“Not so fast, Mr. Blakewell,” he said. “We haven’t yet settled terms.”
Jason smiled at him coldly. “No terms, Mr. Crockford. Consider yourself fortunate you will be paid for those IOUs at all.” He rose to his feet and bowed to his old rival. “After all, the young man in question is not, as I understand, in the habit of paying his debts.”
At half past six the next morning, Miranda gave up on the effort to sleep, rose from bed and dressed. She had not heard Jason return to his suite the night before, and she wondered with rather more curiosity than was proper where he spent his nights now that she had commandeered his suite.
She once again made her way down to the hall beside the kitchens, where the staff members of Blakewell’s greeted her like an old friend and quickly ushered to a seat of honor at the head of the table. They had told her this huge, vaulted chamber with its massive oak table and constantly replenished cold buffet was a place of rest, where they could come whenever they had a spare moment to ease their aching feet and take a cup of tea.
Polly, the pert kitchen maid, slid into the seat besides Miranda, carrying a plate of ham and eggs.
“Morning, Miss Thornwood,” she said cheerfully as she ate her breakfast. “Will ye be helpin’ out in the kitchens again today?”
Miranda smiled at her. “If Monsieur Leblanc wishes it.”
“Oh, he’ll wish it all right,” said Polly. “It was right nice of ye, helpin’ out Harriet like that.”
Miranda shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I don’t have anything to do here, anyway. How’s your palm?”
Polly, who had accidentally picked up a hot bowl with her bare hand the day before, held it out and showed it to Miranda. “Not too bad, thank you.”
Miranda, well acquainted with burn wounds from tending to the kitchen maids of Thornwood, examined the blistered area carefully. “We’ll soak it in milk and honey again today,” she said. “And don’t use this hand to pick up anything heavy. It’ll irritate the skin.”
Polly grinned at her, showing the space between her two front teeth. “I’ll leave the heavy liftin’ to ye, Miss Thornwood.”
Miranda laughed. “We had better leave all the heavy lifting to Mr. Briggs, I think.”
Peter Briggs, the footman who so resembled a bullfrog, took one look at Polly and flushed scarlet. Polly gave him a bold wink, then turned back to Miranda.
“Is it true ye knew Mr. Blakewell when he was a lad?” she demanded.
Immediately, all other conversation at the table stopped. A dozen avid gazes fixed on Miranda. Disconcerted, she picked up her cup of tea and took a sip before saying cautiously, “Yes.”
“Truly?” demanded one of the footmen sitting at the other end of the table. “What was he like? Was ’e always such a cold-blooded blighter?”
“Ye mind yer language in front of Miss Thornwood, Daniel Pooley,” said Polly sharply.
“I was jist curious,” said Daniel, looking injured. “I meant no disrespect, Miss Thornwood.”
“Of course not, Mr. Pooley,” said Miranda, smiling at him. “As for Mr. Blakewell…” She trailed off, remembering the baby sparrow Jason had raised in a box in his room, his daily visits to play cards with old Mrs. Tilford, the housekeeper’s ancient and bedridden mother. “I suppose he’s changed a great deal.”
“What was he like?” demanded Polly. “I can’t think of him as a wee lad. Every time I try I just see ’im like he is now.” She frowned. “Only smaller, I guess.”
Miranda couldn’t repress a smile. “I assure you Mr. Blakewell was a boy once,” she said, and recounted, to the great hilarity of the assembled staff, the time he had let loose two dozen frogs in the carriage of a certain Mrs. Finchly.
This very dignified and obese lady had called to criticize Miranda for not only running, but running barefoot and bareheaded, through the main thoroughfare of the village. Having delivered her lecture to a very sullen ten-year-old Miranda, whose hair had not been brushed in over a week, Mrs. Finchly finally departed. The carriage had barely rounded the first corner of the long drive when the door had flung open, ejecting the hysterical lady, now shrieking like a choleric piglet and covered in frogs. Afterward, Jason had been found doubled over and overcome with laughter in a rose bush behind the stables.
As for Mrs. Finchly, Miranda concluded gravely, she had never again dared set foot on Thornwood land.
“I don’t believe it!” declared one of the smaller hall boys, who evidently worshipped Jason and would brook no such undignified tales about his hero. “Mr. Blakewell would never put frogs in a lady’s carriage!”
This provoked a flurry of discussion about Mr. Blakewell’s disposition and whether or not he was capable of playing practical jokes. The staff all agreed it was very unlikely.
Mr. Blakewell did not play at anything, Briggs explained to Miranda. Mr. Blakewell simply won. Always. At dice, at cards, at the Newcastle races. He had long ago exchanged an abacus for his heart, while his brain appeared to be largely filled with a sort of Domesday Book in which he recorded the whole financial history of the great English families and which he consulted whenever he was in a foul mood and wished to ruin someone.
“And I ain’t never seen Mr. Blakewell laugh,” Daniel Pooley concluded, as though this were an irrefutable argument against the veracity of Miranda’s story. “Never. Even when he finds something funny, his mouth kind of goes up, but he don’t laugh.”
Miranda looked down at the hands she had folded in her lap. It hurt, unexpectedly, to know that Jason, who had laughed so often with her, never laughed anymore.
“But he is good to you?” she asked, looking around at the faces assembled around her.
On this score at least the response was swift, enthusiastic and universal.
“He’s the best I ever worked for,” declared Polly. “After all, looked what ’e did fer poor Bruno. Sendin’ him that great big hamper because his wife broke her leg.”
There was a chorus of assents. Mr. Blakewell might not know how to laugh, but he was, one and all of the staff members agreed, the best and most generous of masters.
Late that afternoon, Jason was sitting at his desk when a firm knock sounded on the door.
“Enter,” he said, looking up as the door swung open, admitting John Martin, one of the men he had sent to Hertfordshire. He had asked Martin to return as soon as they concluded their investigations, allowing the others to travel on to Middlesex to find William and convey him to his estate in Buckinghamshire.
“You’re back,” he said. “Excellent. Come in.”
As Martin removed his hat and cloak and sat in a chair on the opposite side of the desk, Jason poured the man a glass of brandy. Martin grunted his thanks. He had clearly not washed before coming to see his employer, but Jason didn’t care. He wanted to know what the man had to tell him, and a general lack of hygiene and cleanliness would not affect his report.
When Martin had drained the glass, he let out a long sigh.
“Thank ye kindly, sir,” he said. “That just ’bout hit the spot.”
“Would you like more?”
“No, thank ye. Not now.”
Jason nodded. Martin, though not a staff member of the club, had been in Jason’s employ for over seven years and was one of his most trusted men. Jason had been in the habit of employing men such as Martin from his earliest days as the operator of a gambling establishment, finding it useful to have spies capable of investigating the finances of his clientele, business partners and associates.
“Tell me everything you’ve learned,” said Jason.
Martin nodded, launching into a detailed if grammatically incorrect account of the current goings-on at Thornwood. When the man had given his full report, Jason thanked him, gave him an extra gold guinea and dismissed him.
For a while he contemplated what Martin had told him. Then he rose to his feet and set out in search for Miranda. He found her, as he had expected, in the kitchen, showing Monsieur Leblanc how to bake one of Cook�
�s mouthwatering cream-filled pastries.
For a moment Jason stood without moving in the doorway, watching her. She wore the same massive apron she had worn the day before, and she had a streak of flour running across her face. Every now and then she raised a hand to her face, brushing aside a loose strand of hair. She laughed as she explained something to Monsieur Leblanc, who looked deeply intrigued.
When the pastries were safely in the oven, Jason made his presence known.
“Miss Thornwood,” he said. “If I may speak to you for a moment. In private?”
She whirled around, looking startled. “Mr. Blakewell!” she said. Her face flushed faintly, and she wiped her floury hands on her apron. “Yes, of course, sir.”
She removed the apron, revealing the same prim gray gown she had worn yesterday.
He scowled at her. “I explicitly asked Madame Beaumont to make you a variety of gowns,” he said. “Have they not yet been delivered?”
“I only permitted Madame Beaumont to fit me for one dress, thank you,” she said. “This is perfectly sufficient.”
He frowned, but said nothing. When they had reached his study, Jason shut the door behind them and took his place behind his desk. If he was to be alone with her, it seemed safer to have a large slab of oak between them.
“One of my men has returned from Hertfordshire,” he said.
She leaned forward eagerly, and the light fell full across her face. In the two days since she had been at Blakewell’s, she already looked far healthier than she had that first night. Her skin glowed; the hair slipping from its knot was lustrous.
“Yes?” she asked. “What did he say? Did he see my brother?”
“I asked Martin to return as soon as their investigations in Hertfordshire were complete so he could give me his report first,” said Jason. “The rest of men, who were to escort your brother to Buckinghamshire, have not yet returned.”
“Yes, of course, I understand,” said Miranda, though she gave a small sigh and her gaze dropped to the hands folded in her lap.
“Apparently,” said Jason, “your aunt is giving it about that your brother is volatile and dangerous, liable to murder someone at the drop of a hat. She has all of Hertfordshire and several of the surrounding counties up in arms about the matter.”
Miranda looked up at him, her dark eyes flashing.
“Nonsense,” she said. “William is not in the least volatile or dangerous. I told you he was provoked the night he accidentally killed Uncle William.”
Jason regarded her for another long moment.
“Then perhaps you had better explain to me again,” he said, “why William hit your uncle with that poker.”
He watched as she hesitated, obviously deciding whether or not to tell him the truth.
“Miranda,” he said. “You have asked me to help you. I have agreed to do so. But in order to help you, I have to know what happened. I have to have the facts. What happened the night William struck your uncle?”
She hesitated a moment longer. Then she set her mouth into a firm line.
“Very well,” she said. “You want to know what happened. I will tell you. The night William hit my uncle with that poker, the odious man tried to ravish me.”
Rage, sudden, hot and blinding, swept through him. A red haze obscured his vision. He wanted to kill the man who had hurt her; if Clarence Thornwood was still alive, he would find the man and break his neck.
He beat back the sudden savage emotion.
Somewhere across the table from him, Miranda still spoke, evidently unaware of his fury.
“William walked in and saw him. Uncle Clarence was very inebriated and not very steady on his feet. I would have been able to get away even if William hadn’t intervened. I certainly wish he had not intervened. It is true Uncle Clarence would still be alive, but then my brother would not be a murderer, and I would not have needed to come here and bother you with our troubles.”
Jason, who had himself under control again, nodded.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “If William had not struck your uncle, you would never have come here.”
“It cannot be convenient for you to have a lady on the premises of Blakewell’s,” said Miranda, once again studying her hands with great absorption. “Did your men discover anything else?”
“As a matter of fact, they did,” said Jason, and leaned back in his chair to tell her what Martin had told him.
As he spoke, he watched with interest as a red flush spread from her throat to her face, a sure sign of temper.
“Why, that old sow,” she breathed, when he had told her what Martin had found in one of the old cottages in the carriage block. She looked up at him. “What do you intend to do next?”
“One of your cousin’s friends, a Mr. Murray, owes me a rather large sum. I have promised to waive the debt if he will bring Laurence here to Blakewell’s tonight. I shall speak to him.”
“I should like to speak to him too,” said Miranda immediately. “In fact, I should rather like to claw his eyes out, if the chance should present itself.”
Jason shook his head. “No. He must not know of the connection between us yet. I have questions for him, and if he knows what I am about, he might prove reluctant to answer them.”
“I see,” said Miranda. “Very well. Is that all?”
Jason drew a breath, watching the pale sunlight stream across the curve of her throat. No reason to delay the inevitable, he thought, and wished he could keep her at Blakewell’s forever.
“Not quite,” he said. “Tomorrow, we go to Thornwood.”
The clock had long since struck two. Miranda sat by the bedroom window, waiting for the suite’s outer door to open. Jason had promised to come to her as soon as he concluded his meeting with Laurence.
All night, as she helped Monsieur Leblanc and the other kitchen staff prepare supper, she had been deciding what she would do next. Tomorrow, Jason would bring her back to Thornwood, and she had very little doubt what the outcome of the visit would be: her aunt ousted, the charges against her brother dropped, Thornwood restored to them. In the three days she had been at Blakewell’s, it had become abundantly clear to her that Jason was the kind of man who could accomplish anything he set his mind to, and having promised to help her, Jason would deliver on his promise.
But then what? He would return here to London, to Blakewell’s and the life he had built here, a life that did not include her. As for her, she should remain in Hertfordshire, mistress once again of her own home. But the thought did not fill her with as much pleasure as it ought to, and she feared she knew why.
She had loved Jason all her life, and she had never stopped loving him. But all her old love seemed to pale before the ardor of the emotion burning within her heart for the man he had become. To see the willpower and ambition that had elevated him from the hulks and the docks to this palace on St. James, the unassuming kindness to his staff, all of whom evidently adored him… To feel the press of his mouth on hers, the feel of his hands on her body.
How could she endure it again, to let him go? She knew it would happen; after Jason restored Thornwood to her and left, he would not come back. But how would she go on living? She must go on living, of course. Girls in books and operas could go about killing themselves for love, but she was a Thornwood, and for a Thornwood to succumb to such a bourgeois condition was unthinkable.
Jason would not come to her. But should she go to him? The answer rose in her mind immediately. Yes. She had been given this last chance—this only chance—to know what it was like to be his. She must not let it pass her by. She had already wasted enough of the time that had miraculously been given to her in her hour of greatest need; she would not waste another second.
Acting quickly, she stripped off the gown she wore and exchanged it for the negligee and wrapper. Because the fire had died and it was cold, she huddled beneath the covers to wait.
When the latch of the outer door finally opened quietly, she sat up in the bed, her hea
rt beating very fast. She slid out of the bed, crossed the room and pushed the door slowly ajar—and then came to a halt.
In the flickering light of the dying flames, she could see Jason sprawled in a massive armchair, tilting a glass of something golden in one hand as he gazed broodingly into the fire. He had loosened his cravat and his shirt hung open; she could see the dusting of dark hair across his chest.
A strange, distant sense of recklessness overcame her. Without stopping to think, she pushed the door entirely open and stepped inside.
“Your cousin doesn’t hold his drink very well,” he said, without looking up. “He proved to be a veritable gold mine of information tonight.”
“What did he say?” she asked, not really caring. Whatever it was, Jason would take care of it.
“Apparently, there was some harebrained—”
He finally raised his head as she crossed the length of the room, then broke off when he saw she was dressed for bed. “Miranda?”
Taking a deep breath, she allowed the robe to fall in a silky heap on the floor. Beneath the weight of his gaze, she was no longer cold.
“You said you wanted me,” she said. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. “I am here.”
“Ah yes,” he said. “Our bargain.” He set his glass aside. “You agreed to give yourself to me. I agreed to save your brother.” He rose to his feet as she drew closer, and when she stood before him, he took her face between his hands and gazed down at her for a long time. Then he lowered his head and kissed her, slowly and leisurely, his tongue flicking at the corner of her mouth.
When he drew back again, she made an unwilling sound of protest.
“You are not here because of the bargain, are you, Miranda?” he asked. A faint note of wonder made his voice soft.
“No,” she said.
“Then why are you here?”
She closed her eyes. “Because I want you too,” she said.
He made a sound and reached for her like a drowning man for a lifeboat. Once he had pushed the thin straps from her shoulders, the entire gown came loose, sliding down her shoulders and hips to pool at her feet, and she stood before him mantled only by the long dark fall of her hair. But this time, beneath his hot gaze, she felt no shame, only a powerful sense of inevitability.
Lily Lang Page 7
