me instead.”

“I did.” At least he couldn’t see the hot blush that seemed to have suffused her entire body in this darkness. “I must apologize.”

“Please don’t. I believe I liked it, and it was a good way to wake me.” He grinned, his teeth flashing white in the faint moonlight that was streaming in his open window. “In fact, I find I might like you to do it again.”

Now her body was flushing not with embarrassment but with a sensation Verity hadn’t known she could feel. Her mouth had gone dry, she felt weak at the knees just as she had when she’d seen Jonnie’s inert body in the carriage, and a molten, alien feeling seemed to have centered itself somewhere below her navel.

She tore herself away and fetched the chair. “I’ll sit with you a while so you can go back to sleep.”

He grinned again. “I’m not a baby in the nursery, you know.”

Her heart must be pounding at two hundred beats a minute. “You have nightmares when you’re alone, it seems. I’ll sit with you and keep them at bay.”

Silence fell and she shivered. Despite the warmth of the day, nights in Luxborough House were cool and she was only in her nightgown.