Chapter Text
It may or may not happen the day after the hunt.
Kate’s dreams are usually not very exciting, and most mornings she can’t remember what she dreamed during the night.
This time, however - as she opens her eyes in the middle of the night, panting heavily – something is different.
She’s disoriented in a way that only comes from waking in the middle of a very visceral, very vivid dream—still half able to feel hands on her skin as she blinks rapidly in an attempt to remember where she is.
She lets out a soft “oh” as memories of her dream begin to flood her mind. Memories of feverish kisses and hands, touching her body in the most sinful way - hands that belonged to none other than … Lord Bridgerton.
Oh God, please no…
She tries to shake off the memory of it, but the harder she tries, the more clearly she remembers how his hands had explored her body, how his fingers had slipped between her thighs to stroke her in that secret place that no one had ever touched before but herself.
Her skin prickles. Her nipples harden, pining for attention underneath her nightgown. She’s sweating, and thinking of soft lips. In her dream, Lord Birdgerton had kissed her eagerly, passionately, and she had opened her mouth for him, groaning when his tongue had danced inside. It had been deep and carnal, messy and rough. His voice had been hypnotic in her dream; a low, deep purr, every word spoken in just the right way to make her writhe.
She fights the urge to slide her hand between her legs and touch herself at the memory of it.
Her head is spinning, heart thudding like a drum, and she squeezes her thighs together when she realizes just how ridiculously wet she is.
****
Accompanied by Mama and Edwina, she goes downstairs a few hours later, praying she can avoid Lord Bridgerton for at least a few hours. Long enough to collect her thoughts and calm herself down.
She’s never had such a dream before. Although her experience with men had so far been limited to a few chaste kisses on the back of her hand, she had a reasonably good idea of what physical intimacy look like between a man and a woman - her lack of knowledge having been filled by the tale of a married friend in India.
She tries to convince herself that the dream means nothing and that she will forget it within a very short time - despite the throbbing she can feel between her legs that still hasn’t subsided since last night.
But then, in the early afternoon, she sees him standing in the garden next to his brothers, one hand reaching to fasten the button at his coat—a deft, practiced motion that makes the veins in his hand flex—and she can’t help the way her eyes linger there, remembering the dream sequences in which it had been precisely those hands that had touched her in the most intimate way.
She gulps and hastily averts her gaze, mind laden with unwanted thoughts, pressing her sticky thighs together and praying to God no one could see the redness budding on her cheeks, hear the stuttering of her foolish heart.
She tries to distract herself and follow the conversations around her.
It doesn’t get any better.
If anything, her… predicament just gets worse and worse as the day goes on.
Every time he comes near her or their paths threaten to cross, she finds a way to avoid a direct confrontation, but when she feels a burning thirst after an hour and pours herself a lemonade, she hears his voice behind her and almost spills the entire contents of her glass.
“Miss Sharma, please forgive me, I did not mean to startle you,” he says apologetically.
She turns around slowly, trying to calm the trembling of her hands. “Never mind, my lord” she murmurs. “My thoughts were elsewhere.”
She hates that she notices for the umpteenth time how handsome he is. The way his coat fits him. The way everything fits him. For a moment, she drinks in the chiseled line of his jaw and the what-is-sure-to-be-inherent softness of his hair and quickly looks away. She swallows thickly, trying to paste on a more casual expression than dumbstruck awe.
“Are you quite alright, Miss Sharma? You seem a little tired.” He cocks his head curiously, but she can’t bring herself to look at him as the memories of her dream crash over her with the force of a wave. Her breath catches in her throat, her mind wandering into territory she’s been trying to keep it out of all day. Just being so close to him is making her skin prickle.
“Thank you my lord, I am well,” she tells the ground while she feels her cheeks flush red.
“You are not well,” he protests, coming to stand just a tad too close for comfort. “What is wrong?”
*****
Anthony watches, fascinated, as her skin reddens. And suddenly, she seems incapable of looking him in the eye.
“I assure you that everything is fine,” she asserts, as she tries to step past him and he moves in her way. “I am a little under the weather, I suppose. Fever. Now let me-” He recognizes that her voice is far more rasped than it was a moment ago. She keeps her gaze on the ground, the red in her cheeks becoming more pronounced.
“I am going to ask you again,” he undertones. “What is wrong?”
“I have not slept well, that is all. I had… um… a bad dream,” she finally says, still avoiding meeting his eyes. At the same moment as the words leave her mouth, a strange expression flits across her face and she flinches, as if she regrets having said anything at all.
“A dream?” he repeats. “What kind of dream?”
She looks agonised as she presses her lips together and starts looking around, like a caged animal trying to escape the trap.
“It was... nothing. Excuse me my lord, I need to go.”
For a moment he forgets his good manners and stares after her with his mouth open.
Admittedly, he had not known Kate Sharma for long, but at least long enough to know that her behaviour was completely out of character. The Miss Sharma he knows doesn’t blush and avoids meeting gazes; she is all bright eyes and biting tongue, always ready for spirited conversation and quick-witted arguments.
And suddenly, out of nowhere, a thought knocks at the back of his mind, thrumming faintly until it bursts into a realisation.
She had mentioned a dream ... rather, it obviously slipped out - which could only mean that this dream had something to do with him.
His mouth goes a little dry as his train of thought goes somewhere it definitely shouldn’t head to – and he vows to himself that he will make it his new goal in life to find out what her dream was about.