by Candace Camp
“Of course you would have,” Miranda agreed staunchly. “Your father could not have known you very well, or he would have known that.”
“He was only one of many who believed it,” Devin said flatly. “The things I had done, the manner of man I was…everyone found it easy to believe I would have played the cad. Obviously Constance never thought for a moment that I would have done the honorable thing.” The corner of his mouth quirked up in an attempt at a smile. “Now you know what sort of man you married.”
“I already knew what sort of man I married,” Miranda replied. “This does not change my opinion. You have made mistakes—who among us has not? But you are not wicked.”
“I don’t know how you can even bear to look at me. Sometimes I cannot bear to look at myself.”
Impulsively Miranda leaned forward and took Devin in her arms, resting her head against his and holding him close. “There is no need to keep grinding yourself into the ground about this. What you did was wrong, no doubt, but you were not alone in it. You did not force her. Constance was a grown woman, older than most of the girls, you said. She knew what she was doing and what could happen. She also could have told you. She did not even give you the chance to make it right. She should have come to you. She owed that to her child, if nothing else. There was her grandfather, too. She could have gone to him for help. Instead she chose to kill herself and her child. That is not the action of a fully sane woman. You cannot blame yourself because she was unbalanced. You do not deserve the entire burden of guilt.”
Devin wrapped his arms around her tightly, burying his face in her hair. “You are an unusual woman, Miranda. Few would be so forgiving.”
“What do I have to forgive you for?” Miranda pointed out reasonably. “It did not concern me. It is between you and God, and I think that you have punished yourself for it more than enough over the years.”
They sat like that for a long time, holding each other, and Miranda could feel his taut body relax as the pain drained out of him. Gradually she realized the intimacy of their position, pressed tightly against each other, sitting in his bed. She wore only a nightgown, a flimsy barrier between his bare chest and her own skin. The warmth between them began to change and become more heated, and suddenly what had been only comfort and sympathy was now charged with sexuality.
Miranda released Devin and scooted back awkwardly. She looked at him and saw reflected in his face the same awareness of their position. Her cheeks flamed. She had scarcely noticed before how little Devin wore. Above the sheet his chest was bare. Miranda was unaccustomed to seeing a man’s naked chest, and her eyes could not help running over his tanned skin, padded with muscle. She had to curl her fingers into her palm to resist the urge to reach out and touch the bony outcropping of his shoulders and collarbone, the rounded muscle of his upper arms.
She cleared her throat. “Well, ah…I should get back to bed now.”
“Miranda…” He reached for her, laying his hand on her arm. He rubbed his thumb over her skin, searching for words. With a sigh, he released her and shook his head. “Never mind. Thank you. It was good of you to come help me.”
“You’re welcome. Good night.”
Miranda slipped off the bed and walked across the room and through the connecting door to her room. But when she closed the door behind her, she did not lock it.
15
Miranda and Devin were in the library the next day, Miranda poring over old maps of the estate and Devin contemplating the way her dress fell over her hips as she stretched across the table, when one of the footmen entered.
“My lady, a package has arrived for you. A rather large one, from London. You had said to notify you—”
“Yes, of course.” Miranda straightened up, her eyes bright and a wide smile curving her mouth. “Bring it in.”
She turned to Devin excitedly. They were alone in the room for once, her father and the landscaper being outside walking through the overrun garden, the architect upstairs making notes to himself, and Hiram going over the books with Strong in Strong’s office. Devin could not help but smile faintly at the happiness on Miranda’s face; it was infectious. But he could not imagine what sort of package could have got her so excited.
“What is it? Dresses from London?”
“No. Better than that. At least, I hope it is. I hope you will like it. It is a wedding present.”
“A wedding present? But you already gave me that.” His hand went automatically to the ruby-and-gold pin in his ascot, part of a matching set with cuff links that she had given him on their wedding day.
“Yes, but that was different. That was a formal present. A—I don’t know, something you expected. This is my own personal present.”
Intrigued, he stood up as the footman came in, almost hidden by the large box he carried. With care, the servant set it down on the floor and bowed out of the room, closing the door behind him. Devin glanced at Miranda.
“Go ahead,” she said, “Open it. If you don’t like it, I promise I shan’t cry. It is just a gift of…of possibility.”
“Indeed.” He cut the string that tied the package and opened the box. He went still, looking at the objects inside. He turned to Miranda, an odd, questioning look on his face, then reached into the box and pulled out an easel. Digging farther down, he brought up a wooden box containing tubes of pigment and glass bottles for the paints after they were mixed, then a palette, a box of brushes, pads of paper, a box of charcoal pencils, bottles of turpentine and linseed oil, until finally the library table was almost covered with the art supplies.
Devin stood looking down at the things on the table. He ran his fingers down a tube, touched the silken hairs of a brush. Miranda waited, watching him, wondering what he was thinking.
“You don’t have to use them if you don’t want,” she said finally. “I just thought…you might miss it. While you were here, you might want to paint. To pass the time, at least.”
He turned then and looked at her, shaking his head in puzzlement. “How did you know? I mean—I gave it up long ago.”
“I saw your work at your sister’s house,” Miranda explained. “She told me that you were an artist.”
He grimaced dismissively. “I dabbled.”
“No. You are very talented. I saw the paintings. Your use of light, the colors…” Her voice picked up a little in excitement. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw them. I realized then that you weren’t just what one saw.”
“A wastrel, you mean?”
“Well, frankly, yes.”
Devin grinned faintly. “One can always count on you for honesty.”
He looked back at the things on the table. “I can’t believe…I don’t know that I can do it anymore. It has been years. I lost interest.”
“You might be rusty, but I don’t believe your talent died. It is still there.” She paused, then went on. “Rachel showed me the room in the west wing, the one where you used to paint. I’ve had it cleaned. You could use it again.”
“It has good light in the afternoon,” he agreed absently. Even when he had tried to sketch Miranda, he had not actually contemplated painting her portrait. He had assumed that he would never paint again. But now, suddenly, the idea tempted him. He remembered the smell of the oils, the feel of the brush in his fingers, the way light poured in through the windows of the room. He thought once more of the sketches he had done in private of Miranda.
“Why did you buy these?” he asked. “I mean, why do you care?”
“I hate to see talent wasted, and I think you have a tremendous talent. And I thought you might…find something you had lost.”
They stood looking at one another for a long moment. Finally he said, “If I decided to paint, would you pose for me?”
Miranda’s eyes widened a little in surprise. But she said only, “Yes. I would.”
“Then perhaps I will.”
Devin did not think he would begin to paint again. He had outgrown it years ago, as his father had alway
s hoped he would. The supplies were a nice gesture and one that touched him, but he was not sure that he wanted to try them out.
However, later that afternoon, he found his steps turning toward the room Miranda had mentioned, the large, airy, sun-filled room that had been his studio when he lived at home. It had been cleaned, as Miranda had said, and all the supplies had been carried up and arranged on an old paint-bedaubed table there. The furniture in the room was minimal—besides the table, only a chair, a stool and a fainting couch.
He went to the box and opened it again, taking out the tubes of pigment one by one and laying them on the table, adding the small glass bottles. If he was going to paint, he would mix the pigments with linseed oil and put them in the bottles. He thought of mixing the oils together on his palette then, what colors he would combine, what mixture he would use to get the exact shade of Miranda’s hair. What combination of white and black it would take to reach the gray of her eyes—and how to add the touch of silver to them.
Almost without thinking, he unscrewed the top from one of the tubes and squeezed out pigment into a bottle….
It was four hours later that one of the servants finally found him, standing in the studio, lamps lit around him, his coat off and his white shirt stained and smeared with paints.
“Uh, my lord…Lady Ravenscar sent me to find you,” the footman said tentatively, never having seen the elegant Earl in such a state before. He had seen him tipsy, of course, buttons done up wrong or not at all, cravat rumpled and all askew. But as he had only been here five years now, he had never seen him with a smear of brown across the back of his hand and another of gray on his cheek—nor with that odd, distant look in his eyes, so that he stared at a man without really seeing him.
“What?” The earl frowned. “Miranda?”
“No, my lord. The dowager Lady Ravenscar.”
“Oh. Why?”
“It is past time for supper, sir. The others are ready to sit down.”
“Oh. Tell them to go ahead. Bring my supper up to me on a tray. I’m busy. And bring me more lamps. The light’s damn poor in here.”
The footman saw little sense in pointing out that it was nighttime and there was little likelihood of good light. He had long ago decided that the aristocracy were all mad, and this latest glimpse of the Earl of Ravenscar only confirmed that opinion.
When the footman relayed the news to the elder Lady Ravenscar, she frosted up. “We shan’t wait on him. At least—” she turned to Miranda, acknowledging that she was now the lady of the house “—that is what I would advise, Miranda.”
“Yes, I imagine you are right.” But Miranda, unlike her mother-in-law, smiled when she said it, and the look she exchanged with Rachel was one of triumphant delight.
Devin painted through much of the night, finally going off to bed exhausted and disgusted by the rustiness of his skills. He would never recapture the ability he once had, he thought, though he knew he would try again.
The next morning, when he woke up, he was feeling less despairing and, given a fresh look at what he had done in the light of day, he thought that, while it was not worth keeping, it was not, at least, quite as horrible as it had seemed the night before.
He went down to the library, where he found Miranda in a discussion of numbers with Hiram Baldwin. He was growing more and more exasperated with his inability to get her face just right, and he reminded her that she had promised to pose. Miranda rose, smiling, and went with him without a murmur of dissent, leaving Hiram to sigh and return alone to the problem that had been vexing him.
Over the course of the next few weeks Devin was locked in his studio much of each day. Miranda sat for him two hours a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, all that she could stand of sitting still, she told him. The rest of the time he experimented with sketches and colors and still lifes or landscapes—whatever took his fancy. He was seized with a hunger, not quite the obsessive, unrelenting fevers that had often gripped him when he was younger, but still a need to create that made all other things recede.
How had Miranda known that this need still lived inside him? He had not even known it himself.
Had he thought about it, he would have been a trifle surprised to realize how little he missed the activity of London and the pursuits he had indulged in for years. Consumed in the excitement of painting, the need to do it, he rarely even thought of gambling or going out carousing for an evening. Even his drinking diminished as his boredom did, and he was surprised to discover the pleasantness of waking up of a morning without a heavy head and befogged mind. When he did want entertainment or fun, his thoughts turned naturally to Miranda. A few months ago he would have laughed at the thought that an evening playing cards with his wife and her sister, or even just sitting talking to her, would have more appeal than a night of frolic and liquor, but that was the truth of the matter now.
One thing he discovered, however, was that the sudden hunger in him to paint did not diminish the ever-burgeoning hunger in him for Miranda. He would not have thought he could be doubly obsessed in this way, but it seemed, strangely, as if the two desires fed on one another. He painted Miranda’s face and form on canvas, trying to satisfy the need inside him, trying to wear out the fascination of her face, but in doing so, he wound up looking at her—the image and the reality—most of his waking day. At night, tired though he might be, he could not stop thinking about her. She was right next door, soft and warm, waiting for him.
Ever since that night in the library, he had known that she would allow him into her bed. She had made no pretence of disinterest, no calm statement that it was wiser to go their separate ways. All she had asked was his fidelity. If he gave her that, he knew she would be his.
It would be easy to say the words, he knew. It wasn’t as if he had not lied a thousand times, as if he had not told countless women that he loved them, when in fact he barely cared about them. But somehow, with Miranda, he could not lie. He could not look into those clear, penetrating gray eyes and tell her something that he knew was not the truth. At the moment all he wanted was her. But he did not know if that would continue. Once he had slept with her, he might grow tired of her, as he had of every other woman he had ever known, except Leona.
And how could he tell her that he would be faithful to her, when Leona waited for him? Leona was, after all, the love of his life. He had known it at eighteen, and it had remained so for fourteen years. The strange disinterest he felt in Leona now was temporary, he was sure. It was something engendered by his irritation with her for wanting him to marry another and enlarged by his current dual obsessions with Miranda and his art. Guilt nibbled at him for the disinterest, no matter how much he told himself it was temporary. He could not honestly agree to giving her up in order to have Miranda. It would be an insult to Leona, even though she would never know it. And it would be an insult to Miranda, too, sleeping with her out of lust, knowing that he could not give her his heart.
Miranda deserved far better than that. Deserved far better than him, really. She had somehow returned to him his love for painting. She had comforted him, given him strength. With all her strange, irritating ways, she had wormed her way into his affections. He could not allow himself to be less than the man she thought he was.
Devin found it distinctly irritating that his noble intentions were not easier to carry out. It was, in fact, hellaciously hard to lie in bed each night, knowing Miranda was next door and that only his newly acquired sense of honor kept him from enjoying the pleasure of her body. It would seem only fair, he thought, that denying himself the pleasure would be somehow made more endurable by the knowledge that he was doing what was right.
Instead, each night he lay awake, remembering the taste of Miranda’s lips, the soft give of her body in his arms, the shudder of response in her when he stroked her skin, and growing hotter and harder and more unable to sleep with each breath he took. He imagined undressing her, kissing her, caressing her—and he was cursed with a sensually vivid
artist’s imagination, so that each thought was almost unbearably real, except that there was no satisfaction.
During the day, as he looked at her, posing for her picture, the same thoughts intruded, winding through their innocuous conversation, tingeing his artwork with a undeniable atmosphere of sexuality. His breath came harder and faster; his skin warmed; his pulse quickened. He wanted her, but he knew he could not let himself have her, and the combination was slowly driving him mad.
The worst evening was at a party given by the local squire, a thin ascetic sort named Breakthorpe, whose wife was just the opposite of him, a jolly, plump, vocal woman. The party was small, containing once again the doctor and the vicar and his wife, as well as the Breakthorpe family and all those staying at Darkwater. However, after supper, when one of the Breakthorpe daughters began playing the piano, Mrs. Breakthorpe decided, after great wheedling by the Breakthorpe girls, to allow dancing while Catherine, the youngest and the quietest of the Breakthorpes, played the piano.
Devin had had no suspicion that the evening would be anything but dull. Instead he had spent the last hour of it dancing almost exclusively with his wife, and it had been the purest form of heaven and hell combined that he had ever experienced. He smelled the rose scent that she dabbed at her temples and between her breasts; he gazed down at the creamy, trembling tops of her breasts; he held her body in his arms, felt her skin against his. And desire pulsed dangerously in him.
Because of the size of their party, they had brought two carriages. Miranda’s stepmother went home early, pleading a headache, with Joseph accompanying her, but this had left the rest of their party to crowd into the other carriage when they left the manor house. The result was that Miranda wound up sitting on her husband’s lap, a satisfactory solution in everyone else’s mind. Devin certainly would not deny that he enjoyed the ride, but by the end of it, after almost forty minutes of the rumbling vibration of the carriage, the constant fractional shifting of Miranda’s buttocks against his body, the feel and smell of her so close to him, he was on fire and desperate for satisfaction.
