Truth Within Dreams Read Online Free Page A

Claudia.”
    “What on earth is all the commo—
gah
!”
    Lady Baxter, the plump mother hen of her gaggle, had been a second mama to Henry. Over the years, she’d welcomed him into her home countless times and treated him as one of her own little chicks. And now she stood in the doorway of his guest room, hands pressed to her cheeks.
    Claude stomped across the room and yanked open the curtains, just in time to illuminate Sir John Baxter’s arrival on the scene. The baronet’s wheeze of dismay sucked all the air out of the room. “Henry De Vere!” the twins’ father bellowed. “What is the meaning of this infamy?”
    Henry’s underarms went clammy. He shifted his posture, trying to find a position to restore a modicum of his dignity. He quickly deduced there was not one. “Sir, I don’t know what to say.” Henry raked a hand through his hair. “I didn’t … That is to say, Claudia and I, we did not …”
    Beside him, Claudia lay there like a lump, staring at the ceiling. “Sit up,” he hissed. “Tell them nothing happened.”
    With obvious reluctance, Claudia dragged herself to a sitting position, eyes downcast and bare shoulders hunched.
Say something
, he silently begged.
    Lady Baxter gasped. “Claudia Baxter, cover yourself!”
    The young woman’s cheeks turned pink. Despite his own shock and dismay, a pang of sympathy shot through Henry. Whatever had happened, Claudia didn’t deserve this humiliation.
    He secured the covers between his arms and sides and lifted his hands, palms out. “Let’s calm ourselves, please, and discuss this in a rational fashion.” When the impending riot seemed to have quelled, Henry gestured to the woman beside him. “Miss Baxter, there seems to have been some misunderstanding. If you would be so good as to enlighten us, I’m sure we’ll all be glad to put this mystery behind us.”
    From behind the curtain of her hair, Claudia sent him an apologetic look. Then she drew a breath, squared her shoulders, and slid from the bed. She bent over, giving Henry a glimpse of her lush backside. He covered a strangled sound with a cough. When he looked again, Claudia had wrapped up in a dressing gown.
    “Now,” he said, “please tell us what happened. Which was nothing,” he added for the benefit of the other three Baxters in his room, his voice rising in righteous indignation. “Absolutely nothing …”
    Fwump
went the counterpane as Claudia pulled it back with a flourish, revealing a startling patch of crimson, ominous and large.
    “… happened.”
    • • •
    It hadn’t quite sunk in for them yet, but Claudia had won. While Mama and Papa and Claude and Henry all stared at the evidence on the sheet, their minds would be busy adding one and one and subtracting Sir Saint from the equation. She was safe now. She wouldn’t have to marry that gouty toad and spend nights in his bed. Even though she hadn’t yet had an opportunity to explain things to Henry, the freedom of release expressed itself in an irrepressible grin she shared with her nearest and dearest.
Isn’t it wonderful
, she wanted to crow.
    Oh, the others were still absorbing the sight and what it confirmed—or, what they thought it confirmed, anyway—which was more than enough confirmation to send even the most ardent lover on a quest to rip down the banns. Once he caught wind of this, Sir Saint, who was nothing approaching an ardent lover, would waddle his rotund self away from Rudley Court and out of her life forever. Unexpectedly, her eyes filled with tears of relief as the crushing dread of her impending marriage fell away.
    Claude seemed to recover from the shock first. “Forgive me for posing an indelicate question, Mother, but is that a normal … quantity?”
    Lady Baxter’s hands were fisted below her eyes, as though she could scarcely bring herself to look at the sheets. At Claude’s question, she shook her head. “That’s more blood than I saw all eight times I was brought to childbed,