Free For the Earl's Pleasure by Anne Mallory

return to her had plagued him the entire time.
    He remembered Templing falling behind him. Remembered pain as he turned to help. Were their bodies lying in a gutter somewhere blissfully unaware? Who had attacked them? Footpads? Or something worse?
    And why couldn’t he wake?
    He soundlessly tapped harder.
    A soft sigh fluttered the brim of Abigail’s lace nightcap and one naked finger curled around the equally girlish coverlet—not a style that he would have associated with her. Another queer invention that he had dreamed up obviously.
    There was something rather insulated about the way her four-poster drapes drew together in a protective embrace. The rest of her furniture was rather cold and stark, but the bed presented a cocooned safe haven.
    He had never thought her to have girlish tendencies. She usually eschewed pinks and other pastels unless they were at the height of fashion—something even Abigail Smart could not deny.
    But here in her cocoon, a strangely softer side was on display. Not the girl who climbed trees or raced the boys. Nor the woman who shredded foes with her sharp tongue. In repose she was all feminine and demure. He narrowed his eyes, recalling her in her state of undress last night—or at least the last night in his dream—smooth, silky skin, teasing breasts pressed against her shift, narrow waist, and long, slim legs. He found this new side fascinating. Good thing it was all in his head. As it was, long ago he had made a pact with himself to cease thinking of her in such terms.
    The gray beams of early morning illuminated the cracks between the fabric panels. He concentrated on making his finger tap an audible sound against the four-poster pole. Nothing.
    She had said he needed to accept this reality as his own. He could do that. It was his reality for now . Not permanently. A grim thought. And of everything his mind could conjure, having Abigail Smart as his dream guide seemed insanely normal. His brain would completely trick him like that.
    Tap. Nothing. This was his reality . He concentrated. Tap. A small ping of sound emerged and he smiled. Tap, tap, tap.
    “I didn’t think it was possible for you to make an even more annoying spirit.” She groaned and turned over, her cap going askew in a rather endearing manner, her hair tousled. There had always been something rather fey and fetching about her despite the thorns. The kind of a damsel that men, who were far more chivalrous than he, loved to save.
    He tapped harder.
    She groaned again and buried her head into her pillow. “Can’t you haunt someone else?”
    “No. You are by far at the top of my list.”
    “You are such a cur.”
    “Did you know you curl your lip in a brainless way when you blow the hair from your face?” He took her silence as assent instead of the sleep-addled fog that was more likely. “Besides, I need your help. I want out of this dream and you seem to be able to trick my mind into doing what you want.”
    The idea of requiring her assistance irritated him and he gave the poster pole a bang with his fist instead. The resounding thwack was darkly pleasing.
    She startled, her cap falling to the side where it drooped disconsolately, then struggled upright with one hand behind her, and clutched the sheet to her chin. “You are still here.”
    He gave her a patronizing look. “Obviously.”
    “And you remember me.”
    “Hard to forget.” He frowned.
    She chewed her lip. “Surprising.”
    “You are surprised that I remember you?” He raised a brow. “While I find you irritating, that is not a characteristic that would lead me to forget you.”
    “I thought it some mad dream.” She played with the lace at the edge of the clutched coverlet, obviously paying his words no mind. He frowned again.
    “It is. And you fell right to sleep without a second thought for my well-being. I am sure that requires no interpretation.”
    But that wasn’t true. He knew she had stayed awake long after crawling under the