“I can’t quite recall what it was,” Gregory mused. He was making it all up, of course. He hadn’t slept well, but not because of a nightmare. But he was going to get her to talk to him or die trying. “Do you remember your dreams?” he asked.
Her fork stopped midway to her mouth—and there was that delightful connection of the minds again.
In God’s name, why is he asking me this?
Well, maybe not in God’s name. That would require a bit more emotion than she seemed to possess. At least with him.
“Er, no,” she said. “Not usually.”
“Really? How intriguing. I recall mine about half of the time, I would estimate.”
She nodded.
If I nod, I won’t have to come up with something to say.
He plowed on. “My dream from last night was quite vivid. There was a rainstorm. Thunder and lightning. Very dramatic.”
She turned her neck, ever so slowly, and looked over her shoulder.
“Miss Watson?”
She turned back. “I thought I heard someone.”
I hoped I heard someone.
Really, this mind-reading talent was beginning to grow tedious.
“Right,” he said. Well, where was I?”
Miss Watson began to eat very quickly.
Gregory leaned forward. She wasn’t going to escape so easily. “Oh, yes, the rain,” he said. “It was pouring. Absolute deluge. And the ground began to melt beneath my feet. Dragged me down.”
He paused, purposefully, and then kept his eyes on her face until she was forced to say something.
After a few moments of exceedingly awkward silence, she finally moved her gaze from her food to his face. A small piece of egg trembled on the edge of her fork.
“The ground was melting,” he said. And almost laughed.
“How . . . unpleasant.”
“It was,” he said, with great animation. “I thought it would swallow me whole. Have you ever felt like that, Miss Watson?”
Silence. And then— “No. No, I can’t say that I have.”
He idly fingered his earlobe, and then said, quite offhandedly, “I didn’t much like it.”
He thought she might spit her tea.
“Well, really,” he continued. “Who would?”
And for the first time since he’d met her, he thought he saw the disinterested mask slip from her eyes as she said, with quite a bit of feeling, “I have no idea.”
She even shook her head. Three things at once! A complete sentence, a spot of emotion, and a shake of the head. By George, he might be getting through to her.
“What happened next, Mr. Bridgerton?”
Good God, she had asked him a question. He might tumble from his chair. “Actually,” he said, “I woke up.”