And Then Comes Marriage

by Celeste Bradley

  Attie rolled off the bed and wandered over to the dressing table. “If you had a lot of beaus, you could go to balls every night. And carriage rides, and plays, and shooting.”

  She lifted the lid on Miranda’s powder box and bent to sniff it. When she came back up, she had a white spot on the tip of her nose. Miranda smiled as she noticed the divot in her powder.

  Moving casually and carefully, she picked up the rabbit fur powder puff and took a matter-of-fact swipe in the general direction of Attie’s smidgen.

  The fact that Attie didn’t duck away or even scowl overmuch encouraged Miranda greatly. However, she had no intention of continuing this inappropriate conversation with a child, driver of her own carriage or not!

  Turning on her stool to gaze into Attie’s funny little face—heavens, the girl would be a stunner someday!—Miranda smiled kindly but firmly.

  “My beau situation is none of your concern, little Miss Atalanta Worthington.”

  Attie screwed up her face. “Yes, it is.”

  Miranda tilted her head. “How so?”

  Attie tilted her head in the same direction, mirroring Miranda. “If you marry a Worthington, you marry all the Worthingtons. And that is going to be very sticky for you, don’t you think?”

  Miranda drew back, stunned. “Attie, I have no intention of marrying a Worthington. I will never marry again. I’m sorry that you have been misled.”

  Attie examined her narrowly for a long moment. The child’s odd intensity made Miranda squirm a little inside. Then Attie shrugged. “If you say so. I have to go now.” She skipped to the door and then turned back.

  “You are beautiful. Beautiful ladies really should have more than two lovers.” Then she was gone.

  Miranda was left sitting openmouthed. “I don’t have any lovers.… I really don’t.…”

  * * *

  Cas couldn’t bear it any longer. He’d avoided Miranda for days—and she had not even realized it! It was ridiculous to stay away. He was only punishing himself, not to mention driving his own confusion and need to unmanageable heights!

  After assuring himself that, yes, it was “his” night—and that Poll was otherwise occupied with helping Elektra dig through the chaos and madness for a litter of kittens that were keeping the entire household up at night with their yowling so that they could be moved to a nice warm box by the ovens—Cas allowed himself to do more than lurk.

  No, the hunt had become a chase, except that Cas was not sure who was the pursued. He felt hounded by thoughts of her, of memories and fantasies still to come. As he neared her house, his pace increased. He actually ran up the stairs to rap on Miranda’s polished brass knocker.

  The butler took his bloody time answering the door. Cas spent that long moment imagining the scene within.

  Miranda, dressed in another drab gown, her hair wound simply at the back of her head. His Mira, turning to greet him with a hesitant smile that made her beautiful.

  In his mind, Cas was inside the room in an instant. In his imagination, Miranda was up against the mantelpiece in another instant, being kissed as if she were the last woman on the earth.

  He remained frozen on the steps. Even as he fought the desire, and hunger, and aching, tormented longing that whirled in a tempest within him, Cas feared that for him, she just might be precisely that.

  The very last woman.

  When Twigg opened the door of the house on Breton Square, he found no one there.

  * * *

  On one hand, there is Poll. Darling Poll. He is romantic and playful, coaxing and charming. I feel youthful when I am with him, like a schoolgirl with her first suitor. My attraction to him has an innocence that I never had a chance to know when I was young.

  He is someone I can talk to, share my thoughts with, someone who will listen and never belittle my oddest remarks.

  When I wake each day, I look forward to seeing him, as I always did, before this mad competition commenced. Now, of course, I never know if he will sweep in with flowers and laughter and flirtation, or pull me along on an adventure and make me feel like a carefree child.

  * * *

  Poll had just about enough of interruptions, just when he was about to get his long-awaited kiss from Miranda!

  When a Worthington became frustrated, it was time to duck.

  In Poll’s case, he’d decided that after genteel courtship and applied logic had failed him, the only thing left was to pull out all the stops. His plan was to sweep Miranda away on a tide of pure unadulterated romance!

  Armed with poetry and a handful of stolen blooms from neighboring gardens, Poll waited outside Miranda’s, keeping his patience as evening waned and night fell. At last he saw the light of a candle in the window of her bedchamber.

  He’d spent his long wait well. Using the light from the sputtering streetlamps, he’d plotted every step of his climb. He knew her window, and he knew from conversing upon the weather that she rarely shut it entirely. Did she enjoy the cool draft stirring across her body, chilling her ivory skin?

  He’d best not think on that. Climbing would be hard and dangerous enough without an erection. He’d feel a right fool for dying with newssheets shouting things like ERASED BY ERECTION! or DIS-MEMBERED!

  The very real possibility of falling did much to cool his heated blood—there would be plenty of time for that once he got up there. He stuffed the bouquet into the front of his weskit and started up.

  The climb wasn’t so bad. From the railing of the steps, he could reach the ledge at the top of the first-floor window. There was a decorative stone detail over the door that gave his next foothold. Then it was a quick clamber up onto the classical portico over the front door and up to the next story window. The decorative stone ledge below provided his path. Two windows down from that was the one leading into Miranda’s boudoir.

  Very well, it was hard and terrifying. At any given moment he would not have given great odds of his own survival. He would definitely be leaving by the door, thank you very much.

  Sliding his feet along side by side on the narrow ledge, he started to wonder what the bloody hell he was thinking.

  Do I love her this much? Or do I just hate to lose?

  Both? Poll decided it was both and continued the precarious journey down the ledge. If I survive this, I promise a long life filled with good acts. I really do.

  At last he reached Miranda’s window and leaned gasping on the framing for a long moment. Then, trying to look as though he’d merely dropped in whilst in the neighborhood, he began.

  “Miranda!”

  Her name came out a bit rough, probably due to the sheer terror lingering in his heart as he contemplated the sheer drop behind him. He cleared his throat and swept the bouquet high.

  “Miranda! ‘O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound—’”

  The draperies were pulled back swiftly. The flame of a candle held high blinded Poll instantly. Oh. I might have thought of that.

  Blind, he clung desperately to the stone frame of the window embrasure. “Ow.”

  “Cas?”

  He blinked rapidly. “No. It is I, Poll.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, Poll! You’re going to fall to your death! Shift to your left so that I can open the window!”

  Poll slid one foot, then the other, thinking that the phrase “dying for love” was just about the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.

  The window opened with a creak and he felt a rush of warmed air come from the bedchamber. Blinking, he managed to look past the fading glare in his eyes to see Miranda standing before him in her dressing gown with one hand outstretched to him.

  “Let me help you in,” she urged. “You idiot.”

  Poll, who had been quite willing to crawl into her room and lie quivering on the floor for a while, instantly rediscovered his spine.

  Instead of putting his hand in hers, he thrust the admittedly less-than-fresh bouquet into her hand.

  O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound

>   And crown what I profess with kind event

  If I speak true! if hollowly, invert

  What best is boded me to mischief!

  Poll wobbled a little on the sill. Miranda, who had begun to smile at his antics, gasped and clasped the bouquet close in alarm.

  Catching himself, Poll valiantly went on. “‘I / Beyond all limit of what else i’ the world / Do love, prize, honour you.’”

  He finished with another flourishing bow, this time leaning into the room, by God!

  Miranda looked an adorable combination of worried for his sanity and secretly thrilled. Poll grinned at her. It was a combination he could work with.

  “Pray, a kiss for my labors?”

  Miranda frowned at him and threw her hands wide in exasperation. “Then will you come in off the windowsill, you idiot?”

  Poll wiggled his eyebrows. “Kiss me and find out!”

  She made a frustrated noise, tossed her bouquet down on a side table, and advanced on him. Poll grinned in satisfaction—that is, until she fisted both hands in his surcoat and dragged his mouth down to hers, even as she yanked him into the safety of the room!

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cas knew they imagined themselves invisible, for the room behind them was dimly lit and the hour was very late. He knew his brother had not accounted for the glow of candlelight behind them, nor of the shimmering incandescence of Miranda’s beautiful skin. Poll most certainly could not have dreamed that someone might be standing in the park below, someone who happened to be carrying on his person an expandable spyglass.

  Through it, Cas saw every smile, every shape her lips formed as she received Poll’s ludicrous performance. I could have recounted Ferdinand’s speech to Miranda. I know that damned play backwards!

  He saw Miranda take the flowers. He saw her reach for Poll.

  He saw Poll fall upon her for a long kiss, and then another. Then the two of them turned away into the darkness of Miranda’s bedchamber.

  How he wanted her. Even standing there astonished at his own voyeurism, he wanted her. He wanted to be the one falling hard into her bedchamber. He wanted to be the one she dragged down for a deep kiss.

  Cas clenched his eyes shut and his hands into fists.

  She had first been Poll’s. Cas ought to have known he could not wipe those weeks of advance courtship away from her mind.

  He forced himself to turn away. He would not wait, would not watch, would not know.

  Two steps later, he turned back, unable to leave. The ache for her grew the longer he watched. He was breaking his word being there, was breaking the very law by peering into a lady’s bedchamber, yet he stayed.

  * * *

  Poll fell willingly into Miranda’s room, his arms already going around her, catching them both before they ended up on the carpet.

  We’ll get to you later, carpet.

  He pulled her close to him and bent his face over hers, his mouth on her soft one.

  Hmm. Umm. Well.

  It must be his close call with Death on the Cobbles that was interfering. Get your mind off your own funeral! He cleared his throat and went in again.

  This time she tried harder as well. She parted her lips, although he felt her flinch when he slipped the tip of his tongue between them.

  Her body stiffened. Alas, his body, despite the weeks of anticipation, did not.

  Er. Ahem.

  He pulled away from her and straightened. His mouth felt decidedly odd, his body completely uninvolved, his libido running in the other direction. It was almost as peculiar as if he’d mistakenly kissed Callie or Elektra.

  However, he would never upset Miranda by letting on for one moment that he found her anything less than devastating.

  Forcing a smile that he feared resembled a manic smirk, he bowed deeply once more. “Thank you, my lady! I could not have asked for more.” She’d tried, poor thing. She’d really given it a go. It wasn’t her fault that he had lost all interest in her charms.

  “Yes, well … you’re welcome.” She returned his smile with a vaguely bewildered crease between her fine brows. “Ah, it is very late, Poll.”

  He bent his head. “Of course! Absolutely!” After that alarming revelation, he couldn’t get out fast enough, truthfully. “Ah.” He gestured at the window. “Shall I—?”

  “No, for pity’s sake, Poll! No need to take that absurd romantic notion any further!”

  Well, no, that was obvious—although not very nice of her to say so. Still, he was deeply relieved to be able to leave like a man and not a monkey!

  He politely ignored her swift puzzled touch to her lips as she turned to walk him to the door. A gentleman ought not to notice such things, after all.

  * * *

  Carved into granite stillness by his longing and his jealousy, Cas waited in the dark long after Miranda and Poll had turned from the window and left his view. He waited until he saw his brother leave the house by the front door and trot wearily down the steps.

  Cas waited until the last candle went dark, until the last servant went to bed.

  The night settled upon the street again and still he waited in a dark so complete that he felt blinded by it.

  * * *

  On the other hand, there is Cas. By turns maddening and breathtaking, he twists my thoughts every moment I am with him. He is exhilarating.

  I think of taking him as a lover and the notion thrills and alarms me. Will he overwhelm me with the strength of his need and challenge me to admit the power of my own? He sends my head spinning and my heart leaping and my body—sweet heaven, what he does to my body!

  * * *

  Miranda sat at her dressing table, running her brush through her hair. Even to herself in the mirror, she looked confused.

  I do not understand. She closed her eyes briefly. I fear I have ever understood nothing.

  A kiss was a kiss. One man kissed her and she melted. Another, identical man kissed her and she congealed.

  Well, that first kiss was a long while ago. Maybe I’ve lost whatever aspect that existed then. Perhaps I would not like a kiss from Cas now, either.

  Somehow it didn’t seem likely.

  When a tap came at the bedchamber door, she called, “Come in,” without stopping to think.

  A heavy tread on her floor made her turn around in surprise. She gasped at the large shadowy form in her dim room … then gave a shaky laugh. There was no ready smile, no easy laugh. Cas.

  Her heart leaped. She pretended to ignore it. “Mr. Worthington, you startled me.”

  He tossed down his hat and pulled his coat from his shoulders to drape over the chair by the fire. His movements seemed odd, deliberate. A shiver went through her belly at his strangeness. Was he … angry?

  She stepped back a tiny step and then another one. “Mr. Worthington, why did my manservant not take your hat and coat when you entered the house?”

  He slid his gaze away. “I didn’t see him.”

  She swallowed. “You let yourself in? That was a bit presumptuous, perhaps?”

  He turned to face her. His handsome features were set, unsmiling. “Am I wrong?” He moved toward her. “Am I unwelcome?”

  There was an edge to his voice. He seemed larger than his brother somehow. He came closer still, slowly stalking her across the carpet. Her back came up against the wall next to the window. He kept coming.

  “Mira, I have waited long enough.” He reached out and slowly pulled at the belt of her wrapper. “I want to see you.”

  The heat coming from his large male body was beginning to weaken her knees. Mr. Worthington obviously had a bit of a dark side.

  Her heart raced. Her mouth went dry. Terror made her belly shiver—except it wasn’t terror at all. She made no move to stop his untying.

  When the belt fell away, he slowly slipped the wrapper from her shoulders. It pooled at her feet. She now stood before him in her lacy nightdress. It was a mere wisp of a gown.

  She’d received it from Mr. Button last week and ha
d also been given several other things that maidens had no use for and wives needn’t bother with. This gown was made for seduction, filmy and fine and barely there. It clung like spiderweb to her skin, leaving nothing to the imagination.

  His jaw clenched to see her in it. “You look like a courtesan.”

  She reveled in his reaction. She inhaled strategically. “Yet I am not for sale.” Goodness, she was becoming quite the seductress. How interesting!

  He reached out to brush her hair back over her shoulder.

  “Mr. Worthington, what are you dong here?”

  He twitched slightly, shaking his head as if shaking off a dream. Then he turned away. “My apologies. I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t have come.”

  She stepped forward. “Tell me, sir, what of your mood this evening? I would know what it is that has made you so angry.”

  He looked down at his hands. “I’m not angry.”

  She folded her arms. “No, you are furious.”

  He didn’t try to deny it again. Instead, he gazed down at his hands. “Empty,” he murmured. “Why didn’t I bring flowers, too?”

  Miranda went very still. “How did you know Poll brought me flowers?”

  Startled, he cast a glance about the room, but she’d not kept the tattered bouquet at all, for it was a strange and uncomfortable reminder of that very odd kiss. Since he could not easily gesture toward the invisible flowers and declare himself merely observant, she knew that he had watched Poll arrive.

  She lifted her chin. “Did you see him climb the wall?”

  He shot her a glance like green fire. “Yes.”

  “Ah. Did you see him recite The Tempest to me?”

  His jaw worked. “Yes, damn it.”

  “Did you know that I hate that play? Prospero is a bully and Miranda is a twit.”

  One corner of his mouth twitched. “Such vehemence.”

  She snorted. “What if your name were Ferdinand? How would you like that?”

  He lifted his head to fix her with his eyes like gateways to a deep and dangerous forest. “Then you would have loved me at first sight.” Surprise crossed his expression, as if he’d not meant to say any such thing.