Bertrice Small

by Unconquered

  They all rose quickly, delighted to leave. Lawyer Younge took Dorothea’s arm and escorted her from the room, Amanda following quickly.

  The new lord of the manor waited until the door had closed behind the three. Then, reaching out, he pulled Miranda to her feet and drew her close to him. “Why are you fighting me, wildcat?” he asked gently.

  A quick, cruel retort sprang to her lips only to fade as she looked up into his eyes. They were strangely tender. “Let us make the best of a difficult situation,” he said. “Wyndsong cannot be without its lady, and I must have a wife. You love Wyndsong, Miranda. Marry me and it will always be yours. Many good marriages have come from less than we have, and I promise I will be good to you.”

  “B-but I don’t know you,” she protested, “and I don’t love you.”

  “Couldn’t you learn to love me, wildcat?” he asked softly, and then his mouth closed over hers. It was over in a moment. His lips, petal-soft, gave her her first kiss, a gentle, passionless kiss that nonetheless set her pulse racing.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked, suddenly shy.

  “I can’t be hitting you forever,” he answered, smiling down at her.

  “Oh! You are hateful!” she cried, remembering clearly, and knowing that he remembered just as clearly her spanking of a few days earlier.

  “You haven’t given me your answer yet, Miranda,” he persisted. “If you marry me Amanda will be able to wed Lord Swynford, and be happy. I know you love your sister.”

  “Yes,” she snapped, “Amanda will have Adrian—and you will have Papa’s fortune. Are you sure that is not your real interest?”

  “Oh, wildcat,” he laughed, “what a suspicious creature you are. I don’t need your father’s money. I inherited quite a nice fortune from my grandmother and I’ve tripled that money in the last ten years. If you marry me I’ll put your father’s money in trust for you. You will get half of it next spring on your eighteenth birthday and the rest when you turn twenty-one. It will all be yours.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “You, your mother, and your sister will always have a home here, but nothing more. I will not dower either of you.”

  “Then I have no choice but to marry you, sir.”

  “It will not, I assure you, be a fate worse than death.”

  “That remains to be seen,” she answered tartly.

  He laughed. “Life with you will not be dull, will it, wildcat?” he said, but she merely raised an elegant eyebrow in reply, and he laughed again. What an adorable witch she was, he thought, and what a woman she would be one day. “May I tell your mama that you have accepted my proposal, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, Jared. I would like to hear you say my name, Miranda.”

  “Yes, Jared,” she said softly, and he felt his heart quicken. It puzzled him. Why should she have that effect on him?

  Dorothea and Amanda greeted their news with little cries of delight, which Miranda brutally stilled. “It is hardly a love match, Mama. He wants a wife, and has offered to put Papa’s money in trust for me. I want Amanda happy with Lord Swynford. Jared will get his wife, I shall have the money, and Mandy gets Adrian. It is all quite businesslike.”

  Jared had to stop himself from laughing. Dorothea, his sweet but painfully proper mother-in-law-to-be, looked terribly embarrassed. Miranda then turned her sharp tongue on her betrothed. “Will you remain on Wyndsong until we marry, sir, or rejoin your ship?”

  “I am not a member of the Navy, Miranda, but I do hold the right to privateer for the government. In the last six months my ship has rescued thirty-three impressed American seamen from English ships. I want it to continue to sail even if I don’t.”

  “You are quite free to follow the sea, sir,” she said sweetly.

  He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it, and said smoothly, “I should not miss our honeymoon even for the honor of our beloved country, darling wildcat.”

  Blushing furiously, she shot him a venomous look, and he grinned back wickedly. He was going to enjoy watching her grow up, he thought, and he would particularly enjoy helping her become a woman. But first he would have to gain her trust, and that, he thought ruefully, would not be easy. “I will have to return to Dream Witch tomorrow, Miranda. I’ll take her to Newport where I will turn her over to my friend, Ephraim Snow. He will captain her and continue her mission, but I will go overland to Plymouth to see my parents and inform them of our wedding plans. I think December sixth would be a good day for our wedding, if that suits you.”

  She nodded agreement. “Will your parents come to the wedding?”

  “My whole family will come. My parents, brother Jonathan, his wife, Charity, and their three children, and my sister Bess and her husband, Henry Cabot, and their two children will all be there. I look forward to introducing them all to my adorable, sweet-tempered, well-mannered bride.”

  Miranda’s green eyes glittered. “I promise not to disappoint you, Jared,” she said innocently, and he laughed as Dorothea and Amanda looked at one another, confused, wondering what it was they did not understand.

  The day had cleared. Jared looked at his defiant betrothed and asked, “Will you ride with me, Miranda? I would very much like to see the island, and I suspect that you know it best. Will you show me our domain?”

  It was the right approach. With her father gone, Miranda was beginning to accept the fact that Jared Dunham was the new master of the island. But she was to be mistress of the manor, and wasn’t that really what she wanted? She hadn’t lost Wyndsong after all! A radiant smile lit her lovely face, the first real smile he’d ever seen on her, and again he foundered. “Give me a few minutes to change,” she called, running from the room.

  “If she knows you’ve fallen in love with her she will use you shamefully,” said Amanda softly.

  “Is it so obvious, pigeon?” He looked almost boyish in his chagrin.

  Amanda’s mouth turned up in a mischievous grin. “I am afraid so, brother Jared. Miranda can be the most awful bitch at times.”

  “Amanda Elizabeth Dunham!” Dorothea was shocked.

  “Oh Mama, it’s true, and you know it. Don’t you think that Jared should be warned? I certainly do. You see,” she said, turning an earnest face up to him, “Miranda has never been in love. I’ve been falling in love since I was twelve, but then I suppose it was necessary in my case if I was to know the real thing when it came along. I am much slower, you see, than Miranda. For her it will only be once. She’s like that. So far, no one has touched her heart.”

  “Do you think I can, pigeon?”

  “Yes, I do, but not if she knows you care. If she thinks she has the upper hand she’ll trample your heart, and kick it aside, especially if she sees any weakness in you. The only prize worth having for Miranda is the one that is the hardest to get. You’ll have to make her admit to loving you before you admit to loving her.”

  He bent and kissed her cheek. “I shall consider your advice carefully, pigeon, and I thank you for it.”

  Half an hour later, mounted on as fine a horse as he’d ever seen, he rode from the house, Miranda riding by his side on Sea Breeze. She was wearing the faded green breeches and white shirt he’d seen her in the other day. Her round young breasts gleamed like mother-of-pearl through the thin fabric. She was totally unaware of her own sexuality, or the sensuous effect her boyish costume was having on him.

  “Would you, in future,” he said evenly, “wear a vest beneath that shirt, Miranda?”

  “Are you now an arbiter of fashion, sir?”

  “It has nothing to do with fashion. I would prefer that no one but me enjoy the sight of your lovely breasts, which are quite visible through your shirt. You are not a child any longer, Miranda, although you often behave like one.”

  “Oh!” She glanced down, embarrassed, color flooding her face. “I never thought … I’ve always worn this shirt riding.”

  He reached over and put a big hand over her small one. “You are really ve
ry beautiful, Miranda, and I am happy to see you are still innocent. A season in London did not coarsen you. I would have thought that the bucks would have turned your head.” He had eased her embarrassment, and now he took his hand away. They rode knee to knee.

  “I was too blunt to suit the London dandies,” she said. “To be told my eyes are ‘the green of a limpid pool in the August heat’ annoys me rather than flatters me.”

  “I should hope so,” he replied. “Limpid pools in August are usually green due to an overabundance of algae.”

  She burst into delighted laughter. “That’s just what I thought, but you must realize that most of those elegant society gentlemen have never seen a real forest pool in August, as you and I have. Besides I am too tall and my coloring is all wrong. Amanda was the perfect incomparable. It was quite fashionable to be in love with her last season. She had over two dozen proposals, including the Duke of Whitley.”

  “I do not find you too tall, and your coloring is exquisite,” he said quietly. “I will wager every beauty in London envied you your flawless complexion.”

  She looked at him carefully. “Are you flattering me, sir?” Was this what it meant to be courted?

  He stopped also, and pretended to consider the matter. Then he said, “I believe I am flattering you, wildcat. I shall have to stop it.” He was delighted to see her crestfallen look.

  They rode in silence. Jared was impressed. The three-thousand-acre island was enormously fertile, with fields in one section that rolled down to the water’s edge. The afternoon light on those fields was of such clarity and color that he wished he could paint. Nowhere else in the world had Jared seen such light, except the Low Countries of Europe and sections of the English coast.

  Fat cattle grazed in the fields, and there were sleek horses. Wyndsong horses were well known in racing circles. The island was virtually self-sufficient, and some of the crops had aready been harvested. There were four freshwater ponds on the island, several salt hay meadows, a hardwood forest filled with oak, maple, beech, birch, and chestnut trees, and a small pine forest.

  The land rolled toward the north end of the island, and the manor house sat on the heights. Below it was a beautiful white sand beach, and a small, protected harbor known as Little North Bay.

  The original manor house had been built of wood in 1663. Over the following fifty years it had been added to until there were several wings housing several generations of Dunhams—for the men of the family were particularly long-lived. In a violent summer storm in 1713 the house was struck by lightning, and burned to the ground. At that point the first lord of the manor was seventy-five years old, his son fifty-two, his grandson twenty-seven, and his great-grandson two years old. The very next week a kiln for making bricks was set up on the island.

  The new house with its black, hand-cut slate roof was lighter and more spacious than its predecessor. It was a beautiful house, of three stories with chimneys at both ends. The front entry was centered, and flanked by long windows running the length of the house. The structure was divided by a center hall, on one side of which were two parlors, a formal one in front and a family one toward the rear. On the other side of the hall was a fine dining room. Behind it was a large kitchen. The second floor also contained a wide center hall with windows at both ends, and four large bedrooms, one at each corner of the house. The third floor was a large attic with several small rooms for children and servants, and much storage space.

  Looking at the house from a nearby hill, Jared Dunham felt a strange pride well up inside him, and suddenly as his eye swept the island he understood Miranda’s deep passion for this little kingdom, founded one hundred and forty-eight years ago by her ancestor. He also understood the sadness Thomas must have felt knowing that his line would end with him. And now at last, Jared fully realized why Thomas Dunham’s will had forced a marriage between Miranda and himself.

  He looked at the girl on her horse next to him. God, he thought, if she ever looks at me the way she looks at this island I will know I am well loved! The day had turned sharp and clear, and as they looked north and west from their vantage point on the hill, they could see the Connecticut and Rhode Island coasts, and just barely make out the hazy edges of Block Island.

  “You must tell me everything about Wyndsong,” he said. “By God, if there’s a lovelier place on earth I do not know where it is!”

  She was surprised by his vehemence.

  “They say that when the first Thomas Dunham saw Wyndsong for the first time he knew he’d come home. He was English, and in exile. When the Restoration came he was given this island as a reward for his loyalty. The Dutch claimed this whole area, and how King Charles had the nerve to give Tom Dunham such a shaky land grant I don’t understand.”

  She explained a great deal more and he said, “You certainly know your history. I thought girls only learned deportment, painting, singing, the pianoforte, and French.”

  She laughed. “Amanda is proficient in all those things. They gained her Lord Swynford. I, alas, have no manners—as you know. I have no talent for painting, I sing like a crow, and musical instruments cringe at my touch. But I do have an ear for languages, and I have been taught history and mathematics. Such things suit my nature better than watercolors and maudlin ballads.” She looked at him through her lashes. “I hope you are an educated man, Jared.”

  “I graduated from Harvard. I trust that suits you, my love? I also spent a year at Cambridge, and another year touring Europe. I, too, speak several languages, and studied history and mathematics. Why are you concerned?”

  “If we are to be wed we must know each other better. Knowing that you’ve been educated tells me we’ll at least have something to talk about on cold winter nights.”

  “What?”

  He looked to see if she was being deliberatively provocative, but she wasn’t. In some ways she was still painfully young, and he said quietly as they rode down into the October forest, “I suspect you know very little about the relationship between a man and a woman, Miranda. Is that not so?”

  “Yes,” she said quite matter-of-factly. “Mama assured both Amanda and me that whatever we needed to know our husbands would explain to us. Amanda, with all her female friends in London, has learned a great deal this winter. I suspect she has practiced on Adrian.”

  “Not everything, I certainly hope,” he said with mock severity. “I should be loath to have to call out our young Lord Swynford for debauching one of my wards.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “I think, Miranda, you had best tell me exactly what you do know.” They had reached a lovely freshwater pond, and he stopped, dismounted, and helped her down. “Let the horses graze a bit, and we will walk around the pond while we talk,” he suggested, taking her hand.

  “You are making me feel like a gauche schoolgirl,” she protested.

  “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, wildcat, but you are a schoolgirl, and we are just beginning to trust one another. If I mishandled you now I could lose that trust. In a few weeks we will be married, and oh, Miranda, there is more to marriage than you imagine. But trust is a very important part of it all.”

  “I guess I don’t really know a great deal about what does go on between a man and a woman,” she admitted shyly.

  “Surely some of the London gentlemen you met at parties attempted to make love to you?”

  “No.”

  “No? Incredible! Were they all blind?”

  She turned her head away from him. Her voice was low as she said, “I was not a success in London. I am too tall as I have already told you, and my coloring is all wrong to be fashionable. It was Mandy with her peaches-and-cream skin, her pure-gold hair, and her lovely blue eyes they all sought. She is round, and petite, and quite appealing. The few men who sought me out did so hoping that I would plead their cases with Amanda.”

  He did not miss the hurt in her voice. “What fools they were,” he said. “Your complexion is like ivory and wild pink ros
es, a perfect and fitting complement to your sea-green eyes and silver-gilt hair, which reminds me of a full April moon. I do not find you too tall.” He stopped as if to illustrate his point, and pulled her against him. “You come just to my shoulder, Miranda. I think that you are absolute perfection, and even if Amanda had not been spoken for, I should have chosen you.”

  Startled, she gazed up at him, looking for any trace of mockery. There was none. His own bottle-green eyes looked steadily into hers, reflecting an expression she couldn’t quite fathom. Suddenly blushing, she turned her head aside, but he caught her little dimpled chin and, tipping her face up, sought her lips.

  “No!” she whispered breathlessly, her heart hammering wildly.

  “Yes!” he answered huskily, capturing her face between his two hands. “Oh, yes, Miranda sweet!” and his warm mouth covered hers in a passionate kiss that set her trembling wildly. His lips consumed her as nothing had ever done before. His hands slid away from her face, but their lips remained together. Slowly one arm slid down to encircle her waist, and the other hand moved up to tangle in her hair.

  Gasping, she tore her mouth from his, and flung back her head, but to her shock his mouth blazed a trail of fiery kisses down her throat, lingering in the soft hollow of her neck with its wildly leaping pulse. “Please …” she pleaded, and through the mists of his desire, he heard the fright and confusion in her voice. He lifted his head slowly, reluctantly.

  “It’s all right, wildcat. You tempt me, God knows, but I promise to behave myself.”

  Her eyes were enormous and she touched her bruised lips wonderingly with trembling fingertips. “Is that what men do to women?”

  “Sometimes. Usually they are driven to it. If I have frightened you, Miranda, I apologize. I could not resist you.”

  “Is that all men do?”

  “No. There are other things.”

  “What other things?”

  “Good Lord! Things I shall explain to you when we’re married.”

  “Don’t you think I should know before we’re married?”

  He chuckled richly. “I most certainly do not!”