That Kind of Woman (30 page)

“It would be a gift, not payment—”

“Careful of the buttons; I think I pulled several loose when I fastened it myself earlier.”

They finished dressing with little talk and kissed one last time before going their separate ways. Miranda climbed into the hired carriage. It felt cavernous, empty, and cold in the darkness of the early morning, not entirely unlike her chest. The lovemaking had been fabulous, but the parting awkward. And how could they have the kind of intimacy she wanted when there were things—important things—about which they could not speak?

She fell into bed at her parents’ house just after dawn and rose well after noon. Usually, she ate her breakfast hours before her parents, but today, their schedules were more of a match, and the three of them sat at the table together. Miranda found she didn’t have much of an appetite, and she pushed more food around on her plate than she ate.

Montheath paused between bites. “Breakfast not to your liking, Miranda?”

She set her fork onto her plate. “I’m not very hungry.”

Barbara frowned. “Did you and Andrew quarrel?”

“No.”

Montheath shrugged. “I really don’t see why the two of you don’t simply get married.”

Miranda sighed and pushed her plate away. “Lettie would have a fit, and possibly Henry, too. Letitia would undoubtedly contest it, and there would be all that scandal and fuss. The marriage would be dissolved, and we would be back where we started, all that trouble for naught.”

“Not if you had your marriage to George annulled,” Montheath suggested.

Miranda stared at him a moment. “But he’s dead.”

Montheath seemed to dismiss this as trivial. “Surely we could work out some sort of posthumous arrangement.”

“Upon what grounds?”

“Reggie,” Montheath replied. Then he took another bite of breakfast.

Miranda shouldn’t have been shocked. Her mother would have seen no reason to withhold her suspicions. It simply hadn’t occurred to her that her parents noticed her enough to discuss her.

Barbara leaned toward Montheath. “Is that possible?”

Montheath smirked. “Darling, with the right amount of money, anything is possible.”

Miranda shook her head. “But I could never sully George’s memory, and what about Reggie? He could never show his face in London again.”

“Several hundred pounds should buy us a bit of silence, I think,” her father replied. “Really, the only people who need to know that an annulment was obtained are those who could raise legal objections to your marriage to the present Earl of Danford. They would have ample reasons of their own to keep the circumstances quiet.”

It was such a simple solution that it took Miranda several minutes to wrap her mind around it. She didn’t know what sort of proof she might be expected to produce regarding the nature of her marriage, but then again, the word of a man as powerful as her father might well be proof enough. She looked across the table at her mother, disturbed by the dubious look on Barbara’s face.

“What is it, Mother?”

“Nothing.” Barbara placed her napkin next to her plate and stood. “It sounds like the two of you have things to talk about.” She murmured something about meeting a friend for tea and hastened from the room.

Miranda would have liked to have stayed and talked longer with her father, but she made her excuses and followed her mother instead. She had to half-run to keep up as they headed toward the chamber Barbara and Montheath shared. The room was sensuously decadent, in shades of red and combining rich textures of velvet, silk, and lace. The walls were covered in crimson moiré, the head of the bed in thick pillows. The rich, vibrant colors suited the two dark-haired, pale-complected women who entered it, and it often occurred to Miranda that everything about the room had been designed to provide the perfect setting to showcase her mother’s beauty.

“Honestly, Miranda, I can choose my afternoon gown by myself; I’ve done it for years.”

“What’s wrong, Mother? Something Montheath said bothered you.”

“Of course, you’re welcome to come to tea with me,” Barbara said brightly. “I’m going to Claire’s—Claire Rathbourne—you remember her. She is currently entertaining the Viscount—”

“Stop it! I have had quite enough of avoiding unpleasant topics for today. You and I may not be terribly inclined to engage in long conversations with each other, but we have always been honest and straightforward.”

Barbara’s face fell a little. “Haven’t we? Been inclined to engage in long conversations? I thought that we had had several in the past few days.”

Miranda opened her arms in agreement. “In the last few days, of course.”

“And before I left Danford.”

“Well, I was much in need of your advice—” Understanding lit her face. “Ah, yes. We
have
talked more than we ever have before.”

Barbara sank onto the edge of her bed and took her time before speaking. “I enjoy music, Miranda, but I have no gift for it. That you share with your father. I don’t have your patience with books. I am ever one to move, to dance or shop or go to the theatre. You prefer to stay at home.”

“I like the theatre.”

“You like the
plays
. You talk about the characters and their feelings and what it all means. I notice the antics, the amusing parts—”

Miranda smiled softly. “And what everyone in the audience is wearing.”

“And who is in attendance with whom.”

“While I wonder what they whisper about me when I cannot hear.”

“And I could not care less.”

“But lately—” Miranda began.

“Lately you have needed me,” Barbara concluded.

“I have always needed you.”

“But I could never seem to give you what you needed. You needed the strangest things.”

“But this time you could. I needed to know how to be a man’s mistress, and no one knows that better than you.”

Her eyes welling with tears, Barbara said, “What a pitiful thing to be good at.”

Miranda straightened her spine. “You love him, Mother. What greater thing is there than to love someone? And however difficult things may be between us at times, you love me, too. I see that more clearly than I ever have before.”

Barbara stood up and sniffed. She pulled a handkerchief from her dressing table drawer and wiped her eyes, and her voice became suddenly brisk. “Do not fool yourself, darling. I haven’t gone from one party to another, each clouded by my worry for you. If you were happy at home, I was happy to leave you there. I have never understood you.”

“Until now.”

“I should want you to marry him.” Though Barbara spoke to Miranda, she looked at her own image in the mirror.

“You want me to be happy.”

“But you can’t be, can you? Not without the rest of the world’s approval.”

“Oh, Mother, I don’t care a fig what anyone thinks of me anymore! Honestly, I don’t.”

“But you won’t do to Emma what I did to you.”

“You played the cards you were dealt, and I shared your hand. Emma has played a different game with a different deck from the outset. The stakes are higher for her. But if Montheath is right—”

“Then Danford can deal you in with him and his daughter.”

“That’s right.”

Barbara sighed. “I’m sure you’ll be a far better mother than I was.”

Miranda leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder. The mirror reflected two women who could have been sisters. “I only hope she will be able to come to me as I have been able to come to you. I know I will try hard to give her the freedom you have given me to seek my own way.”

Barbara patted her daughter’s cheek then shooed her away. “Now, what shall I wear to tea?”

*

Andrew fidgeted throughout his meeting with the family solicitor, Mr. Ellington. He sat in a comfortable chair in the well-appointed office, shifting his weight, leaning forward and back, trying utterly without success to concentrate on the mundane details of his business meeting.

And all he could think about was Miranda. The little cottage where they had met last night had been perfect—remote enough from the
ton
to keep away from prying eyes yet close enough to be convenient. Before the meeting with Ellington, Andrew had gone to return the key to his friend, who then informed Andrew that his former mistress had agreed to return to him upon the condition that she would be given a townhouse in her own name. The friend had agreed, which had left him with one trysting place too many.

Surely, Andrew thought, while Ellington prattled on in the background, he could talk Miranda out of her notion of living on her dowry estate, far from Town or even anyone she knew. And he could certainly think of reasons to come to London throughout the winter. Her mother could stay at Miranda’s estate, close but out of the way. Barbara would understand.

Under the circumstances, trivial business matters held little fascination. He signed several papers without reading them, an act so out of character it made the solicitor raise his bushy eyebrows. Andrew didn’t notice. He was too busy thinking of Miranda on top of the dining room table, or over the low back of the sitting room couch, or seated at the top of the stairs with him a few steps lower, her soft inner thigh against his cheek…

“You seem distracted, my lord,” Mr. Ellington’s voice interrupted.

“What?” Andrew’s eyes, which had been staring into space, snapped back to the older man. Belatedly, he realized he had been grinning. He wiped the expression from his face and cleared his throat.

“Am I keeping you from some—engagement?”

“As a matter-of-fact, my daughter is at a music lesson. I really should be getting along to take her home.”

“I see. Forgive me, Lord Danford. I thought I had made it plain that we had a number of things to attend to. Perhaps I should have been more clear about the time that would be required…”

“No, no. My fault.” Andrew felt foolish—giddy, actually—but he couldn’t seem to stop his tongue from wagging. “I could stay longer, I suppose. It’s simply these are such routine matters. I really have no problem with your using your best judgment. I just hate to impose upon—well—Emma’s not with a mere music instructor. She is with my sister-in-law. She could stay if it were necessary, but I hate to impose upon Miranda if my attention is not really required here.”

Up went the eyebrows. “Your sister-in-law. The Duke of Montheath’s— daughter, as I recall.”

Andrew’s mood deflated at the tone of the other man’s voice. His full attention upon Ellington, he replied, “My brother’s widow, the former Countess of Danford.”

“Of course.” Still that tone, not outright disdain, but damned close.

Andrew stood, looking down his nose at the solicitor. “I believe we are finished here.”

“As you wish, my lord.” Ellington rose, as well. “Then I have your leave to attend to these other matters.”

Suddenly, Ellington’s presence felt as annoying as a pebble in Andrew’s boot. He gave the man a cold smile. “Come to think of it, no. These are such common elements of estate business that I believe I will allow Henry to try his hand at managing them.”

This time the brows lifted in genuine alarm. “Henry? But—but—”

“He is next in line, and life is uncertain, is it not, Mr. Ellington? A little family responsibility will be good for the lad.”

“But he knows nothing about—”

“I trust you implicitly to teach him. I’ll even make very certain to block out several hours of Henry’s schedule, so that you will have ample time with
him
.”

“Lord Danford—”

“Tomorrow?”

“I couldn’t possibly—”

Andrew scowled and leaned on Ellington’s desk. “When could you? Possibly?”

Ellington sat back down and glanced mournfully at his calendar. “Tuesday next?” he said weakly.

Straightening back up, Andrew replied, “Perfect! I will be sure to tell him what to expect.”

He didn’t pause to savor Mr. Ellington’s discomfiture. Instead, he strode out of the solicitor’s office and onto the street. The day was overcast, but there had been no rain, so it was a pleasant enough drive to Montheath’s. Unless, for some unforeseen reason, Lettie had decided to stay and visit, Emma should actually have already finished with her music lessons and been on her way home. The need to go and get her had merely been an excuse.

He drew the carriage to a stop outside the townhouse just as Miranda stepped out the door, a cashmere shawl draped over her shoulders. Barbara was right behind her, but she took one look at Andrew and drew back into the house. The two women exchanged a few words, then Miranda came alone to the street.

“You just missed Emma.”

He leapt down and joined her. “I was counting on it.”

“I thought we were to meet tomorrow.”

“I couldn’t wait.”

Oh, that grin,
Miranda thought. Little wonder she had thrown her high ideals to the wind for this man. “Hmm,” she said, arching one brow at him.

“Am I interrupting? You and your mother were going somewhere?”

“To take a little air.”

“Might you take a little air with me?” Andrew gestured to the phaeton.

Miranda nodded. “I might.”

He glanced down the street, his eyes lighting upon one of Miranda’s most vocal detractors—Lady Worthington—strolling down the street with another matron. He looked back at Miranda. “We shall be seen.”

Miranda turned her head toward the women and nodded, only to be given the cut direct by Lady Worthington. With a shrug, she replied, “There. We have been seen.”

Andrew chuckled as he handed Miranda up into the carriage. “Have you lost your taste for rules?”

Miranda waited for him to join her before answering. “I cannot possibly fall any lower in that woman’s esteem, not that it matters. It could matter even less, though. We must talk.”

“Indeed. I couldn’t wait to see you.”

“Nor I you.”

Andrew’s hand itched to touch her, but even he would not flout the rules that openly. They were, after all, in an open carriage, on a public street, in broad daylight. “Last night has but whet the appetite. That’s not why I had to see you, though.”

“We have to talk.”

“Yes! Exactly.” He laughed lightly. “Are you reading my mind now?”