The Price of Indiscretion

by Cathy Maxwell

  Many more guests traveled by foot. Miranda was mesmerized by the beauty of the Azorean women; their dark, glossy hair; and the bold, vibrant colors of their dresses. She felt positively pale in her ivory lace.

  At the moment, Lady Overstreet was most put out with Miranda because she had forgotten her fan, something Her Ladyship had not checked before they left. Now Miranda wished she had that fan to fidget with and help her hide her self-consciousness.

  “They are talking about you,” Captain Lewis confided in a low voice.

  “What are they saying?” Miranda asked.

  “They’ve referred to you as Senhorina do Ouro.”

  “Of gold? Why?”

  “It’s your hair. It will always attract attention,” the captain answered. “However, let me warn now, the ladies are not so pleased they flatter you.”

  “And I’ll make certain the men can’t come close to you,” Sir William said, apparently thinking he was being gallant.

  The last thing Miranda wanted was for him to be by her side all evening. He was too overbearing and would steal some of her pleasure in the evening—another good reason not to marry him.

  She had never been to a dance before. Her father had not let his daughters go anyplace near the gatherings around Fort Jenkins where people danced, but she liked music. She was anxious to try the steps Lady Overstreet had drilled into her.

  Even though it was half past eight and the sun was just beginning to set, Senhor Esteves’s home was ablaze with torches and candles. Bright red, gold, and green paper lanterns decorated the terrace that circled the house. As Diego drove them to the front step, Senhor Esteves broke off from the conversation he was having with two stately dowagers and hurried down the step to greet them.

  “Welcome, Dona Overstreet and Senhorina Cameron,” he said grandly, apparently unaware that he’d walked off from one of the dowagers when she was in mid-sentence. Miranda tried not to notice how offended they were or how they glared as if blaming her for his rudeness.

  “How fine you look, senhor,” Lady Overstreet said, adjusting her lace shawl just so over her shoulders.

  He did look fine. He was dressed in white knee breeches, kid slippers, and a black cutaway coat. Across his chest was a red ribbon denoting some sort of honor he held. He preened under the compliment, the ends of his mustache rising with his smile. “I had to look my best. After all, this is a very special evening.”

  “Why is that?” Miranda asked, lightly resting her gloved fingers on the arm he offered.

  “Because you are here.”

  It was a gallant, charming thing to say, and she couldn’t help but smile, even as she overheard Sir William snort his opinion. Well, she liked compliments. She’d not had many in her life, and it was very pleasant to hear them.

  She gave Sir William an arch look over her shoulder. “You do not believe I am important enough, sir?”

  “I believe you are worthy of London,” Sir William announced smoothly in a statement that was calculated for Miranda to see exactly what he offered.

  “Bah,” Senhor Esteves said as he led them though his house. The ceilings were high and the rooms flowed from one to the other, each with doors that opened out onto the stone terrace. Candlelight gleamed off the polished brick red floor tiles and the mahogany of the heavy, ornate furniture. “Who needs England when one can have the beauty of the Azores?”

  He said these words just as they reached the rear of the house where the party had been set up to take advantage of the wide back terrace and lush beauty of the garden. Torches encircled the area, while more paper lanterns decorated the overhanging branches of dogwood trees. The guests milled around in front of tables laden with food and huge bowls of wine punch.

  At the arrival of their host, the musicians—a small band of guitars and a pianoforte in a gazebo—stopped playing. The hum of conversation died as those present turned to satisfy their curiosity about the guest of honor. Every woman present looked Miranda up and down with the scrutiny of a hen sizing up a worm. Miranda was thankful she was wearing the ivory lace. It was trimmed in a matching ivory ribbon that crisscrossed around her waist and emphasized her figure. She’d styled her hair herself in loose curls, and Lady Overstreet had paid her the rare compliment that not even her own girl could have done it so well.

  She looked her best and was now very thankful for it.

  Servants went through the crowd with fluted wineglasses filled with icy cold sherry. With a flourish, Senhor Esteves introduced her, Lady Overstreet, and Captain Lewis to his guests. He included Captain Sir William at the last moment, pretending to have forgotten his presence.

  It was a childish gesture, but one Miranda felt he deserved. Let Sir William see what it was like to suffer the small put-downs he enjoyed inflicting.

  Senhor Esteves raised his glass. “Saúde!” he said, and his guests echoed the sentiment before draining their glasses.

  The sherry was quite different from the one she and Lady Overstreet had sipped aboard the Venture, more potent and somehow more fitting a drink for such an evening as this.

  “Will you join me in leading the first dance?” Senhor Esteves said to Miranda.

  Panic hit. “Lead the dance?” She had wanted to dance, but not with everyone watching her. “I am a poor dancer,” she offered.

  He laughed. “And a charmingly honest one. How refreshing to have a woman who doesn’t claim to know everything!” he said, addressing the other gentlemen standing close.

  They all laughed and nodded their agreement while their wives and escorts didn’t even smile. They stood so stiff and judgmental, they could have been carved out of stone. This type of attitude Miranda knew. The censure of women. She and her sisters had received more than their share of such scorn back in the valley—and whether it was their frowning faces, or the strength of the sherry, Miranda’s fighting spirit rose to the occasion.

  Gifting Senhor Esteves with her most dazzling smile, the one Lady Overstreet claimed would make men forget their own names, she said, “I’d be honored, then, to be your partner.”

  She placed her glass on a servant’s tray and placed her hand on Senhor Esteves’s arm. The older man’s chest puffed out as he led her to where tiles had been laid in the ground to create a dance floor. As they took their places, he whispered, “You outshine the stars, Senhorina do Ouro.”

  Unaccustomed to such lavish compliments, Miranda murmured, “Senhor, you are teasing me.”

  “Oh, but I am not,” he said with complete seriousness. “If you only knew what was in my heart, you would know I could never tease you.”

  His grip tightened on her hand, and Miranda was suddenly worried that perhaps she shouldn’t have been so encouraging. To her everlasting relief, the music started.

  It was a minuet, and a dance that she could follow easily enough. She and Senhor Esteves did not make too many mistakes. Slowly the tension left her as the music took over.

  Charlotte had been right. This life was easier than the one they had left. The evening air was like velvet, and as the sun set, the stars were starting to appear. Big, lustrous stars. They seemed to her like notes in the minuet, intricate sounds that resonated in her soul.

  It took a moment for her to realize Senhor Esteves was not dancing. She stopped, looking at him in confusion, the other dancers moving around them.

  “I cannot help myself,” he said fiercely. “In this moment, your eyes glow with pleasure and you are so beautiful, I cannot resist. I could give you this every day of your life. I want you would marry me.”

  He spoke just as the music ended. The words rang through the air, capturing everyone’s attention, bringing it hovering right over her.

  Stunned, Miranda couldn’t speak. Lady Overstreet had made her practice gentle but firm ways of telling a gentleman she could not accept his offer. Miranda had thought the exercise silly. Furthermore, she had been prepared to fend off genteel declarations, not impassioned proposals in the middle of a crowded dance floor.

&nbs
p; Her panicked mind groped for words. “I’m flattered, Senhor Esteves—”

  “Then you say yes?”

  “You barely know me.”

  “I know you are beautiful.”

  “But wouldn’t you want something more in a wife?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “What more is there?”

  His question made her realize how farcical this all was. Her practical nature rose. “Senhor, I can’t.”

  Her bluntness had a devastating effect. Senhor Esteves’s face turned a shade of purple. Slowly he looked around and realized all his friends and neighbors watched.

  Miranda just realized their audience, too. She attempted to soften her rejection, “Perhaps if we knew each other better—”

  He held up a hand, cutting her off. “No. No pity. I am a man, senhorina. An important man. You are making a mistake.” He didn’t wait for her reply but turned and walked off the dance floor, shouldering his way past his guests.

  Miranda stood as if glued to the floor. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. She looked at Lady Overstreet. However, help came in the form of Sir William.

  He walked up to her and offered a fresh glass of sherry in his hand. “I believe this next dance is mine.”

  “I hurt him,” Miranda whispered, not moving. “I just met him. How could he feel that way?”

  “You have done nothing,” was his smooth reply, “except be what you are.”

  “Which is?” she asked, not certain she wanted to know the answer.

  “A woman. A beautiful one.”

  “But what if I grow old? Or become ugly?” She took the sherry from him. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Sir William waved her worries aside. “It is not the future that matters, Miss Cameron, but the moment. Make the best of the moment.”

  Her hands shaking, Miranda raised the wine to her lips. Make the best of the moment. Everything had always soured for her. Nothing was ever as she wished it. She drained her glass.

  “Do you want another?” Sir William asked.

  Miranda looked down into the empty glass and shook her head, suddenly embarrassed to be guzzling. But the wine was what she needed. It dulled the pain.

  “There are no moments I want to remember,” she confessed. She placed the glass on the tray of a passing servant.

  He offered his hand. “Dance with me.”

  “No one else will dance. Look at them. They are all staring at me. They hate me.”

  He took a step closer to her. “What do you care? You are leaving this godforsaken place. You want to conquer London.”

  Miranda raised her eyes to his. He stood so close, she could see the outline of his whiskers. “I don’t want people to hate me.”

  “The ones who matter, don’t.” He nodded, and the musicians began playing. “Dance.” This time, it was an order.

  Her feet felt clumsy, but he guided her through. At first she feared they would be alone. However, Lady Overstreet and Captain Lewis joined them almost immediately. Sir William’s men soon had partners and took up the dance.

  It was another minuet…but Miranda took no joy in the music. Instead she went through the motions. Sir William was right. It was not her fault that Senhor Esteves declared himself so publicly. These people should not hold her to blame.

  Her pride returned. She held her head high and even managed to smile at Sir William. To her surprise, he missed a step.

  When the dance brought them close again, he said, “You don’t know what your smile does to a man, Miss Cameron. There is no other woman in the room who can best you.”

  “But they all frown at me,” she said, the next time they came close.

  “They are jealous,” he answered.

  Perhaps Sir William was not so overbearing after all. From that moment on, Miranda smiled.

  The dance ended, and before Sir William could escort her back, she was mobbed by gentlemen wishing introductions and the opportunity to escort her onto the dance floor. They came at her at once.

  Lady Overstreet hurried over to manage the situation. Sir William stayed close, his manner proprietary. The first young man to ask her to dance was an Azorean, a nice man with sincere brown eyes.

  As Miranda was about to accept his offer to dance, Sir William said, “I’m sorry, she is promised.” He repeated the words in awkward Portuguese, and then nodded for Mr. Hightower to take her out onto the dance floor.

  It was an insult, one Miranda felt powerless to avoid. And she could feel the opinions of those at the party turn against her. She also wondered what it was about her that men wanted to the point of being possessive.

  As she danced with Mr. Hightower, Miranda found herself evaluating the other women in the room, trying to see them as a man would. In her opinion, they were each lovely. And yet more than once, she caught their dance partners stealing sly leers in her direction.

  The moment the dance was done, another one of Sir William’s men, Mr. Graves, presented himself as her partner. Miranda noticed that this time, no Azorean gentlemen were waiting to meet her.

  Her earlier goodwill toward Sir William eroded in the face of high-handed ways. Not for the first time did she wonder if she could go through with Charlotte’s scheme. Apparently she had little patience with men.

  A rustle of interest from the other guests caught her attention. A whisper seemed to flow from one person to another. Fans appeared in ladies’ hands as if by magic and began fluttering with interest.

  Miranda turned in the direction they looked, and saw Alex standing in the doorway of the house, flanked by two torches. She also understood why the ladies were impressed.

  He cut a noble figure in a black jacket and breeches. His shirt was snowy white against his dark skin and tall boots, with a polish that reflected the torchlight.

  But he had not completely come as an English gentleman. Instead of a neck cloth, he wore a choker hammered out of silver, and his hair, the blue-black of a raven’s wing, reached well past his shoulders.

  He paused a moment, overlooking the assembled company in the garden, and then started down the stairs, by far the most masculine man present.

  Senhor Esteves came out from hiding, rushing up to welcome Alex. Women moved forward, anxious for an introduction. In the same way Miranda had found herself surrounded by men, Alex was now the center of female attention.

  “What the deuce does he have around his neck?” Sir William said. “Looks like a necklace.”

  “It’s a silver collar,” Miranda said. “A symbol of his rank in the tribe. His grandfather gave it to him. It’s a part of his heritage.”

  A keen sense of loss for what might have been shot through her—accompanied with a strong dose of jealousy as Alex took the hand of a petite, sloe-eyed beauty with an abundance of glossy, thick hair and breasts the size of melons. His teeth flashed white in his smile as he led her onto the dance floor for the next set.

  Not once had he looked at Miranda.

  “He looks heathen in that necklace,” Mr. Hightower muttered. His fellow officers, gathered around her and their captain, seconded his opinion.

  “Would you care to dance, Mr. Hightower?” Miranda asked impulsively. She was not going to stand on the sidelines and let Alex snub her.

  The junior officer looked to his captain. Sir William nodded, and Mr. Hightower again led her out onto the dance floor. Couples were quickly claiming their places. Miranda and Mr. Hightower ended up almost directly behind Alex and his partner.

  The music started. It was a stately pavane. Miranda did her best not to notice Alex.

  She failed. She also had to watch as, after that dance, he claimed another Azorean beauty as his partner.

  “That savage doesn’t dance well at all,” Mr. Hightower observed disdainfully to his comrades.

  “He dances very well,” Miranda answered, and he did. In fact, Alex danced better than what she remembered. She danced next with the other British officers one by one, all under Sir William’s watchful eyes. As the night wore o
n, with Lady Overstreet’s encouragement, he grew more and more overprotective. No Azorean gentlemen approached her. They commiserated with Senhor Esteves, who sat in the shadows of a tree, nursing hurt feelings.

  A glass or two more of sherry didn’t ease the tension building in Miranda. Finally she could take no more. After partnering with Captain Lewis for a dance, she said, “I’m suddenly not feeling quite the thing”—and, surprisingly, she really wasn’t—“perhaps I need a moment alone?”

  She didn’t wait for a response but left, skirting the edge of the crowd and moving toward the door leading into the house in search of a retiring room set up for the ladies.

  Behind her, the music started. She couldn’t resist a glance in Alex’s direction. His partner smiled at him with adoring eyes.

  A servant escorted her down a candlelit hallway to the retiring room. It was a large bedroom set aside for the women to have a moment of privacy, attend to their toilette, or even rest a moment, if necessary. Thankfully, the room was empty. Miranda collapsed into a chair.

  This whole evening was a disaster. Alex aside, she had insulted her host and was in danger of finding herself married off to Sir William before ever seeing the shores of England.

  Charlotte would call her silly to let Alex’s presence upset her in this manner. After all, what was he to her? Nothing. He was her past. She had to think of her future. Her sisters had put their faith in her.

  A glance at her face in one of the room’s many mirrors revealed she was crying, and she hadn’t even realized it. She wrapped her arms around her waist and held tight, not wanting to feel this sense of loss for Alex. Unable to prevent it from flowing through her.

  He was no longer the boy she’d fallen in love with. She wasn’t even the same person herself. Their paths had gone in different directions—

  A footstep in the hall warned that her peace was about to be invaded.

  Swiping at her eyes, Miranda hurried behind the privacy screen, not wanting anyone, especially Lady Overstreet, to see her like this.

  A herd of women entered the room. The dance set must have ended. Miranda listened to them chatter in Portuguese. They were excited. When she heard one mention “Captain Haddon,” she knew why.