Thankfully the rain came down harder at that moment. She wiped the drops on her face. “Don’t allow your pride to force you to walk in this rain. Stay at the cottage, where it is warm and dry. I will trouble you no further.”
What she would do about Valentine’s broken heart was another matter altogether. Miranda rose, holding back a gasp at the pain in her ankle. It wasn’t broken; it would get her back home. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, I cannot offer you shelter at Anderlin... Valentine...”
He smiled grimly. “You will take a chill.” He whipped his short cloak from his shoulders and slung it around hers before she could protest. Distracted by the long-ago memory of her mother draping her lace shawl in the same manner, Miranda fought back more tears, unable to speak. As he reached for her again, she realized that he meant to lift her into his arms.
She warded him away with her hands, stumbling only a little at the sharp pain in her ankle. “I am perfectly able, Your Grace.”
“No doubt,” he answered, sweeping her up so that her cheek was pressed against the damp linen of his shirt. She realized that she had been chilled before, only because she was now warmly nestled against his chest.
“You have no need to do this, Your Grace,” she protested, a needle of humiliation plying through her. He ignored her words as if she had not spoken and began walking purposefully toward the cottage.
She settled back, surprised at how easy she found it to relax against him, wrapped in the cloak that smelled of sandalwood — of him. She was aware that he did not share her comfort. His every movement indicated a great deal of tension. Hope sprang anew that this twist of fate might allow her to reach the Simon Watterly of old and convince him to help Valentine. But first, she must lay his primary concern at rest. “I will not risk compromising you, I promise. Anderlin is not far. I have walked it in the rain before; I will again.”
He did not answer.
The rain grew heavy and Miranda admired how little note he took of the water that gathered in his thick honey-colored eyebrows and ran in rivulets down his lean cheeks. The rain had darkened his blond hair and curls had sprung out on the back of his neck. She twisted in his arms until she brought her head level with his and drew the cloak so that it would protect him from the worst of the rain.
Though she did not feel in the least penitent, she knew he would expect an apology. In her experience, men did not give apologies, they demanded them, deserved or not. Best to give it now, and wait until they were dry and warm again before she renewed the campaign to get Valentine and Emily wed. “I’m sorry that I did not accept your refusal at the first. I’m afraid one of my many faults is an inability to understand when a battle is lost. I would not blame you if you chose to scold me.”
He stopped, oblivious to the rain, and turned his head until their eyes met. His grip tightened. “Is that all you think I should do? Scold you?” His voice was soft and strained.
Miranda became abruptly aware that his fingers were touching the edge of her breast. She was grateful for the darkness that hid the scarlet of her blush, and shadowed the expression in his eyes as he stared down at her.
After he resumed walking once more, there was a long silence between them. Miranda silently contemplated what his words meant. She could not dredge up within herself any mistrust of this man. He had behaved too well in the past and his reputation was impeccable, though his years away had obviously hardened his heart against lovers. And he had secrets dark enough that he would ride to a ramshackle hunting cottage before he dared pull certain items from his leather pouch and examine them.
She would not chide him for the tightness of his grip. Really, how could he support her otherwise? And if she had mended her stays weeks ago, she would likely have been completely unaware that two of his fingers pressed against the far side of her breast.
“I suppose I should be grateful that no one shall ever know of this. My sisters do not need for me to create a scandal before they come out. And it certainly could not help Valentine’s cause.” She thought of Valentine, sitting listless and mute in their father’s chair before the fire. She had had to climb through the study window to see him, for all the good it had done her.
Miranda closed her eyes as sadness swept over her.
“He said that you were right, and he should never have overreached himself with Emily in the first place.”
“Perhaps he is not as foolish as I had thought. I will speak to him — “
His words dispelled Miranda’s growing sense of hope. Knowing her impertinence, but anxious that he heed her, she put her hand to his cheek. The rasp of stubble against her fingers startled her. “He has been badly hurt. Do not humiliate him further by speaking to him as if he were an errant lad in need of guidance. “
He turned his head so that his lips brushed her fingers as he spoke. “I take your point, Miss Fenster.”
Miranda let her hand drop away from his face, but the intimacy of being in his arms and jolting comfortably against him at every step could not be prevented. “Valentine must never know that I tried to intercede on his behalf.”
“It does not speak well of you that you would deceive him.”
Stung by the censure in his words, she said, “Perhaps someday, when Emily joins our family, I shall tell them both.”
“Then you believe your brother will not give up his hopes so easily?”
“Wouldn’t you search for your Cinder Ella, Your Grace, if you had once met her at a ball and wanted no one else to be your wife?” He stumbled slightly, and her arms tightened around his neck in alarm.
After a silence so long that she realized he would not answer her, she said, “No. Valentine will not give up so easily.” Remembering her brother’s slumped figure, Miranda wondered if she spoke the truth. “I do understand that you only did what you thought was best for Emily. I will be happy to act as though this meeting between us never occurred.”
They reached the cottage as she spoke. He stooped slightly to enter the doorway, and his arms tightened around Miranda. His breath against her damp neck made her shiver. “And what if I am not?”
Chapter 2
Simon stirred the fire, his back to Miranda. It amazed him that he had not yet wrung her slender neck. So she thought he could dismiss this gross invasion of his privacy? If she had intruded any later, the damning papers in his pouch would have been laid out on the table. She could not know how he had changed if she thought he would not seek compensation for the way she had turned his life upside down this night.
He had believed his infatuation with her long dead, until today. Holding her in his arms, the feel of the rounded underside of her breast against his fingers, and hearing her innocently questioning whether he would play Prince Charming and pursue his Cinder Ella had done more than rekindle those feelings. He was ablaze with a desire so strong it was driving him mad. Why else would he be considering seducing her?
Suddenly, all he could think of was the fact that, in other circumstances, she would now be his wife. If that were so, he would not have to play with the fire and keep his eyes turned away from her or risk exposing the heat of his desire to hold her, to kiss her, to make love to her. For a moment, he regretted that he had never managed to turn himself into a devil, despite his efforts. For a devil would have no qualms in seducing Miss Fenster. But the old duke’s training was too firmly branded into his heart, despite its falsity.
He sighed into the fire, bringing it further to life.
But he, Simon-the-no-longer-saintly, had more than qualms. He had good reason not to marry and he’d not risk getting Miranda with child and bringing a new bastard into the world. Somehow though, the good reasons didn’t seem good enough tonight. Fate had literally dropped this woman into his arms. And he was damned tired of the cruel jokes Fate had been playing on him.
How many of his men had died in India, fighting the barbaric practices of suttee and the cruel murderous thugees who struck without warning? But not Simon. He had shrugged at danger, had thrown hi
mself into the midst of any situation without a thought to watching his back. And still, he survived. But he intended to cheat Fate of any satisfaction for leaving the bastard duke alive. And he would do so without breaking the promise he had made his father — no, the old duke. The newest duke would soon be dead, replaced by a true-blooded heir. And Simon Watterly would exist no more. He would take another name, another life — and never would he take a wife.
Of a sudden the wind whipped up, wailing past the cottage. Simon shivered at the sound, remembering how he had stood motionless, surrounded by murderous thugees, daring Fate to take him then and there.
The thunder of gunfire and the screams of the dying men had sounded very much like the laughter of the gods, and he had not died.
And now he was here, in a one-room cottage with Miranda only a few feet away. She had been in his arms, had touched his cheek with her gentle hand. He wanted to believe that she was truthful when she assured him she was not trying to compromise him into marriage. He had thought her entirely honest five years ago.
But of course, that was before he had learned that Fate was not done playing with him. Since he had been home, acting as the Duke of Kerstone until he could install a true-blooded heir, at least a dozen or so young “innocents” had thrown themselves at his head in some most ingenious schemes, no doubt configured by their ambitious families. He had found them in his bed, in his carriage, half-dressed in the garden, and fully-nude in the library.
He had extracted himself from all the situations cleanly — even the miss in his bed. She had been the most innocent-looking of all of them, and he’d paid off her papa before she had even finished dressing.
Was Miranda like them? Unable to resist, he glanced over his shoulder. If he had any doubt at all that this innocent-seeming young woman was wearing no stays, the sight of her cheerfully slicing fruit and cheese in the lamplight in her damp dress answered definitively that she was not.
With a hope of dimming the smile on her face that drew the tension in his belly to a sharp point, he said, “Your brother would not approve your being alone with me.”
Her answer was calm, but her smile actually widened. “Valentine does sometimes worry overmuch about my judgment, but I assure you it is sound enough to know that I am safe with you.”
He checked his impulse to pivot and face her, instead turning his gaze back to the flames. “If you believe so, you are a fool.”
There was a momentary silence, and he pictured her imagining herself seduced and abandoned, until she dispelled that notion, her voice ripe with amusement. “I felt certain that I could trust a man who risked his life to pull one of the men in his command away from a suttee fire in which he had been thrown — or who saved a wounded man from death at the hands of thugees, using his own body as a shield.” Her voice softened, all traces of amusement gone. “Or one who dared scandal by helping a foolish young lady escape misfortune with her reputation intact. “
Simon was taken aback. How on earth had this sheltered miss heard such tales, true as they were? Valentine’s judgment must be as sorely lacking as his sister’s. “A man can be brave in battle and craven in — ” he searched for a delicate way to state his meaning and then decided that Miss Fenster could do well with a little shock — “lust.”
“Not you, Your Grace,” she demurred, forcing him to turn away from the dancing flames to stare at her. Was the girl completely daft or supremely crafty?
Was it possible she didn’t understand what could happen to her, even after Grimthorpe’s assault? “Let me make it quite clear to you that, even if it were public knowledge about our ill-spent evening, I could walk away from you with only a blot that would quickly fade. Your reputation, however, would be ruined forever.”
“You needn’t tell me.” Her hands stilled for a moment. The tight line of her lips softened suddenly as she smiled with a shyness that was absurd given their present situation. “I was never able to thank you for seconding Valentine in the duel.”
The look in her eyes was even more dangerous than that of a young woman determined to make herself his wife. He had seen such a gaze before, in the eyes of his youngest, most untried men. Dear God, the woman had a case of the hero-worships for him.
He half rose from his crouch at the fire to protest, but she lifted the paring knife from the cheese wedge she was slicing and waved him to silence. “Valentine told me all about it, you know, even though Mama strictly forbade him.”
She lowered her eyes and sliced into the cheese.
“It was to be my punishment — to hear nothing more of London. As if I cared.” She pressed her lips together, silencing herself as she took an apple and began slicing it, wielding the knife with a stroke that cleaved the fruit cleanly into halves, then quarters, then eighths.
He was shocked. “Surely you had another chance at a Season? Your reputation remained unmarked. Your parents must have known you’d grow sensible enough for a second try?”
“I don’t know. They never said any such thing before they died.” With a quick shake of her head she added, “Then, of course, there was no possibility of a Season. I had my sisters to see to, and Valentine was too far away to be of use.”
“Surely you were not left to yourself to provide for the family? Had you no uncle to step in?” Once again, Simon wondered at Valentine’s lack of responsibility, to leave a young woman in charge of a badly out-of-pocket household.
Her chin lifted and her gaze met his, although her face was flushed with color. “I am quite capable, Your Grace. Valentine never doubted my abilities to attend to things while he was away.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t set your cap for a wealthy spouse, as he did.”
She shuddered. “Quite honestly, I was determined to never marry.”
He nearly laughed aloud at the candor he remembered so well from five years ago, but the subdued panic on her face reminded him, suddenly, of the expressions of young soldiers who had not yet gone into battle as they listened to their more experienced comrades trade stories. “Indeed?”
“Husbands are as bad as fathers. They believe they have the right to decide how a woman will live her life — and to beat her if she will not comply.”
There was scorn in her voice. For the first time, Simon was certain that she had not set out to compromise him. His curiosity rose. “Perhaps you should have conveyed that thought to Emily. She might not have consented to elope with your brother, then.”
Her chin lifted. “Valentine is different. He is in love.”
“With a well-dowered woman, conveniently.”
“With Emily. And he would love her, dowry or no.”
“Then he will need to adjust his expectations, and love her from afar, for he will never have her.”
“Does that not break your heart? That anyone must love from afar when both parties wish the match? It seems so cruel.” Her voice was low, and should not have squeezed the breath from his lungs as it did. Her gaze met his directly. “Can you not intercede? Convince your uncle of what a fine man Valentine is? He is, I promise you.”
Simon admired her loyalty, though he wished she didn’t have the tenacity of a dog with a meaty bone. And how had she turned their conversation from her own danger to the tricky matter of broken hearts and star-crossed lovers? “Once he makes up his mind, he never unmakes it.”
She sighed. “Yes. That’s what Emily said when she convinced Valentine to run for the border.”
Simon laughed softly. “The little minx. And I always thought her so responsible — for a woman.”
Her eyes flashed with momentary indignation, quickly controlled. “She wanted to help Valentine realize his dreams. They talked of what use they would have for her inheritance — Anderlin is in sore need of repair, and they wanted to invest in the West Indies trade ... “
“Well, if he wants such dreams to come true, I’d say it is clearly Valentine’s duty to find an heiress whose parents are not so particular. As a beginning, he could bestir himself fr
om his misery, and not rely on his sister to cure his troubles.”
She stared at him for a moment, her eyes wide. And then, to his surprise, she bent her head as if in defeat. Her voice was a mere whisper; “I have done it again, haven’t I? I only wanted to make things right for him, and now I’ve convinced you that he is truly the heartless fortune hunter you thought him.” She raised her gaze to his. “It isn’t true, Your Grace. I came of my own accord. Valentine would have stopped me, if he’d known.”
“I don’t doubt that, Miss Fenster. Still, he shared a womb with you. I would expect him to know you well enough by now. If he can’t handle you, he should find you a husband who will.”
Her chin lifted. “Valentine is not fool enough to marry me to a man who seeks to control me. And I would not want him to marry but for love.”
Hearts and hero-worship; he should have known.
“Then you are both fools, for love is a temporary aberration, and marriage requires a sharp business acumen — to ally oneself with an inferior partner will bring you nothing but disaster for your lifetime.” He watched her eyes flash with fire and wondered how she might ever find a husband who was not inferior to her magnificence. The thought of her as another man’s wife bred fury in him.
“Valentine is not an ‘inferior’ partner. He would have — he will make Emily a fine husband. And certainly you should not speak so cynically. You have had your choice of alliances and yet you have not married. Surely you are waiting for the one who touches your heart as well as adds to your pedigree? Perhaps someone from whom you would not need to hide the contents of that leather pouch of yours.”
Her words were a blow to him, but he hid his pain with a quick smile. “I’ll have you know, Miss Fenster, that I once, quite foolishly, nearly offered for a young woman based on the color of her eyes and the quickness of her smile. Only Fate intervened in time to save us both from an unhappy union.” Fate, and the burden he carried next to his heart every waking moment.
[Once Upon a Wedding 01.0] The Fairy Tale Bride Page 3
