Heart of the Tiger

by Lynn Kerstan

  “Because you asked it of me.”

  “Then, well, what if I decide it should not happen right away? That we should wait until the scandal of the murder has died down. Perhaps after your sister-in-law has been settled, and Corinna has found a place for herself, and Catherine as well.” Her gaze slid up again, meeting his. “Or must we separate immediately?”

  “Not my call, Duchess. This is your game. You set the starting time, and the finish.”

  “So that if I go wrong, it’s all my fault.” She resumed her pacing. “I’ll think it over. A rash decision got me into this, but from what you have told me, only careful planning will get me out of it. Us out of it. Better not to rush into another hasty decision.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I don’t mean to inconvenience you,” she said, so earnestly that it tugged at his heart. “You mustn’t order your life according to my uncertainties. I understand that gentlemen are . . . that is, they have . . . needs. And given the terms we have agreed on for our own mutual . . . lack of . . . Well, naturally, I would expect you to take a mistress.”

  “Thank you.”

  She shot him a glare. “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “Grateful. Infidelity can be expensive, or so I’m told by straying husbands. Jewelry, carriages, expensive trinkets, and that’s just to pacify their wives.”

  “As if I’d settle for any such thing.” She stalked the short distance to the window. “Why will you never deal with me on level ground? You knew from the start that I was spoiling for a row, didn’t you? And you have been humoring me all along, haven’t you?”

  “You don’t expect me to answer that, do you?”

  She whirled around. “Don’t make fun of me. I’m serious about the divorce.”

  He knew it. The knife twisting in his chest told him so. “I find it hard to come to terms with, that is all. But the divorce will be yours, if I have the power to deliver it, whenever you choose.”

  “Settled for now, then.” She sounded confused. Unhappy. “Tell me what you learned today.”

  The knife settled in, not moving, not until she resolved to twist it again. He could live with it there, so long as he was permitted to live with her. But he was tired. Had been sleepless or nearly so for days and nights on end. There was a wingback chair with a footstool by the window, where the last traces of light were pale echoes in the sky outside. He went to the chair and slumped on it, putting his feet up, trying to order his thoughts.

  “What did I learn?” he said. “Not enough. I went first to see the footman who was attacked at Tallant House. He has a headache and a lump from the blow, but he didn’t see who struck it. Someone large, he thinks. When he heard a noise from behind him and started to turn, he got the impression of a tall figure. The maid did better. I called on her next, at her sister’s home. Perhaps I’d better tell you that after the other servants departed, she and the footman remained to enjoy a little privacy. He’d gone downstairs to fetch something to eat and was accosted on the way. The girl heard heavy footsteps, knew they couldn’t belong to her barefooted lover, and had the presence of mind to dive into an armoire. Through the keyhole she saw two men, but only from midchest down. Large, the both of them, and one had a slight limp.”

  “Not enough information to be useful, then,” said Miranda.

  “That depends. She thought their voices sounded familiar, and one of them had an accent that might have been Scots or Irish. They didn’t speak like gentlemen, was all she could say, and she was fairly sure she’d heard them speak before.”

  “A Welsh accent, perhaps?”

  He looked up at Miranda, who had seated herself on the window bench. “Clever girl. The same thugs Norah described, the ones she and Corinna managed to elude. It’s a good possibility. Jermyn would have turned them off, or worse, for letting the prisoners escape. They might have decided to take him down in return, or they might have found employment with one of his adversaries.”

  “If they were looking for something specific,” she said, “and if they didn’t find it, would they try next at Longview?”

  He had already come to these conclusions, but still it felt as if he were trailing several steps behind her. “Perhaps. I wouldn’t be too concerned, except that Catherine is there and I don’t know how reliable the servants are. Not very, I suspect. There’s a Runner in place nearby, and I hired two more this afternoon. They’ll be there tonight.”

  “You should have sent Hari as well.”

  “Except that he’s arranging transportation for Jermyn’s body, and a place to store it until I figure out where to dig the hole. And I’m thinking of sending him north to intercept David and the women, except I don’t know where they are. Or where I want them to go. Nowhere our large friends can get at them, that’s certain. I meant to tell you that the bundle Corinna left in the gardener’s shed has been retrieved. Some of Birindar’s kinsmen have begun a thorough cleaning of Tallant House, and any trace of her stay will soon be eradicated.”

  He leaned back his head and let his eyes close. “I’m not sure how to proceed from here,” he said after a time. “There are too many things to do all at once. Too many things, I’m afraid, that I haven’t taken into account.”

  “Well, you can’t do anything more at the moment,” she said in a brisk sort of whisper that made him want to smile, if he could have summoned the energy. And if she would not have taken it as smug and patronizing.

  She continued to speak long after he’d lost sense of her words. He heard only the sound of wind over water, of gentle rain on grass, of a bird taking flight.

  And then, though he could not be sure of it through the veil of sleep muting his senses, the soft sounds of her departure.

  Three hours later, when Mira returned to the library cubbyhole, her husband was exactly where she’d left him and in nearly the same position, except that his eyes were open. So much for her attempt to sneak up on a man who had spent much of his life, Hari once told her, with a price on his head.

  He still looked tired, too tired to stir without an immediate threat to confront, his hands limp on the armrests and strands of black hair drifting over his forehead. Black stubble on his chin. Blackness everywhere in the room, save for the one lamp she’d left to burn on the mantelpiece.

  The room had gone cold, but she was afire with energy and accomplishment. “I have a plan,” she said. “Plans, rather. Do you feel up to discussing them?”

  No perceptible reaction.

  Finally, “About the divorce?”

  “Were you not listening before? I’m speaking of the matters we need to deal with immediately.” She lofted the sheaf of papers she was carrying, the ones with all her notes and lists. “For example, I know where you should dig the hole.”

  His eyes widened. “What is the hour? And where have you been?”

  “It’s a little after seven,” she said, using a tinder stick to light candles and lamps. “I sent a messenger to Helena Pryce, who came here straightaway. There’s much to tell you, but we’re pressed for time, so I shall summarize the information of most immediate importance.”

  When there was sufficient light to read by, she sat on a chair across from him. “Your father, purportedly a suicide, could not be buried in hallowed ground, but the rector of a small church not far from Longview fenced a plot outside the cemetery wall and put him there. It’s large enough to accommodate your brother as well. I have the direction.”

  “Next. I wished to send Hari to find the duchess’s party and escort them south, but that proves to be unnecessary. Miss Pryce arranged for several bodyguards to accompany them from the start—the driver, an armed guard on the coach, and four outriders. The men aren’t ‘gentry trained,’ she told me, but they’ll not allow their charges to come to harm.”

  “A terrifyingly efficient young woman, Miss Pryce. Does she h
appen to know where they are at the moment?”

  “I’m afraid not. It had to seem they were in Scotland, or perhaps starting on their way back to London, when they got news of the duke’s murder. They went north in an unmarked coach and are returning in a fancy one, but it will be a few more days before they can reappear without raising suspicion. Miss Pryce will dispatch messages to the last two posthouses where they are to stay, instructing them to proceed directly to Longview.”

  At that, he sat up.

  “Because we shall be there,” she said. “Catherine will have heard of her father’s death, and she must be confused and frightened. I think we should leave for your estate first thing in the morning, taking your brother with us for burial. The others can join us there.”

  “You’ve decided this, have you?”

  “Miss Pryce is arranging for the ducal carriage to pick us up, because we must begin to conduct ourselves according to our rank, and for a cart and driver to transport the coffin. We didn’t know precisely where Mr. Singh is to be found, but if you are able to get word to him, perhaps he will oversee that part of the business.”

  She’d been rushing through this, giving him no time to object or interfere. In fact, most of what she had concluded would be parceled out later, in slow installments. As Miss Pryce had advised, “Gentlemen require careful handling. After a limited number of decisions taken without them, they feel compelled to assert their supremacy. Allow them the opportunity to do so in matters of insignificance, and reserve all your patience and tolerance for those things you wish to control.”

  Having spent most of her life acting hostess for her father and a horde of male guests and hangers-on, Mira already knew how to get men to do as she wished. But Michael Keynes was like no other man she had ever encountered, and while she was plotting how to manipulate him, he generally went ahead and made all the decisions for the both of them.

  This time she was turning the tables, using his own tactics against him, and she had no idea how he was going to react. So far he had been mostly speechless, but that was, she suspected, when he was most dangerous.

  She risked the first direct look at him since he’d sat up in his chair and appeared to be paying attention. His eyes were bright, his lips moving in an odd way. She thought . . . but no. He could not be trying to contain a laugh.

  “Shall I go on?” she said, suddenly unsure of herself.

  “By all means.”

  His voice had been a trifle unsteady. She was reading too much into that. She never knew what to think of him, or what he was thinking. For that matter, in his company she rarely knew what she was thinking.

  “I have told Beata,” she said, “that we shall make our only public appearance in London at her rout this evening, after which we shall withdraw to the country for the duration of the mourning period for your brother. It was not a capricious decision. Our last impression must be favorable, to counter the reputation you have inherited and the one we both gave ourselves in the last few days. Primarily, though, we must build a foundation for the duchess and her daughters, who will one day enter the society your brother withheld from them.”

  “My best chance of making a favorable appearance,” he said, “is not to appear at all.”

  “But you will, and you’ll be properly dressed, and you’ll not intimidate people or make sarcastic remarks.”

  “Very well. And I’ll send a message to Hari. What else?”

  “You don’t mean to object?” She had prepared herself for everything but this . . . this astonishing capitulation. “Not even to negotiate?”

  “I will if you like. Let me see. One hour playing duke at Beata’s party. No longer.”

  “Three hours.”

  “Two.” He rose, stretched, and grinned at her.

  “Is this a trick? You are going to let me direct what we do and when we do it?”

  “I’m concerned with results, not with how they are achieved. If a mongoose popped up from the bushes with an answer to a problem, I’d take its advice. So why not yours?”

  “A m-mongoose! Of all the . . . Oh.” Her cheeks went hot. “You are teasing me.”

  “A little retribution, on account of you dragging me to Beata’s exhibition.” He offered his arm. “Come along, Duchess. There’s a lot of work to be done if I’m to be made presentable.”

  Chapter 29

  As the crested carriage wound its way into Kent, Mira reflected on what Helena Pryce had said to her the previous afternoon.

  “You must decide if there is one thing you want more than all other things, and if it is worth the price you must pay to have it. You must accept that even if you pay that price, you may not get what you wanted. You must risk everything you have, and everything you are, to achieve your goal. If you have considered all this and elect to proceed, you must lay plans, prepare yourself in every way, and take the journey step-by-step.”

  “Have you done this?” Mira asked.

  “Several times.” Miss Pryce gave one of her near smiles. “I have achieved all the goals that were achievable, and each, in its way, has prepared me for the last great gamble. As to that, I have not decided whether I shall take it. Do not underestimate the difficulty, Your Grace. To risk everything for what you may never attain should not be lightly undertaken.”

  “What if you attain it, and you have not chosen wisely?”

  “Ah, yes. The greatest reversal of all, to pursue an improvident course because you have been selfdeceived. I believe the secret, if there is one, is to ensure that your goal includes the happiness of someone else. Then your own disappointment may be another’s fulfillment.”

  Self-deceived. That word had struck a chord deep inside Mira, beyond the shield of ice she kept between her mind and her feelings. Always, she had assumed she knew herself very well indeed, while everyone else mistook who and what she was. Now she had begun to question all her assumptions. She had lost trust in herself.

  Improbably, the disconnection had freed her. Well, to a degree. She was ready to imagine changing, but into what? When her mother died, she had become the image of her mother, managing the household, playing hostess for her father. When he fell ill, she became, in a way, his mother as well. Now, practically overnight, she had become a wife of convenience and a duchess. But who did she want to be?

  And then she thought of Michael Keynes in the Tower, a man she scarcely knew, taking her place there. She thought of him at Birindar’s house, offering marriage to protect her, accepting her terms and her unsatisfactory self, asking nothing in return.

  It’s not who I am, or what I want to be. It is what I can give that matters. I shall be what I do.

  That was what she had concluded at the end of a sleepless night, and she didn’t much care if it was the right conclusion. It would at least get her started, and perhaps a more profound truth would disclose itself along the way.

  Now, with the better part of a day to spend alone in the carriage, she was examining her bright new goal from every perspective, testing it against her own powers to achieve it.

  The prospect was bleak. Thinking about the goal only discouraged her. So she narrowed her vision to what Miss Pryce had recommended—the laying of plans, the preparations, the first steps. With a traveler’s writing desk on her lap and a sheet of blank paper waiting for the first note, she took up her pen and wrote Horse.

  Since her fifteenth birthday, she had not ridden. What had happened to her was not Caliban’s fault, of course. She still wondered, on occasion, if he’d found a home, been treated well, gave a whinny for the girl who rode him once and never saw him again. To ride again would be a first step, no great thing except it frightened her. But if she could not overcome this small fear, the later, harder steps would be altogether beyond her reach.

  Tallant—she had decided to call him that to help him get used to it—came alongside j
ust then and looked at her through the glass window. She returned a smile and a wave, and watched him canter ahead, the capes on his coat fluttering, the wind sifting through his hair.

  Dance, she wrote. Last night at Beata’s rout, he had astounded her, and probably himself, by conducting himself with surpassing . . . dukeness. She wasn’t exactly sure what that was, not having moved in aristocratic circles, but she knew it when she saw it. Last night she’d seen it in him, although even when impeccably groomed, he put one in mind of a jungle cat loosed in a drawing room.

  But he had manners when he chose to use them, and she was probably the only one who saw the effort it required to contain his impatience with fools and toadies. When he caught her eye with an I’m-on-my-best-behavior-for-you expression, it felt almost like a caress.

  Dance was meant literally, because she didn’t know how and neither did he. Persuading him to accept lessons from a dance master was going to be challenging.

  But Dance stood as well for all she had to learn about being a duchess, meaning everything there was. She decided on a full page for Dance, with room for plenty of subheadings. Perhaps two or three pages.

  The Family, she wrote. Her father, of course. She wanted to bring him to Seacrest, and the house must be made ready. She accepted the decline of his health and what lay ahead, but she had not prepared herself to face it.

  Norah Keynes and Catherine. Little she could do on their account except discover their wishes and see them carried out. The duke would begrudge them nothing, she was sure.

  Corinna. As always when she thought of Cory, guilt wrapped around her throat like fingers, squeezing until she could not breathe.

  She leaned her head against the plush leather squabs. So much to learn. So much to do. She felt entirely inadequate. And she hadn’t even got to the impossible duties, the ones she dared not put into words, let alone inscribe on paper.

  After a time, she rallied her spirits and set back to work, and when she’d run out of paper, she decided the duke would require several wives to accomplish all the tasks she’d outlined for herself. Just about then, the coach slowed and he drew even with the window. She lowered the pane.