Truly a Wife

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  “So he made it back safely.” Jarrod heaved a sigh of relief. He hated sending the sitting Duke of Sussex on secret missions, because there would be hell to pay and a million questions to answer if anything happened to him.

  “Didn’t you see him when he delivered the dispatch pouches?” Barclay asked.

  Jarrod shook his head. “Henderson accepted the pouches in my stead.” Although Jarrod preferred to accept the dispatches himself, that wasn’t always possible, and Henderson, his butler, was entrusted with the duty. The Free Fellows delivered the pouches to Jarrod as soon after returning from a mission as they could, to allow as much time as possible for the deciphering before Jarrod turned the information over to men at Whitehall, so it wasn’t unusual for Jarrod to get the dispatches before he met with the Free Fellow who’d collected them. He looked at his colleagues. “I assumed Sussex arrived home safely because I received the dispatches, but I’d prefer confirmation from Sussex himself or one of you.”

  Griff nodded. “We know he made it back to town. So, you can rest easily on that account.”

  “Then where is he?” Jarrod asked, pinning each of them with a look.

  “Unless he escorted a lady home from the party and decided to stay overnight or simply overslept, we’ve no idea,” Barclay answered.

  “We need to get an idea,” Jarrod told them. “I’ve a very full schedule this morning, with personal matters that demand my immediate attention and meetings at the War Office in a few hours with men who require the most accurate and current information we can give them on the French movements along the coast.” He finished his coffee and set the empty cup in its saucer on the silver tray. “Let’s see if we can find our errant King Arthur before eleven of the clock this morning. There’s no point in meeting without him.”

  “Where do you suggest we begin?” Courtland asked.

  “Anywhere but Madam Theodora’s,” Jarrod replied.

  Puzzled, Barclay asked, “Why not?”

  Madam Theodora’s was the Free Fellows’ preferred house of pleasure. If Sussex were with a woman, they would most likely find him at Madam Theo’s—unless he’d made a private arrangement with a lady of the ton … And if that were the case, he could be anywhere in London.

  “Because that’s where I’m going to look,” Jarrod answered. “I’ll see you all here at the usual time this afternoon.”

  “Well,” Colin drawled as Jarrod left the room. “Merlin’s personal matter must be urgent.” He looked at the others. “You heard him. It’s time we discovered what’s become of our King Arthur.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Whatever this is that I am, it is a little flesh

  and breath, and the ruling part.”

  —Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 121–180

  Daniel awoke to a piercing light penetrating his eyelids. He opened his eyes a fraction. Sunlight streamed in the window, bathing the ceiling and the walls of the room where he lay listening to the pounding beat of a thousand angry, discordant drummers echoing inside his head in a pink and white light. He blinked against the bright light and found that even that slight movement sent daggers flying into his brain.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, Daniel attempted to shield them with his forearm, only to discover that raising his arm was impossible.

  His left shoulder and arm were pressed against the mattress, held in place by a heavy weight, and the tingling pins-and-needles sensation in that part of his body told him the circulation had been constricted for quite some time. Restoring the circulation to his left arm and shoulder would be agony, so Daniel attempted to shield his eyes with his right arm instead. But using his right arm was more painful than moving his left. He aborted the attempt as the movement ignited a firestorm of aggravated nerve endings along his side that made his breath catch in his throat and brought involuntary tears to his eyes.

  A flash flood of anxiety coursed through him at the knowledge that both of his arms had been rendered useless. Ignoring a nauseating jolt of pain, Daniel raised his head an inch or so from the pillow, glanced down and realized the weight pinning his left arm and shoulder to the bed was caused by the head nestled upon his shoulder and the long slender arm draped across his stomach.

  Daniel wondered, for a brief moment, if the French coast watch or the British Navy frigate had succeeded in blowing the Mademoiselle out of the water, if he was lying beneath what remained of one or more of his crew. For the last thing he remembered was exhorting the crew of the Mademoiselle to row for all they were worth in an effort to avoid the rifle balls coming at them from English and French sides of the Channel.

  But the arm lying across his stomach was slim and pale and appeared more female than male. Daniel hazarded another glance. The effort cost him, but he had his answer. He sank back against the pillow, secure in the knowledge that the head on his shoulder and the arm draped across his body were decidedly female and still attached to their owner.

  He blew out a breath he’d been holding and gingerly moved his head from side to side. Several strands of soft hair caught in the stubble on his chin, and the fresh, clean scent of spring rain and some sort of fragrant flower filled his nostrils …

  Some sort of fragrant, familiar flower … Not roses. Not lilies. Not violets. Blast it! He owned the finest gardens in London, perhaps in all of England, gardens he opened to the public on Sunday afternoons during the season so everyone could enjoy them, yet Daniel couldn’t put a name to the scent. Not hyacinths or geraniums …

  He closed his eyes, breathed in the scent, and concentrated on matching the name to the aroma. Something else … Something soft and romantic … Something that brought back memories …

  Lilacs. She smelled of spring rain and lilacs. Daniel struggled to recall which young lady of his acquaintance wore the essence of lilacs and spring rain. But he couldn’t recall anyone who wore that particular combination of fragrances.

  Not that it mattered at the moment. Putting a name and a face to the scent of the body molded against his paled in comparison to the pleasure of waking up to it. He tried to recall the last time he’d done so and frowned.

  Had it been that long since the girl at Oxford? The barmaid in the Red Lion tavern. What was her name? Helen? Ellen? He struggled to remember, and the pain in his head increased tenfold. Arden. That was it. Arden. How could he have forgotten pretty little Arden with the soft brown eyes and the equally soft bosom? He had spent many a boisterous night with Arden and made love with the sunlight pouring though the narrow window in her room.

  Opening his eyes once again, Daniel squinted against the light, peering through his eyelashes at a white-and-gold Rococo ceiling decorated with a multitude of fat plaster cherubs staring down at him, and at the shockingly pink satin floral paper covering the walls.

  Where the devil was he?

  Not at home. Surely. For none of the bedrooms in any of his residences had such gaudy ceilings. Several of his houses, including Sussex House, had frescoed ceilings, but those ceilings, painted by masters, tended to depict tastefully bucolic scenes of blue skies, fluffy white clouds, and the occasional biblical morality tale.

  And not the Red Lion. If he had, for some unknown, nostalgic reason, traveled the tortuous path back to his university days to pay a call on Arden, he was in the wrong room. And the wrong tavern. The Red Lion was a dark, half-timbered structure, and Arden’s room had been a dark, low-ceiled room with a single, narrow window. And she’d never smelled of lilacs. Arden had smelled of bread and ale and sex. And while there had been any number of women since Oxford and Arden, Daniel couldn’t recall spending an entire night with any of them, couldn’t recall waking up to them in the morning light. Couldn’t recall any who smelled of spring lilacs.

  Nor did he remember any of Madam Theo’s rooms being quite so pink. Not that he’d visited all of them, but the rooms he’d occupied at Madam Theo’s exclusive house of pleasure at Number Forty-seven Portman Square in London had been more subdued, less blatantly feminine.

  Of cours
e it was possible that Madam Theo had redecorated since his last visit, but Daniel didn’t think so. He turned his head ever so slightly, wincing as the roar caused by the rustle of his head against the pillow resounded in his brain. Madam Theo’s taste was quiet and understated, and there was nothing quiet or understated in a room where the bed was made up with a pink silk coverlet, shockingly pink sheets, and pillow slips bordered in gold thread.

  The only thing of which he was certain was that he was lying in a woman’s bed and in a woman’s room. But which woman’s room? He turned his head ever so slightly in the opposite direction and came face to face with a tapestry cherub. Where the devil was he? Because there was no doubt that he wasn’t at home. Or that the woman lying beside him, whoever she was, had a passion for pillows, fat, baby-faced cherubs, and all things pink.

  Passion.

  Daniel became aware of the twin points of her breasts pressing again his upper arm, became aware of the length of her molded against his left side, the triangle of soft hair pressed against his flank, and long limbs intimately entwined with his, and instantly regretted his choice of words. Passion.

  His eyes burned, his head pounded, his right side ached, his limbs trembled in agony, and his mouth and throat were as dry as a desert, but the portion of his anatomy that made him uniquely male sprang to attention, tenting the garish pink sheet in an impressive display of unadulterated lust.

  For the woman lying beside him.

  Who was she? Which of Madam Theo’s young women had agreed to provide him with a few hours of pleasurable oblivion in exchange for a significant amount of gold and silver? Daniel lifted his head once more in an effort to put a face and a name on the body cuddled against him, but all he could see was a mass of auburn hair.

  Daniel scowled. Auburn hair. None of the women he favored at Madam Theo’s had auburn hair. He made it a point never to choose women with hair that color because auburn-colored hair reminded him of …

  Bloody hell! The oath exploded inside his head as a kaleidoscope of memories came flooding back. The harrowing journey across the Channel. Waking up in the Beekins’ cottage. The agonizing journey from Dover to London. Sneaking into Sussex House and awaiting his mother’s gala. Arriving late so he wouldn’t have to help his mother receive her guests … Avoiding the crowd of partygoers … Waiting for …

  Daniel gritted his teeth. Hell’s bells! The only woman he knew who arrived at most any gathering swathed in various shades of pink was the mother of …

  He didn’t remember everything that had happened… But he thought he remembered most of it … And the last thing he remembered was holding on to …

  Miranda.

  Daniel buried his nose in her hair. Miranda. She used to wear ginger and lilies. When had she switched to lilacs and spring rain? Why had she switched when her other fragrance suited her so well that he could never smell a lily without thinking of her?

  Miranda wasn’t given to making idle threats, and Daniel wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn he was sharing a roof with the dowager marchioness. Unlike her daughter, the dowager Lady St. Germaine had displayed a taste for pink in all its incarnations on numerous occasions. This bedchamber looked like the sort of room of which the dowager marchioness would approve, and if that was the case, Miranda had a great deal for which to answer.

  “Miranda.” Daniel didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until her name came out as a painful croak, barely recognizable as his voice.

  The woman on his shoulder slept on.

  Daniel tried again, louder this time. “Miranda.”

  She stretched like a cat, languorously extending her arm, across his lower abdomen, brushing the part of his anatomy tenting the pink sheet, pressing her lower body into his side as she did so.

  Daniel sucked in a breath and was immediately grateful for the bands of cloth wrapped around his ribs.

  “Hmm?”

  “Are we in your mother’s house?”

  Miranda smothered a yawn, propped herself on her elbow, and shoved her hair out of her eyes. “What?”

  Daniel bit back a groan as the circulation returned to his arm and shoulder with a vengeance. “Is your mother in residence?”

  The sheet slipped off her shoulders, giving Daniel an unrestricted view of her naked breasts as Miranda reacted, bolting upright in bed, and blinking in confusion. “Here?”

  Daniel’s mouth went dry as he stared at Miranda’s unfettered breasts. They were, quite simply, the most spectacular pair of breasts he’d ever seen. Pear-shaped, ivory-toned, and pink-tipped. Big enough to fill his hands, but not weighty enough to droop. He’d known that Miranda was well endowed. The fashions of the day, with their revealing décolletage, made it impossible not to notice her impressive display, but Daniel hadn’t realized how much her revealing bodices concealed, or quite how blessed Miranda was—until now.

  He didn’t answer, and Miranda squeaked her dismay as she followed Daniel’s gaze and realized she was as bare breasted as an Amazon warrior and that he had taken full advantage of the view. Blushing to the roots of her hair, she yanked the sheet to her chest and tucked it around her. “Daniel, did you say my mother is here?” she repeated, frantically searching the covers for hairpins. Was it possible that Ned had returned to Curzon Street with the dowager Marchioness of St. Germaine?

  “I assumed that must be the case,” he answered. “You tell me.”

  “How can I?” Miranda asked. “When I just woke up?”

  “As did I,” he told her.

  Miranda frowned, clearly puzzled by their conversation. “Then why would you assume my mother is here?”

  “You threatened to take me home to your mother,” he reminded her. “I didn’t believe you would do it—until I woke up here with you.”

  She glared at him as understanding dawned. “You believe I brought you home to Mother?”

  Daniel managed a slight nod. “It’s what you threatened to do.”

  “I thought you trusted me.” Miranda sounded hurt.

  “I did. I do.”

  “You have a fine way of showing it, Your Grace,” she said.

  “What was I to think?” he demanded, appealing to her logic. “It’s the last thing I remember clearly.”

  “The last thing …” she sputtered.

  “Yes.” He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them once again. He remembered parts of the previous evening, but he couldn’t tell what had happened from what he’d dreamed. “Everything else is fuzzy.”

  “You don’t remember anything I said after that?”

  Daniel frowned. “Bits and pieces. But nothing clearly.” Something about a wheel of cheese. St. Michael’s Church. And Miranda looking quite fetching in a nightshirt and trousers.

  Miranda sighed. “Of course you don’t. How silly of me to think otherwise. Why would you automatically believe the best of me, when I’ve given you every reason to believe the worst?”

  Her sarcastic rebuke stung. Daniel did his best to ignore the pounding in his head and the pain in his side as he struggled to push himself up against the pillows. Praying he wouldn’t do himself further harm, Miranda watched as he finally managed to sit up, but didn’t offer to help. “What would you believe if you awoke and found yourself sharing a bed with a person who’d threatened to force a meeting with her mother on you?” He leaned against the headboard.

  “I did wake up and find myself sharing a bed with a person who forced a meeting with his mother on me,” Miranda pointed out.

  “I caught you before you entered the receiving line,” Daniel replied defensively. “You didn’t have to meet her face to face.”

  “The point is that you invited me to your mother’s gala knowing she didn’t want me there.”

  “You didn’t have to accept my invitation.”

  “Lucky for you I did,” Miranda retorted. “Where would you be if I hadn’t?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Oaths are but words, and words but wind.”

  —Samuel Butler, 16
12–1680

  “Where am I now?” he asked. “Because this certainly isn’t my bedchamber.”

  “Nor mine,” Miranda replied.

  “Then whose?” Daniel winced when he raised his voice and quickly lowered it a notch. “Look around you. We’re swimming in a veritable sea of pink. Who but your mother would have a room this color?”

  “Your mother, for all I know,” Miranda retorted. “And heaven knows the clothes left in the armoire would fit the duchess.”

  Daniel widened his eyes in a show of alarm. “You don’t know where we are either?”

  Miranda was tempted to let him labor under that misconception, but decided on a different course to see if Daniel recalled more of the previous evening than he realized. “Of course I know where we are. We’re in a house on Curzon Street that my father purchased as a home for his mistress. This room appears to have been hers.”

  “Curzon Street?” Daniel was genuinely puzzled. “What are we doing sharing a bed in a house on Curzon Street?”

  Daniel was aware that certain sections of Curzon Street were dedicated to exclusive houses of pleasure as well as a number of private clubs catering to the more jaded members of society—all set among rows of houses gentlemen of the ton leased or purchased for their mistresses. He was surprised that Miranda knew about her father’s mistress and the purpose of the house, even if Miranda didn’t seem to be.

  “What couples who share a bed usually do, Daniel.”

  “How? Why?”

  Miranda arched an eyebrow at him. “Why not? Since you know how?”

  Daniel looked her in the eyes and realized for the first time that she looked as tired as he felt. There were dark circles beneath her eyes and worry lines at the corners of her mouth. “I understand why I’d want to share a bed with you, Miranda. Any man with half an eye would leap at the chance to do that. What I don’t understand is how it came about.”