Quick, Amanda by Deception

to go over it all again tonight. She had Hugh to deal
    with first.
    She went down the hall to Hugh's bedchamber. The boy's muffled sobs were audible through the door.
    Olympia opened the door softly and walked into the shadowed room. In the pale moonlight that came
    through the window she could see the pathetic, huddled shape beneath the quilt.
    "Hugh? Hugh, it's Aunt Olympia." She went over to the bed and sat down beside the little quivering
    mound. She pulled back the covers and put her hand on Hugh's shaking shoulders. "It's all right, my dear.
    Everything is all right. I'm here."
    "Aunt Olympia." Hugh sat up slowly and stared at her with wide, terrified eyes. Then he threw himself
    against her, sobbing. "I had the dream again."
    "I know, dear. But that's all it was, just a dream." Olympia hugged him close and rocked him gently.
    "You're safe here with me. No one's going to send you away. This is your home now."
    There was a soft scratching sound in the darkness. Light flared as Jared lit a candle. Hugh raised his
    head quickly from Olympia's shoulder.
    "Mr. Chillhurst." Hugh blinked and ducked his head, clearly embarrassed to be caught with the evidence
    of tears on his face. "I didn't know you were still here."
    "I was downstairs in the library when you had your dream," Jared said calmly. "Feeling better now?"
    "Yes, sir." Hugh wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. "Ethan says I'm nothing but a bloody
    watering pot."
    "Is that right?" Jared's brow rose. "I seem to recall Ethan watering a few daisies himself yesterday when
    he fell out of that tree."
    Hugh brightened. "Yes, he did, didn't he?"
    Olympia looked at Jared. "No one told me that Ethan fell out of a tree."
    "There was no great harm done," Jared said easily. "A scraped knee was the extent of the damage."
    "Mr. Chillhurst said there was no need to tell you about it," Hugh explained. "He said females are easily
    overset by the sight of blood."
    "Did he, indeed?" Olympia shot Jared a reproving look. "Well, that only goes to show how much Mr.
    Chillhurst knows about females."
    Jared's smile was dangerously amused. "Are you implying that my knowledge of the female of the
    species is deficient in some ways, Miss Wingfield?"
    "That is precisely my implication, Mr. Chillhurst."
    "Then perhaps I should endeavor to study the subject more closely. I am, after all, committed to the
    loftiest ideals of education and instruction. I will need a serviceable specimen for my studies, of course.
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    Would you care to volunteer?"
    Olympia was thrown into a strange confusion. She knew he was teasing her but she did not know what
    the teasing signified. Did he think less of her now that she had lain half-naked in his arms, she wondered.
    Aunt Sophy and Aunt Ida had warned her that many men secretly disapproved of free-thinking women
    of the world even though those same men were quite content to become intimate with such females.
    For a heart-stopping moment Olympia wondered if she had sadly misjudged Jared. Perhaps he was not
    the man she had believed him to be. Perhaps he was no different than Reginald Draycott or any of the
    other men of Upper Tudway. She felt herself turn hot and then cold and was grateful that only one candle
    illuminated the bedchamber.
    "Are you all right, Aunt Olympia?" Hugh asked with a frown of concern.
    Flustered, Olympia turned her attention back to him. "Of course. What about you?"
    "Yes." He wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. "I'm sorry I alarmed you."
    "Everyone has nightmares now and again, Hugh," Jared said.
    Hugh blinked. "Even you?"
    "Even me."
    "What kind of nightmares do you have?" Hugh demanded with keen interest.
    Jared watched Olympia's averted profile. "I have one particular dream that has come back often during
    my life. In it I am on an uncharted island. I can see the distant sails of a ship in the harbor."
    "What happens to you in the dream?" Hugh asked,