Lord of Ice (19 page)

Damien waved off the cup of tea that Lady Lucien offered him and gave a brief, sanitized account of his arrival at Yardley School. Finding her so grown up, he said, he had seen no point in leaving her there, though he’d had no time to make the necessary preparations. He told them nothing of the violent episode on Bordesley Green, the arrest of the schoolmaster, nor the fact that the two of them had shared a hotel bed for a while. Lady Lucien, for her part, seemed appalled that Miranda had been made to suffer the indignity of having to travel by public stagecoach.

“As you can see, she is of marriageable age,” Damien went on. “It is my responsibility to see her settled in life, but frankly I am out of my depth. This is an area of ladies’ expertise. That’s why I need your help. I need her properly dressed, shod, chaperoned, and wedded,” he said. “An engagement before Twelfth Night would be ideal.”

“Why the hurry?”

“Because there’s nowhere else for her to go,” he said bluntly.

His words, though callous, were all too true. Miranda lowered her gaze with a pang in her heart. The pity she felt pouring from the women as they gazed at her was almost more than her pride could bear. She felt defenseless. Once more, she was nothing but a charity child, an unwanted orphan foisted off on strangers. The vulnerability was terrible, but her bravado was nowhere to be found. She kept her head down and prayed with pounding heart that they would not scorn her. She could not bear to be dealt a humiliating rejection in front of Damien.

“I see. Firstly, I have given the girls’ governess leave to go home to her family for the holidays.” The duchess rested her elbow on the scrolled arm of the couch and gazed shrewdly at her. “Secondly, I would like to know what Miss FitzHubert has to say about all this.”

Miranda looked up anxiously. “I do not wish to be a burden, Your Grace. I will do whatever Lord Winterley thinks best.”

The two beautiful young wives looked at each other with an air of mischief.

“What say you, sister?” the duchess asked. “Shall we rise to the challenge?”

“Let’s.” Alice lifted her pert chin and turned to Miranda with a flourish. “We shall make you a toast, my dear! Winterley will have to fight to keep all your suitors at bay.”

A smile spread slowly over Miranda’s face. Glancing at Damien in tremulous joy, she caught him staring at her. He quickly assumed a bored expression and looked away, leaning on the chair, but as he stood in profile to her, pretending indifference, a telltale blush rose in his suntanned cheek above the clean, white line of his cravat.

Later that evening, after the impromptu welcome dinner that Bel had given to introduce Miranda to the rest of the family, Damien sat in the drawing room watching the others play charades. Only Robert sat out the game with him, smiling occasionally at their antics, casting an eye over the
Times
, and sipping his port in patriarchal tranquility. Lucien and Alice had come from their elegant townhouse on Upper Brooke Street, bringing their three-year-old nephew, Harry, whom they were raising. Harry had become the reigning darling of the Knight clan and dashed from one doting auntie to another, collecting kisses. Even Alec, their golden-haired, rakish youngest brother, had graced them with his exclusive presence for the occasion, arriving from his fashionable bachelor lodgings on Curzon Street to dine with them rather than at his club. Between their seventeen-year-old sister, Jacinda's, squeals of excitement, her lady’s companion, Lizzie Carlisle's, attempts to keep the game orderly, and Alec’s irreverently witty observations, the evening had turned into something of a party.

Damien, however, sat quietly by the fire, a possessive glow in his eyes as he watched Miranda playing, her sincere, lovely face beaming with gratitude at the warm reception she had received at Knight House. By God, she was a tonic for his soul. It pleased him with a deep satisfaction to see how naturally she fit into his family. It had not taken very long for her shyness to wear off, and then she had charmed them easily.

Bel and Alice were taking her shopping on Bond Street tomorrow; he was preparing to go into debt. He knew that, luckily, the various merchants and shopkeepers would extend almost unlimited credit on the strength of his title alone. He would pay them off eventually. There was, of course, the possibility of taking a loan from Robert, but Damien had never asked any man to solve his problems for him and wasn’t about to start now.

At any rate, he had told his sisters-in-law that he would not insist on Miranda’s wearing black for the next three months if she didn’t want to. Though this was the customary period of mourning for an uncle, in his view that same uncle had neglected her past forgiving and she had suffered shamefully as a result. Besides, as Bel had pointed out when they had discussed it earlier, a girl had to look her best when she was husband hunting. To him, it merely seemed cruel to dress such a colorful soul all in black when he knew full well that she had never owned pretty clothes before. He wanted her to be happy.

For now, he thought her beautiful in one of the duchess’s dinner gowns. Though it was too short in the sleeves and around the hem, the dark blue satin brought out the emerald splendor of Miranda’s eyes and made her skin glow like fresh cream. With her glossy sable hair, she stood out exotically from his brothers’ fair-haired wives, his golden-blond sister, and Lizzie’s light brown tresses.

As he watched her laughing, his mind drifted. He had distanced himself from her as of last night, and no matter how much he wanted her, he intended to keep it that way. Several times on the road earlier today, she had tried to reach out to him, but he had stoically ignored her every soft plea to him to tell her what was wrong. How could she even ask?
I could have killed her,
he thought for the hundredth time since it had happened. His creeping horror at the knowledge was undimmed. A cold shudder ran through him to think of how close he had come to snuffing out her sweet life before he even knew what he was doing.

He should not have been in that bed with her, he thought harshly, dragging his gaze away from her to stare broodingly into the fire. He should never have permitted such familiarity between them. He could not believe he had kissed her again, fully knowing that she was his ward. The first time—behind the theater—at least he had had an excuse. He had mistaken her for an ordinary
fille de joie
, and she had done precious little to disabuse him of the notion. He had had no idea who she was then, but last night, in full knowledge—and quite sober, contrary to what he had told her—he had tasted her again. He had been unable to help himself.

He closed his eyes briefly at the torturous memory of her ardent response, her body arching gloriously under him, her soft arms wound tightly around his neck. He could still taste her on his tongue, but he refused to heed the provocative whisper of instinct in his blood, telling him that she was his, that he had a right to her because he had saved her life. He had promised Jason that he would find her a good husband, and so he would, but he was not that man. It did not matter what he felt for her. He was sworn to protect her—even from the beast within himself. The emotions stirring to life—rising like tiny, tender shoots from the frozen earth of his heart—were doomed to wither. He could not love. He was not fit for human society at all. He had made battle and victory his raison d'être, and now he was trapped within the steely armor he himself had forged.

After the debacle of last night, he longed to leave her in his family’s care and let them oversee her courtship so that he could retreat to his sanctuary at Bayley House, but despite the sheer torment of it, he refused to abandon her. If her beauty had not made her enough of a target for seduction from amorous men, as the daughter of a notorious actress, she was sure to attract the most immoral rakes of the ton, with the most dishonorable intentions—men for whom pleasure was their sole pursuit in life. They would try to test her to see if she possessed her mother’s easy virtue, but with the feared Colonel Lord Winterley by her side, watching over her, they would not dare. They would know that to insult her was suicide.

Just then, the butler glided into the drawing room and discreetly bent to whisper something in Lucien’s ear. Lucien nodded and gently tumbled Harry onto Alice’s arms, for the child was hanging on around his neck. While the raucous game continued, Damien rested his cheek on his fist and looked on curiously as his twin slipped out of the room.

About two minutes later, Lucien returned, nodding to Damien from the doorway to join him. Damien got up and strode out of the room, furrowing his brow.

In the hallway, he found Lucien’s assistant from the Foreign Office, the intrepid young secret agent Marc Skipton.

Damien nodded to Marc as Lucien closed the salon door quietly behind him. “What is it?”

“They’ve made an arrest in the Sherbrooke case,” the young man said grimly. “The suspect is a known thief and housebreaker in the area. They’ve got him in the holding cell at the magistrate’s court, but we’ve got to hurry. He says he’s got an alibi, and I don’t know if they’ll be able to keep him locked up.”

Damien’s eyes flared with vengeance. He knew Lucien had been putting a good deal of pressure on Bow Street to find Jason’s killer. It appeared his efforts had paid off. “I’ll get my coat.”

Soon, the three men strode into the justice offices in Bow Street, but Lucien grabbed Damien’s arm, holding him back a step as the constables led them past the small courtroom, busy even at this late hour, and down the dim corridor toward the holding cell.

“Try not to go mad on him quite yet, Demon,” Lucien said under his breath. “The man has only been charged; he has not been convicted.”

“Let him prove himself innocent, then.” With a dark look, Damien shrugged him off and stalked after the guard.

“John Michael Boynton is his name, my lords.” The constable set his oil lantern on a hook by the doorway.

By the lantern’s light, Damien looked through the metal bars and beheld a thin, wiry, unkempt man in his late twenties. The prisoner’s face was ashen but defiant.

“Known as 'Rooster,' “ the guard continued. “Resident o' Seven Dials, not far from Major Sherbrooke’s lodgings. We’ve been after this blackguard for ages on thieving and housebreaking charges. Now it seems he’s graduated to murder.”

“I didn’t kill no one,” the lanky, ill-kempt man snarled. “You got no right botherin' me.”

“Where were you, Mr. Boyton, on Wednesday night, the twelfth of December?” Lucien asked coolly.

“Who the hell are you, my barrister?”

The constable struck the bars with his nightstick. “Mind your tongue!”

“Answer the question,” Damien ordered through gritted teeth.

Boynton glanced uneasily from one twin to the other. “I was at my brother’s house havin' supper with him, his wife, and his young ones. He’ll be here directly to vouch for me!”

“To vouch for you,” Lucien echoed skeptically.

“And why should we believe him?” Damien asked, the lust for vengeance turning his vision red. He rested his elbows on the crosswise bars, fixing the caged man in a predatory stare. “Let me in there with him, Officer. Just a minute or two is all I need.”

“Keep this lunatic away from me!” the prisoner yelled, pacing along the back wall of his cell.

Damien let out a low, feral laugh. “You’re a dead man, Boynton. I’ll be there to see you hang.”

“Enough,” Lucien murmured, pulling him back from the bars. “His brother’s just arrived. Look.”

Damien turned and his heart sank as a young, anxious-looking Anglican minister in a white collar came rushing down the dim corridor. “John Michael? John Michael?”

“Andrew, I’m here!” the prisoner yelled.

His alibi is a bloody priest?
Damien thought in shock.

The fresh-faced minister hurried into their midst, brushing by them to go to the guard. “John Michael, are you all right?”

“Get me out of here, Andrew. They’re accusing me of a murder the night I was at your house! Tell them, Andrew! Tell them!”

The minister turned to the guard in distress. “It’s true. My brother couldn’t have done it. He was with me and my wife and children. I must speak to the magistrate at once, please. This has all been a dreadful mistake!”

The guard glanced at Lucien, looking nonplussed. “Er, right away, Reverend. I’ll see if I can get the magistrate to hear your side of the story before your brother is moved to the Old Bailey.”

Damien felt his temper building like a volcano. “You can’t simply release this vermin.”

“If there’s been a wrongful arrest, they most certainly can,” the young priest said, turning to him indignantly. “I’ll not have my brother go to the scaffold merely so some justice officer can collect a bounty. What is your interest in this, gentlemen, if I may ask?” He looked pugnaciously from Damien to Lucien.