Marissa Day

by The Seduction of Miranda Prosper

  How can I be thinking of dances when there might be real trouble? Miranda tried to muster some of the urgency of feeling that she had carried all the way down to the ballroom, but the music was filling her mind and there was no room to think of anything else. She would drink her punch, she would smile, and perhaps he would take her onto the floor just once more...

  “Apparently he saw you at Lady Featherstone’s party last December,” Mother was saying.

  “Strange.” Miranda watched Mr. Summerfields’s straight green back as he maneuvered through the crowd. “I would have thought I’d remember seeing ... someone like him.”

  “Well, I’ve always told you that you need to pay more attention. Still, my dear, I have to say I am truly proud of the way you’re conducting yourself this evening. Every inch the lady.” Mother chucked her under the chin and for once Miranda did not feel the urge to flinch. “I always knew something of my lessons must have sunk in somewhere.”

  “Thank you, Mother,” Miranda murmured. You’re laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?

  As she thought this, she saw Mr. Summerfields crossing the ballroom again, bearing with him two cups of ruby red punch. Miranda did not remember seeing the beverage on the buffet, but the sight of it reminded her how intensely thirsty she was. Mr. Summerfields handed one cup to her mother and one to Miranda with a bow and his bright smile.

  “And perhaps when you’re finished, Miss Prosper, you might favor me with another dance?” he inquired.

  “Well! What do you say to that, Miranda?” Mother took a healthy gulp of punch and then held up her cup as if to examine it closer. “This truly is delicious. I must go compliment Lady Thayer.” And she sailed away.

  Mr. Summerfields smiled indulgently after her. “Your mother is an ... exceptional woman.”

  “That she is.”

  “But perhaps a bit much all at once?” he added softly.

  Miranda met his twinkling eyes and gave one very small nod as she raised the punch cup to her lips. She smelled cherries and something stronger. Brandy?

  “Miranda!”

  Corwin! Miranda turned, but too fast. The brimming cup of punch sloshed, splashing onto the floor and across her sweeping skirts.

  “Clumsy fool!” shouted Mr. Summerfields, and rage twisted his face horribly. Miranda shrank back, but it was gone in an eyeblink, and he was himself again.

  Corwin was at her side. “Oh, I am sorry! This is my fault, Miranda. I do apologize. You must get to the retiring room. I’ll send Louise to you at once. There may still be something that can be done.”

  Miranda, get out of here. Get away from him.

  Miranda felt the blood drain from her cheeks. “Yes, yes, thank you.” She batted ineffectually at her stained skirts. “Mr. Summerfields, if you will excuse me?”

  “Of course, Miss Prosper,” Mr. Summerfields said, but his attention was entirely on Corwin. “I do hope there is no permanent damage.”

  “So do I,” she said. But neither man was listening to her.

  What is it? Where have you been? She sent the thought toward Corwin.

  Go!

  Miranda bunched her skirts up and shouldered her way through the staring crowd. Mother, Heaven help her! Mother detached herself from Lady Thayer and hurried up behind her just as she entered the old parlor that had been set aside as a lady’s retiring room.

  “What have you done?” she demanded, seizing Miranda’s skirts. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake! Couldn’t you manage one night, just one night, without making a fiasco of everything?”

  “I was startled; the cup was full ...”

  “That is Lady Thayer’s nephew out there paying court to you, you silly thing!” shouted Mother, not caring that all the maids in the room turned to look. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes seemed oddly bright. “That is more future than you have the right to expect and you throw it away!”

  “It was an accident!” cried Miranda. “A spilled punch! It’s not as if I slapped him.”

  “You permitted that Mr. Rathe to speak with you!”

  “Mr. Rathe and I ...!” began Miranda.

  But Mother cut her off. “Stupid girl, he’s an Honorable! What is a fur trader’s son compared with that!”

  Words failed Miranda and she was relieved that at that moment Louise bustled in with a basin and a sponge. Mother clamped her mouth shut and contented herself with tapping her foot impatiently.

  “Well?” she demanded of Louise.

  Louise sat back on her heels. “I’m sorry, madame; there’s nothing I can do. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear this was blood ...”

  “For Heaven’s sake, get up to your room and change, Miranda, before Mr. Summerfields’s attention wanders! I’ll do my best to hold him for you, but you must hurry!”

  Mother bustled out of the room, and Miranda stared after her. Then she shook herself.

  “Come, Louise. I’m going to need your help.”

  Louise got up and followed obediently as Miranda retreated in haste, clinging to the edge of the great hall and then hurrying up the stairs as fast as her ruined skirts would permit.

  What just happened? The question echoed over and over in her mind. They were supposed to be playing their parts, yes, but it was as if Mother had all of a sudden forgotten it was a game. If Miranda hadn’t known any better, she’d have sworn Mother’s outrage was in utter earnest.

  Her mind reeling, Miranda opened the door to her room, and there, just out of the threshold, she saw Corwin and Darius.

  Twenty-three

  “I’ve changedmy mind, Louise.” Miranda turned, blocking the entrance to the room. “Please tell my mother I’ve developed a headache and have decided to lie down.”

  Louise frowned. “If you’re sure, miss?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Yes, miss.” Her maid curtsied, but Miranda could tell she didn’t believe a word that was said. It didn’t matter, as long as she left.

  As soon as Louise started down the hall, Miranda slipped into her room and closed the door.

  Corwin was across the room in three strides, seizing her shoulders roughly. “Did you drink any?” His face was gray as ashes and his eyes were frantic.

  “What?” cried Miranda.

  “The punch he gave you. Did you drink any, any at all? Even one drop?”

  “No! I spilled it before I had a chance. Let go of me!” Corwin did, and ran a shaking hand through his hair. “Thank all the gods,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “What is the matter?” Miranda adjusted her sleeves. Corwin sank into the chair beside the fire. “What is it?”

  It was Darius who answered. “You were with a Fae.”

  “What?” cried Miranda again, staring from one of them to the other. “Who?”

  “The man in the green coat, the one who gave you that drink.”

  “He was a fairy?”

  “And if Corwin had been a moment later, you would have been his.”

  Miranda’s blood ran cold. She could sense the utter seriousness in both men and it banished any doubts she might have had. “How?” she whispered.

  “The drink. It came from the Fae country. Surely you’ve heard the old stories, how you should never eat or drink what you’re given in fairyland or you’ll never be able to leave.” Darius swallowed. “That much of the fairy tales is absolutely true.”

  Miranda’s hand flew to her mouth. She remembered thinking she hadn’t seen that particular punch on the buffet. It had smelled so appetizing and she’d been so thirsty ...

  And I danced with him and I wanted to keep dancing. Isn’t that in the stories too? The fairies dancing their victims to death ...

  “Yes,” Darius answered her thought grimly. “Now you begin to understand.”

  Realization hit Miranda and her stomach knotted so violently that for a moment she thought she’d vomit.

  “Mother,” she croaked as she wrapped her arms around herself. “She drank the punch. When she was in the retiring room, she was ... behavi
ng strangely. It was as if she couldn’t remember we were just acting a part with Mr. Summerfields.”

  “Is that what he’s calling himself?” snorted Darius. “Hardly subtle.”

  “Darius, please,” whispered Corwin.

  He was still shaking. Miranda stared. Darius too seemed unsteady. The golden Sorcerer leaned against the mantel, and despite his gruff voice, he had no color at all in his cheeks.

  “What happened to you?” breathed Miranda.

  “I’m beginning to suspect your Mr. Summerfields did,” said Corwin. “We were met when we crossed the barrier.”

  “By a Fae,” said Darius. “No one else could have been so strong, or vanished so quickly.”

  “We suspected your mother had betrayed us,” continued Corwin. “But if she was already one of their creatures, they would not have needed their potions to enthrall her.” He winced.

  “We must warn her!” Miranda remembered the fond look in her mother’s eyes. She had come so close to understanding the woman. She had begun to hope that perhaps, just perhaps, there might be something more for them besides contempt on one side and disappointment on the other ... To have Mother endangered because she had agreed to help Miranda ... Miranda’s throat closed tightly and she could barely breathe.

  “We can do nothing if you do not help us, Miranda,” Darius reminded her harshly. “You must be able to focus.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Forgive me.”

  Miranda stepped between them and took their hands. She closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate, but it was slow and difficult. The vitality that had come to her so easily before seemed almost beyond reach. She could not banish thoughts of Mr. Summerfields’s green eyes as he danced, as he urged her to drink. She saw again the red stain on her mother’s mouth as she lowered the punch cup from her lips. In memory it seemed to glow as if in warning. And despite all, Miranda could not forget the way she had flown in the dance, the way the music had thrummed through her blood, and some treacherous, terrible part of her yearned to feel that way again.

  The connection shattered and Miranda’s hands fell to her sides.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I can’t ... I ...”

  “It will do.” He looked to Darius. “As long as we stay together, we can try again ...”

  “There’s no time,” said Darius flatly. “We must find your mother now.”

  We don’t know what he’s doing to her. We don’t know where he’s taken her. Darius had no need to say anything aloud. Miranda was already imagining the worst.

  Corwin caught up her hand again and looked deeply into her eyes. “You’re her blood kindred, Miranda. It will be very difficult to hide her from you if you open your mind.”

  Miranda took a deep breath and held out her other hand for Darius to take. Standing between her lovers, Miranda braced herself once again and she opened her mind.

  Mother ... She stretched her awareness out. Mother ...

  A thousand memories: Mother chiding her, Mother in black beside her father’s grave, Mother dancing and laughing in the ballroom, the most beautiful woman in the throng, the bitterness of seeing Mother on Malcolm’s arm, not caring that her actions broke her daughter’s heart in two ... Mother promising they should talk, Mother’s eyes oddly deep as they sat in the carriage waiting to begin this new and most unlikely stage of their relationship ...

  A vision leapt into Miranda’s mind. Mother on a man’s arm. Awareness filled in like details in a dream; Robin Summerfields walked Mother down the low-ceilinged corridor. Mother was laughing. She felt filled with all the brightness and beauty of the girl she had once been, and Mr. Summerfields smiled at her. That smile filled Miranda with dread, as if she saw Mr. Summerfields holding a sword to her mother’s side.

  Then Summerfields bent and whispered, “I know a place we can be alone, Daphne. Say you’ll come with me.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Mother answered immediately. In Miranda’s vision, she felt hollow—no, blocked. Isolated. Miranda had felt just that way after leaving the dance floor. She had known something was wrong but could not understand what it was.

  Stay with her, Miranda, Darius’s voice sounded in her mind. The way you stayed with Corwin when he was taken.

  Yes.

  Miranda reached. This time the vitality, the magic, answered her command. Corwin and Darius were both with her, and she felt their essences meld with hers, reaching inside, shaping and binding. She felt the shining thread stretch out toward her mother, as if unraveling from her hem.

  Let’s go.

  Corwin led them. Miranda couldn’t see clearly. Her mind was filled with the vision of her mother tripping lightly down deserted corridors on Mr. Summerfields’s arm. It was early. Everyone was at the dance. The house might as well have been empty.

  She felt herself being lead forward by Corwin and Darius, felt carpets beneath her feet and walked forward by reflex. Mr. Summerfields drew her mother into a darkly paneled sitting room. It must have belonged to Lord Thayer, decorated as it was with books and stuffed heads. He backed her up against the wall and Mother tipped her head back to receive his kiss, and Miranda’s stomach clenched with nausea as she felt a wash of greed and hunger flow from Mr. Summerfields.

  Leave her alone!

  The thought went out utterly unbidden. Mr. Summerfields’s head snapped up, and his smile grew sharp as a knife.

  And the vision was gone.

  It was like being struck blind, and Miranda cried out, and fell, toppling sideways. Corwin barely caught her before she fell headlong down the stairs.

  “Damnation, woman!” cried Darius. “What did you do that for!”

  “I’m sorry!” Miranda covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry ...”

  “No time for that,” Darius snapped. “We need to find that room. Can you do that much?”

  “Darius ...” began Corwin. But Darius ignored him.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  Miranda lowered her hands. “Yes,” she said, but her voice was hollow. “Yes. This way.”

  She gave no thought to subtlety or maintaining appearances. She just snatched up her skirts and ran. This was not a modern house. The corridors were a maze of turns and little side passages and little stairs up and little stairs down again. But she knew her way now, through the door on the left, down the four stairs to the blue-carpeted hallway, past the main stair, into the east wing.

  “Here.” Miranda stopped in front of one particular door.

  “I’ll check farther down,” said Darius. “You search here.” And he hurried on before either Miranda or Corwin could say anything.

  Corwin laid his hand on the door. “Empty,” he announced. He tried the knob and the door came open. He and Miranda hurried inside, and he locked it behind them.

  The room was dark. Corwin snapped his fingers and a waiting candle flared into life. The sudden light glimmered on the glass eyes of bison and antelopes, and, terribly, the snarling head of a Siberian tiger.

  Miranda circled the room, straining, trying to sense something, anything. But there was nothing. Nothing at all. It was as if Mother and Summerfields had vanished off the face of the Earth.

  “Not yet, not yet,” murmured Corwin. “It’s too soon, and they don’t have all they need ...”

  A soft scratching sounded at the door, and Miranda knew it was Darius. Corwin let him in.

  “Nothing,” he reported as Corwin again locked the door. “Damn it! What do we do now?”

  Miranda’s mind was awhirl with a thousand thoughts, none of them to any purpose.

  “Call your maid,” said Corwin suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Your maid. These grand houses are warrens of back passages for the servants. Your maid will have been shown at least some of them by the house staff. Summerfields might have taken your mother down one of those.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” Miranda ran to the bellpull and tugged hard. After a long, anxious moment
a knock sounded on the door. Darius and Corwin both pressed themselves against the wall so that the door hid them as it opened to reveal the liveried footman.

  Miranda drew herself up straight, remembering one never explained oneself to servants. “I need my maid, Louise,” she said. “Send her here.”

  The man bowed and retired. Miranda knotted her fingers together and began to pace. Darius prowled the edges of the room, running his hands over the paneling, stretching his awareness, even as she had stretched hers.

  “Where is it?” he muttered. “Where?”

  “Stop it, both of you,” commanded Corwin. “You’re doing no one any good.”

  Darius clenched his fist against the wall. “There must be something.”

  But it wasn’t just the frustration of inaction Miranda felt from him. It was something more, something worse. It was distrust. Distrust of her mother, and distrust of her.

  Her eyes widened and she stared at him. Darius did not flinch. He let her see. He wanted her to see. He wanted her to be aware of the question that flickered through his mind.

  If her mother had so easily betrayed them, what might Miranda do when pressed?

  “Darius!” snapped Corwin. “That is beneath you!”

  There was no chance to say anything else, for good or ill. There came another knock, and Miranda recognized it as Louise’s.

  Miranda went to the door. The men did not bother to hide themselves, and as Louise dropped her curtsy, her eyes slid sideways to Mr. Rathe and the golden stranger.

  Miranda took her maid’s hand. “Louise, are you my friend?”

  Louise blinked, and her gaze drifted to the men once more. “Always, miss. You know that.”

  “I have to ask something very important and very strange. I swear when this is over I’ll give you a full explanation, but right now there’s no time. My mother’s been abducted.”

  “Abducted!” gasped Louise.

  Miranda nodded. “By Lady Thayer’s nephew, Mr. Summerfields.”

  “But ... such a gentleman ...”