by Liz Tyner
‘I would not want to sway you unduly,’ he said, voice persuasive. ‘But the children have had enough upheaval...what with the loss of their mother at such a young age. They need you.’
‘Thank you for your kind offer,’ she answered. ‘But I can’t accept. Not now. I know the people who took me are still about and I would feel better that the children not be involved in this in any way.’
Chalgrove moved aside from the doorway so she could precede him. He stood, hands clasped behind his back, silent, impassive, and unamused.
‘Promise me you will not stay away,’ Trevor said. ‘The children—’
‘I could never leave them,’ she said.
The truth of her words hit her deep. She couldn’t leave them. They’d given her love and laughter. Tears and smiles. They’d given her so much.
‘I’m going to tell them I’m leaving for now and I’ll remind them to mind their manners and explain I’ll be back soon.’
‘Is there anything I can do to assist in helping the criminals be apprehended?’ he asked Chalgrove. ‘It cannot happen too soon for me. My children need Miss Miranda.’
‘No. I have everything under control.’
‘Wonderful. I will send several men to assist yours.’
Chalgrove glared. ‘That isn’t necessary.’
‘I’m sure it isn’t. It is merely for my peace of mind. And, of course, to alert me immediately to the criminals being caught.’ Mr Trevor smiled.
Miranda stared. She’d not suspected a man who could be bested by a little boy would have the courage to stand up to a duke, keep a level stare and have a dare in his eyes.
He stepped over to her and, for the first time ever, took her hand and raised her glove to his lips. His eyes met hers after the kiss. ‘I anticipate this being over and our lives, with you in it, resuming.’
Then he weighed up Chalgrove. ‘And I realise you must get back to solving the crime immediately. Thank you for doing this for us.’
The Duke gave a long, direct stare of acknowledgment.
Miranda slipped from her employer and his eyes followed her.
The scratches on Chalgrove’s temple seemed to be jumping out at her, but she supposed it was merely because he’d moved between her and the older man and taken her elbow to lead her to the door.
She walked to the nursery with Chalgrove at her side and Mr Trevor following. Dolly and Willie were having biscuits. A maid was watching over them.
The farewell and instructions to the children were brief and she hugged and reassured them she would not be gone long. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the children’s father was smiling, while Chalgrove wasn’t.
Chalgrove had her bustled away almost before she could take her leave.
She kept one hand at her skirt so she could keep it high enough not to trip over the hem and dodged the broken egg on the rug.
* * *
‘Chalgrove—slow down.’
His hand still clasped her waist, pressing her along, and his movements didn’t lessen.
‘You wouldn’t be safe here, Miranda, and he had no right to kiss your hand. For all I know, he had something to do with your abduction. That could be why he is so determined to get you back under his roof. I will not have you endangered.’
‘Chalgrove. You’re jumping to conclusions. I have known Mr Trevor for five years. If he wanted me abducted, I imagine he could have done so at four years or three, or even six months. Waiting five years to throw off suspicion is a bit much.’
‘An innocent like you cannot understand the workings of a man’s mind, Miss—’ His lips parted in surprise and he corrected himself in a rush, or attempted to. ‘Miss...’
He swallowed. ‘Miranda,’ he spoke softly. ‘I would very much like it if you would accompany me back to my home.’
She got inside the carriage, confused by the way everything seemed to be rushing at her.
‘I saw the egg on the rug. I thought Willie would take it back to the cook,’ she said.
Chalgrove grunted. ‘I’m sure he meant to, until he skittered into me in the hallway.’ He lifted the toe of his boot and she saw a drip of yolk.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said, recalling the fresh smell of boot blacking she’d noticed earlier.
Chalgrove laughed at her expression and took her hand. ‘It’s not the worst thing I’ve had on my boots and children tend to be unpredictable, I’ve heard.’
‘They are such dear little ones,’ she said. ‘And when I saw them again and saw the love in their faces...’
She sniffled.
Oh, heavens.
She sniffled again.
He reached in his pocket for a handkerchief.
‘They’re such treas—’ She gulped. Composing herself. Taking the silk and kneading the cloth. ‘Such treasures. More than anything I could imagine.’
Chalgrove moved beside her, both facing forward. He touched her interlaced hands.
When she raised the handkerchief, dotting her eyes, something caught her attention from the window.
She was certain, as the carriage moved, she saw a bright scarf as an old woman flitted around the side of another vehicle.
She pushed back the edge of the curtain and deliberated on what she’d seen, also watching for a constable or Bow Street Runner, but saw no one who could be of official capacity.
‘What did you see?’ Chalgrove asked, then leaned across her to peer out of her window. She pulled herself back into the squabs as far as she could, but the upper half of his body crossed her. A lingering trace of his soap teased her nostrils and a more personal scent she recognised as the true scent of his hair and skin touched her.
She didn’t move, held in place as he surveyed the scene beyond the window. She tried thinking of anything but him.
The silence was different between them now.
His clothes brushed against her as he leaned back and repeated, ‘What did you see?’
‘Nothing.’ She shook her head.
Broad shoulders. Hair in finger-touchable wisps at the ears.
‘I saw a bright scarf and my memory of the old woman materialised so vividly I imagined it was her.’
‘You saw her.’ He didn’t ask, but stated.
‘I don’t know.’ She thought she had, but maybe the day’s talk had brought the image. ‘I couldn’t say for certain.’ She re-examined the scene out of the window, peering until she reassured herself she saw no one she recognised.
‘I think all the conversation of the hat and the abduction just put pictures in my mind. And the sudden movements on the street...’
He took her gloved hand and the warmth infused her skin. She’d not felt her employer’s touch through the doeskin.
‘I don’t know if it was her or not, now that I think of it. It’s too dark to really tell. My imagination, I suppose.’ It had been years since she’d seen more than her grandmother’s eyes glinting through the window or a wisp of grey hair. She wasn’t even sure she’d recognise her. The grandmother in her memory was spritely and had dark hair. The voice had remained the same, but the grey hair had surprised her.
‘The magistrate assures me she’ll be caught,’ the Duke spoke softly. ‘His best constables are working on this.’
He leaned to kiss her, but she held a hand to his chest, stopping him. ‘I must explain something to you.’
* * *
Chalgrove could hear the silence between them growing more deafening than the sound of the horses’ hooves and the rumbling of the carriage.
‘I never told you about my memories...’ She faltered. ‘The ones I have from before I became the Manwarings’ ward.’
He remained silent.
‘My earliest memory is of living with my grandmother and a gamekeeper. She once took a blow the gamekeeper aimed at me.’
‘He tried t
o hit you?’ The awareness jarred him.
She reached out, taking his hand.
He thought she tried to soften the blow he’d felt at her being abused.
‘I remember being scared. He could get angry fast, but he always made sure we had plenty to eat. That was pleasant. He would bring baskets of fruit and wild game, and sometimes he would be gone for several days and reappear with a box of provisions. It was like having feast days. That is my strongest memory. Of the food.’
He couldn’t recall much about the food of his childhood. It hadn’t changed much, he supposed.
‘The woman, my grandmother, played games when we were alone. She told me she could change me into a bear, then she would say she’d turn me back into a girl, but leave the heart of a bear inside me. She told me I would need it.’
She leaned half a fraction towards him, just enough to apply pressure to his arm with her shoulder, and their hands clasped more tightly. ‘I don’t remember a lot more than that. Just a few things here and there.’
He kept his face to the window. ‘When I was about thirteen, my father had an apoplexy. It became less important for me to learn Latin and Greek and more about collecting rent and having repairs made.’ He faced her. ‘I spent more time with Father’s steward than anyone else. Father insisted. “Prosperous tenants make prosperous landlords,” he would say, words slurred.’
He’d never told anyone that before. The world had changed after his father had the first apoplexy. At first, one side of his face had been stilled, but then he’d recovered quickly, for the most part. He’d begun drinking so much more then. Always having a glass in his hand or near it.
He’d started sleeping all day and his day began as the sun set. The people who saw him at events would see him for those moments, as a man having his first libation of the day. And while he didn’t become completely sotted, he liked to stay, in his words, softly sotted.
‘Do you think he drank to cover that? So no one might realise the change?’
He’d never considered it before, but now it seemed to make more sense. His father had tired so easily. Had slept so much of the time. And had insisted that Chalgrove bear down on his responsibilities.
Now, he reconsidered the past and his earliest childhood memories His father hadn’t imbibed much then and, while it was common for his father’s friends to drink more as they aged, he wondered if there was more to it than he’d first assumed. ‘I still miss him.’
She removed her gloves, then returned her hand to his.
‘A mother and father. Family. They’re so important.’ She tightened her clasp.
From the first glimmer of daylight in the cottage he’d realised she was a woman. And something about her fascinated him. At first, when she’d came into view, he’d been shocked that she’d not been brutish. After all, she’d put some decent scratches on his face and seemed like all kick and claw when she’d attacked him.
Then he’d discovered her rather more worried than anything else. Her plain dress had appeared even more so in the dark room and the debacle had taken all the life from her eyes. Even in his anger, he’d felt a deep compassion for her.
He’d had to keep pacing the room to keep from taking her in his arms.
Now, the houses of his neighbours came into view and he didn’t want the companionship of sitting quietly with her, their fingers interlocked, to end.
When the carriage stopped and he helped her alight, a thousand new sensations plunged into him.
At that moment he imagined them married. The sensation of helping her, as his wife, from the carriage and walking into their home enveloped him.
He wrapped her arm around his and they walked into his house.
Just inside the door, he stopped and gazed at her.
She appraised him, and spoke. ‘You finally understand...how much Dolly and Willie mean to me.’
He looked into her eyes. ‘Now I do.’
Chapter Twenty
Once inside the house, the pleasantness inside him evaporated.
The butler held a hat... Chalgrove’s stolen hat. ‘An old woman was walking by on the street. One of the men noticed she’d dropped something, and she’d scuttled away without it. I recognised it. Yours.’
Chalgrove took it. ‘Thank you. Has someone alerted the constables?’ he asked the butler.
‘Yes. We did.’
‘Let me know if anything else happens,’ he told the servant.
He glanced at her. ‘Miss Manwaring, could you please accompany me to the library?’
He held the felt hat, but it was meaningless. Just apparel. Much like his house without Miranda in it. Shelter.
Nothing had ever weakened any part of him, but Miranda did. The knowledge that she could go to that insipid beanpole and be mother to the children she loved—that hit him hard. No one should ever take a mother’s children from her. And Miranda, by heart, was those children’s mother.
His words rolled so smoothly, and without inflection, yet he saw Miranda brace herself when he finished speaking, ‘My hat. The only one like it in all London. Made especially for me.’
She raised her eyebrows, silently questioning him, unsure of why a hat was of importance.
‘I had the hat on when I was taken. The old woman kept it.’
He wanted to reassure her and himself. He reached out. His fingers closed over the soft skin below the hem of her sleeve. ‘With the criminals still nearby, we stand a much better chance of catching them quickly. They’ll be dealt with. The matter will end. For ever. You’ll be safe again.’
He expected relief. Happiness. Instead she breathed slowly. Pensive.
She touched a hand to the back of her neck. ‘She’ll take everything from me. Everything. She gave it all to me once and now she wants to destroy me.’
‘She gave it to you once?’ he asked.
‘The woman who lived with the gamekeeper was my grandmother.’ Miranda paused. ‘Yes. She dropped me beside the road. Left me. Knew the woman wanted a child and would likely happen by and take me home. I never heard from my grandmother again, until I received a message that she was dying. Then someone shoved me in the room.’
‘I will not rest until she is stopped,’ he said, words forced out, but not loud. ‘She will be tried and hanged.’
‘You can’t.’ The words wrenched from her. ‘She’s my grandmother. The only blood relative I have ever known.’
‘That makes it all the more wrong of her.’
‘I... I don’t want her to be hanged.’
‘But there is no other option. She knew what she was doing. Knows what she is doing. I would have her hanged a second time if I could. Once for taking you and once for leaving you.’
‘Please. I cannot contemplate her...meeting such an end.’ Her voice trembled.
‘If this is what she does to her granddaughter, there is no other option.’
She clasped both his hands in hers and the touch moved through him faster than a flash of lightning could streak through the sky. ‘This is why I could not tell you. I knew...’
He could never look into those eyes and wish to disappoint her. She’d been through so much, but he could not promise to let the old woman run free.
‘She cannot be left to do as she is doing. It would not be fulfilling the trust I place in myself to make things better for others. She could do this again, and very likely will if she is mad. Or if she is evil, she will do it for the joy of it. Perhaps she wishes to end her life and she is using me to do it.’
He put his arms around her, holding her. The conversation between the two women. The thrown shoes. It all made sense to him now.
‘Will you let me know that you won’t hurt her?’ she asked.
He paused, pulling away. ‘I will let the court decide.’
She touched the back of his hand, ran her fingers over his knuckles.
Clasped her fingers around his. ‘Please remember that she is daft.’
‘I will.’
The strength left his body, yet he felt he could have stretched his arm and clasped the sun without being burned.
This woman, whose fortitude held her up from the inside, didn’t waver in her support of a vagabond who’d left her to fend for herself at the side of a road.
Miranda, who concerned herself that two little children who had servants at their elbows might suffer if she were not there for them, and it was true. He knew they would. To not have her would be difficult.
She put her arms around him and he folded himself around her, wanting to be infused with all the goodness of her spirit.
The kiss was light, lingering softly.
He stopped, his lips only a little from hers.
He nibbled softly at her bottom lip, then pressed his mouth gently against hers, and she tasted him—the hint of spiced cider melted on her tongue, but the overpowering essence of maleness faded the world away.
The next kiss slowed time and sound, and everything else.
When he pulled away, she held him to keep her balance.
‘We have to go somewhere private. I can’t risk you being talked about by the staff.’
She knew she could be making an irrevocable step in her life, but she couldn’t release his hands, or take her eyes from his.
‘Where else...?’ she whispered. ‘Where can we be alone?’ She wasn’t sure if the words were loud enough to be heard.
He paused. Stepped back. ‘You should go back to your room.’
‘My room...’ The room with the roses. With the hint of springtime and summer and beginnings. ‘I want you to go with me. I want to make love with you.’
He smiled, lips near her ears, before pulling her into a hug. ‘Among the flowers?’ His forehead touched hers.
‘I can’t think of anywhere else I’d prefer to be. For my first time.’
He continued holding her. ‘It’s too risky for you. Too much of a chance of a child. Of regrets. Of your changing your mind tomorrow, and you’ll never be able to wish it away.’
