“She chose death.”
“Don’t say that.”
“She did. You know that she did. She took too much of the poison, she knew it would kill her. She didn’t want to live without her lover.”
“How the hell would you know that?”
“She told Carrville as much, when she was passing in and out of consciousness. When you ran for the doctor.”
“He never told me.”
“He blamed you.”
“Yes, he believed that I should have challenged her lover and sent him packing long before.”
She said nothing. An affirmative reply from her was unnecessary.
He released a long sigh. “You see, more proof of my earlier carelessness, my blame in her death. I was careless like my father before me. He wasted himself on expensive women and gambling and drink and God knows what else. He frittered away what was left of our family fortune, for you see I come from a long line of careless fools.”
At the open pain on his face, she winced, her heart twisting for him.
“I owe everything to my sons,” he continued. “I have worked damned hard to refill the family coffers. Perhaps I could pull cash in some investments and give you this outrageous sum you say you must have, all for the sake of your dear mama’s sanity. Perhaps I could earn all of that back in the fullness of time. Perhaps. Nothing is certain. I could die the very next day after I had given you that money, and I would leave my sons in the same state of being nearly financially destitute that my father did me. I simply cannot risk such a dear amount, because I happen to find that I have the same weakness for expensive women as my father did.”
Expensive women.
Plural.
The implication that she was nothing more than the first in a long line of carnal indulgences hit her full force. He had broken his vow to never indulge in liaisons with courtesans. Now he could indulge his lusts freely. “Well, then there is nothing more for us to say, is there, my lord?”
Chapter Sixteen
“What do you expect me to do about this situation?” Adrian asked, leaning back in his seat and propping his boots on his desktop, an intentional sign of a lack of respect towards his visitor.
Cassandra Jones sat across from him, in the study of his townhouse on St. James. Her face was paler than usual and marked with lines of strain about her eyes and mouth. Why had he never noticed those before? Was that a result of the stark sunlight from the window behind him?
“I am asking for your aid, my lord. You know how proud Miranda can be. She will not accept my help or advice. She will not even see me since she has returned to London.”
His jaw tensed. Yes, Miranda was proud and stubborn. In the weeks since she had left Applewaite after their final quarrel, he had tried to send her some funds. Three times he had sent her enough to cover a month of normal living expenses. She had returned the sums each time.
Such an action had infuriated him.
It had also filled him with worry. What was her true financial state? Was she doing without any necessity or daily comfort? Would she be forced to sell something dear to herself? Would she spend her nights sleepless over worries of her own?
He’d hired an investigator to look into her accounts, and he’d been told that she was virtually penniless.
No, he couldn’t afford to risk the huge sum required to buy her mother’s house. But he could help her in this small way.
Why wouldn’t she accept the help he could give her?
The rejection of his aid rankled him.
He certainly was in no mood to deal with her aunt today. He fixed Cassandra with a cold stare. “After what happened at Applewaite, can you blame her for not wanting to see you?”
The irony of those words struck him in the gut. He might as well have said them to himself.
Cassandra looked stricken herself. Then she straightened her spine and lifted her chin.” I did discipline my niece and, having done so in a fit of pique, made it more strident that it ought to have been. But it is natural to lose patience with a younger person, when they are behaving in a stubborn manner.”
He gritted his teeth against the urge to tell her she had damned better not strike Miranda again.
However, Miranda was no longer his concern.
“You and I have always had our differences,” Cassandra said.
He chuckled, coldly. “To put it mildly.”
“Do not allow those differences to turn your ears deaf to my pleas on Miranda’s behalf.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that I have my differences with your niece as well?”
“Surely they cannot be such insurmountable differences that you would fail to protect her in her time of greatest need.”
“Greatest need? Good God, Cassandra Jones, you sound like a bad play.”
“I am not on the best terms with my niece, but I have my sources of information.” “Miranda received two letters that distressed her very much over the past three days.” Cassandra compressed her lips. “The first letter was from her mother’s physician. It appears that her mother has suffered a setback in her condition.”
“A setback?”
“There was an incident involving a midnight swim, in the sea. My sister apparently thought that her hair was afire, and she was doing the best she could to drown herself.” Cassandra made a wry expression. “My sister slips in and out of these sorts of delusions. Otherwise, she is a childlike person, docile and obedient. But one never knows when she will descend into these fits of madness. Do you understand?”
“I am beginning to.” He leaned back in his chair, feigning a calm he certainly didn’t feel.
“Miranda feels too great a sense of responsibility to ensure that her mother’s condition remains stable.”
“Was her mother always like this?”
“No, she was flighty, to be sure, but never broken.”
“What broke her?”
“Why, Winterton of course. He is angry at life, at himself. He never gets enough satisfaction out of any situation or person because of his own inner sense of deep dissatisfaction with everything and everyone, starting with himself. My sister’s mistake was in loving him; she gave all of herself, trying to make this exacting man happy. She gave him a glimpse of finally being satisfied with a situation. She gave him a glimpse of perfection. But who, among us, can deliver absolute perfection? When she failed to deliver this state of perfect happiness, perfect satisfaction, he grew bitter and came to hate her for having raised his expectations.
“Miranda rents a house for her mother. This house sits near the sea on a huge piece of land adjacent to a grand old estate house that is in ruins. Winterton purchased this entire property, and he is demanding three times what the land and estate house would be worth from Miranda. He had given her a month, and Miranda was at her wit’s end.”
His tolerance for her pretense came to an end. “Do you expect me to believe that you really care so much for Miranda’s well-being? You, who have pushed her into selling her body and have benefited from the proceeds of that sale?”
“My lord, I grow convinced that you are every bit as selfish as your father. Do you think it was easy catering to such an emotionally greedy man? He demanded all of my affection, all of my attention, as though that were his due. When my sister had her lying in with Miranda, he begrudged me to go and be with her. I went but he reacted with petulance. He made me feel guilty for even having anyone else in my life. It was as though he expected to be able to purchase me entirely for his sole pleasure. Can you imagine? He would even deny me a family life with the last two people I had to love and call my own in the world!”
Adrian’s jaw tensed as he listened to her tirade. Shame wormed its way around his gut because he knew his father was capable of much selfishness. He had suffered the lack of his father’s attentions in his childhood because his father had selected to lavish all his affection and attention on this woman.
It made it hard to have sympathy for her now. “You should have ch
erished and protected Miranda far better.”
She should have cherished Miranda for the precious, priceless pearl that she was.
He thought again of the outrageous sum she had named for the honor of possessing her long term.
I have no choice. I must have it.
All for her mama. The sister of this woman who had dominated his father’s time. There was an irony here that he didn’t find amusing.
“I do cherish Miranda, my lord.” Her face became paler, and those lines of strain seemed to show more starkly. “I am torn apart inside at our estrangement. I am not a perfect person.” She looked on the verge of tears. “I wasn’t even sixteen when I had to learn how to make the most of what I had been given in order to survive. In order to provide for my sister, whom you know is several years younger than I. We were all that we had, and I, being the eldest sister, I had to do what I had to do. I suppose that has made me tougher than a woman ought to be. I see softness in Miranda sometimes. I fear that I spoiled her, that I did not prepare her for this world in which she must eventually make her own way in.”
Adrian listened to this unsolicited confession, with half an ear, this sharing that women were so intent on foisting on men at times.
Inside, he kept seeing Miranda’s stricken eyes, pleading for his understanding. But never relenting her terms.
He had not been able to sleep or eat well. He craved her. Craved the sight of her face, the touch of her hand, the weight of her breasts in his palms. He longed to simply hold her. The pain of that longing of the loss of Miranda eroded his being slowly, surely, day by day. It was like soul evisceration.
All he must do to make it end was to cash in his investments and give Miranda what she claimed she must have for the sake of her mother’s sanity.
He inhaled deeply and lowered his head and ran his hand through his hair. God!
He was in hell.
That money was for his sons. He loved his sons. He would do anything for them. He would never betray their future for sake of his own base lust for beauty.
The futile anger he felt toward the whole situation rode him hard. He raised his head and fixed this woman, whom he had resented for so long, with a cold glare. “If you care so much for her, then what have you done to mitigate the wrongs you have done her in the past?”
Cassandra flushed and began fluttering her lashes, rapidly. “I wrote to Winterton’s brother, a man whom I still have some small influence with, and he prevailed on Winterton to extend the deadline another month. But now Winterton is proving adamant to stick to this latest deadline. Miranda has a matter of weeks to find her mother a new living situation. But the physician thinks a complete change of venue like that would completely unhinge my sister, especially given this latest setback.”
Adrian drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Why would Winterton do this to his own child?”
“He absolutely despises her, my lord.”
“What could possibly make a man hate her that much?”
“I think he would just naturally hate any reflection of himself. But, as for the history that lies between them, those are not my secrets to divulge, my lord.”
Impatience rode him. Why did women always have to drag these matters out? Why not just come to the main point that had driven her to come to him, of all people, for aid? “Who was this second letter from and what information did it contain?”
“The Duke of Froster sent it.” Cassandra’s expression turned troubled. “He is coming back to Mayfair in two weeks, and whatever he said in that letter…well, it must have been something absolutely dreadful. Miranda turned pale, and her maid says she immediately became ill after laying that letter aside.”
His blood turned to ice. Horror at what Froster must have said, what intended filled him.
Such was his total sense of being knocked off balance that he turned away from Cassandra, pretending to gaze out the window.
But he saw nothing but the images in his mind of Miranda and how upset, how devastated she must have been.
He wished with all his being that he could have been there with her. To take the letter away from her and rip it to shreds.
To tell her not to worry, that somehow he would find a way to make things work out.
Where had a normally timid duke found the audacity to deliver such an ultimatum to such an obviously unwilling woman?
Part of the blame rested with Adrian, for having goaded him into such a position at first. Yet, Adrian had never dreamed the mild-mannered man would be able to maintain such a stern stance indefinitely.
He certainly never expected that he would be goading Froster to commit what amounted to rape under financial extreme pressure.
Was someone else coaching Froster now?
Anger filled him. Anger at Froster’s assumption that he even deserved to have a woman like Miranda, no matter the price. Anger at the never-ending selfishness and sense of entitlement that men of his class seemed to possess. Selfishness that was threatening Miranda’s happiness, her safety.
His father had spent all his time chasing skirts, pursuing beauty to the extent that Adrian didn’t even know if there were any other aspect to the man’s character. Now Adrian was fixated on Miranda and her beauty, and he was tempted, so strongly, to spend his sons’ future to attain her. But he couldn’t.
He could not.
The loss of her tore at his heart. What would have happened to her if he wasn’t there to protect her?
An image of her stricken, white face flashed into his mind. Her sad eyes had burnt themselves into his memory. They haunted his dreams, his waking hours.
He remembered her smile. What wouldn’t he give to make it possible for her to smile like that all the time, to know joy every single day? He knew the answer right away.
I would die to protect her. I would give up my very life.
“All right, Cassandra,” he said, without turning around. “I will see what can be done.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Adrian…” Miranda’s voice was full of surprise as she stood in her doorway of her rented rooms in Soho.
She was even more lovely than Adrian remembered. “Let me come inside, Miranda.”
“No, I don’t think I should. It wouldn’t be a good idea. We parted and it is for the better, my lord.”
“Please, Miranda. I can accept that you have returned my attempts to offer what support that I can, but surely we can still be friends, can’t we?”
Her expression softened. “I should not allow it.” She frowned. “You look thinner. Haven’t you been looking after yourself?”
“I do not rest easy these days.” He compressed his lips for a moment. “I miss you, Miranda.”
“I suppose we could talk, but just for a few moments.” She stepped aside and let him come inside. She led him to her tiny withdrawing chamber and bade him sit on the fine plum colored settee.
He looked about at the sparseness of the room. It was stark and cold, not as he would have pictured Miranda’s room at all. The settee and a small vase of bright yellow flowers were the only things there that spoke of her tastes and vibrancy.
She must have sold much of her possessions. The thought made his heart ache.
“Why wouldn’t you accept my support, Miranda?” he asked, feeling torn apart inside.
“I will not take money from your sons. I know how it hurts you to think of doing anything that you would see as a betrayal of them.”
“Yes, but you must survive, Miranda.”
“I shall make my way, somehow.”
“I see you haven’t found a new protector?” he said.
“No gentleman wanted to become my protector, not so soon after my unfortunate episode with diphtheria.” Her gaze was partly teasing, partly accusing.
He winced. “I am sorry, love. I’ve told you that I am careless with my speech.”
“You didn’t intend for this to happen.”
“I have handed Froster the means to cause you pain.”
She paled. “Oh that. It is no great matter.”
They sat so near on the settee that if he had turned, his knee would touch hers and yet, they were leagues apart.
“Miranda, you cannot do it. You cannot possibly think to do it.”
“I will manage it all. Somehow.”
Guilt consumed Adrian. “I goaded Froster into giving you this ultimatum. He would never have been so bold on his own.”
“You couldn’t know that he would take it so far. Who would have guessed that, under his mild exterior, he would have the capacity to be so hard.”
“Someone must be supporting him in this. Someone must be goading him on now. But who?”
“Winterton.”
“Winterton?” Her answer was so ready. She really believed her father capable of such perfidy against her?
Well, Cassandra had.
“You really believe your father would play a part in this?” he asked.
She scoffed. “Who else would have an investment in seeing Froster carrying out his threat?”
“Why would Winterton care? He just wants money from you, isn’t that so?”
“No, no. You don’t understand. Winterton was behind those boys attacking me. Now he goads Froster into forcing me to…” Her voice broke.
“He knows.” Adrian swallowed against a wash of acid welling in his throat. “He knows of your distaste for—”
She rushed forward and put her hand on his arm. “No, no, it’s not like that…not like you’re thinking.”
“Then tell me.”
Miranda stared at Adrian. She had wept so hard on the carriage ride away from AppleWaite. She had never regretted having to make a decision more than the decision to leave him.
God, she had longed to see him again. Now she drank in the sight of his face. And he was staring at her, so concerned for her well-being. Her heart contracted at that sympathy. He was so kind always. Tear welled in her eyes. “How can I possibly tell anyone? What will you think of me once I do?”
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