So Wild a Heart (10 page)

It was a lowering thought. She had been counting all week on another opportunity to give the arrogant man a set-down. However, she put the best face on it that she could, greeting Rachel, who stood receiving at the foot of the stairs, with a smile.

"Miss Upshaw!" Rachel's green eyes lit up, and she took both Miranda's hands in hers in a friendly grasp.

Now that she had met her brother, Miranda could see the resemblance between the two of them. Like her brother, Rachel was tall, with a femininely broad-shouldered figure that made clothes hang beautifully on her. Her thick, lustrous hair was black, like his, and her eyes the same leaf green. But warmth made her eyes soft and inviting and touched her features with a friendliness that was completely missing from Lord Ravenscar's face.

"I am so glad you came this evening. I was afraid my brother's intolerable behavior would keep you away. I can assure you that he regrets it deeply."

Miranda held her own counsel about that. She had her doubts about the Earl of Ravenscar ever regretting anything, but one could scarcely blame his sister for not seeing his true character.

Rachel greeted Miranda's father warmly, too. Beyond her stood her mother, Lady Ravenscar, who unbent enough to smile at them, although the gesture did not reach her eyes. She, Miranda thought, was more like the Earl—hating the notion that she had to stoop to allow mere peasants into her family. Miranda replied to Lady Ravenscar with as much warmth and enthusiasm as her ladyship exhibited. Then she started to move on with her father into the crowd.

But Rachel was not about to let her get away so easily. She moved up beside them and linked her arm through one of Miranda's. "Let me introduce you to some of my friends," she told her, guiding Miranda in the direction of a knot of young matrons.

Rachel introduced her to all the women. Some were as warm as Rachel in their greetings, others almost frosty. Miranda could feel their eyes running over her gown, assessing style and cost. She knew that it had been made by one of the premiere modistes in London, so she had no fears on that score. No doubt the ones who wanted to would find something to criticize about her manner or speech, but Miranda did not care. She knew that she had dressed for only one person here tonight—and it seemed as if it might all be a waste. There was no sign of the Earl of Ravenscar anywhere.

She knew that people were talking about her. She saw the sidelong glances and heard the whispers behind hands and fans as Rachel led her along, introducing her to a dizzying array of girls dressed all in white, matrons in magnificent dresses and black-clad dowagers lined up in chairs against the wall. Every now and again, when Rachel turned away to speak to someone else, she could hear snippets of conversation:

"... so wild only an American would marry him..."

"...nothing but gambling dens and houses of ill repute..."

"Well, what can you expect? He's run through all his fortune—cards, liquor and women."

"...handsome as Lucifer himself, of course."

"Thank heaven he never cast his lures to my Marie."

"Well, she'll be sorry."

It was almost enough to make one feel a trifle sorry for the man, Miranda thought—if one were not already completely set against him. She also found it a bit irritating that everyone seemed to assume that if he offered, she would accept, as if an American would be happy to get a British aristocrat, no matter how low and vile he was. It was an attitude that she had encountered several times during their stay here. Back home, she and her family, were counted among the highest of society; here, they seemed to be merely tolerated as something of an oddity. She found it distinctly peculiar that success in life counted for little compared to the name one carried. It was the same attitude that Ravenscar had held; the distaste and contempt at having to offer for a nobody from the former colonies had been apparent in his speech and manner. She supposed it was inevitable, having grown up among these people, that he should have turned out to be so arrogant.

She had been here almost an hour by now, and it seemed even longer, given the stultifying conversations that she had had the misfortune to be a part of. If the man did not show up soon, she thought, she was going to go home early and settle down with a nice book. It would be bound to be more entertaining than this.

At that moment, a deep voice spoke behind her and Rachel.

"My dear sister," Ravenscar began. "A successful crush, as always."

"Hello, Dev." Miranda felt Rachel's arm tense against hers, but she knew already who it was by the voice. It was the deep, wry tone of the man she had rescued, the faintest hint of amusement tingeing his voice, not the haughty drawl of the Ravenscar who had asked her to marry him.

She turned as Rachel did to face him. "And who is mi—" He stumbled gratifyingly over his words as he took his first look at Miranda. She saw the widening of his eyes and the quick way they swept down her body and back up, and she knew that her dress and hair had had exactly the effect she had hoped for. "—this lovely lady," he went on, smoothly covering the brief hitch in his words. "Ah, but I recognize you now, Miss Upshaw. It is a pleasure to see you again."

“It could scarcely be less of a pleasure than it was the last time we met," Miranda replied in a voice equally smooth. "How do you do, Lord Ravenscar?"

"Better now that I have seen you." He turned slightly toward his sister. "Rachel, I must take your guest from you. You have been monopolizing her time far too long. There is a waltz about to start, Miss Upshaw. If you would do me the honor..,?"

He held out his hand, his eyes challenging in his handsome face. He knew that she would have liked to refuse him, but it would have been excessively rude, with his sister, the hostess of the party, standing right there beside them.

"I have scarcely had a chance to chat with Lady Westhampton," Miranda lied, making an attempt to get out of the invitation.

But Rachel was too quick for her. "Oh, heavens, don't consider me, Miss Upshaw. I have been neglecting my guests, I have so enjoyed speaking with you. Go ahead and dance with Dev. I can assure you, whatever his other faults, he is a divine dancer. You and I will have a chance to talk again later."

"Of course." Miranda could do nothing now, with everyone watching them, except to give in gracefully.

She took the arm he proffered and walked with him out onto the dance floor. They turned to face each other, and he took her hand in his, slipping the other lightly around her waist. She looked up at him, her heart beating faster than she would have liked.
The man was undeniably handsome.

He swung her onto the floor as the first notes of the waltz began, and for the next few moments they did not speak, only moved with the music, concentrating on adjusting their steps to each other. It was easy to dance with him, Miranda found. He was, as his sister had said, an excellent dancer—moving gracefully and leading her with the slightest of guidance, not shoving and jerking one about as some men were prone to do. After they had settled into the rhythm of the dance, Devin smiled down at her a trifle ironically.

"Well, quite a transformation, I must say."

"Not so much so—if one bothers to look beneath the surface of things."

“Ah, a direct hit, Miss Upshaw. You have me there. I was careless the other day."

"You were rude," Miranda corrected him crisply. "Arrogant and rude and thoroughly dislikable."

"Yes. I confess I was all that. And after you had come to my rescue the night before. It was very boorish of me."

His ready admission of his lack of manners took Miranda by surprise. She had expected him to argue, or deny her statement—or perhaps simply ignore it. She was unprepared for him to agree with her. It left her, she found, with little to say.

He smiled at her expression. "You see, at least I am honest. You can give me credit for that."

"That counts for something, I suppose.... A very small something."

"At least I have something to build on, then. Perhaps I can make up for my lack of manners the other day."

"I am not sure if that is possible. One would always know, you see, that your polished manners were merely a facade, and behind them lay the same fellow who behaved so badly."

"No excuse will do, then? No apology suffice? Is there to be no allowance for improving oneself?"

"Improving oneself is a good thing, as long as it is real."

"You obviously doubt my ability to do so...or my veracity."

"I do not really know you well enough to say, Lord Ravenscar. The situations in which I have seen you..."

"I know. I have not appeared at my best." A grin quirked one corner of his mouth. "Although there are many who would say that I have no best."

"Indeed? So far you are not making a very good case for yourself."

"No, I am not, am I? I think that it must be you, Miss Upshaw. I am usually much more glib. You leave me tongue-tied."

"Indeed? I am amazed that I have such power over you. Especially given that you are the sixth Earl of Ravenscar, and I am just a provincial nobody who scarcely knows who her grandfather was." She smiled up sweetly at him.

Ravenscar let out a groan. "You aren't going to let me forget that, are you?''

"No, I don't think so."

"Let me make my apologies, Miss Upshaw."

"All right." She looked up at him expectantly. "Go ahead. Make them."

Her words seemed to fluster him. He glanced away, saying, "Well, ah..."

Miranda suspected that apologizing was something the man rarely did. "Yes?"

"I apologize," he said finally, and looked back down at her. “I should not have acted the way I did or said the things I did. I have no excuse, except. ..frankly, I was angry, and I am afraid that I took it out on you."

Ravenscar looked faintly surprised, as if he had not expected to say what he had—or perhaps had not realized the truth of it until this moment. He hesitated, then said, "May we talk?"

"I thought that is what we were doing."

"No, I mean—" he guided them to the edge of the dance floor and stopped "—let's take a stroll, get a breath of fresh air. And talk."

"All right," Miranda agreed. She wasn't sure what Ravenscar was up to, or exactly why he had this sudden urge to talk. She supposed that he was working on some way to get her to accept his proposal. She would not put it past him to try some nefarious scheme to get her to marry him—such as ruining her reputation—but she was confident that she could outwit him. And she was interested in finding out what he had devised to convince—or force—her to accept his proposal.

She put her hand on his arm and walked with him around the perimeter of the room until they reached the wide double doors open onto the terrace of the spacious house. There were other people on the terrace, escaping the hot, confining air of the ballroom. Some strolled along as they did, and some stood in knots of conversation. Miranda saw more than one pair of eyes slide in their direction and away, and she glimpsed just as many hands raised to cover whispers. She felt sure that everyone was talking about them. She did not know exactly what the gossip was or how much everyone in Ravenscar's set knew about his proposal, but it was obvious that there had been rumors flying.

Ravenscar smoothly guided Miranda away from the other occupants of the terrace and down the shallow steps onto one of the garden paths, lit by lanterns placed here and there among the trees.

"I did not want to have to marry," he said to her. "That was why I was angry—and embarrassed. So I acted the fool." He cast a sideways glance at her. "If I had known who you were, it would have been entirely different."

"Indeed?" Miranda responded coolly. If the man thought that this was an adequate apology, then he had a great deal to learn.

He came to a stop, so that she had to stop, too, and turned her to him. Miranda looked up into his eyes, dark in the dim light of the garden, and suddenly her knees felt a trifle weak.
Perhaps this apology was quite enough, after all.
She felt a rush of sensations that had nothing to do with holding a grudge against the man.

"Why, yes. The mystery woman who came so boldly to my aid...the beautiful woman I see before me...how could I be anything but intrigued?"

"Despite being those things," Miranda replied, "I am also still the American nobody whom your mother is forcing you to marry."

His eyes flashed. "I am not forced by my mother to marry you. She hasn't the power."

Miranda turned away, hiding a smile.
It was almost too easy to goad him.
She had found that when others underestimated her, it was much simpler to manipulate them. It had often worked to her advantage when dealing with men who thought her incompetent simply because she was a woman. It was just as easy with these British aristocrats, who thought her unsophisticated and even dull-witted simply because she was an American.

"I am sorry. I should have said, whom you were forced to marry to keep out of—how is it you say it here?—
dun territory?"

"If you wish to put it that way," he said, irritation grating his voice. "Miss Upshaw, I am my own man. I shall marry as I choose."

He came closer, moving around her so that he faced her again. Miranda kept her face downcast, more to hide the dance of humor in her eyes man out of any shyness. Ravenscar put his hand beneath her chin and tilted it up so that she looked up into his face.