Oh Miranda!

by Joan Smith

  “You won’t forget to tell your friend the name is Ffoulkes-Hazard, with two f’s.”

  “I have already told her, ma’am.” She turned to Dorothy to include her in the conversation and complimented her on her gown.

  “Should I take a fan?” Dorothy asked. She carried three, and held them up for help in making a selection.

  “I wouldn’t bother with any,” Miranda said. “It is not warm enough to need it in autumn, and it is just one more thing to juggle while you dance.”

  “But what will I do with my hands if I don’t have a fan to hold while I’m sitting down?”

  “Just fold them in your lap.”

  “Let her take a fan,” Mrs. Hazard said. “Her fingers find their way into her hair if they don’t have a fan to shred.”

  This being the case, Miranda suggested the simplest of the three fans, an ivory one with a silken knot tassel, and they all had a glass of sherry. As the long-case clock chimed the half hour, Mrs. Hazard could no longer be held back. Fifty years of punctuality couldn’t be overcome in one evening. Her papa had been a stage coach driver and had reared his brood to perfect punctuality.

  Miranda asked the groom to take the long route, to delay their arrival a little. She pointed out what exalted personages lived in which mansion to enliven the trip, and wondered as she spoke whether her information was au courant. Twelve years was a long time, and she and John had not returned to London for the Season after their marriage. It was expensive. John didn’t have a house in London, and she knew he preferred to spend what he had on improving Hornby. They had both hoped to have a son to leave it to, but this joy had been denied them.

  They arrived at Lydia’s party at nine o’clock. Lydia and Lord Robert were staying at his family’s mansion on Manchester Square. Torches were lit outside, with two footmen to assist the guests, suggesting a grander do than Miranda had anticipated. Miranda was every bit as nervous as the Hazards as she was handed down from the carriage and made the short trip to the front door.

  “My insides are shaking like a blancmange, as if I were going to meet the queen,” Mrs. Hazard confessed.

  The two dozen guests who preceded them did not begin to fill the ballroom, where the dancing party was being held. It was not a formal ball, however. They were not announced, but greeted at the door by Lydia and Lord Robert.

  The years had not been kind to Lydia. Although she was dressed in the highest kick of fashion, she looked thin and pale and tired. No doubt it was the three children in the nursery that accounted for it. Miranda still remembered her as a healthy, buxom country lady with bouncing red curls. The elaborate coiffure did not really suit her. But she was delighted to see Miranda again and welcomed her and her friends with enthusiasm. Dorothy was found a partner for the country dance that was just beginning, Mrs. Hazard was introduced to a group of older guests and Lydia rushed Miranda off to a corner for a private cose.

  “You look marvelous, darling,” she exclaimed. “It must be all that clean living and country air.”

  “And the early nights, too,” Miranda said.

  “It’s been two years since John’s passing. Do you have a new beau in your eye?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “We’ll soon take care of that. Now, who would you like to meet?”

  “This isn’t a husband-hunting expedition, Lydia. I am really here as a sort of guide for the Ffoulkes-Hazards. A case of the blind leading the blind.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Neighbors from home. A little provincial, but really very nice.”

  “But who are they?” Lydia repeated.

  Miranda was sworn to secrecy on that score. “They are well to do,” she said vaguely. “They bought Lord Wilton's estate, the Laurels, and spent a fortune redoing it. They have rented Lord Croft’s place for this visit.”

  “Ffoulkes-Hazard is dead?”

  “Yes, he passed away a few years ago.”

  “Nabob or merchant?” she asked bluntly.

  “He didn’t make his fortune in India.”

  Lydia nodded. “A merchant, then. The reason I ask, my brother Tom is on the lookout for an heiress. Miss Ffoulkes-Hazard is not bad looking, or wouldn’t be if someone took her in hand. Tom is not in town at the moment, however, so let us see whom we can find for you. I see Alfred is casting his lecherous eyes this way. Alfred Hume, frightfully rich — but don’t ask where he got his blunt. When he hears you’re a widow, he’ll try to make you his mistress. Don’t accept any gifts from him — unless you are interested in becoming his mistress,” she finished, with a daring smile that sat uneasily on her pale face. The old Lydia would not have suggested such a thing.

  As she spoke, an aging roué advanced toward their corner. He was tall and lean, and so carefully dressed and groomed he made every other gentleman in the room look sloppy. A jacket the color of brandy clung to his shoulders. In the folds of his cravat a brown diamond twinkled. His dark hair, just touched with silver at the temples, was brushed back from a high brow. A pair of reckless blue eyes twinkled in his swarthy face. His bow, as he reached them, was a pattern card of grace.

  “Lydia, my dear,” he said in drawling accents, placing a kiss on her upturned cheek. “Why are you keeping your most charming guest to yourself? That is infinitely mean of you.”

  Lydia introduced them. “You must not say or do anything to shock Lady Wetherby, Alfred, for she is a dean’s daughter, and a country lady of impeccable morals.”

  “Surely the cotillion is permitted, even in the country?” he asked, feigning astonishment at the charge of misbehaving.

  He led Miranda off to the floor, where he showered her with compliments so highflown and ridiculous that one could only laugh at them. He pointed out the various famous and infamous guests present, and made up awful stories about them, all involving sexual peccadilloes. She said she had been warned against him, called him a lecher, and removed his fondling fingers from her waist when he walked her back to Lydia after the dance. He claimed she was much too beautiful and innocent to be allowed loose in wicked London, and proclaimed himself her cicisbeo. He was enchanted with her.

  So was Lord Bolton, when he eventually arrived at eleven o’clock. The younger Dowager Lady Bolton had not wasted any time discovering Miranda’s name when she saw her dancing with Alfred Hume. The elder dowager was a more experienced conniver. Within ten minutes of her arrival, she knew as much about Miranda as Lydia could tell her. It was not Hume’s infatuation she feared. Helen kept her secret tendre for him locked in her heart. No, it was Maxwell’s title and fortune that concerned her. This widow was just a little too pretty for her ease of mind.

  She was ready for Maxwell when he sought her out. It was so rare for him to do so that she knew at once he was after information about a lady. That was the only reason he ever spoke to her on purpose.

  “Who is the lady in the deep blue gown dancing with Lord Robert, Adelaide?” he asked. He always called her Adelaide. After four months, she could still not decide whether it was a compliment or an insult. She could hardly expect him to call her Mama after all, and as there were two Ladies Bolton to contend with, their first names seemed the easiest solution.

  “The countrified creature in the dark gown? She is no one, Max. Someone mentioned she is Sir John Wetherby’s relict. You wouldn’t remember him. He had a little place in Surrey. She must be well over thirty, and scarcely a feather to fly with. Two thousand a year, I believe.”

  “Ah, a widow!” he exclaimed, with a smile of anticipation curving his lips.

  “Yes, come to nab some undemanding widower, I expect. She has stood up with Hume. She is wasting her time if she hopes to get any offer other than that of mistress from that old roué. It is a husband she would be after. Her papa was some sort of minor cleric.”

  Lord Bolton wafted away without taking a proper leave of his stepmama. He procured a glass of wine and stood sipping it while watching Miranda. He liked her simple toilette, and the way she wore her hair in wh
at he thought of as a Spanish style. Many of the Spanish ladies favored the same coiffure. It suited the classical beauty of her face. He admired the graceful movements of her slender body as she performed the steps of the dance and her quiet, unfidgetting manner when she was not dancing.

  But most intriguing of all was the expression on her face. She wore a gentle smile that did not quite conceal an edge of ennui. That smile seemed to say that she accepted society, but she did not really care for it. She would rather be reading, or riding, or with someone else. That wistful expression made him feel akin to her.

  He had felt the same way since his return to England. Of course he regretted his brother’s death, but there was no denying it had profited him enormously in a material sense. It had catapulted him from near obscurity into the title and estates, and to very near the top of the list of eligible bachelors. The very cream of the country’s beauties were dangled before him, including his late brother’s beautiful widow — and he smiled that same wan smile as Lady Wetherby, acknowledging the tribute, but not really caring for it. He wondered if it was the war that had made him so blasé that nothing excited him. Until he saw Lady Wetherby.

  Miranda was sitting a moment with the Hazards between dances when Lord Bolton entered the ballroom. She noticed him at once. It was hard not to, when so many heads turned in excitement to gawk at him. He certainly stood out amidst the throng, not only because of his height, but because of his general bearing. He looked as if he owned the room, and everything and everyone in it. His toilette was simple but elegant. The immaculate cravat at his throat held only a small diamond pin. His dark green jacket was exquisitely cut to show off his manly figure. The shoulders were not eked out with wadding and the waist was not pinched in. His natural physique required no such enhancements.

  He held his head proudly as he surveyed the throng. He had a haughty, arrogant face, fine-featured, with delicately-etched eyebrows rising in arches above dark eyes. But it was the tolerant smile that revealed his lack of genuine pleasure.

  Lady Bolton rushed up to him, with the other Lady Bolton in tow, both of them smiling an eager welcome, which he accepted as his due before strolling away. His eyes toured the room, stopping a moment at each pretty face, but soon passing on.

  Lydia’s husband, Lord Robert, came to ask Miranda for a set, and she forgot the newcomer. But as she danced, she noticed he was watching her from the edge of the room. He didn’t use a quizzing glass. Such foppish toys were not for him. He just looked, and when she glanced at him, he didn’t look away. He kept on looking, not smiling, but that bored expression was no longer there. A moment later, she glanced at him again, and he was still gazing at her. He bowed his glossy head a fraction of an inch. It was easy to ignore such a token gesture, if it even was a gesture.

  Lord Robert noticed and said, “That fellow looking at you is Lord Bolton. Quite a prime parti. All the ladies are running mad for him. He’s one of Wellington’s heroes, just lately returned from Spain, loaded with honors.”

  “It’s unusual for a lord to join the army, is it not?”

  “He was only a younger son — like me — when he left. His older brother got his yacht caught in a storm and was pitched into the ocean. He caught pneumonia. It happened just off the Isle of Wight. Quite a shock for the family.”

  Miranda didn’t wish to appear overly curious and didn’t ask any of the dozens of questions that swarmed through her mind. She was careful not to look in Lord Bolton’s direction again, but she felt his dark eyes watching her as she danced. As the set drew to a close, she allowed herself one quick peek to the corner. He was just handing his empty glass to a passing footman. Then the music stopped, and he detached himself from the wall and advanced toward her, making slow progress through the throng, with his eyes never leaving her.

  Her heart began to flutter, like a moth edging dangerously close to the flame. Her instinct was to flee, she could not think why. She should be flattered, yet she dreaded meeting this hero-lord paragon. Was it because she knew in her bones he would be disappointed in her? Something in her appearance had attracted his attention, but he would soon discover she was only a dowdy, dull, provincial widow.

  She must escape — but she could hardly push and shove her way off the crowded floor. She just waited, with a feeling of dread, gratification and excitement boiling inside her.

  Chapter Three

  “Lady Wetherby, may I present Lord Bolton?” Lord Robert said, and completed the introduction.

  Miranda was glad she already knew who Bolton was, because all she heard during the introduction was a strange ringing in her ears. She knew Lord Bolton must have asked her to dance and she had agreed, because Robert was suddenly saying, “I leave you in good hands then, Miranda,” and walked away, leaving her alone with this intimidating Adonis.

  All she could remember of it later was how Lord Bolton had stared at her with a keenly penetrating gaze, as if she were a specimen on a pin, like the butterflies hung behind glass in the study at Hornby. His eyes were an inky blue so dark they looked black in the shadowed room. His face was weathered — that would be from the hot Spanish sun. Then he had smiled a slow, disturbingly intimate smile and put out his hand, and her heart was suddenly pounding so hard she feared he could hear it.

  The hand he reached out to guide her from the floor was brown and strong, with long fingers and a heavy gold ring on the smallest finger. He held on to her elbow lightly, yet with a sure grip, as if he were afraid she might bolt.

  “The musicians are taking a break,” he explained in a well modulated voice. But the voice, like the hand, left an impression of power held in check. “Shall we have a glass of wine and become a little acquainted? My spies tell me you are a widow, from Surrey. I don’t believe I ever had the pleasure of Sir John’s acquaintance.”

  It seemed odd to hear her husband’s name fall so casually from this elegant stranger’s lips. Odd, too, that he had been asking about her. But soon enough he would know the whole, dull truth. She was no fit match for such a dasher as this. A widower or an aging bachelor was as high as her hopes flew. She decided to just blurt it all out, and let him be done with her.

  “We didn’t come to London for the Season after our marriage,” she said. “We couldn’t afford it.” This sounded rather hard on John, and she added, “We were very happy in the country. I am really a country mouse at heart, I daresay.”

  His head turned to look at her, and she noticed his eyebrows were raised in surprise. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but she sensed amusement in his expression.

  “I beg to differ, ma’am. A country something, if you like, but decidedly not a mouse,” he said. “A doe, perhaps, but the eyes are the wrong color. A doe’s eyes are brown. I had thought yours would be blue, because of your gown. Green, are they?” He used the question as an excuse to look deeply into her eyes, until she felt hypnotized by the darkly dazzling gaze directed at her.

  “Yes, John was used to say they are wine bottle green.”

  His lips quirked in amusement at this inferior compliment but he refrained from mentioning emeralds. He sensed she would despise such triteness, even if it was sincere.

  “Punch, orgeat, or wine?” he asked, when they reached the refreshment parlor. He made a mental wager with himself that she would choose punch.

  “Punch,” she said, and wondered why that pleased him.

  He handed her the punch and took a glass of wine for himself. “A toast?” he suggested. “To new friends.”

  She lifted her glass but didn’t touch it to his before taking a sip. He led her from the parlor, out to a pair of chairs beside a palm tree in the entrance hail, away from the crowd.

  “Now that we’re friends,” he said, “you must tell me all about your fascinating self, Lady Wetherby.”

  She refused to be flattered into infatuation. “I am probably the least fascinating lady at Lydia’s party,” she said blandly, and ignored the slight shake of his head. “My papa is a deacon at Bath, married for the
second time to a widow I have scarcely met — just at the wedding, you know. My mama presented me twelve years ago. I married John Wetherby, and since then have lived quietly at Hornby Hall, in Surrey.”

  He listened as if she were Scheherazade, relating a tale of enchantment. “Children?” he asked.

  “No, no children,” she said in a wistful voice, with a light flush coloring her cheeks at having failed in this prime duty of a young wife.

  “It must be lonesome for you at Hornby Hall. Why did you not return to Bath, where I’m sure you must have many friends?”

  “Hornby Hall was left to me during my lifetime, or unless or until I remarried. I feel a certain duty — and after a dozen years, it has come to seem like home to me. I have friends there. In fact, I shall be returning in six weeks’ time. I am only in London for a visit.”

  “Any special friend?” he asked at once. She sensed a sharp edge to his voice and looked a question at him. “I mean, are you seeing a gentleman,” he explained, with an unusual bluntness that left no doubt as to his interest.

  “No.”

  “Ah!”

  Miranda felt a shiver up her spine at the way he spoke that simple syllable. Or perhaps it was the way he smiled at her, in an assessing, almost predatory way. “He’s after a mistress,” she said to herself. Some amenable lady to oblige him for a few weeks, until he is tired of her. Young widows, she knew, were considered fair game. And a young widow without even children to worry about was the best of all.

  “In the absence of your better friends, while you are in London, perhaps I can do as a poor substitute, “ he suggested.

  “That won’t be necessary. I have come to town with my closest friends.”

  He shook his head in mock sorrow. “Not even a polite, ‘No, thank you, milord,’ but just ‘No.’ Who are these irreplaceable friends?”

  “Mrs. Ffoulkes-Hazard and her daughter.”

  He studied her a moment over the top of his wineglass, then said with unconscious arrogance, “If I can’t beat out a pair of ladies for your affection, then I shall hang up my dancing slippers and become a hermit.”