The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection 6

by MacMurrough, Sorcha

  "Once more, Cesario,

  Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty:

  Tell her, my love, more noble than the world,

  Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;

  The parts that fortune hath bestow’d upon her,

  Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune;

  But ’tis that miracle and queen of gems

  That nature pranks her in attracts my soul.'"

  "But if she cannot love you, sir?" Miranda recited.

  George lifted his nose in the air with grand hauteur. "I cannot be so answer’d."

  "Sooth, but you must."

  At George’s surprised look, she sidled up to the sofa and perched upon the end of it timidly.

  "Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,

  Hath for your love a great a pang of heart

  As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her;

  You tell her so; must she not then be answer’d?"

  George made a wonderfully imperious gesture, dismissing her argument in an instant.

  "There is no woman’s sides

  Can bide the beating of so strong a passion

  As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart

  So big, to hold so much; they lack retention

  Alas, their love may be call’d appetite,

  No motion of the liver, but the palate,

  That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt;

  But mine is all as hungry as the sea,

  And can digest as much: make no compare

  Between that love a woman can bear me

  And that I owe Olivia."

  "Ay, but I know—" Miranda halted, and looked around at the cast.

  "So here she is about to blurt out her love for him a second time, and yet a second time she has to think her way out of the pit she has dug for herself. But he has noticed her consternation, her strange nervousness, for he says—" She nodded to George.

  "What dost thou know?"

  "Too well what love women to men may owe:

  In faith, they are as true of heart as we.

  My father had a daughter loved a man,

  As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,

  I should your lordship."

  "And what’s her history?" George asked with interest.

  Miranda managed to look sufficiently despondent without giving the game away completely.

  "A blank, my lord. She never told her love,

  But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,

  Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,

  And with a green and yellow melancholy

  She sat like patience on a monument,

  Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?

  We men may say more, swear more: but indeed

  Our shows are more than will; for still we prove

  Much in our vows, but little in our love."

  George explained, "The Duke is very moved by this speech. He also really starts to wonder, to take notice of the young man who has rapidly become such a close friend and confidant. He may even begin to suspect a little of the truth but not quiet be prepared to face it. So he asks, ‘But died thy sister of her love, my boy?’"

  Miranda said sadly, "I am all the daughters of my father’s house,

  And all the brothers too: and yet I know not.

  Sir, shall I to this lady?"

  George nodded. "Ay, that’s the theme.

  To her in haste; give her this jewel; say,

  My love can give no place, bide no denay."

  "So Miranda as Viola goes off to try to woo Olivia for him again successfully," George said with a smile. "It shows the depth of her love for him that she is willing to see him happy with another and will do everything in her power to bring that about. She is truly patience on a monument."

  Miranda looked at him pointedly. "But the Duke isn’t quite ready to give up his fantasy and take the real thing. Viola’s friendship for him is easily turned to love in the end.

  "Once he understands that Viola has not betrayed him, and in fact his love has married Viola’s brother Sebastian, then he describes the accident at a sea as ‘this most happy wreck’. He understands everything, especially how she feels, and determines he will marry her." She nodded to George.

  He now delivered his lines which prepared for the conclusion of the play. "Be not amazed; right noble is his blood.

  If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,

  I shall have share in this most happy wreck."

  He turned to Miranda. "Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times

  Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.

  Miranda nodded. "And all those sayings will I overswear;

  And those swearings keep as true in soul

  As doth that orbed continent the fire

  That severs day from night."

  He held his own hand out. "Give me thy hand;

  And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds."

  George reminded them, "Then we have the comic subplot with the arrogant Malvolio resolved, and we eventually come to the end, when I will deliver the last speech as the Duke.

  "Pursue him and entreat him to a peace:

  He hath not told us of the captain yet:

  When that is known and golden time convents,

  A solemn combination shall be made

  Of our dear souls. Meantime, sweet sister,

  We will not part from hence. Cesario, come;

  For so you shall be, while you are a man;

  But when in other habits you are seen,

  Orsino’s mistress and his fancy’s queen."

  "And shall we kiss more passionately than we have up until now?" Miranda asked impishly.

  "Oh, most assuredly, my dear. No betrothal or wedding would be complete without a kiss. And passion between two such lovers is a given."

  For a moment she was sure he was actually about to kiss her in the unbridled way he had done before, and was almost afraid.

  She knew then that they had reached some sort of turning point. Somehow, this kiss, this embrace was different, a declaration of intent as he gathered her lithe body closely into his arms and kissed her hard.

  She didn’t dare try to struggle, for her legs felt as though they were about to give way beneath her with the impact of their meeting and melding of mouths.

  When at last he lifted his lips, she was clinging to his shoulders, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.

  Milly sniffed. "Cor. That were bootiful."

  Daniel now got caught up in the moment. "You are, Milly, my dear."

  The huge woman looked completely gobsmacked. Though he had to raise himself up on his toes, he stroked her peaches and cream cheeks, and everyone gaped as she wrapped her arms around him like a girl clinging to a cherished doll, and kissed him.

  His feet dangled from the floor about six inches, but no one dared laugh.

  Miranda smiled up at George, and he kissed her once again.

  "We need to talk, my dear. As soon as we finish rehearsals here. Please?"

  "Where?"

  "The drawing room at Fulham House. I have a meeting first. Give me an hour, pet?"

  She nodded wordlessly.

  George smiled down at her, feeling more boyish than he had in years. With a final kiss and a quick furtive stroke of her rump, he vanished, leaving the cast and crew to finish practising.

  But Milly was so distracted making eyes at Daniel, after a short time Miranda shook her head and called it a day.

  She didn’t mind being early back to Fulham House. It would give her time to adjust her toilette and prepare for what she thought George was going to say to her. Well, what she hoped he would say, anyway…

  Her head swam at the thought of it all. He had to return her feelings, he just had to… No man could kiss her like that and not be moved beyond measure by the passionate whirlwind which swept through her.

  "Don’t mind us. We’ll close up," Becky promised Miranda, shooing her out.

>   Liz nodded. "I want to get my part for Maria just right, and I’ll help her with Olivia."

  "Thank you ladies. See you tomorrow, if not before."

  "Aye, Miranda. Off you go."

  They waved and looked back down at the book.

  Miranda was glad they did not seem to take the kiss between she and George amiss; her only trouble now was what she was supposed to think herself.

  She entered the front door of Fulham House quietly, and would have slipped up to her room had not a peal of merry laughter from the drawing room caught her attention.

  She didn’t wish to eavesdrop, of course, but she wondered who on earth could be laughing so joyously. Jasmine was always so quiet. And Viola such a stuck-up...

  Miranda gasped softly at the sight which met her gaze. Viola was looking in the mirror, her head thrown back, lips parted, cheeks and indeed entire complexion from forehead to the decolletage of her lovely gown flushed with passionate colour.

  The way Miranda knew she looked when she was with George. She tried to be happy for the woman, that she was human after all, and capable of pleasure, not just sour bitchiness.

  She watched as Viola admired a spectacular jet necklace in the pierglass over the mantelpiece. Alistair was standing behind her, holding it by the clasp as she pressed it to her breasts.

  Then the tall man moved. His hair colour registered now—black, not silver. She gazed at his reflection in the mirror with a painful stab of recognition, just before Viola turned into his arms, stretching the full length of her body like a sinuous cat against his own as she turned her face up to be kissed.

  It was indeed a most romantic and moving scene. Only it wasn’t Alistair at all.

  It was dark-haired George...

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Miranda fled from Fulham House as if it were on fire. Only when she got to the theatre did she stop to take a pained breath.

  Every gasp was agony, and only got worse as she disgorged the contents of her stomach into the sewer at the corner.

  She was wracked with great shuddering spasms, and heaved mightily until she was sure her lungs and rib cage would burst.

  Then, numbly, she managed to drag herself into the theatre, slipping up the side aisle. Becky and Liz were so absorbed in their book that they did not see her creep behind the back curtain and head to the privacy of her dressing room.

  She managed to get to her dressing table chair before she collapsed utterly, and cried as though her heart would break.

  She shivered with dread at the sudden sensation of someone standing behind her. Then he touched her, and she whirled around, the words of furious denunciation poised on her lips.

  "Miranda, my dear, why are you crying?" the Earl of Oxnard asked, his blue eyes glittering like a miser eyeing his most precious treasure.

  "Oh, ’tis nothing. You know how women get all sorts of megrims and fidgets," she lied, sniffing.

  "If there is ought amiss you must tell me. I would like to think we have become great friends," he said, rubbing her shoulders lingeringly.

  Her mind and stomach was still in such turmoil that she paid little attention to his words. He took this as a sign of encouragement and pressed on.

  "Miranda, I’ve remained silent long enough. I know it’s sudden, but over the past weeks ever since we met, my regard for you has grown by such leaps and bounds, that the thought of living without you fills me with the most impossible dread. I simply cannot keep my strong feelings in check any longer. I will die if you do not agree to be my wife."

  "Wife?" she gasped, unable to believe her ears. She had so longed for a proposal from George. Yet here was Oxnard, who had showered her with gifts, now down on bended knee.

  But George was a knave. Not a lover at all, except in the looser sense of the word, having fumbled, groped and kissed her without any promises for the morrow. Who had been billing and cooing with a married woman right in the drawing room where anyone might have walked in.

  Aye, he had said he wanted to speak with her all right. To tell him his heart belonged to another? To engage in a foursome with the Grants? Or worse still—to take part in the common male fantasy of two women in a bed, though as Emma had often pointed out, the poor bastards could seldom please one woman, let alone two. No, they just wanted to lie back and get all the pleasure, never give.

  Not that George had been so selfish, but his heart belonged to another, and she was certainly never going to share. She wanted all of him, or none of him. And to betray her with Viola of all people... right under Alistair’s nose? Certainly Philip and Jasmine’s. It was just too awful. She had thought them all decent enough, respectable.

  She had trusted George, thought him a good man. And he had betrayed her... She had to leave Fulham House at once, never see him again. Leave the theatre, The Three Bells. And go where?

  She was trying to focus on what the Earl was saying, a long litany of endearments which she was sure were rehearsed, though he performed them badly enough. Still, she thought, attempting not to be too critical at the point which was supposed to be one of turning in any young woman’s life, he was trying.

  And if her heart was not in the least engaged, for it was completely broken, smashed to pieces by what she had seen at Fulham House, her brain was. Marrying an earl was quite a coup. Far better than aligning herself with a pimp, theatre manager and criminal mastermind…

  Oxnard had said he loved her. She didn’t love him, but apart from the Rakehells, she had never known anyone of their class to marry for love. Respect would serve just as well. She knew she was fleeing from George, running headlong from the vision of seeing him in the arms of Viola Grant. But Oxnard was so importunate, and it would solve all her problems...

  "Please, you must give me an answer or I shall go mad. If you say yes, we can be married at once. Everything is all arranged. It needs only a couple of your friends to be witnesses, and the deed shall be done. You will be my one and only bride, and we shall go away from here, and never come back. I shall take you to my bed, and to a Heaven of kisses and sighs. Please, darling, please say yes."

  Miranda looked at him at last. Just managing to keep the sigh of resignation out of her voice, she said quietly, "Yes, Geoffrey, yes, I will marry you."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Within five minutes of agreeing to marry him, the Earl of Oxnard had bundled Miranda into the carriage and gone back inside the theatre to persuade Becky and Liz to accompany them to the wedding ceremony.

  Becky was surprised, and tried to question Miranda about the precipitateness of the decision and her feelings for George.

  "La, it was all only acting, my dear, as you’ll see," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Inwardly she was sure she was dying. "George is a nice enough bloke, but he's certainly not an earl."

  Liz too was surprised, but took the explanation at face value and despite her misgivings, did not argue, and began to congratulate her.

  Two hours travelling south-west took them to the village of Oxnard, to a dilapidated red-brick Elizabethan manor house. Oxnard led her into the drawing room, and she saw that indeed all was prepared for a wedding.

  The earl insisted she go in the other room and put on the sheer white muslin gown he had prepared for the occasion. Becky and Liz helped get her into it only with great reluctance, still surprised that she was marrying Oxnard when everyone knew George adored her. Why, only a few hours before at rehearsals, they had looked so...

  "George is an actor, manager and pimp. This is an earl. Of course I was flattered when George gave me the role. Tried to keep him sweet. But it was all pretend. No one will blame me for grabbing this chance with both hands," she said, almost choking, waiting for lightning to strike her dead for her many lies.

  Becky and Liz shrugged.

  "Well, when you put it like that," Liz said, "I suppose no one can blame you for wanting a man with a title."

  Becky scowled, but it was none of her business. She congratulated George on making a lucky escape
in her own mind. But she had been so sure that they had been very much in love.... What could have turned Miranda’s head so quickly?

  The ceremony passed by in a haze of unreality. Miranda tried not to gag anew as the vicar pronounced them man and wife, and that Oxnard could kiss the bride. She realised with a tiny jolt of mortification that she had not done anything to even try to cleanse her mouth after she had spewed her guts into the gutter.

  Astonishingly the Earl’s breath was even worse than her own. It seemed half his teeth were missing and the other half carious. He rammed his tongue into her mouth with a force which left her gagging, and then began to pour champagne and brandy. He made the girls sing, and they played party games with the vicar, who grew more and more inebriated by the minute.