Paula Reed - [Caribbean]

by Nobodys Saint

  George was beaming happily, and Miranda had to smile, too. Henry and Emma liked her, Major Carrington seemed to approve, or at least, he didn’t openly disapprove. With time, Letitia, the dowager, might come around. Miranda would have a family all her very own. She and George would live on the family estate, and everyone would visit at Christmas. Emma would come, and Henry would one day bring a bride. Once the war was over, Andrew might remarry, as well. The house would be filled with little cousins playing and quarreling.

  And her mother would come, too. She had settled this with George before she accepted his proposal. Montheath’s mistress and daughter would never again spend Christmas alone while he went to his country estate to be with his wife and sons.

  George slipped his arm hesitantly around Miranda’s waist. “Have you eaten?”

  “Not yet. There are so many people here.”

  He looked around and said softly, “None who wish to be. It was your father’s influence that brought them, I suppose.”

  A painful truth, but it meant much to Miranda that George was so honest. She had had more than enough make-believe in her life. “And at my mother’s insistence he use that influence. Shall we take our breakfast in the garden? Our absence will allow our guests to malign us more freely.”

  He smiled at her. “Have I told you how fortunate I am? Let me fetch the food. I’ll be out in a moment.”

  *

  Andrew watched his brother escort his bride from the drawing room and nodded distractedly at the man with whom he was conversing. In truth, he was hardly paying attention. Miranda Henley. He hadn’t thought to ask the name of the new countess. When he had disembarked and been told George had wed only that morning, Andrew had dashed home to get the details. She was exquisite and gracious. She would do George proud.

  Letitia drew him away from his acquaintance and huffed indignantly. “I have no idea what possessed Danford.”

  Andrew regarded his father’s plump, soft-faced widow with a mix of irritation and fondness. “He and Montheath are old friends, Lettie. It is not so shocking.”

  “Not shocking? Season after Season has come and gone, and nothing could move George to come and seek a bride. That girl has been on the market for years. Even Montheath’s power and wealth couldn’t secure her a husband of the caliber her mother sought, and then he foists her off on poor George. What kind of a friend is that?”

  “She’s beautiful and, from what I have seen in these few minutes, refined and poised. He could have done far worse.”

  “She is the daughter of Montheath’s mistress!”

  Andrew searched the room and spied Montheath and Barbara Henley talking together in the corner. “Easy to see where the new Lady Danford gets her looks.”

  Barbara Henley had been Montheath’s mistress for twenty-five years, but at forty-one years old, she looked more like Miranda’s older sister than her mother. Her gown of ruby red set her apart from all the pale pastels surrounding her, and her chestnut hair was only just beginning to show signs of gray. Montheath, on the other hand, was approaching sixty and had hair of pure silver. Whatever he and Barbara did, it kept him in good shape, for he was as fit as any of the younger men in attendance.

  “The entire thing is a disgrace!” Letitia snapped.

  Andrew’s gaze went from the scandalous couple to his child giggling with a group of girls her own age. Glad to change the subject, but wishing it were on to more pleasant things, he said, “Another governess, Lettie?”

  Letitia’s eyes followed his. “She is a very spirited child, Andrew.”

  “In need of a firm hand.”

  “I am doing the best I can. Poor darling. With no mother and you traipsing around France …”

  “Spain, Lettie.”

  “God forbid you should die, too.”

  He gave her a humorless grin. “I quite agree. But she has you, and George would take her in if necessary. Now that he has a wife it is all the better. If they weren’t newlyweds I might ask them to take Emma off your hands.”

  “To be raised by her? What would Caroline have thought?”

  But Caroline wasn’t there. Sometimes it was hard to believe it had been four years since her death. “She would have wanted whatever was best for Emma.”

  Lettie’s eyes misted, and Andrew felt the sting of a guilty conscience. “That didn’t sound right. You’ve been a saint, Lettie. Emma and I would have been lost without you. But you said it yourself, she’s a spirited girl, and you allow her far too much rein. You do the same with Henry. He needs discipline.”

  “If you had ever actually tried to be a father, you might have some notion how difficult children can be. Henry will be fine. He’s young.”

  It was pointless to argue. Lettie simply didn’t have the knack for command. He would remedy the situation himself if he did not have obligations to England that superceded the ones he had to his family. It didn’t help that both Lettie and Emma seemed to think he had left them on his own initiative!

  The crowd around him felt oppressive, and he knew if he lingered more people would begin to press in around him asking about the war. He lived, ate, slept, and breathed the damned war. The last thing he needed was to relive its horrors for the entertainment of the ton at parties. He moved swiftly toward the French doors that opened out into the garden, blatantly ignoring acquaintances who called out to him, and the gossip shifted from the scandal of the wedding to the oddness of so many of the men who returned from battle.

  “It is as if they forget their manners!”

  “It is all anyone talks about, but when the men who know all the latest come home, you cannot pry out a single detail.”

  Only the other men who had fought understood, and they remained silent, because it was impossible to explain.

  *

  Miranda sat on a stone bench in the garden, breathing in the sweet scent of roses and fertile earth. George did not tend to the small garden behind the townhouse, as he did the one at Danford, but he had hired the best gardener in London. He was taking a while to fetch breakfast, and she could only assume he had been waylaid by a guest. She straightened a little when Major Carrington came through the French doors instead.

  “It is a lovely day,” he said. “How odd that no one else is out here to enjoy it.”

  Miranda shrugged lightly. “I have stepped out here myself as a courtesy—to allow my guests the chance to speak more freely among themselves.”

  He paused halfway between the house and Miranda. “They don’t work very hard to keep their spiteful remarks from you, do they?”

  “They never have. I appreciate what you did in there.”

  “What did I do?”

  She smiled. “You know very well. You met me and treated me no differently than you would one of the Season’s most prized debutantes.”

  Andrew shook his head and closed the distance. “I treated you quite differently. Seldom can I stand any of the Season’s most prized debutantes. You’re very—forthright—aren’t you?”

  “We harlots’ daughters lack polish.”

  He had to chuckle at the absurdity of the comment. As little time as he spent in London, even he had heard of Montheath’s illegitimate daughter. Montheath had claimed her from the very beginning, turning his back on London and traveling abroad with his mistress and their child. Every year, just before Christmas, he returned to his wife and sons, but at the first opportunity, he would hasten back across the channel to Barbara Henley’s bed. Raised on the Continent, Miranda was rumored to be fluent in several languages. Apparently she had also inherited her father’s love of music, and while the ton might ridicule her birth, they were forced to begrudgingly admire her fine voice and talent for the piano and violin.

  One eyebrow raised, he said, “All those rough edges from your youth abroad.”

  “It was not as genteel as you might imagine. I was raised by servants, but often sang and played music for royals, nobles, exiles, and courtesans. My parents had a rather eclectic group of friends
and very unusual notions of how to raise a child.”

  Andrew paused a moment before saying, “Then I suppose the Continent has left a few rough edges on us both.”

  Miranda studied the faraway look in his eyes. He had the air of a man who had burdens of his own, who, like her, felt somehow not a part of the world occupied by the guests inside.

  “I shouldn’t want too much polish,” she said. “One loses oneself when one can only reflect the images of others.”

  Andrew had to resist the impulse to sit next to her on the little bench. The desire left him feeling slightly uneasy with his own motives. “So, Montheath brought you home when you came of age and presented you to Society, bestowing upon you a dowry that would make the most avaricious man content for a long time.”

  Miranda stood up, tired of craning her neck to look at him. Her coming out had been a farce instigated at her mother’s insistence. Barbara had hoped her worldly daughter would be the belle of every ball. Of course, both Barbara and Miranda were snubbed by every matron of any consequence. Fathers sat their sons down over glasses of port and explained that, while Montheath’s bastard was beautiful and accomplished, she was not marriage material. Then those same fathers went into competition with those very sons, offering her various “lucrative and mutually beneficial arrangements.”

  “Montheath was very realistic from the beginning,” she explained. “The dowry monies and house were mine, whether I married or not. He fully intended to make sure that I never took a lover out of financial necessity.”

  “Like your mother?”

  “I do not discuss my parents’ relationship with anyone.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough. Why marry at all, then?”

  “For the very best of reasons. George and I want the same things from life. Money doesn’t matter to either of us, although I am sensible enough to admit that is probably because we both have enough. We hate London Society and all the backbiting and posturing that comes with it. I love to make music, and he loves to listen to it. I want a house full of children, and he needs an heir.”

  Standing so close to her, Andrew could see that her skin was truly flawless. She didn’t use a trace of cosmetics to create the becoming tint in her cheeks. Her eyes were the color of strongly brewed tea and fringed by thick lashes. The scent of roses that filled his nostrils came as much from her skin as from the flowers in the garden.

  She hadn’t mentioned love, but he could well imagine it must have been George’s motive in this match. From all evidence, Miranda appeared an engagingly honest, intelligent, and breathtaking young woman. Although George had been a confirmed bachelor of forty-six, he must have been completely swept away.

  Which was a tremendous relief, because he had begun to wonder whether George might not be immune to every woman alive.

  “Do you care for him?” he asked.

  Miranda didn’t hesitate in her reply. “Very much. He is a very kind man, your brother. One of the kindest I have ever met, but I don’t suppose I need to tell you.”

  Before Andrew could reply, George came through the doors with two servants in tow, one with a breakfast tray, the other with tea. A third and fourth followed quickly behind to set up two chairs and a small table, covering it with a white cloth.

  “There should have been tables already set up out here,” George said. “Lettie should be more exacting with the help.” He turned to one of the butlers. “Bring out another chair and something for Major Carrington to eat.”

  “I shouldn’t stay. I’m here on military business…”

  “And it can wait while you celebrate with your brother. Sit. Eat.” George held out a chair for Miranda and offered his brother his own. “Take my breakfast, too. I’ll eat whatever Lettie’s man brings out. How are you?”

  Andrew had to admire George’s selflessness. He looked genuinely concerned about Andrew, virtually ignoring his new wife, while Andrew himself seemed to be having the hardest time keeping his eyes off her. If it were his wedding day, and he had found such a beautiful bride, he would have been creating a thousand excuses to touch her, look at her.

  Well, that was George. As the oldest, he had always looked after Andrew. Later, he had done the same for Henry, before their father died and Lettie moved to London with her son.

  And George’s innocent question, How are you?, had become such a difficult one. “Fine” was a bald-faced lie and a gross injustice to the men he had lost, but anything else was inappropriate on his brother’s wedding day.

  “Fine. Fine. Even better to come home to this. Congratulations again.”

  George rested his fingers lightly on Miranda’s hand. She slid it out from under them to pick up her fork. “Look, George, another chair and plate.”

  As the servants settled George with his food, and Andrew explained that he was home to review and brief a new squadron that would ship out soon, Miranda stared at her plate and pushed her food around with her fork.