* * *
When they returned in two weeks’ time, Elizabeth gave no indication she’d missed Killiney in the slightest. Everything was as usual in the house. No looks were exchanged, no secret meetings were arranged or implied, and she let on nothing that’d reveal her connection to him.
This new, cool demeanour didn’t last long. Just one evening, to be exact, for the next morning Killiney let himself into her bedroom chambers. He sent Sarah off with some paltry excuse, and settling back on the pillows with Elizabeth trembling under his arm, he kissed her full on the mouth, deeply, as ever a lover would.
Of course her head swam with joy. His lips were warm, brimming with promise, and his fingertips stroked with such affection that she soon forgot all about her fears, especially when he whispered, “I’ve a need for you, my Lady Elizabeth.”
As his hands were laced through her hair, she guessed what that need might be. “Did you miss me?” She kissed him, letting her tongue mingle with his. “You know you’ve only to name it, and I’ll perform whatever service you require.”
“Whatever I require?”
She smiled. “Absolutely, my lord.”
“All right, then. Can you interpret dreams?”
“Tell me the dream,” she purred into his ear.
Killiney raised a brow. “You’d really hear it? It’s a very important dream, and we must decipher its meaning because she’s trying to tell me something, I know it.”
“She?” Drawing back, Elizabeth frowned. It wasn’t at all what she’d expected to hear. “You’ve dreamt of another woman, my lord?”
“My angel. My lover. In this dream, she’s my wife, but I think she’s an angel, a spitfire with an angel’s face, a siren with tresses like Spanish gold.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes, feeling the first stabs of dread in her heart. There’s someone else. He’s only cloaked her in this stupid dream to gage my reaction, to break the news in a gentle way.
But Killiney was still talking. “You see, I’m always back home in Dublin in this dream. She’s mistress of Swallowhill, but she’s changed so many things—the furnishings, the paintings, even the privies she’s altered while I’ve been away. And she’s put these curious lamps in the house, the strangest things you ever saw because they never flicker—”
“They don’t?” Elizabeth opened her eyes, thinking of Mr Orchard’s story. “Because they have no flame, these lamps?”
“You’ve dreamed of them, too?”
“Just go on,” she said.
“But there is no more.” Killiney shrugged. “Every night it’s always the same. I walk into the house, I stumble about from room to room and stare at the furnishings until at last she comes home, from university, she says, and when she finally stops shouting, I make love to her, right there on the drawing room floor.”
“She goes to university?”
“To Trinity College, yes.”
Elizabeth didn’t counter that girls weren’t permitted at any college she knew of. Instead, she was thinking of Mr Orchard’s potion. Connecting the two stories, Mr Orchard’s insistence that his was no ordinary dream and Killiney’s belief that this angel was more than a fantasy, Elizabeth came to the conclusion fast: They’d had the same dream, visited the same incredible realm.
Thinking so, she started to form a strategy. She listened intently to Killiney, but she was scheming in the midst of everything he said.
“So you’ll help me find someone to interpret this dream?” he asked. “Because for two weeks I’ve had it, every night without fail, and it means something, I tell you—I’m meant to reach her, to possess her and marry her and make her mine.”
Elizabeth turned away with a sigh. Her need to triumph over this imaginary woman, to win Killiney back, this kept her composed, but inside she was sinking. How could he possibly love a dream when, lying in his arms, she would have given him anything he wanted, didn’t he know that?
“You don’t need a seer,” she said at last, and leaning close, she skimmed his lips with a kiss. “I can do better still, my lord. I can make your angel real.”
“What do you mean?”
Seeing that slant of captivation on his brow, she set about telling Mr Orchard’s tale—the potion, the fireless lamps, the lady’s bedchamber—and tailoring the story to suit her wants, she lied to her heart’s content. “It was an Indian woman who gave Orchard this potion,” she said. “This woman insisted they drink it together, and because its magic only worked with the passion of lovers in an outdoor setting, Mr Orchard coupled with the Indian maiden, right there on the beach.”
“And you believe this?”
“Would a clergyman lie?”
“I’d sooner believe he’d lie than ever couple with a savage woman.”
“But he did,” she insisted, and grasping for proof to keep Killiney listening, she told him about the box Mr Orchard had seen by the bed. How had he described it? Children in that box, he’d said, and Elizabeth repeated it word for word. “Like the most perfect painting in the world, my lord. Surely you saw such a box in your dream?”
This was all Elizabeth needed to win. Killiney had seen one. Thus she’d convinced him, and soon he was reasoning he’d really nothing to lose if he did as she asked. He begged to know when they could drink of this potion, perform this intimate act in the ruins, for what better place was there to bring about this magic but at nearby Swaneton Castle?
There was just one problem. She didn’t actually possess the liquid. Mr Orchard hadn’t sent it, and since Killiney had just spent two weeks with the man on board Discovery, mightn’t the viscount write the letter to ask for it?
Killiney nodded. “I’ll send it out tonight.”
And with a quick, hard press of his lips, he kissed her and hurried out the door.