Then she turned to him, dry-eyed. He could feel her strength having returned. Had he ever loved her more than he did in this moment?
“Take me back to the bed and let us speak no more of your parting until dawn,” she said.
Chapter Four
“Miranda,” Davey spoke slowly, carefully parsing each syllable. “Will you open my present next?”
Miranda looked at him and smiled. Even in the weak sunlight of the winter’s day, Christmas day, his hair shone with gold tones.
They sat, close together in the great hall of Blackmore Castle, the Earl of Ruel’s estate. Perched on a cliff with its rugged high stone walls and turrets that overlooked the shore, it was like something from a novel featuring captured maidens, wicked knights and ghosts.
However, the interior was decorated with rich jewel colors and brass accents, appointed with every luxury, for the plump, raven-haired countess was a lady who loved luxury.
Davey sat on the edge of his chair, his eyes almost burning with barely contained excitement. Wads of wrapping paper and bits of colored ribbons lay strewn on the floor around him. A small treasure trove of toys and books was stacked on a table at his side.
“Of course I will,” she said.
“Brentwood helped me pay for it,” Davey said, a little breathlessly.
Ruel had taken all the children, except for the toddling ones, to Cambridge, earlier in the week for their yuletide shopping. That had been a great adventure for Davey and he had not stopped chattering about it yet.
Brentwood looked up, his gaze full of disdain. “Father sent the money to me; of course I paid for it.”
His voice was surely colder than the wind out of doors. He had come from school for a short visit. Now, he was pointedly not looking at her, his handsome aristocratic face held in a rigid expression.
Heaven help her. It was just as hard to live amid Adrian’s family as she had initially imagined when he had brought the matter up with her.
Lady Ruel was kind, and though quiet, when surrounded by her children she radiated warmth that was comforting.
Lord Ruel, on the other hand, treated Miranda with a chilly politeness that was harder to bear than if he had been openly hostile. But he wasn’t allowed to show his true feelings for, upon his arrival, each time he had shown the least falter in respect towards her, Lord Ruel had quickly taken disciplinary action.
The tall, powerfully built earl had a fierce visage that would have made him a formidable figure to begin with. His pale ash blond hair and intense, ice blue eyes only added to the sense of the cool, aristocratic bearing. And he often turned that fearsome gaze upon her, when he thought she wasn’t noticing—just as he was now—his eyes narrowing slightly, as though weighing and measuring her.
Waiting for her least misstep?
Her hands began to shake and she dropped the heavy silver brush that Lord and Lady Ruel had given her. The loud clatter as it hit the floor made her startle. She glanced down and the jewels on the backing glittered in a rainbow of hues. Heat flooded her cheeks and she bent to retrieve the obviously expensive gift.
Still feeling both Brentwood and Ruel’s stares, knowing that she was here only out of courtesy, for Adrian’s sake, she gripped the cool metal, lifting it, feeling the substantialness of it. Clearly Lord and Lady Ruel had not stinted when selecting her gift.
This was her future?
A well-gilded future but no true acceptance?
Adrian had only been gone a matter of weeks.
It seemed like ages. The days passed quickly enough. But the nights, oh the nights…
A tug on the long sleeve of her wine colored wool gown jerked her from her musings. She looked up into Davey’s flushed face right next to her now.
“Mama! Please open my present next!” Davey’s over-excited voice sounded.
Increased tension flooded the air.
Long moments passed as though no one knew what to say.
Certainly Miranda did not.
She felt as though everyone in the chamber were silently accusing her.
Accusing her of what?
Accusing her of daring to step into Jane Sutherland’s slippers…
A former harlot pretending to be the equal of that refined lady.
“Please…” Davey tugged on her sleeve again.
“Give her a moment, Davey.” Lady Ruel’s gentle voice clashed oddly with the hard edge of the moment.
Brentwood issued a loud, explosive hiss, as though he had just found his breath. “She’s not our mother!”
Davey gave a gasping sob, falling back against Miranda.
Another silence fell over the chamber. This time the collective tension of everyone present seemed to settle into Miranda’s stomach. The heavily creamed and sugared tea and all those ginger biscuits she had so happily breakfasted on, churned uneasily.
“Charlie!” Davey gasped.
He appeared to be the only one who ever used his brother’s given name.
Brentwood leapt to his feet and stormed towards him.
Miranda put her hands on Davey, instinctively pulling him closer as the older boy came at them, his face mottled red and white. He stopped and leaned down, glaring into Davey’s face. “She’s not our mother!”
“You forget yourself, my lord,” Ruel said, his voice cold as lead.
Brentwood whirled to face Ruel. “I don’t give a flying f-f-fig about the consequences! I shall speak my mind!”
A girlish gasp, more a high-pitched squeak followed this outburst.
Miranda’s glance took in the two little daughters of the house, Lady Charlotte and Lady Georgina, sitting each on their own velvet footstool by Lord Ruel’s chair, their eyes wide, faces a little paler than earlier.
“You’re in the presence of more than one lady.” Ruel’s voice sounded calm but with a hard edge.
“Do you know what they are saying about her in Mayfair? At Cambridge? Do you know the word that is—”
“Silence!” Ruel’s voice boomed as he stood. His daughters gaped at him, round-eyed gazes darting towards their mother now, as though they wondered if they ought to seek her softer refuge. “She is your father’s choice. Make peace with it.”
“I shall never make peace with this-this night bird foisted upon me and my brother to take our mother’s place.” His lip curled. “Never!”
“Leave the hall and do not return until you can act in a civil manner towards your father’s wife. For shame, your father has worked so hard for you and this is how you repay him.”
“I shall leave— with pleasure, my lord. But I won’t simply leave this hall. I shall go and spend the remainder Christmastide with my uncle.”
“Yes, a fine solution. I shall see that a carriage is readied for you, you ungrateful boy.”
Brentwood flushed at Ruel’s sneering use of the word boy.
He turned to Miranda, his lip still curled upwards. He effected a stiff, exaggerated bow. “Lady Danvers.”
His eyes burned into hers, the hate there searing into her soul, shocking her into speechlessness.
Then he spun on his heel and stormed from the chamber.
Miranda shook all over the exchange.
“I-I knew she was not our Mama!” Davey defended hotly, pulling everyone’s attention back to him. His cheeks red with the embarrassment of one who has been previously known to hallucinate, his eyes shone with welling tears.
Miranda ached to comfort him but when she tried he stiffened and pulled away. He wouldn’t look at her now.
She felt a hesitance to do anything to make situation worse.
Mercy, had she ever felt so much at a loss?
Had she ever felt so accused?
She had failed Davey.
She had failed Adrian.
Failed.
But she had tried so hard.
So damned hard.
“Of course you didn’t really think she was your Mama.” Lady Ruel’s soft voice broke into Miranda’s rising angst.
“It’s just that-that…” Davey’s lip trembled and he had gone pale. He hiccupped, a sound suspiciously close to a sob. “It’s just…”
“It’s just that you would like her to be your Mama now?”
Davey gaped at her then he nodded, slowly, his expression pinched, painful.
He gulped back another sob. Miranda felt as though her heart were being torn out.
What should she say?
What should she do?
She wasn’t a mother. She’d just been pretending all this time. Pretending because that was all she knew to do in her life.
As a child, pretending not to care that Winterton didn’t love her.
Pretending not to need Mama’s guidance and motherly strength.
Pretending to be a courtesan.
Pretending to be cold, haughty, sophisticated, and sensually skilled.
Pretending, pretending, pretending!
Lady Ruel held her arms open and Davey ran to her, tears flowing down his cheeks.
Miranda sensed it was due more to confusion than grief. But there was some grief there, too. She could always feel his emotions welling up, as though there were some invisible cord linking her to Davey. His pain was always hers.
Lady Ruel caressed the boy’s curling hair. “It’s all right, Davey. There’s nothing wrong or shameful about how you feel.”
“I love my own Mama.”
“I know you do, my darling. You always will.”
He nodded vigorously. “I have missed her so dreadfully.”
“And you have grieved for her and shown her all the respect that is humanly possible,” Lady Ruel said, her voice softer than ever.
“I have been so alone…” He sniffled and choked back a sob. “Until Miranda came.”
“You love Miranda,” Lady Ruel said.
“Yes, I do love her.” His voice rose on the last three words. “But I loved Mama and she left. Now Papa is also gone.” His voice trembled. “I don’t want Miranda to leave, too.”
Lady Ruel looked up and met Miranda’s eyes, her dark blue eyes glossy. She motioned for Miranda to come closer.
“It’s all right to love Miranda, Davey,” Lady Ruel said. “You won’t be punished for finding happiness again. Your Mama would want you to be happy.”
“My brother is angry with me.” Davey lifted his head and gulped another sob back. “That’s like a punishment.”
“Davey, sometimes the people we are related to don’t support our full happiness.”
Davey turned towards the sound of Ruel’s voice.
The earl stood close to them, holding Lady Georgette in his arms. Her little head rested against his shoulder, her pale, pale ash-blonde ringlets appeared fine as angel’s hair against his dark blue coat.
“Sometimes, we have to go our own way, despite a bond of blood or family name.” Ruel said this with resolution, as though he knew this with some personal and painful experience. “However, I think your brother is simply distraught about the changes that life brings and that he cannot alter them to his own liking. He is young. I think he will come around in time.”
“You really think so?” Davey asked then gave a loud sniffle. “Really and truly?”
Lord and Lady Ruel exchanged an amused yet fond look, the kind that parents often do, but Miranda had previously found herself so rarely in the company of family people. The moment hit her with a piquant bittersweet notion. She blinked and swallowed hard.
Lady Ruel smoothed Davey’s hair off his forehead. “Why don’t you go to Miranda now and tell her that you love her?”
Lady Ruel released Davey and gave him a nudge towards Miranda. Davey stared at her, uncertainty in his eyes.
Miranda knelt and held her arms open.
He continued staring at her then suddenly he threw himself at her, the impact of his little body rocking hers.
She clasped him. The scent of clove and citrus soap wafted from his shinning hair, mingling with ginger biscuits and the scent of his new wool suit. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.
Tears of relief.
Joy.
And something much more.
“I love you, Davey,” she said, giving him a quick squeeze.
“I love you, too, Mama.”
****
Surrounded by the high stone walls of Blackmore Castle, the howls of wind seemed exaggerated. They trailed off into almost an echo, a hissing sort of whisper. One could almost imagine it sounded like distant, feminine cries of pain. Miranda shivered and pulled the blanket, draped about her shoulders, closer together.
She was almost glad that she’d been ejected from Lady Ruel’s bedchamber. The old nurse and the younger, yet practical, Lady Drake had decided that as a woman who had not yet birthed a child, Miranda ought to be sheltered from the experience. Lady Ruel had wholeheartedly agreed.
Miranda found their concern for her tender innocence both amusing and touching.
Not being able to sleep, she had come here to main hall to read yet she couldn’t concentrate on her book.
The sound of boots on the floor made her raise her head.
Lord Ruel was approaching her. Yes, she had noted his naturally fierce expression; it was hard to discern his moods. But he did look a tad fiercer than normal.
Her heart seemed to jump.
Why would he be here in the main chamber?
Was he coming here to give bad news?
She raised her brows. “Lady Ruel?”
“As tart-tongued as any wayward wench,” he replied.
While somehow managing not to spill a single drop from the full glass in his left hand, he dragged wing chair over to the side table near her. Then he sat.
It suddenly struck her that she was completely alone with him.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
She started. “Like what?”
“Like I’ve grown horns.”
She released her tension in a quavering laugh. “I didn’t expect to see you here in the hall. Not tonight.”
“My part was done many months ago, so my lady tells me.” Ruel chuckled softly then he pulled a bottle from inside his coat and himself another drink.
Miranda registered her shock as the risqué meaning of what he’d said dawned on her.
And then the shock that she should be shocked by any man’s frank talk.
However, all this time, Ruel had been a perfect gentleman with her.
Then again, she’d never before smelled the strong odor of whisky coming off him.
Unease began to wind through her mid-section. They had all treated her with the utmost respect. She had become so used to being treated like a lady. Like a relative by marriage.
She had forgotten the truth of what she was.
The bastard-born daughter of a duke. A former courtesan.
And whilst Adrian held this cousin in the highest regard and trust, she didn’t really know these people.
God, what would she say or do if this nobleman should make an advance…or worse, a demand?
It would be his word against hers. And being a nobleman, likely if caught or confronted, he would claim that it was she who had propositioned him?
She began to feel slightly ill.
Ruel was studying her. “You’ve turned pale.”
She touched her cheek. “Have I?”
She heard the sudden shaking in her voice.
“Are you sure that you are feeling all right?”
She nodded.
“You look more afraid than ill.” He paused. ”Lady Danvers, surely you don’t fear than I am going to do anything untoward?”
“Oh goodness, no, I…”
He frowned and studied her all the harder. “It is indelicate to mention it, but given your history, surely you understand men better than that.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Lady Ruel has been with child and rather unwell with it for some time now. But you think that if I were of a mind to betray her that I would wait until tonigh
t?” Mild amusement lit his gaze. “You’re certainly a desirable young woman. It is not hard to guess why Danvers lost his head over you.”
A pang of alarm resurged beneath her breast. Yet, she saw no trace of lust in his gaze.
Instead, there was a softness there that she had never seen from him before. A sincere type of friendly regard.
“Adrian had said that you were more innocent than you seemed.”
Again, she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t really know how to interact with a nobleman outside a sexual type situation, did she?
Oddly, she felt a blush heat her cheeks and she looked down at her book. But the words on the page were still a jumble.
“So, you’re going to put Danvers through this business some day, eh?”
“Err, what business?” she replied, dumbly, his words not registering through her flustered senses.
It wasn’t simply this awkward moment with the Earl of Ruel. Lady Ruel’s labor had brought back all the disturbing memories of the night Mama had struggled so hard to bear her brother.
All that struggle and yet, he had died in his infancy.
The remembered grief, both for her brother and for Mama, weighed upon her.
It also brought to mind all her sadness about her delayed childbearing, all the years that she thought she would never, ever be a mother, for Carrville’s seed had never taken root.
But she also was aware of all her buried anxiety over what it would be like to deliver her own child. To be a mother to a helpless infant.
God, was she even adequate to fulfill such a responsibility?
“This business of childbearing.” He paused. She heard the sound of him pouring another drink. “She can be so proud, so stiff-necked, knotty-headed proud.” He said this last as though he were alone, his words slurring more noticeably. “You women live to torment us men, don’t you?”
She attempted a smile but she couldn’t look at him. His intoxication, his self-revelation made her feel like an interloper. “I suppose I should find my chamber.”
“You know you’re not going to sleep.”
“I should try—”
“None of the adults in this house will be able to sleep a wink this night.”
Thwack!
Something had hit the table.
Sacrifice (Fashionably Impure Book 3) Page 5
