He inhaled and spoke, before he stopped himself forever. “When I was still a boy, barely fifteen, I was so sure that I was already a man. I wanted all the rights and privileges of one, to be sure.
“My … another young man I knew was taken by an older woman as her lover. She was good-hearted and lusty and he had a roaring good time with her. He told me everything and I was most envious of his fun. I thought to myself that I should do the same.
“There was a lady I had seen many times, for she lived near our home. She had always fascinated me. I decided that she was the one I wished to learn from. I looked for her, and arranged to be in places where she might appear.
“I don’t know why I focused on her, except that of course she was very attractive. I think she was perhaps forty, but her figure was as slim as a girl’s and in her black gowns she seemed haunting and mysterious.”
“Black gowns?”
He looked down at her. “Yes, she was a widow.”
“Like me.”
He didn’t quite know how to answer that, so he merely tucked her closer into his body and continued his story.
“She was not inclined to take notice of me at first, but I grew bolder and more persistent. I was man-sized and gangly, all hands and feet, but women had been giving me admiring glances for a while, so I decided that her lack of interest was not because of my looks.”
She gave a low laugh. “No, I should say not.”
He smiled at her, a quick flash of white teeth in the dimness, but it faded quickly as he went on.
“The lady was the widow of a very powerful and wealthy lord. When I finally penetrated her defenses, I learned that she had been squeezed out of the family home by her husband’s grown children, the heir and his brothers. Her husband had left her with nothing of her own but a tiny pittance. That was why she lived in our vicinity, which is quite respectable but not where the wealthy and powerful usually gravitate.
“I could feel something in her. I don’t know if I saw it in her eyes or felt it radiating out through her skin, but she had a restlessness—”
“Like me.”
He dropped a kiss down on the tip of her nose, then shook his head. “No, not at all like you. Quite the opposite. I thought it was passion. I took her shadows for loneliness and hunger and sexual need, like yours, like my own. It was not those.
“It was rage. A towering and vindictive rage toward all men. And she found her first willing victim in me.”
Miranda withdrew slightly to gaze up at him. “What did she do to you?”
“Everything.” He closed his eyes briefly. “She did everything to me.”
He felt her fingertips on his cheek, his temple, stroking through his hair.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
He dropped his face into her neck, shaking his head, using her scent and her warmth to keep himself here, in her arms, in this moment and not in the past.
“You know a bit already. There are things I have done with you.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Wild things. The naughty harem girl.”
He chuckled at her apt label, at her sweetness and her shimmering, unique honesty. “Yes.”
She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “Dangerous things, like the window.”
He smiled, his blood stirring at the memory. “I do apologize for the window. That was … unsafe.”
“Why do you like to do those things, if you did not like what she did to you?”
“Oh, but I did like what she did, for the most part. I couldn’t stay away from her. I was in her thrall and I had no desire to break that wicked bond. She knew that. She made me prove my usefulness again and again—with her, with her decadent friends.”
Miranda’s eyes widened. “Oh. Poll said nothing about that.”
Cas shook his head. “I’m sure he doesn’t know it all. I allowed such treatment because I imagined myself in love. I thought she loved me. I thought she was testing my love—that I could prove my loyalty by obeying her every wish.”
He let out a sigh. “Power corrupts, they say. It corrupted her. It amused her to push my slavish devotion to its limits. She would cry and wail and say that I did not love her enough, until I would beg her for a chance, any chance, to prove my heart. Then she would push me away, telling me that if I came back to her, then she would know that I truly loved her.”
He smiled slightly, an expression so devoid of joy that Miranda’s heart flinched to see it. “I told myself that our love was special, that it could not be defined by the usual boundaries—and, since I am a Worthington, those usual boundaries were quite flexible to begin with—but even I had to see what I had become—”
Miranda’s arms tightened about him.
“A plaything,” he said flatly. “A puppet on a string, dancing madly for my lover, my adored puppeteer. I was nothing to her but a way to pay off her gambling debts. I was nothing but a dupe.”
Miranda shook her head. “You were but fifteen. Think a moment. That is only a few short years older than Attie is now. If, in two years, Attie fell into the hands of someone malignant, would she be the one to blame?”
Cas shook his head and moved back, stepping away from the clemency that she offered. “I—she—”
The words were jumbling in his mind.
Miranda slipped toward him, her palms on his chest, her fingers tightening around his lapels. “You were not yet a man,” she murmured. “You were scarcely more than a child, vulnerable and easily influenced. She was a woman too corrupted by her own degradation to see that.”
“I lost control completely. I spiraled down to a place of true darkness—”
She shivered. “I don’t want to go there.”
“I have no wish to revisit it myself. But I cannot deny that the journey changed me—that because of it, I want more than just sweet, soft, romantic lovemaking.” He looked down into her sea green eyes and wished he could submerge in her so that she could truly understand. “I need the fire,” he confessed softly. “I need to burn.”
She bit her lip, thinking. “I like it when you burn, by and large. I like being swept up in your storm.” She ducked her head. “I wish I were bold enough to sweep you up in mine.”
He tipped a finger beneath her chin and lifted her gaze to meet his. “Miranda,” he said seriously. “You already have.”
She tried to smile at him, but she was overtaken by a most enormous yawn. Mortified, she clapped a hand over her mouth.
He laughed out loud and she was glad to see the shadows gone from his eyes. He bent to kiss her. She tried to wind her arms about his neck for a deep, long one, but he ducked away after only a single, sweet buss and left the bed.
“You, pretty creature, need to sleep.” He tucked her back in like a child.
She wanted to disagree, to talk him into staying, or possibly seduce him into staying, but the yawns would not stop. Finally, she waved him out with watering eyes, unable to do more than roll over onto her side in her exhaustion.
As her eyes fell closed as if weighted, and the darkness of sleep crept up around the edges of her mind, Miranda’s thoughts skidded sideways.
I am not the woman I was.
I do not mind so much. The old Miranda seems dry as a husk in memory—a woman so empty that she scarcely needed to breathe.
I breathe now. I pant, I moan, I shamelessly scream out my orgasms until my throat is rendered hoarse. My blood pumps through my veins, my skin tingles, my body aches with lust and satisfaction and athletic overuse.
The old Miranda is dead. I am Mira, the woman Miranda was never allowed to be.
I have a lover. A lover who believes I am also attracted to his brother. So in his mind, I have two lovers?
And don’t forget Mr. Seymour.
She did keep forgetting Mr. Seymour.
* * *
In another part of Mayfair, in a drafty terraced house whose walls did little to keep out the damp from the nearby river, a woman sat with several shawls wrapped about her shoulders.
Even in early summer, the house was too deep in the shadow of larger ones to get much sun. The nearby Fleet River emitted a constant, chilling fog in the mornings that wormed its way through every crack and open seam of her “snug little hideaway.”
The weasel-faced land agent had lied about that, too, of course. God had a plan for the liars in the world, and Miss Constance Talbot hoped He wouldn’t forget the man who had sold her this dank hole with glowing letters of description that had raised bucolic images of flower gardening and cozy privacy and at last the immersion into her own affairs and only her own affairs!
Now she sat in stiff, chilled fury while that groveling bit of rubbish whom her brother had—for some reason that would forever escape Constance—married and left everything to, sat high and dry in Mayfair, living in her house!
Constance fumed. She just knew Miranda was up to something with that fellow, the smarmy one with the brown hair and the too-easy smile and the green eyes—eyes that made an old woman think of spring and flowers and the whisper of warm breezes across young, soft skin.
Men. Men couldn’t be trusted. Just look at Gideon, the old fool. To have married so late, to such a young creature, whose family had fallen so far beneath the solid respectability of the Talbots.
That the awkward child had grown into a pretty woman only made Constance the more furious. Thin and clunk-footed, young Miranda had been properly cowed by Constance’s vaster experience and confidence.
She’d kept the young girl properly in line, until that day when the will was read. Constance had kept meticulous track of Gideon’s last wishes, although she’d pressed her lips tight as the lawyer rattled off Gideon’s valuables as gifts—gifts for servants, no less!—when they ought to have remained in the family, as had been the Talbot custom for generations.
No Talbot ever gave away their wealth to the undeserving!
And when the lawyer had read the disposition of the house on Breton Square, Constance had seen Miranda’s head come up, like a puppet on a string, her muddy eyes widening in realization.
The power went with the keys.
Constance’s keys, which she’d been forced to turn over to Miranda like a thief.
Her subsequent decision to quit the house had been an attempt to force Miranda to admit that she couldn’t get by without her.
Unfortunately, that had backfired.
Not for long, by God. Not for very damned long.
Opening her book of accounts, she withdrew a folded letter that she had read more than a dozen times and read it once more. Her informant, reporting from the premises of Talbot House itself, thought there might be something untoward going on with Miranda and that green-eyed fellow.
It wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start.
Her home would belong to her once more. It was only a matter of time.
Chapter Twenty-three
“It is so nice of, ah, all of you to come.”
Miranda sat opposite her guests in the parlor, with her hands folded in her lap and her posture perfect. On the sofa opposite her, lined up in ascending order of height and possibly descending order of ferocity, were Atalanta, Elektra, and Orion Worthington.
If she was not mistaken, she was under examination.
She did not mind the inspection, for she was enormously curious about the rest of the Worthingtons. So, despite her long list of frantic preparations for the Marquis of Wyndham’s ball the following night, she set aside her list of Lementeur’s detailed instructions and met with her callers in the parlor.
“Mama and Papa wanted to come as well, but we wouldn’t allow it.” Elektra was quite matter-of-fact about ordering her parents about, Miranda thought.
Attie nodded. “Papa would only quote at you, and then Mama would footnote. Prospero’s daughter, you know. He’s going on and on about it.”
Miranda smiled. Something she understood. “Yes, I believe my mother was quite an aficionado of Shakespeare.”
Elektra tilted her head. “Believe?”
Attie leaned over, cupped her hand around Ellie’s ear, and whispered loudly enough for Twigg to hear where he hovered in the hallway, “Orphan!”
Electra’s expression took on a glazed instant of envy. Just a flash, however. It was not the first time Miranda had run across that particular response from people, but Elektra managed to hide it well and move on. While her parents sounded as though they were a considerable amount of work, they also seemed to be loved and appreciated for who they were.
Mr. Orion Worthington, who looked very little like her Mr. Worthingtons, other than being handsome and tall and rather delicious in a soulful and poetic fashion, merely looked at Miranda with neither sympathy or envy.
Miranda looked down at her hands and then back up at the three invaders—er, guests. “The tea should be here at any moment.”
The tea had best be there in less than a moment, or she would find herself a new butler!
From behind her, Twigg cleared his throat. “Tea, madam.”
Miranda did not close her eyes in relief. She was rather proud of that fact. “Attie, will you pour?”
Elektra twitched at that, as if inclined to leap between Attie and the teapot, protecting the china with her very life.
Attie, however, did a fine job. There was only a little slosh in Orion’s saucer and she forgot to put a gingersnap on Elektra’s plate, but Miranda smiled approvingly at her little friend as she sat back down.
Elektra and Orion stared at their sibling with frank astonishment, then turned their impressed gazes upon Miranda.
Miranda simply sipped her tea with a small smile.
She’d never taught Attie a thing. She’d known the child was brilliant and had merely poured precisely and serenely for her once on that rainy afternoon. She’d known Attie hadn’t missed a thing.
“Mr. Worthington—” Goodness, it felt strange to call another man that! “I have been told that you are a scholar of the animal kingdom. I would love to know more about your findings on the migration patterns of the crested tit.”
Orion set down his tea and expounded succinctly and briefly on his research. Miranda asked a few questions that she was pleased to think sounded not-too-idiotic. Orion, upon making his final point, turned to his sisters and stated, “She is quite intelligent.”
Now it was Attie’s and Elektra’s turn to regard their brother with slack-jawed surprise, and then turned blinking befuddled expressions upon Miranda.
Miranda simply sipped her tea. I believe I may pass this test.
Elektra, who seemed to give Attie full competition in the ferocity finals, set upon Miranda at once. The latest gossip—thank heaven for Mr. Button!—the latest novels and plays—thank goodness for Poll!—and even the current mood in Parliament—score one for Mr. Seymour!
Miranda passed with apparently high marks, for the three of them leaned back a bit from their offensive postures and regarded her in meditative silence for a moment.
“I told you,” Attie whispered, loudly enough for Twigg to hear in the hallway.
Miranda set down her tea. “Now that the examinations are over, is there anything else I may assist you with?”
Elektra tilted her head at the faint challenge in Miranda’s tone. “You’re even-tempered as well. I should have broken something over someone’s head by now.”
“Probably mine,” Attie muttered.
Orion abruptly stood. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Talbot.” Before Miranda could respond, he turned and strode from the room, no doubt nearly running over Twigg in the hallway.
Elektra, who seemed to find nothing unusual about her brother’s abrupt departure, turned to her little sister. “Attie, go with Rion.”
A fearsome scowl commenced formation. Miranda cleared her throat. “Atalanta, your sister and I wish to discuss shoes and hair, now that there are no men in the room.”
At the very thought, Attie sagged with incipient boredom. She grudgingly slid off the sofa, trudging after her brother.
Elektra smiled conspiratorially at Miranda, her expression tinged with respect. When Attie suspiciously slowed her pace further, hoping to overhear some adult conversation, Elektra began with, “Don’t you think the new heel height is ridiculous? I shan’t be able to dance in them at all!”
Miranda nodded. “Outrageous. Why, I shall be as tall as my partners!”
Miranda could practically feel Attie rolling her eyes as she sped up to race out the front door after Orion.
Then Elektra turned to Miranda. “Out with it!”
Miranda raised a brow. “Out with what, pray tell?”
“How did you do it? How did you get Attie to pour tea without requiring three hours of cleaning afterward?” Elektra gestured at the perfectly unharmed tea set in disbelief.
Miranda smiled. “Why, I asked her to.”
An impatient frown crossed Elektra’s brow; then it faded and Miranda could see that the young woman was truly considering her words. “You asked.”
Miranda nodded. “There are so many of you and she is so much younger. I think it is all she can do to not be trampled in the herd. She feels she must fight, fight to be noticed, to be heard.” To be loved, but Miranda couldn’t say that. Besides, she could see the affection Elektra had for her wayward sibling. It was a great deal to ask of an eighteen-year-old woman to mother a child not hers. Poor Elektra didn’t seem to have much opportunity to simply be a girl with Attie and all those brothers.
“I have always wished for siblings,” Miranda said shyly. “I have been told your family is a mad lot, but still I envy you your closeness.”
Ellie looked away with a shrug, but Miranda could see her expression soften. “’Tis bedlam, that’s what it is.”
Elektra glanced around the silent parlor and tilted her head to listen to the complete absence of noise in Miranda’s house. “In contrast, it is so peaceful here.”
Miranda tilted her head to listen, too. “Yes, it is a quiet house,” she said sadly. “I have often wished for more humanity within it.”
Elektra snorted. “I’m up to the tip of my nose in humanity. I should be happy to share!”
Miranda smiled, something inside her warming at the very concept of sharing the Worthingtons. “My dear, do not make promises unless you intend to keep them.”
And Then Comes Marriage Page 20
