The Price of Indiscretion (17 page)

Miranda landed on the bed. He fell beside her. She rolled toward him. She swallowed, needing to catch her breath. “Are you all right?”

It took a moment before he could speak. “I’m fine.”

Her body quivered, still glowing with the joy of completion.

Alex didn’t seem to feel the same way.

She touched his shoulder. He turned to her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. “What happened?” she asked, running her hand along his hip.

He caught her hand and brought to his lips. “I was protecting you.”

“What do you mean?”

Alex released his breath as if finally in control of himself. “I’m not about to give Colster a bastard. I shall raise my own son, thank you very much.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up, crossing to the basin and bucket of water. He poured water and, his back to her, washed himself.

It was then Miranda understood what he’d meant. The heat of embarrassment threatened to consume her. She’d not thought of anything besides her own desires.

But Alex had considered it.

She pulled the quilt off the bed and wrapped it around her. Her hair was mess, the pins long gone. She pushed it back over her shoulder. “Perhaps it isn’t important?” she suggested.

Alex tossed aside the linen towel he’d used and turned to her. His hair was mussed, too. His body was as sculpted as a statue, his muscles long and lean. He appeared at ease, and yet there was tension about him.

“Only you can answer that,
Wiskilo’tha,
” he said, using the Shawnee name, he’d once given her.

“I wish I was a bird,” she answered. “And then I’d fly with you. I’d not think of anyone but myself, and we’d both be free with only the wind to guide us.” She held out her hand. “You think I will go with the duke.”

“I believe you must.”

She dropped her hand to the mattress. “That’s not the answer I want.”

“What do you want?” he asked quietly.

“I want you to come here and hold me,” she said. “I want to lie in your arms as your wife and not have to think of anyone but you.”

Alex walked over to her. She rose, letting the quilt go and standing on the mattress. His arms came around her, his lips beside her navel. She leaned over him, marveling at the warmth and texture of his skin.

“I can’t let you go,” she whispered. “I want all of it, Alex. I want to be with you, to sleep by your side every night and have your children grow in me.”

His hold tightened.

“I want to sail on this ship with you,” she went on, her voice a whisper. “I don’t want to be a duchess. I’ve only wanted one thing in my life, and that is you.”

He pressed a kiss on the tender skin of her belly and looked up. She laid her hand on his jaw.

Searching her eyes, he said, “Do you know what you are asking?”

“I believe I do.” She so wanted to believe everything could work out right.

“Yes, but do you have the courage to make this decision? It’s easy for me, Miranda. I have no one…but what you do will impact people you love.”

“If they love me, they will understand.”

Alex shook his head. “Isabel was right. What we do will affect them. And there could be severe repercussions.”

A coldness settled in Miranda at his words. But he had to be wrong. “I’ll speak to the duke. He’ll understand. He’s been in love.”

“It has been years since her death,” Alex answered. “The time has come for him to love again.”

She waved the objection away. “But I already told you, if I didn’t resemble his wife, he wouldn’t have given me a second look.”

“He’s not a fool. Nor, with his title and his money, is he accustomed to anyone turning him down.” Alex placed his hand on her shoulder. “My love, I will take you anywhere you wish, but first you must face the devils in this situation.”

There was something he wasn’t saying. She sensed it. “You don’t trust me.”

He sat back. “Your ties to your family are strong. Charlotte will fight us. This was her dream, wasn’t it?”

“I will make her understand how much you mean to me, Alex,” she vowed. “And you’re wrong about His Grace. I truly had no appeal for him other than I do resemble his wife. Actually, I’m freeing him,” she said, struck by a new argument. “He should have someone who can be a complete wife to him. Someone who can return his affection without reservations.”

“If he can swallow his pride, something few men can do, Miranda.”

She gripped his arm with both hands. “Stop this. Stop talking as if we can’t be together. I don’t want to lose you again.”

“Yes, but do you have the courage it will take to choose me?” he asked quietly.

At that moment, someone knocked on the door. They both turned at once, Alex placing a protective arm around her.

“Who is it?” he demanded.

“It’s Michael, Alex. Let me in,” came the answer.

A
lex could have gladly wished his friend to hell for the intrusion.

Here was the first test of their love…and sadly, he realized, his little bird was not going to pass.

“He mustn’t see me here,” Miranda whispered frantically and started to get up from the bed, taking the quilt with her, but she couldn’t go far and protect her modesty because Alex still sat on it and wasn’t about to move.

“Why?” he demanded. “What difference does it make
when
he knows about us?”

She caught the challenge in his voice. “This looks bad.”

“It
is
bad,” he corrected, refusing to let her evade the truth. “You’ve promised yourself to another, but this is what we say we want.”

Michael knocked on the door again. “Alex, Miranda’s sisters have arrived from Portsmouth. I must see her.”

With a soft cry of alarm, Miranda let go of the quilt. She swept her dress up off the floor and started dressing, her shaking fingers making her movements difficult.

Alex watched her a moment without pity. She’d almost gotten him to believe she meant those words of love she’d spoken.

Now he knew she could leave…and he had to accept it.

He stood. “Here, let me.” Before she could protest, he turned her around and efficiently laced up the back of her dress.

“Do you think Charlotte and Constance know where I am?” she asked.

“We’ll find out,” he answered grimly. He picked up his own breeches and pulled them on, buttoning them as walked to the door. He opened it.

Michael stood there, one hand braced against the frame, his impatience clear.

“Your timing is terrible,” Alex told him.

His friend looked past his shoulder to where Miranda was gathering her scattered articles of clothing. “It’s a pity I didn’t arrive an hour earlier.”

Alex didn’t like his tone. “You wouldn’t have been welcome,” he answered.

Michael met his gaze with a hard one of his own. “I imagine not.”

Miranda came up behind Alex. She had her shawl around her shoulders, her hair was still tangled, and her lips were swollen from Alex’s kisses. She carried her stockings and petticoat balled up in her arms. “Michael, please don’t be angry at him. It’s my fault.”

But Michael wasn’t in the mood to be reasonable. “Do you know what you’ve done? What will come of this night?”

Alex put his arm around her. “We love each other, Michael. We always have. Besides, what’s done is done.”

“Damn you, Alex, it hasn’t even started to be done.” He glanced behind him into the dark as if fearing someone could overhear them. All was quiet. The only light was the thin lantern light by the gangway and the bow of the ship. He lowered his voice. “Colster will wring us dry. He’ll ruin us.”

“He doesn’t own us,” Alex returned. “We are free men.”

“Do my sisters know where I am?” Miranda interjected, sidling a step away from Alex.

He let his arm drop.

“No,” Michael said. “Alice confessed that you’d left the house and where you were going right away, but I told your sisters that you were deep asleep. I suggested that since they’d had a long trip, a good night’s rest would be the best for them as well. They were disappointed, but they did as I suggested. They truly wanted to see you.”

Those were the right words to stoke Miranda’s guilt. Alex spoke in her defense. “She had no way of knowing they would come tonight.”

“She shouldn’t have been sneaking around,” Michael returned.

Alex lost his hold on his temper. “When did you turn so civilized, Michael? So
English
?”

“Since the day I had a wife and child to worry about,” he snapped back and then shook his head. “I’m not the one who set the rules, Alex. I didn’t ask you to bring her to us, nor did I have anything to do with her taking up with Colster. But I don’t want me and mine to be the ones to pay for her indiscretions.”

If Alex had had a knife in his hand, he would have used it on his friend. He took a step toward Michael, willing to throw him over the side of the ship—but Miranda put herself between the two of them. “Stop, please. It’s my fault. All of it.” The three of them stood in the rectangle of light coming from his cabin. She faced Alex. “He’s only speaking the truth. I shouldn’t have come here tonight, and yet I’m not sorry.”

She turned to Michael. “I’ll make everything right. I promise I will. You and Isabel will not suffer because of your many kindnesses to me.”

“And how will you do that?” Alex demanded.

“I’ll talk to Colster,” she said. “I’ll stop it now. People will understand.”

“No, Miranda,” Alex answered almost ruthlessly, “people will think the worst. You’ve been through this once. You know what will happen.”

Her large eyes met his. In their depths, he could see her fears, and his anger left. He placed his hands on her arms. “My poor
Wiskilo’tha
,” he said softly, “loving me has never been easy.”

She threw her arms around his waist, her head against his chest. “Don’t say that. And please don’t think my love is not strong enough. This time, I shall see it through.”

He wanted to believe that. But the promises they’d made in the confines of his cabin now appeared naïve when spoken on the other side of the door.

“
Oui-shi-cat-to-oui.
” Those words from his Shawnee grandfather had sustained him during the difficult years after his father had abandoned him.

“Be strong,” Michael interpreted. Alex had offered those words to him more than once while they’d struggled out in the wilds of uncharted territory building their business. He looked at Alex. “This is a more dangerous situation than anything we met in the wilderness. Colster is ruthless.”

“Not that I know,” Miranda answered, defending him. “He’s been exceedingly reasonable.”

Michael shook his head with pity. “These are the dealings of men. He would not show this side to a woman he wanted to impress.” He finished with an impatient sound as if realizing she would never understand. “Come.” He took her arm and started toward the gangway.

Alex wanted to reach to stop her. He wanted to catch her arm and pull her back into his cabin.

He didn’t. He would give her the time she needed to talk to her sisters and Colster.

Leaning against the door, he watched her disappear down the gangway with Michael. She was a part of him, a piece of his very being.

Oliver came up by his side. “Follow them,” Alex ordered quietly. “Let me know everyone who comes to his house today.”

His mate nodded, and motioning to Vijay and Jon in the darkness, started toward the gangway.

No matter what obstacles were put in his way, she was his.

This time he wouldn’t let her go.

Michael’s coach, its lanterns the only light, waited on the dock. A group of sailors walking unsteadily from a night’s drinking made their way around and then stopped as they caught sight of her.

“Now there’s a pretty,” one of them slurred. “Her hair is like a lucky gold coin.” His words reminded Miranda her head was uncovered.

“Sod off,” Michael answered.

The largest of their group drew him up. “Ye’ll not be talkin’ to my friend that way.”

“And you will have a hole in your head if you don’t leave my master alone,” the coachman said, a heavy blunderbuss in his hands.

“There’s more us than you, mate,” the sailor answered.

“No, he has friends,” came Oliver’s voice. Alex’s first mate stepped out of the darkness, with three other men at their back.

Michael faced the sailors. “I suppose that settles it then. Good evening, gentlemen.” As they moved out of the way, he turned to Oliver. “You, too. We don’t need you following.”

Oliver’s face hardened in the thin lantern light. If it came down to a fight, there was no doubt which one of the two partners he owed his allegiance to…and then he drifted back into the darkness. His men left with him.

Michael opened the coach door for Miranda, glancing over his shoulder. “He’s watching. You know how Alex is. You won’t know he is there if he doesn’t want you to.”

She did. He could be little more than a shadow if he desired. There had been a time when he’d trailed her every move.

Miranda climbed into the coach. Michael followed, shutting the door behind them. The shades were drawn in the coach, and there was no light.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Michael said. Apparently not expecting an answer, he rapped on the roof, a signal to the driver they were ready to go.

But Miranda wasn’t about to take such an accusation without a response. “I thought you considered him your friend.”

She could feel Michael’s eyes boring into her in the dark. “He’s my blood brother. I loved him.”

Miranda noticed the use of past tense. “I won’t come between you—”

“You already have.” He put up the shade so that light from the coach lantern on his side could enter the compartment. He could see her, but his face was still in shadow when he said, “It would be different if I thought you offered him something, but you don’t. Since you’ve come into his life, he has behaved erratically. I’ve never seen him indecisive. He deserves better than you.”

This was a switch. In the past, she’d always been told she deserved better than Alex, mostly because of his Indian blood. Now the charge was leveled at her, and for far better reason. She didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“You may be right,” she agreed slowly. “I don’t want to hurt him. I never wanted to hurt him.”

“He’s been nothing but hurt since the day you met him.”

“How would you know? You weren’t there.”

“I didn’t have to be, Miranda. I’ve always sensed there was a woman in his past.”

“I don’t want to be in his past. I wish to be in his present.”

“And you will destroy him if you are. You’ve already almost done it once, haven’t you?”

She sat back in the corner. He was right. She had no defense.

His expression sober, Michael said, “Let him go.”

Miranda doubled her fists in the small bundle of clothes she held in her lap. “You just want me to marry Colster for your own gain.”

“Aye, I’ll gain, but do you really believe that? Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? Alex hasn’t been himself since the moment the two of you crossed paths in the Azores. I want him back the way he was, Miranda. I don’t want to lose my brother.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” she admitted.

“You must. If you love him,
you must
.”

At that moment, the coach pulled to a halt. Bolling, the butler, opened the coach door himself.

She didn’t wait for Michael but hurried into the house and escaped to her room.

A candle burned in a lamp by her bed. The bedclothes had been turned down. Alice wasn’t there. Miranda feared that this night’s work had cost Alice dearly.

She dropped her bundle of stockings and petticoats and fell to her knees. For a long moment she stayed there. If she closed her eyes, she could recall the feeling of Alex being in her. She could taste his kisses and catch the memory of the warmth of his skin.

She would not fail him. No matter what.

Her mind set, she picked up the loose articles of clothes and, rising, placed them on the bench in front of her dressing table. She tossed on a night dress and climbed beneath the sheets. She didn’t expect sleep to come, but the moment she closed her eyes, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When she woke, she was looking into her sister Constance’s smiling face, and for a moment forgot where she was. Constance looked so happy to see her that all Miranda could do was smile back.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Constance said and then giggled, obviously pleased with herself for surprising her sister.

“Good morning,” Miranda whispered even as everything that had happened the night before came rushing back to her.

“I’ve never known you to sleep so much,” Constance chided. “Being in London has made you lazy.” She rolled over and jumped up from the bed, heedless of her skirts going every which way.

Miranda pushed herself up, uncertain if she dreamed. Tears rushed to her eyes. Constance caught sight of them.

“What is the matter?” she asked, all concern. “Charlotte, she’s crying.”

Turning in the direction Constance looked, Miranda found her oldest sister standing by her dressing table inspecting the pots of beauty aids.

Her beautiful, beautiful sisters were here.

Charlotte had turned when Constance spoke and now looked at Miranda with concern. “What is the matter?” she asked, coming over to the bed.

Miranda couldn’t speak. All she could do was throw an arm around each of her sisters and hug them for all she was worth.

And they hugged back.

For a long moment no one spoke. Charlotte pulled back first. She took a corner of the bedsheet and dried Miranda’s eyes. “You silly goose. I was worried when I was told we shouldn’t wake you last night.”

She should have worried
. But Miranda kept that to herself. She didn’t want anything to spoil the reunion just yet.

“Did you have a good trip?” she managed to ask around the tightness in her throat.

“I never want to sail again,” Constance declared.

“She suffered from seasickness,” Charlotte explained. “I even had a touch of it myself. How did you fare?”

“Being at sea never bothered me,” Miranda said. It was growing easier to speak.

Charlotte took Miranda’s hand. “We are so proud of you.” She gave Miranda’s hand a squeeze. “When we discussed a duke, I didn’t imagine such a thing would happen. Why, even in Portsmouth they knew your name.”

“Yes,” Constance agreed. “You are famous. Everyone knows you are going to marry the Duke of Colster, and they were ever so nice to us.”

“And this house,” Charlotte said, looking up at the ceilings and around the room. “I could never have imagined such a place. I said to one of the servants that the duke couldn’t have such a fine place, and she assured me the duke’s homes are much finer and he has more of them.” She sat back as if she couldn’t contemplate such a thing. “My dear, dear sister, you have done very well with our money.”

Here was the opportunity for Miranda to tell them what had happened. She knew Charlotte would not be pleased, but it must be said.