The Earl Returns

by Marek, Lillian

  Curry held his mug so tightly his knuckles were white. “If he’s the one, we’ll find him,” he said. The others nodded grimly.

  Hodgson looked at them and then let his eyes wander around the room. It wouldn’t take much to set them off, he thought. Not much at all.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ashleigh’s coach was at the door shortly after nine. Merton and Miranda climbed aboard a few moments later, once more in ill-fitting borrowed garments covered with cloaks, rather as if they were on their way to a masked ball. Merton fit well enough into a pair of Ashleigh’s trousers but the waistcoat was snug and the coat barely made it across his shoulders. In the interests of comfort for the journey he had unbuttoned the waistcoat and left the coat on the seat. He promised to be dressed fully and respectably when it came time to present himself to the Rokebys.

  Miranda had refused to take any of the new dresses that Lady Talmadge had prepared for the day a few months hence when she could again wear colors. Instead, she borrowed a gray traveling dress that Lady Talmadge hoped to never wear again. They parted with hugs and Lady Talmadge promised to accompany her brother to London in a few days.

  She leaned back in a corner of the coach across from Merton. She had declined the services of a maid as chaperone on the journey—at this point such attention to appearances seemed a trifle silly. She needed to talk to Merton, and she did not wish an audience, no matter how discreet Ashleigh believed his servants to be. The early morning fog had not burned off yet, and she was not certain whether she felt chilled by the day or by her own nervousness. She had not slept well, and that added to her unease. It was not often that she felt unsure of herself, but she did now.

  Merton lounged in his corner of the coach like a giant cat with one leg bent and the other stretched out diagonally to almost, but not quite, touch her foot. His arms were folded and his hair fell into slightly disheveled golden curls. He was smiling at her with a grin that promised all sorts of delightful wickedness. She wanted to throw herself across the coach and into his arms, to kiss that wicked grin, to drown in the brilliant blue of his eyes. But what she had to do was talk to him. She had to know the truth—she had to persuade him to tell her the truth. She would never be able to turn herself into a polished lady who could glide smoothly through the social waters of the ton the way Lady Talmadge apparently could. She would never be able to think the choice of flowers for the table a matter of earthshaking importance. She would never be able to pretend to be uninterested in the issues of the day, to pretend she had no opinions.

  It wasn’t simply that she would not be able to transform herself that way. She had no desire to do so. Not now and not ever.

  Did this mean that marriage to Tom would be impossible?

  So Miranda settled herself sedately into her corner. Mrs. Parkins’ blue dress was folded into a neat parcel beside her—she intended to have a modiste make up several dresses to fit that generous woman—and she folded her hands in their gray gloves into a second neat parcel in her lap. The rim of the borrowed gray bonnet hid her face. Gray was not a becoming color on her, she knew. It made her look drab and washed out. She felt drab and washed out. She was not certain her spirits could get much lower.

  The coach set off with a bounce that jolted her out of her reverie, so she steeled herself and looked up. Merton was no longer smiling. He was looking concerned.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “You seem distressed. I should not have told you about the sabotage to the boat, should I? I should have insisted it was an accident.” He reached across and snatched up her hands to kiss. Then he held them to his cheek and looked at her. “You need not be afraid. I will keep you safe, I swear it. I will not let anything or anyone harm you.”

  “Oh, Tom,” she said. She could not keep a smile from her face when she looked at him. She uncurled one hand to caress his cheek, but then she pushed herself back. “It’s not that at all. That someone is trying to kill you—that makes me angry, not frightened.”

  “Then what is it? Tell me what it is.”

  She took a deep breath and looked away from him. “It was Lady Talmadge.”

  “Alice?” She could hear the frown in his voice. “But I thought she was perfectly friendly, perfectly gracious.”

  “Yes.” Miranda turned back and nodded. “She was all things kind and welcoming. She was eager to be friendly. Yet even so, she was still shocked by me. At dinner, it seemed that every time I spoke, she looked at me with a sort of horror. It made me think that Aunt Fanny and Lady Merton were right when they said I was not suitable to be a countess. I could dismiss what they said, but Lady Talmadge, who I believe wanted to like me, kept being taken aback. She kept looking at me as if I were some bizarre, alien creature.”

  “What nonsense is this?”

  “It is not nonsense. If this is how your friends see me, how will it be if I am presented to society as your countess? I have never learned to hold my tongue, and I have never thought that I should.”

  “I should hope not! Whatever makes you think I would want you to?”

  “You may not, but what if others expect me to? What if I can never fit into your world?”

  Merton looked at her with fond exasperation. “You will not fit? You, who have dined at Carlton House and with the Castlereaghs? Tell me, did the regent have you thrown in the dungeon? Did Castlereagh order you sent from the table?”

  “Of course not. But those were political dinners. We were there with a purpose. If I spoke in support of my father, it was accepted, or at least tolerated, simply because I was supporting my father. But with the women at your house party—I have nothing to say to them, and they have nothing to say to me.”

  Merton seemed to be having difficulty taking this seriously. “I cannot say that I saw you having any difficulty with the ladies at my house.”

  “Yes,” she said dryly. “Your Aunt Arabella was most welcoming. As was your cousin’s wife. To say nothing of your grandmother. As far as the other young ladies and their mothers, I simply did not exist. It was the same when we attended balls or parties in London. I was simply a visitor, treated kindly because I was temporary. It did not matter if I was a trifle odd because I would soon go away.”

  He grinned. “I thought you held your own quite nicely against Pamela and Aunt Arabella.”

  “But that is precisely the point. Yes, I can ‘hold my own’, as you put it, but do you want a wife who is constantly holding her own, at sword’s point with the members of society, of the society to which you belong, in which you must live your life?”

  The amusement began to fade from Merton’s face. “You cannot be serious. You cannot think my grandmother has the right of it, that I should marry someone like your cousin, Lydia.”

  Miranda flushed. “It does not have to be Lydia, but at least she belongs in your world. I do not.”

  Merton stared at her for a moment, then smiled again. “Do you mean to tell me that all the ladies of Boston engage in high-minded conversations about politics and philosophy? That there are no giggling girls on the other side of the Atlantic who think of nothing but beaus and bonnets? For that matter, I refuse to believe that you give no thought to furbelows yourself. Your dresses are too pretty.”

  Miranda could feel herself blushing. “Of course I like fashionable dresses and pretty things, and I know more than enough women in Boston who think of nothing else. But when my mother and her friends wish to talk of serious matters, their talk does no harm to their husbands. It is not behavior that embarrasses them. It appears to be different here. I collect that such talk would, indeed, harm you among your peers. The ladies of the ton are expected to give and attend parties and go shopping. Were I to do or say anything else, it could reflect badly on you.”

  He shook his head. “Oh, my dearest darling, my silly goose, you have it all wrong. All wrong. You are talking about my grandmother’s world, not mine. I love her dearly, but—ah, I do not know how to put this without sounding unkind. She loves the social life
, balls and parties, and she knows nothing of any world beyond the confines of Mayfair. It is a tiny fraction of the world, but she cannot conceive that any other world exists. When she was young, she was a great beauty and a celebrated hostess, and now she cannot imagine that anyone would not desire such a life. My grandfather indulged her and protected her so that she has never needed to know anything of the larger world. But that was not his world, and it is not my world.”

  He moved over beside her and pulled her into his lap. She could not help it—she nestled against him and gloried in the comfort of being held in his arms.

  “I cannot believe you truly doubt your ability to cope with English society,” he said softly. “That can’t be what’s worrying you. Tell me, what is it?”

  She pressed her face against him. She was probably crushing his cravat, but she doubted he would mind. It never remained pristine very long. She gave a sigh. “I am sounding like an idiot, am I not?”

  He smiled into her hair. “Yes, you are.”

  She punched his chest, just hard enough to prod a chuckle. “Very well, I am panicking, but it is not so foolish as all that. What if they are right, after all? I love you, and if I were to find that I am actually doing you harm—I do not think I could bear it.”

  “Harm me! Are you mad?” He turned her head so he could look into her face. “Do you not understand that what would hurt me, what would destroy me, is losing you? To have to go on without you? No. Anything but that.” He bent his forehead to hers and gave a small laugh. “Do you not know how much I need you? You are the sunshine in my world.”

  Miranda found that she could not speak. She felt as if her heart would burst. She reached up and gently caressed his cheek. He snatched her hand in his and pulled off her glove so he could press a kiss into her palm. A moment later, he was kissing her feverishly and murmuring her name. Her bonnet was knocked aside and he pressed kisses on her hair, her brow, her cheek, and finally seized her mouth in a devouring kiss. She felt as if her very bones were melting and clutched his coat as if that could keep her from tumbling through the universe.

  When the kiss came to an end, he kept her head pressed against his shoulder. “My love, my dearest, dearest love,” he said, “do not ever think of leaving me.”

  She curled into the circle of his arms. This was where she belonged. “I think that to leave you might require more courage than I possess,” she said softly, and could feel his smile against her temple.

  Then his hands began to move. Her cloak fell to the floor and, moments later, the fastenings of her dress came apart. He was kissing her neck, little butterfly kisses that made her shiver. His kisses moved lower, following his hand, which was lowering her dress. Her hands slipped under his shirt.

  Where this might end neither of them knew or cared until the coach bumped through a deep rut in the road, sending them both into the air. His forehead smashed into her mouth, and she gave a cry of pain. They both pulled back, suddenly sobered, and he looked at her in horror. “Your lip—you’re bleeding. What have I done?”

  She put her hand to her lip and there was, indeed, a drop of blood. She licked it away. “It is nothing. I think a tooth cut it a little, that is all.” He looked so stricken that she had to smile. “Truly, it is nothing. It did not even leave any spots of blood on my clothes.” She looked down at that and realized that although her clothes may have been spared bloodstains, they were in a severe state of disarray.

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, dear. Look at me. What if we had had an accident with me looking like this? What if someone passing by had chanced to look in the windows?” She suddenly sat up, looking horrified. “What if we had stopped to change horses? Oh, and how soon will we be at the inn? Oh, dear!” She pushed away from him and began hastily straightening her clothes.

  Merton laughed and said, “We have a good while yet before we stop.” But he leaned over to help her with her laces. He picked up her bonnet and sat it on her head. Her hair was once again in complete disarray, so she took care to tuck it under the bonnet before she adjusted the angle and tied the bow.

  “Now you look completely respectable,” he said. She was looking flushed and embarrassed, but he was smiling smugly.

  *

  They stopped at a coaching inn where Ashleigh kept horses for his frequent hurried trips between Kelswick and London. The innkeeper recognized the duke’s coach instantly, so the passengers were treated with obsequious courtesy. Miranda was whisked off to a private room where she was able to repair her hair and give herself a washing without the assistance of a maid. She would have found it excessively embarrassing to produce an explanation for the state of her hair or, she realized when she took off the cloak, the state of her bodice. By the time she came down, the horses had been changed and the coachman and groom were ready to resume the journey.

  A smiling Merton was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs and led her out, one hand protectively at the small of her back. When he lifted her into the coach, without bothering with the steps, he held her a bit longer than necessary, still smiling, before he vaulted into the coach and settled himself beside her. As soon as they were out of the inn yard and back on the road, he put his arm around her and pulled her close. She would have liked nothing better than to remain there, dozing and dreaming with her head on his shoulder. But there was still something that needed to be said, something she had to tell him.

  She pushed herself away and turned to look at him.

  He gave her a look of smiling reproach. “Surely you do not still have doubts about our mutual suitability?”

  She shook her head. “There is a different problem that we have to face. My parents.”

  “I refuse to believe that could be a problem. Your mother was born and raised here. Good heavens, they have been dining with the regent. You can hardly doubt their ability to move in the highest circles of English society.”

  “Of course not,” she said tartly. “My father is superior to any of the noble gentlemen I met in London. That is not the problem. Quite the reverse. The difficulty is that they will not be pleased when I tell them about us. My father is likely to be, well, to be rather angry.”

  “When you tell them…? Great God in Heaven, you aren’t going to tell them that we…” His face turned quite white.

  She looked at him in amazement. “Of course, I shall tell them. You can’t have expected to keep it from them.”

  “Your father will kill me.” He paused for a moment. “And rightly so. My God.”

  “Kill you? Why should he wish to kill you?” She paused in confusion, then suddenly realized that he was thinking about their night in the barn and burst out laughing. “No, no, I will not tell them that! I could never—” She turned bright red yet once more. “Goodness, you are forever putting me to a blush. I meant only that they will not be happy when we tell them that we wish to marry.”

  The color gradually returned to his face, and he sagged against the seat in relief. “I feared that perhaps young women in America confided to their parents somewhat more than one would expect. You worry that he will think us too precipitate? He would wish a longer courtship?”

  She shook her head. “It is not that. I fear he will take exception to you.” Merton looked startled, but she nodded sadly. “You see, you are not at all the sort of man he would want me to marry. He disapproves of England’s hereditary aristocracy. He will not like it that you are an earl. And that will not please my mother either.”

  He stared at her. “You are quite serious? They will object to my title?” When she nodded, he began to laugh. “This is truly wonderful. After all the foolish nitwits who want to marry a title, caring nothing for the man, and now, when someone seems to be trying to kill me for my title, I find the only woman I shall ever love, and her parents will want to refuse me because of that very title.” He shook his head, but then grew serious. “They will not truly refuse their consent, will they? I cannot get rid of the title. There is no way. It simply cannot be done. But if they pr
ove adamant, if you want, we could go to America where it would mean nothing.”

  She smiled fondly at him. “No, my love, I am sure they will not refuse, not once they know you, not once I tell them how much I love you. I only seek to warn you that your reception may not be as, well, as friendly as you might wish.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Although Ashleigh had declined to accompany them, wishing to set his steward and a few grooms to make inquiries about strangers in the area, he kept teams of horses at staging posts along the way so the journey was accomplished at good speed. By one in the afternoon, the carriage had arrived at Mivart’s Hotel on Brook Street, and the weary pair descended.

  The doors flew open before them as Miranda charged in. The entrance hall could have been the entrance to a nobleman’s town house, with a marble floor, a broad carpeted stairway with a filigree balustrade, and a few elegant if uncomfortable chairs arranged beside delicate tables. It was only the clerk behind the counter discreetly tucked in the rear of the room that betrayed the commercial nature of the establishment.

  On this occasion, the clerk was accompanied by Mr. Mivart himself, a small but highly polished gentleman, well known for the social acumen that enabled him to cope with guests from suddenly wealthy manufacturers to suddenly throneless kings, both of whom frequently found it difficult to adjust to the change in their fortunes. He looked sharply at the two hurrying into his domain, noting their ill-fitting though expensive garments, and his first thought was that they were servants seeking to pass themselves off as their betters.

  Miranda gave a quick smile and nod to the hotelier. “Mr. Mivart, are my parents in?”

  Mr. Mivart’s eyes opened wide, then he clapped his hands in real delight. “Oh, Miss Rokeby, thank heaven you have been found. The message arrived not ten minutes ago, and your parents have been frantic, not knowing where to start looking for you. It is such a relief to see you safe. I am sure they will wish to…” He was about to say “reward this fellow” but caught himself in time. He narrowed his eyes briefly and continued smoothly, “wish to greet this gentleman.”