by Candace Camp
“I think that I will sit with her for a while,” Miranda told the maid. “Until she’s feeling better.”
Devin rode to the abbey ruins first and left his sketch pads and paints. He would come back afterward, he thought, and do some sketches. It was important, somehow, that what he had told Miranda not be a complete lie.
He had hated misleading her, omitting the important fact of where else he planned to go today. But he could scarcely tell her his true destination.
He rode in the opposite direction from the abbey, and in another forty-five minutes he was riding through the double row of lime trees that led to the entrance of Vesey Park. It sent an odd quiver snaking through him to look up at the front of the house. He had come here many times that summer he was eighteen, madly in love with Lord Vesey’s new wife and unable to stay away.
He reined in at the front door, and a groom came to take his horse. A footman opened the door, bowing, but when Devin asked for Leona, the footman surprised him by informing him that her ladyship was not at home. Leona did not, Devin knew, have friends in the area; she was considered much too wild by the ladies around here, led by his own mother. The servant enlightened him by volunteering the fact that she had gone to see Lord Vesey’s aunt.
That fact surprised Devin. Leona, he knew, found the old woman deadly dull, and he had assumed that Leona had been with her at the wedding feast solely because that was the only way she could get in. She must have been driven to visit Miss Vesey by sheer boredom; Leona could not abide living in the country. He was amazed that she had stayed as long as she had. He would have expected her to set out for London soon after the wedding.
He decided to wait for her, figuring that Leona would soon grow tired of the elderly aunt and return home. The footman, taking stock of his attire and demeanor, seated him in the formal drawing room to wait for her.
As he had hoped, he had been there only a few minutes when Leona came sweeping in, favoring him with a glittering smile and holding out her hands to him. She looked fetching in a green dress that set off her golden looks admirably. The material clung to her hips and legs, and the round neckline revealed the upper swell of her full breasts.
“Devin! At last. I never see you.” She pulled her mouth into a provocative pout. “One might almost think that you don’t like me anymore.” She leaned toward him, her lips curving up in an inviting smile, her eyes glinting gold.
To her amazement, Devin took a step backward. Leona stopped, one eyebrow going up, and she said in irritation, “Whatever is the matter, Dev? Afraid of me?”
“No, of course not. Leona…” He paused. It was desperately hard now to tell her what he had come here for.
Leona did not wait for him to continue. She turned away, saying in a contemptuous tone, “Your drab little wife told me you had taken up painting again. Really, Dev, I thought you had given up playing with paints.”
“Miranda?” he asked in astonishment, distracted by her words. “You have talked to Miranda?”
“Yes. Aunt Vesey and I went calling on her. That is where I was just now. She told me you were out drawing at the abbey ruins.” Leona cast him an amused glance and made tsk-tsking noises. “Lying to your bride already? Of course, I fully understand. You must be desperate to escape the provincial chit. My goodness, poor Dev…Are you terribly angry with me for persuading you to marry her?”
Devin’s jaw set, and a light flared in his eyes. “No. I am not angry with you for that. If anything, Leona, you did me a favor. I am happier now than I can remember being for years.”
Leona’s eyes widened; then she relaxed and let out a little laugh. “Oh, you are teasing. I almost believed you.” She came back to him, putting one hand on his arm and gazing up into his face in a way that had never failed to beguile him. “Why haven’t you been to visit me? I would have alleviated your boredom.”
“I wasn’t bored,” he replied and stepped back from her again. “I could scarcely call on you, Leona. Things are different now that I am married. It would be an insult to Miranda if I rode over to visit my mistress.”
“Oh, her,” Leona said dismissively. “What does it matter if she is insulted? She’s a little nobody from America.”
“She is not a nobody,” Devin snapped. “She is my wife. I cannot allow you to speak about her like that.”
Leona stared at him, shocked into silence.
Devin sighed. “I am sorry. But Miranda is my wife now.” When Leona continued to stare at him, he went on irritably, “Didn’t you realize how it would be? You were the one who urged me to marry.”
“To get the money we both so desperately needed!” Leona lashed back. “Not to turn into some priggish country bumpkin. What has happened to you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, Leona. I just—I changed.” He paused then said, “I’m different now. My life is different. You and I—”
Leona put her hand over his mouth, silencing him. “Hush. You don’t know what you are saying. All this bucolic living has softened your brain.”
She moved closer to him, her body brushing up against his, her hand sliding away from his mouth to caress his cheek and neck. “I know you, Dev,” she said in a low, intimate voice. “I know you better than anyone. You cannot fool me. You are still the same Devin, the man I love.”
She took one of his hands and guided it to the open neck of her dress, holding his hand to the exposed swell of her breasts. “I know what you like…” Leona went on huskily. “Why don’t we slip upstairs, so I can remind you of what you are missing?”
She raised his hand to her mouth, kissing the tips of his fingers, taking the ball of his thumb between her teeth.
Devin looked down at her. Her eyes were golden, lit with a seductive glow, and her lips pouted in a way that was guaranteed to make a man want to kiss them. Her breasts were ripe and full. And he was, amazingly, completely unmoved. For the first time that he could remember in almost fifteen years, he felt no desire for Leona. Despite what he had come to tell her, he had not expected that.
“Leona, don’t.” He pulled his hand back and moved away. “I cannot do that. I am married now. It’s different.”
He turned around, his face and tone formal. “Let me tell you what I came here to say. I have changed, Leona. I don’t know exactly how or why, but it is true. And I cannot undo it. I don’t want to undo it. I cannot be the way I used to be, the way I was with you. I can’t do the things I did or act the same way. I don’t want to. I cannot be a husband to Miranda and keep you as a mistress. It wouldn’t be fair to either one of you.” He paused, then said the words he had never thought he would utter. “I cannot see you anymore.”
Leona went pale with shock. Devin was filled with guilt as he watched her. He had loved her for years, and it was almost as much of a shock to him as it was to Leona that he had finally stopped. But he realized, looking at her, that he no longer loved her. He had made a decision last night to break things off with Leona, but he had thought that he still loved her. He had thought it would be harder for him to break with her, more of a struggle. He had expected to feel torn about choosing Miranda. But all he felt at the moment was relief. Leona seemed almost a stranger to him now, a little overblown in her provocative attire and manner, his memories of her and his love for her clouded by the haze of alcohol in which he had spent most of his time.
It occurred to him, startling him, how little time he had spent with Leona over the years and how little he really knew her. Their moments together had always been brief and stolen, tinged with the excitement of the forbidden and foggy with the amount of alcohol he had imbibed. There had not been hours spent together talking and laughing, as he had known with Miranda the past few weeks. He could have said a thousand things about Miranda’s past, but for all the years he had loved Leona, he knew little more about her than that she disliked her two sisters and rarely saw them.
“I am sorry,” he said inadequately. “But I cannot lie to you. You would not want that.”
“I
do not want this!” Anger contorted Leona’s face, turning the soft, sensual lines into something harsh, and she made a sweeping gesture with her arm. “You are throwing me over for that—that—stupid, whey-faced American trollop?”
“She is not a trollop!” Devin’s temper flared.
“How dare you.” Leona shrieked. “I am Leona Vesey! Half the gentlemen of the Ton want me! You should be honored that I let you into my bed. I cannot believe—after all the years I spent on you! I could have had anyone, you know, and I chose you. There are scores of men who wanted to displace you over the years. All I have to do is snap my fingers, and they will come running.”
“I am sure you are right,” Devin said, reining in his temper. “Any man would want you.”
“Don’t patronize me!” Leona’s lip curled, and the words dripped from her mouth like acid. “You are such a fool, Dev. I don’t know why it should surprise me. Men are always fools. You’ve found a new toy. She’s shaken her hips at you and rolled those eyes, all the while acting as if she thinks your silly little paintings are great works of art. Now you think you will be a good husband and stay up here in Derbyshire, drawing and fornicating with that American ninny. Hah! In two months you will be dying with boredom. You will wake up one morning and realize what you’ve done. And you’ll want me back again. You can’t ever get me out of your blood. I own you, Dev. I have since you were eighteen and a flat straight from countryside.”
Devin looked at her, his eyes cold and flat. “You never owned me, Leona. I loved you. There is a difference.”
“Oh, please. You would have done anything I asked you to, and you know it. Because you wanted to be in my bed.”
“Is that all you think it was?”
Leona shot him a speaking look. “The only reason you married her, if you will remember, is because I wanted you to. I teased and enticed you until you would have done anything I said. Think about it, Devin. Your little milk-and-water miss won’t be able to satisfy you as I can. You’ll miss it. You know you will. And you’ll regret it. You will come crawling back to me. But you know what? I won’t be here. You will have missed your chance.”
Devin looked at her levelly. “No, Leona. I won’t be back.”
He turned and strode out of the house. Mounting his horse, he rode home to Miranda.
17
Miranda did not see Devin when he returned to the house that afternoon. She was still in Elizabeth’s room, watching over her stepmother. To her surprise, Elizabeth had not yet awakened by late afternoon, so Miranda continued to stay beside the bed. Her anxiety grew as the afternoon turned into evening and Elizabeth was still deeply asleep.
Veronica relieved Miranda for a couple of hours, but she was only fourteen, and it was hard for her to sit still, so Miranda returned to take up her vigil. She didn’t understand why Elizabeth still had not awakened, but it did not seem like a good sign. She told herself that it was only that the vomiting had simply worn her out. It was good to sleep when one was sick; it gave the body a chance to heal itself. But she could not suppress the feeling that there was something unnatural about Elizabeth’s long nap.
She rang and told the maid to bring her supper to Elizabeth’s room. To her surprise later, when there was a knock on the door and it swung open, it was her husband who carried in the tray containing her supper, not a maid.
“Devin!” Miranda exclaimed with delight, rising and going to him. “What are you doing here?”
“When they told me you would not be down to dinner, I decided to bring the tray to you myself. I haven’t seen you since this morning.”
He set the tray down on a low table and glanced over at the bed where Elizabeth lay motionless. “Is Mrs. Upshaw very ill?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so. Still, it concerns me that she has not awakened yet. I thought I would stay until she does.” She smiled up at Devin and reached out to take his hand. “I will miss seeing you at dinner, however.”
He smiled and brought her hand up to his lips. “I, too.”
Miranda wondered whether Leona had visited him at the abbey, but she could not bring herself to ask him straight out. “How did your work go today?” she asked instead, hoping that would lead naturally to his mentioning Leona’s visit.
“It went well, once I got started.” Devin started to say something more, then hesitated and glanced across the room at her sleeping stepmother. He raised her hand to his mouth again and kissed it, saying, “I will not disturb you. I only wanted to see you. I will talk to you later.”
“Of course.”
He left the room, and Miranda sighed in frustration. She wished she knew what he had been about to say. She wished she knew whether she had won the challenge she had thrown at Leona, or lost it—and Dev—in the process.
Around ten o’clock, her stepmother woke up, mumbling incoherently, then opened her eyes and glanced around in a confused way. Miranda got up and went to her side.
“Elizabeth? How are you feeling?”
Elizabeth blinked at her groggily. “I—where—why are you here? Oh, I remember. I was ill, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, and you have been asleep all afternoon. Are you feeling better?”
“I’m not sure.” Elizabeth closed her eyes again as if was too much effort to keep them open. “I’m so tired.”
“Would you like something to eat? Some broth, perhaps?”
But Elizabeth was already asleep again.
The fact that her stepmother had awakened reassured Miranda. She had not gone into a permanent unconsciousness, as Miranda had been beginning to fear. No doubt her illness that afternoon had simply worn her out. Sleep was, after all, the best curative.
Her father came in after that to check on his wife’s condition, and Elizabeth awoke at the sound of his voice and said a few words. Feeling confident now that her stepmother was better, Miranda decided that she would not have to sleep on a cot in Elizabeth’s room that night, as she had been beginning to think she would. It would be enough to have one of the maids there.
So after ringing for the maid and instructing her to awaken her if there was any alarming change in Elizabeth’s condition, she made her way to her own bedroom. Her maid was there and had already brought in a slipper tub and was filling it with warm water, anticipating Miranda’s wishes. She helped Miranda undress and get into the tub. After a long soak, Miranda felt much better, though her mind still worried over the question of Leona’s visit to the abbey that afternoon. If Devin did not tell her about it, what did it mean?
She pulled her nightgown on over her head and brushed out her hair, then climbed into bed. She was almost asleep when the door from Devin’s room opened.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she tensed. Devin paused at the door. He carried a candlestick in one hand, and it cast a flickering light over his planed face. His eyes were dark, his cheeks shadowed. His shirt was unbuttoned, hanging open down the front. Miranda watched, frozen, as he set the candle down, then crossed the room toward her.
He stopped beside the bed and stood gazing down at her for a long moment. The drapes at her window stood open, and enough moonlight came in that she could see his face.
He reached down and put his hand on her chest. His flesh was hot and faintly rough, and it trembled slightly with the thrum of his pulse. Miranda did not have to ask what he wanted. She knew.
She answered wordlessly, reaching up and putting her hand on his wrist, then sliding it upward.
“I want you.” His voice was low and hoarse. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone the way I want you.”
His hand started a slow, enticing journey down her chest, sliding over her breasts and onto the plane of her stomach. Miranda did not speak, hardly breathed. She wanted him to go on. At this moment she no longer cared about her long-term plans for their marriage or whether he committed himself to her exclusively or what had happened today at the abbey. Right now, she knew, she would agree to almost anything as long as it meant that he would spend toni
ght in her bed. That was as much of their future as she could think of.
He spread his palm over her abdomen, spanning the width of it with his hand, then slid it over onto her hip and down her leg, coming back up and crossing to the other side.
“I want a real marriage,” he said. “I don’t want us to have a ‘business’ arrangement or go our separate ways. And I will not share your body with any man. I want you…and only you.” He paused, then added, “I broke it off with Leona today.”
Miranda drew in a sharp breath. “Devin…”
“Will you let me try to be a true husband?”
His hand slid back up her front, and Miranda could not contain a little shuddering moan. “Yes,” was all she could manage to utter. “Yes…”
They came together with heat and urgency, tearing off their clothes and tossing them aside, the weeks of pent-up longing suddenly released into a flood of passion. His mouth was hot and seeking; hers no less so. They kissed and caressed, their eager bodies flush against each other, rolling across the large bed. Devin could not get enough of Miranda—the taste, the feel, the smell, of her. He had been hungering for her for weeks, and now she was in his arms, pliable and warm and as eager for him as he was for her. He kissed her over and over, his lips roaming her face and throat and down onto her chest, coming to rest on the sublimely soft mound of her breast. He cupped the orb with his hand as his mouth explored the bud of her nipple, teasing it with tongue and lips and teeth until Miranda was moaning and arching up off the bed, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
Heat exploded in Miranda’s abdomen, desire pooling between her legs. She ached for him. Her hands swept over Dev, eager to learn all the textures of him—the hard bone of his skull and ribs, the thick curve of muscles across his back, the soft skin of his abdomen that trembled when her fingers roamed there, the coarse, curling hair on his chest that swept down in a thin line to his stomach, then lower…. Every part of him was enticing, intriguing, and she thought that she could have gone on for hours exploring him if it had not been for the ever tightening knot of urgency in her loins, the pleasurable ache between her legs that yearned for fulfillment.
