“Truly.” Miranda nodded as she took the remains of the bread from the child’s fingers and smoothed back the blonde hair. Simon was tormented by a vision of how it would feel if those fingers were smoothing back his own hair. As she spoke, she quietly tucked Betsy in, smoothly unbraiding and rebraiding her hair. Without a peep of protest from the unwary child, Miranda had readied her for sleep. He watched her expression change by turns from happy to ferocious to frightened to cunning as she told her fairytale. He wondered if Miranda understood the allusions to straying from the path — and the danger of the wolf.
He found no answer; her attention was all for her story, and for the child listening raptly, right up until Redcape used the ax she had hidden in her cape to free herself and her grandmother from the wolf’s stomach. And then, to Simon’s utter amazement, the child let out a contented sigh, turned over, and began to snore very quietly.
Miranda eased herself away from the sleeping child, rose, and came over to him by the fire. “I expect she will sleep now. She was so frightened. I thought a story would calm her.”
“Indeed. But I imagine the lesson would have gone more deeply if Little Redcape had realized she was not capable of saving herself from the wolf after she’d been eaten.”
“Nonsense.” She shook her head, strands of cinnamon-colored hair falling from the loosening knot at her nape. “Redcape had a happy ending. She learned her lesson. You’ll never find her talking to strange wolves again.”
“Happy endings are rare in life, Miss Fenster. Look at what happened to you when you ran into a London wolf.”
“I?” Her gaze reflected her puzzlement. “What wolf have I...? Oh.” There was a fierce light in her eye. “So such men are called wolves? It suits their predatory nature even more than the term rake, I think.”
He noticed that she stood close to him without fear. Obviously, she did not consider him a rake. “Indeed. But my point remains, Miss Fenster. And the wolf did no more than taste you.” He couldn’t help adding, “And I’m none too convinced that you’ve learned your lesson.”
Impulsively, he reached out and pulled the few anchoring pins from her hair, allowing it to fall about her shoulders. “What if he had managed to eat you, my dear?”
Her color heightened, she snatched the pins from his hand and said sharply, “I refuse to believe there are no happy endings, Your Grace — for Little Redcape or for Valentine and Emily.” She looked at him, a challenge in her eyes as she said softly, “I even believe you, a man of two-and-thirty might still have a happy ending for yourself.”
No. That was not possible. Simon closed his eyes to block the sight of her, hair tumbling down over one bare shoulder, as enticing as a nymph. Was she trying to drive him mad? Or was she playing a game? He knew that a woman could seem innocent and honest and be rotted inside with guilt and lies. His own mother had taught him that truth. Somehow, he didn’t believe it of Miranda.
Without opening his eyes, he said, “The rules are different for men and women. You are a woman. I am a man.” He wondered if there was any possibility that she was as aware as he was of that simple fact.
There was a bare hesitation before she answered. “The rules make no sense. They put restrictions on women, who are not ruled by physical attraction, and allow men free rein to indulge themselves with the naive and unwary, as Grimthorpe did with me.”
He gave in to his urge to touch her and grasped her lightly by the shoulders, caressing the soft, exposed skin. “What might have happened if you had been aroused by Grimthorpe’s attentions?”
“He was a toad.”
“Agreed.” Simon asked a question for which he was not sure he wanted the answer. “What of your country suitors? Did none of them make you wish for a stolen kiss?”
“I am well able to control my actions, wishes or no.”
“Then the answer is yes?”
She hesitated, but his trust in her innate honesty was rewarded by a sharp, “No.”
“And my kiss left you unmoved?” She tried unsuccessfully to pull away from him, but he continued relentlessly. “If we had not discovered Betsy, would you have allowed me to make love to you, Miss Fenster?”
He opened his eyes. Instead of the expected dawning of wariness in her eyes, her gaze seemed fixed on his face, as if she sought to puzzle out a mystery. It was clear that she had no idea of her current danger. Or perhaps she did not recognize this feeling between them as dangerous. He felt pushed to the wall. With an angry growl low in his throat he loosed her shoulders, swept her off her feet, and carried her the few steps to where the blankets had been laid out in a cozy nest.
“As you pointed out not that long ago, Miss Fenster,” he said as he brought the both of them to the floor and pinned her beneath him, “I am a man of two-and-thirty. Has it ever once crossed your mind that I might not connect seducing an innocent but foolish young woman with any sullying of my honor?”
She lay stiffly beneath him, and he was satisfied to feel the rapid beat of her heart against his chest as she stared up at him, finally wary.
After a moment’s silence, she said quietly, “You would regret it in the morning, Your Grace. We both know that.”
He brought his head down, as if to kiss her, pleased to note the sudden catch in her breath. His face was so close to hers that he could not see her expression as he whispered softly, “I would not regret it half so much as you, Miss Fenster.” Abruptly he pulled away and flicked the last of the blankets over her, satisfied to see relief in Miranda’s expression, worried lest she see the same feeling reflected in his own. He had doubted his own sanity for a moment.
He turned his back on her. “I pray that you have learned your lesson, but if you have not, I am content to let some other man give you the proper ending to your fairytale.”
Ignoring the little quiver in his gut that indicated he was lying, Simon lay his head on his arm and forced himself to remain still atop the cold hard floor.
An hour later, still unable to sleep, he heard the slow rhythmic creaking of cart wheels. He rose, crept to the door, and cautiously cracked it open. The rain had ceased. Lantern lights dotted the field and glimmered at the edges of the wood.
After a moment, the night’s breeze carried the sound of a woman crying, and then a deeper voice, calling, “Betsy? Betsy, my pet? It’s time to come home.”
He could almost hear laughter in the creaking of the wheels of fate as they drew closer. Someone had come looking for Little Redcape.
Miranda woke to the warmth of Simon’s breath in her ear. “Wake up, Miss Fenster.” She thought he would kiss her again, at last. She did not think she would have the strength to resist him and strangely, she had no regrets. Instead of his lips, his hand crushed her mouth in a warning for silence as his lips brushed her ear. A shiver ran down her spine. “Little Redcape’s Mam is searching for her, and she apparently has half the village with her.”
Miranda stilled, and he rose abruptly. By the light of the single candle he had lit, she could see that he was dressed as neatly as his wrinkled clothing allowed. Despite the state of his breeches and shirt, the villagers would know they dealt with no ordinary man.
“You must leave, Your Grace, or we will be compromised.”
He turned toward her, his expression calm, and there was a hint of a smile on his lips that made her uneasy. “They are nearly upon us. Hide in the loft while I get rid of them.”
The urgency in his voice, and the sound of approaching villagers quieted her urge to argue. Snatching up her clothing, Miranda quickly climbed into the loft. She lay still in the shadows, positioned by the large gap between the boards that gave clear view to the room below.
Hidden now, she spared a glance for the sleeping Betsy. Earlier, she had wondered what kind of woman would entertain strange men in her cottage, leaving a child like Betsy to wander away in her little patched dress that offered no shelter from the night chill. But any mother who would come searching in the dark and rain must care for her daughter gr
eatly. The patches — and even the visitor — must be for want of funds, not want of love.
It was much too easy for Miranda to imagine her youngest sister Kate like this. She was barely older than Betsy, after all. Though they still had silver to sell, and there were investments that held hope for the future, putting bread on the table was difficult at the moment. Simon’s intervention in Valentine’s elopement was more unfortunate that she was prepared to let him know.
Simon’s swift movements caught her attention. He plucked an apple from the floor where it had gone unnoticed earlier and tidied the pile of blankets to make two neat heaps: one for Betsy, she realized, and one for himself. Swiftly, he was hiding all evidence of her own presence.
“You should hide my boots,” she said the third time he walked past them.
He looked up, and Miranda would have sworn he could see her, though she knew darkness made that an impossibility. “Miss Fenster, if you do not wish to suffer any embarrassment, may I suggest that you remain perfectly still — ” his voice deepened — “and completely silent.”
Still, he swept her boots under one of the piles before he slipped out the door.
Miranda heard the sound of a horse being brought up short, and a faint, desperate voice. Moments later Simon reentered the cottage with a young woman. She held her lantern high enough that the light bathed her face. Her resemblance to Betsy was slight, just the heart shape of her face, and a certain arch of her brows. Behind the two of them followed an older man, bent with years.
He, too, carried a lantern, as did the three or four others who crowded into the doorway. Suddenly the cottage was fully lit.
The woman’s gaze flew to the mound of blankets where Betsy slept. With a cry of relief, she hurried across the room and flung herself on the sleeping bundle. “Bets! Bets, my love. What were you thinking, running off?”
Betsy woke, and her thin arms went readily around her mother’s neck. “Got lost,” she said sleepily.
Miranda recognized blazing anger and fear in the woman’s gaze as she lifted it to Simon. “Didn’t I tell you to stay near to home? What were you doing going off with a stranger?”
“Didn’t go with ’im Mam, I was looking for the gold piece that fancy gentleman who came to see ye dropped on the road. Then I couldn’t find home again.”
Betsy continued her story, oblivious to her mother’s sudden pallor. “I hid in the loft, but I wasn’t quiet enough, so they found me, and the lady was so nice. She gave me something to eat and something to drink and told me the story of little redcoat....”
Miranda’s stomach knotted as she realized that Betsy was about to unravel whatever careful fiction Simon had established. “She was purely kind, Mam...” Betsy’s tale broke off at this point as she searched the cottage with a puzzled frown.
Her bright eyes rested on Simon. “Where’s your wife gone, Your Grace?” There was an audible intake of breath from the assembled villagers, accompanied by an embarrassed rustling of hasty curtsies and hats being removed.
“The little girl must still be dreaming,” Simon said.
It was an absurd statement, but to Miranda’s surprise, no one in the tiny room reacted to it as if it were anything but the honest truth.
“Of course, Your Grace.” The older man spoke, his eyes narrowing and his lips thinning. “I’ve seen you riding this week past. You be up at the Camberleys’, do you not?”
“Aye,” Simon assented. “But I sheltered here from the rain and came upon the child doing the same. I would have returned her to Nevilshire in the morning.”
“Thankee, sir.” The old man answered before Betsy’s mother could speak, but his eyes grew no less wary than they had been — nor did his daughter’s.
Just then a man shouldered through the crowd in the doorway and entered, his face momentarily obscured by the shadow of one of the larger men in the search party. “See here young woman, if you have damaged Atlas, I shall see that you pay dearly ...” The newcomer quickly regained his equilibrium and inclined his head to Simon. “Kerstone.”
He stepped from the shadows, and Miranda blinked, at first feeling that the strain of peering through the floorboards had ruined her vision. Grimthorpe. The cause of her scandalous retirement from society stood in this very room, lamplight glinting from the carefully tended auburn curls.
She had thought she did not care. But anger shook her at the sight of him. His sneer was the same one that had burned through the shock Miranda had felt at being dragged from the dance floor into a secluded corner and kissed despite her protest. That sneer had been the reason she had gone beyond a gentle protest to give him, so Simon had told her, a black eye. In his eyes now was a look of gleeful malice that took her breath away. Quite obviously, he had never forgiven Simon for seconding Valentine — or had he some other reason for disliking the duke?
“Kidnapping young girls now, Kerstone?” He spoke in the same half-amused, half-derisive voice that Miranda remembered.
Simon stood as still as stone. “Grimthorpe. What brings you out?”
With a sniff that made his ridiculous handlebar mustache twitch, the man grimaced and pointed to Betsy’s mother. “The fool woman lost her wits when she found her urchin gone. Took Atlas. I’ve been following her afoot half the night just trying to get close enough to regain him.”
The older man spoke deferentially, but Miranda could read the hostility readily apparent in the tense set of his shoulders and the clenched fist of his hands. “Your horse has come to no harm, my lord. My daughter was foolish to take him, but Betsy is her only child, and she was out of her head. Please forgive her.”
“I shall hardly take your word for the matter, fellow. You should pray tonight that Atlas is not even sweated, or she shall pay a pretty price. Theft of a piece of horseflesh like that could get her hanged.”
The old man lowered his gaze to the floor. “I beg you to consider her distress, sir.” Miranda could guess at the sick fear that ate at him, but his face was so lined from a hard life that it did not show.
“I beg you to consider having her chained to her bed. Atlas has a sensitive mouth, and she could have ruined it with her clumsy panic.”
“Perhaps you should see to Atlas’s mouth before he wanders off.” Simon had not moved, nor taken his eyes from Grimthorpe.
Miranda resisted the urge to sneeze, holding her breath against the hope that Grimthorpe would take Simon’s suggestion. For the villagers to find her would be misfortune enough. That devil could attach a scandal to her name that no one could prevent.
Apparently, Atlas’s welfare was no longer foremost in his mind, however. “Indeed.” I shall, Kerstone, as soon as I find out why you are spending the night here, instead of your own most comfortable guest bed. Or were your accommodations less satisfactory than mine?”
“I am not here by design,” Simon answered sharply and Miranda was flooded by guilt that her simple desire to help Valentine had caused the duke such difficulty.
Grimthorpe, however, was delighted. “No?” He paused, giving time for all to admire his infamous sneer. “You did not have an assignation, then?”
Chapter 4
Miranda held her breath. She dared not move lest the straw rustle or drop down through the loose floorboards.
Simon said curtly, “The child was lost and came here to escape the rain. I was unseated from my horse and did the same. There is no source for gossip here.”
Miranda marveled at his sangfroid. If she did not know that he had someone hidden in the loft, she would never have believed it. His entire bearing, even to inflection, spoke of aristocratic contempt. Not even Grimthorpe could guess that this man — but a mere hour ago — had held her in his arms, kissed her, nearly made love to her. She scarcely believed it herself.
Grimthorpe laughed sharply. “You? Unseated? I should have liked to see the Duke of Kerstone unhorsed. Perhaps this has not been a tedious waste of time after all. This will be a worthy story to tell —”
“Shame on you!
” The outburst came from Betsy’s mother, who now stood, clutching her daughter in her arms, her eyes burning with fury. Her words were practically incoherent as she forced them from her tear-choked throat. “Taking advantage. First of me, now of him.”
Grimthorpe gaped at her, as if he’d been suddenly addressed by a wayward carp. And then his thin lips thinned even further. “How dare you speak to me like that. I’ve a good mind to see that you are prosecuted for horse theft.”
Miranda felt a shiver of fear as her eyes darted back to the mother and child, clinging together protectively.
Betsy’s mother was evidently beyond any such fear.
Her chin was held high and her finger wagged as she spoke with intensity. “It’s you who should be hanged. My Bets told me you said there was a crown in the crossroads.” Miranda had all she could do not to gasp. Grimthorpe had been the man who visited Betsy’s mother?
At the murmur of the crowd, Grimthorpe stepped back. “My good woman, I assure you the child is mistaken.”
The woman hugged her daughter tighter. “Of course. You’re a gentleman.” She sobbed softly. “I should never have let you in my door. I knew you were trouble the moment I saw you. You are nothing but a pig.”
“You ... “ Grimthorpe’s face reddened. Miranda feared for Betsy’s mother as she saw he was angered so beyond words that he stepped toward the woman with his arm raised.
Somehow, Simon inserted himself deftly between them and stood there, blocking any further threat. Miranda was not even sure how he had moved; he was simply there, between one blink and the next.
Grimthorpe stopped as if held in a grip of steel. He threw Simon one furious glance, and then turned his attention to the woman who had dared to criticize her betters. “I paid you good money for your services, woman. I merely wanted the brat out of the way for a time. You should have taught her the way home. Children are known to wander.”
Especially when promised a gold coin, Miranda added silently, her dismay at the sight of Grimthorpe rapidly growing into panic. The man seemed to be intent on shaking Simon’s secrets out of him, no matter what kind of fool he made of himself.
[Once Upon a Wedding 01.0] The Fairy Tale Bride Page 5
