In My Wildest Dreams by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online Page A

last!”
    Every head turned toward Milford. The bench beneath his arse grew harder, the table before him jiggled, as close by his elbow, Arwydd mashed a kettle full of potatoes, and Milford’s head inched further toward his plate. Futilely, he wished he was in his greenhouse. Better to be coaxing the pinks to grow than to face this battery of interference and expectation. No one said anything for so long he had begun to hope they had given up on him.
    Then Herne spoke. “Aren’t ye proud, Milford?”
    Lifting his gaze, Milford realized that they watched him, bright-eyed with curiosity. No matter that he’d already made his thoughts clear to Celeste. No matter that his daughter and her goings-on were none of their concern. The servants had watched her grow up, most of them. A good number of them remembered his wife with affection. So, since they figured they had the right, they would badger him until he made a statement.
    So he did. “Celeste should keep in her proper place,” he growled.
    â€œBut she’s beautiful,” Herne protested. “The lords are whisperin’ an’ guessin’ as t’ who she might be. I tell ye, she fits right in!”
    Milford ignored the silly fool and went back to eating his plate of spinach dressed with vinegar and bacon.
    â€œI vow, Milford, wearing that dour face ye’re like sheep droppings floating in the eggnog.” It was Esther who spoke. Of course it was Esther.
    Driven to speech, he answered, “Stubborn.”
    â€œI wonder where she got that from.”
    â€œDon’t know.”
    Alva stopped turning the coneys on the spit to ask, “Wouldn’t ye like fer yer daughter to marry Mr. Ellery?”
    â€œMen like Mr. Ellery don’t marry the gardener’s daughter,” he answered.
    â€œCeleste is as beautiful as any of those other, aristocratic girls,” Esther said, “and more sweetly mannered and smarter, too.”
    He snapped, “I know my daughter’s value.”
    â€œYe’ve got a damned funny way of showing it.”
    Milford’s temper seldom ignited. So seldom, in fact, he could count the times on his fingers and his toes. But something about this woman and her smug disdain and her good puddings brought a slow rise of color to his cheeks. Lifting his gaze, he stared at her levelly. “I guess that’s because, unlike everyone else here, I live in a world where the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and the rich marry the rich and the only time a gentleman looks on the gardener’s daughter is to give to her a bellyache that takes nine months to cure.”
    Esther’s brown eyes flashed with yellow bits of flame. “And it’s people like you who shatter dreams that should come true.”
    â€œMaybe so. Maybe so.” Sopping the last of his bread in the drippings, he wiped his face with his napkin and stood up. “But I don’t think it’s going to be me who shatters Celeste’s dreams.”
    * * *
    Moonlight shimmered through the open windows of the ballroom, gleaming on the waxed hardwood floors in long, faint trails, setting the carved gold leaf aglow, creating the fairyland Celeste recognized from her girlhood. On summer nights when the family was away, she had come here to pretend. Pretend she was waiting for Ellery, pretend he had arrived, pretend to dance in his arms, pretend to kiss his generous lips until she was breathless and swept by desire.
    But tonight, pretend would yield to reality. Ellery would escape that trap Mr. Throckmorton had sprung. He would come and make all her dreams come true. He would, because otherwise Mr. Throckmorton would have won, and Ellery was the dashing one, the handsome one, the masterful one.
    Well, perhaps not masterful, but he’d never had the chance to be. Not with Mr. Throckmorton always there being tall and dark and proper. But with the right encouragement, her encouragement,