“The same.”
“Shepherdston isn’t … ?”
Ned shook his head and continued feverishly unpacking the things he’d purchased.
“Injured?”
“No.”
“Thank goodness,” she breathed. “Why in the world would Shepherdston duel with a dandy like Dunbridge?”
Ned set out cups and saucers, spoons, small plates and napkins, then reached into a basket and brought out a metal container of hot coffee and a bag from Gunter’s, the confectioner’s on Berkeley Square. “I heard it when I stopped by the Cocoa Tree Coffeehouse to purchase the coffee.” He took a cup and saucer from the shelf above the worktable, unscrewed the top from the metal container, and poured Miranda a cup. He set her cup of coffee in front of her, then filled a plate with an assortment of pastries and handed it to her along with her napkin. “It began with a wager recorded in the betting books at White’s. Lord Dunbridge wagered a thousand pounds that he would wed a certain young lady in a ceremony conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in Westminster Abbey, at season’s end. Lord Shepherdston wagered Dunbridge wouldn’t marry the lady at season’s end or at any other time.”
The image of the young woman in the dark cloak and the nightgown furtively hurrying through the rain to the Marquess of Shepherdston’s town house two nights before popped into her brain. “Thank goodness Lord Dunbridge didn’t mention the young lady by name or her reputation would be ruined.” She didn’t know how she knew it, but Miranda was convinced that the girl she’d seen the other night and the girl of the thousand-pound wager were one and the same.
“Oh, but he did.”
A gentleman of breeding did not include the name of a lady of good family in any wager recorded in the betting books at White’s. He might include initials, but never the names. “Tell me the lady in question is a widow or someone’s mistress.”
“Apparently, she’s a young unmarried lady of good family,” Ned told her. “At any road, the dispute came to a head last night at Lady Garrison’s party.” He offered her the Morning Chronicle. “Here, read it for yourself.”
Miranda took it and saw that Ned had already folded it to the third-page “Ton Tidbits” column. She groaned as she read the column. “Oh, good gracious! Lady Garrison is the Duchess of Avon’s sister, and Alyssa and Griff were attending the party last night. I was supposed to go with them.” Lifting her cup, Miranda took a sip of coffee.
“Be glad you didn’t,” Ned said. “Be glad you weren’t there to witness it, because I heard it got rather ugly.”
“I’m very glad I wasn’t there.” Miranda wouldn’t trade what had happened to her the previous evening for all the tea in China. “I regret Lord Shepherdston felt compelled to challenge a fool like Dunbridge.”
“Lord Shepherdston didn’t issue the challenge,” Ned corrected. “Lord Dunbridge did. I heard he slapped Shepherdston across the face with his glove when Shepherdston refused to allow him to dance with the young lady at the heart of the wager.”
“Dunbridge is a fool,” Miranda pronounced, biting into a pastry.
“On that, everyone in town agrees,” Ned confirmed. “And a ruined fool now that he failed to show up for the duel he demanded.”
“Did he send word of his refusal?”
“No one knows. He simply failed to show up at the dueling oak. But I heard it mentioned that he was in attendance at a certain house of pleasure and that he was drinking heavily.”
“No doubt trying to find the courage to face the marquess.”
Ned nodded in agreement as he finished setting the breakfast tray with coffee and pastries for Daniel. “At any rate, rumors and gossip are flying all over town, and I thought His Grace should know.”
“You were right,” Miranda confirmed. “He’s feeling much better today. So well that I suspect he will have need of some clothes.”
He lifted one of the large brown-paper-wrapped packages. “They’re here. I collected two suits of clothing for His Grace at his tailor’s, and the other items you asked me to get.” He produced a basket full of men’s toiletries.
He unwrapped the brown paper so Miranda could inspect the buff breeches, white shirt, waistcoat, coat, and neck linen.
Miranda nodded her approval.
“Shall I take them up to His Grace?”
Miranda shook her head. “I’ll take them. You can follow with the tray.” She looked around the kitchen. “Boots. Did you get His Grace a pair of boots?”
Ned frowned mightily. “I wasn’t able to accomplish that task. I couldn’t get to His Grace’s bootblack this morning without alerting the staff at Sussex House.”
“No matter,” she offered. “His Grace can wear his evening shoes. I know you weren’t hired to be a cook and housekeeper, lady’s maid, valet, or errand boy, but I am deeply grateful to you for assuming these roles.”
Ned grinned at her. “It all becomes a part and parcel of my training, milady. One day, I hope to be elevated to the position of your personal secretary or butler.”
Miranda returned his grin. “And so you shall.” She swallowed her last bite of pastry, wiped her hands on her napkin, and reached for Daniel’s clothes, the newspaper, and the basket of toiletries.
Ned hefted the breakfast tray and followed her up the stairs.
“Leave the tray outside the door,” Miranda instructed when they reached the bedroom. “And tell Rupert to have the coach ready.”
Ned sent her a questioning glance.
“If I know His Grace, he’s going to want to find out what happened at the duel this morning, and he’ll go straight to the Marquess of Shepherdston or one of his friends for answers.”
* * *
“Daniel?” Miranda leaned over the bed and touched him on the shoulder. “Wake up. It’s morning.”
He bolted upright, then let out a yelp of pain as the sore muscles along his ribs protested. He blinked in confusion, then gave her a devastatingly beautiful smile as images from the night and the morning came flooding back. “Good morning.”
His greeting resembled the rumble of a large cat, and his smile did funny things to her heartstrings. She stared at the bed, blushing at the memory of all they had done there and all they had shared.
“I’m sorry to wake you, but Ned arrived with your clothes, and, well …” she hesitated. “We knew you’d want to know.”
“Know what?” The cobwebs of sleep dissipated, and Daniel was instantly awake. He looked at the clock on the mantel, read the time, and turned to face her. “I slept that long?”
She nodded. “You were tired.”
“I was nothing of the sort,” Daniel protested. “I was exhausted by a certain insatiable auburn-haired beauty who screams like a banshee when she …” He broke off and gave her a lopsided grin. The words she’d screamed hung between them. Four little words he’d left unanswered. I love you, Daniel. He ought to answer them now. This morning. But he couldn’t bring himself, in the sober light of day, to say the words he’d always managed to avoid. Not after a night of extraordinary lovemaking. With Miranda. Not when she knew him so well. Not when he feared they would sound like a sop to his conscience. Better to say them later when he’d had more time to come to terms with the fact that he was in love with Miranda. That he’d always been in love with Miranda. Daniel drew in a painful breath. Better to yell the words in the heat of passion when there was less chance of her doubting his sincerity. “Who would have thought that a nice little marchioness like you could be so incredibly demanding in bed? Or so incredibly giving?”
She looked down at the floor and noticed that a wayward chess piece—a bishop—lay half hidden by the bed linen. She’d told him she loved him and he couldn’t say the same.
Daniel reached out and lifted her chin with the tip of his index finger. “Have I thanked you yet for the best night of my life?”
She shook her head. “But then, I haven’t thanked you, either.”
He leaned forward and gave her a good morning kiss. “
Strange, isn’t it?” Daniel asked after kissing her thoroughly.
“What?”
“Waking up with you like this. No longer at cross purposes.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “I haven’t spent an entire night with a woman since I left the university. I never spend the night with a woman sharing my pillow, and I’ve done it twice with you in as many days.” He met her gaze. “I wonder what that means.”
“Maybe it means you know I can be trusted to keep your secrets,” she suggested.
“Maybe it does,” he agreed, reaching for her hand to pull her back into bed. “Or maybe it means I simply enjoy sharing a bed with you.”
Miranda reluctantly pulled away. “Would that we could …”
“We can.” He gave her a wicked grin. “Quite thoroughly. And in the full light of morning.”
She took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “Not this morning.”
“Why not?”
“Because there were a great many strange goings-on in town last night while we were otherwise engaged—not the least of which was a certain Lord Dunbridge challenging the Marquess of Shepherdston to a duel at Lady Garrison’s last night.” She spread his clothes across the foot of the bed.
“What?” He sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed. “How do you know that?”
“Ned heard all about it at the Cocoa Tree this morning.” Miranda turned around and left the room to retrieve his breakfast tray. When she returned, she filled his cup with coffee and handed it to him, then set the tray with the coffeepot and plate of pastries on the bedside table and related everything Ned had told her in the kitchen. “It’s in this morning’s papers if you want to read it.” She waved the copy of the “Ton Tidbits” at him.
“You read it to me while I dress.” Daniel took a deep swallow of his coffee, wolfed down a pastry, then set his cup aside. Ignoring the stockinette drawers, he stood up and reached for the new pair of tightly knitted stockings and the new pair of buff breeches she’d laid out for him.
Miranda read: “ ‘What’s to become of Miss Sarah Eckersley, who was seen at Lady Garrison’s elegant gala last evening in the company of the elusive Marquess of Shepherdston? Has she been taken off the market? No one can say for sure, but Miss Eckersley proved to be the bone of contention last evening when Lord Dunbridge, a devoted follower of the Prince Regent’s close friend, Mr. George Brummell, challenged Lord Shepherdston to a duel. Are wedding bells in the Marquess of Shepherdston’s future? Has the perennial bachelor marquess finally succumbed to the lure of orange blossoms? Can a rustic rector’s daughter take him off the market? No one seems to know for sure … But we will surely find out soon …’ ”
Miranda finished reading and watched as Daniel pulled on his stockings, then stepped into his breeches. She watched as he pulled the buff breeches up his long legs and over his hips and buttocks, where they molded to him like a second skin. He buttoned two buttons, then reached for his lawn shirt. “No drawers?” Miranda asked.
“Not in these.” Daniel gave her a lascivious wink. “There’s no room.” He lifted his shirt and attempted to pull it over his head. But the wound in his side and the binding around his ribs made it impossible. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not.” She laid the newspaper aside and walked over to help him with his shirt. Once they managed to settle the garment in place, Daniel stood up to tuck the tails of it into the waistband of his breeches and button the remaining buttons.
He slipped on his waistcoat and glanced around for the tall boots that should have completed his ensemble.
She opened the drawer in the bedside table so he could collect his personal items from the ones she’d stored there. “Ned wasn’t able to locate a pair of boots, but here are your other belongings.”
“No matter,” he answered. “I know where to get a pair of boots.”
Miranda left the drawer open and stepped back. Inside it were his purse, his pocket watch and chain, the pewter flask, and her reticule and fan.
Daniel reached in to gather his things. “The reticule and the fan are yours, I believe,” he said with a smile as he retrieved his coin purse and tucked it into the inside pocket of his waistcoat. He removed his watch, wound it, and checked the time against the time on the mantel clock before fastening the chain to his waistcoat and pocketing the timepiece. Turning away from the open drawer, Daniel grabbed a hairbrush and a toothbrush and cleaning powder from the basket of toiletries she’d brought and walked toward the bathing room.
“What shall I do with this?” She waved the flask at him.
Daniel turned. “Inside coat pocket.”
“It’s empty,” she offered.
“I know where to get more,” he said, as he opened the door to the bathing room.
“You seem to know a great many things this morning,” she teased.
“I’m a man of knowledge, milady, who wishes to specialize in discovering all there is to know about you.” He blew her a kiss from the doorway.
“You already know more than anyone else,” she reminded him.
“Doesn’t matter,” he replied. “For I’ve a burning desire to add to my store of knowledge.” He leered at her, waggling his eyebrows to make her smile.
Miranda laughed as he disappeared into the bathing room, then picked his coat up off the foot of the bed and slipped the flask into the inner pocket. She was about to close the table drawer when she spied her reticule and remembered what it contained. Taking a deep breath, she opened the drawstrings of the mint green reticule, withdrew the folded sheet of paper from beneath the cardboard bottom, and tucked it inside the coat pocket beside the flask, then impulsively retrieved the bishop from beneath the bedcovers and dropped it into his pocket as well.
She bit her bottom lip. He was leaving. Without telling her how he felt about her. And she was giving him the only proof of what they’d done to take with him. Once he discovered it, he could keep it or destroy it as he chose. She blinked back a tear and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand as Daniel returned, moments later, from the bathing room with freshly brushed hair and clean teeth. He ran his hand over his cheeks and chin, gauging the length of his whiskers. He ought to shave, but he couldn’t take the time.
Miranda looked at the whiskers shadowing his jaw and was reminded of the pink abrasions he’d unwittingly left on her stomach and thighs.
Daniel read her thoughts. “I promise to shave next time.”
“Is there going to be a next time?”
“If you want one.”
“I do.” Miranda nearly cringed when she said the words that were eerily close to the words she’d uttered to seal the vows she’d exchanged with Daniel two nights ago. Vows he still didn’t seem to recall.
He leaned down to kiss her. “Tell me, my sweet marchioness, what happened to the notion of saving yourself for your husband?”
She almost told him the truth, but Miranda was afraid of spoiling the tender moment. “I decided that saving myself for a man who may or may not take me to wife was foolish. I’ve decided it’s far better to give myself to a man who isn’t interested in sharing my fortune or my future—only my bed.”
Daniel looked fierce. “So long as I’m that man.”
Miranda’s smile was as mysterious as it was seductive.
“I may not be able to see you for a few days,” Daniel told her. “But make no mistake about it, I intend to see you again. Soon.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
Her politely distant response puzzled him. “Miranda?”
“Go.” She reached up and caressed his cheek with the palm of her hand, then turned her back to him to keep from crying.
Daniel started through the door, but stopped when Miranda called his name.
“And, Daniel …”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Yes?”
“It was so nice having you shower me with genuine adoration that I should hate to have it end abruptly. Please, be careful
.”
He smiled. “Not to worry.”
“I won’t worry,” she told him. “So long as you come home without any more holes in you.”
Her words gave him pause. Home. As long us you come home … Suddenly home wasn’t Sussex House but wherever Miranda was. “I am coming back.”
She turned to face him. “Take care of yourself.”
Daniel nodded, then walked out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and out the front door to the street in his stocking feet. He climbed into the coach Rupert had at the ready, and propped his feet on the opposite bench.
Reaching up to pull the curtain at the window, Daniel saw a coach roll to a stop at the house across the street. The coach looked familiar. He stared at the man exiting the house across the street and blinked in recognition, then quickly dropped the curtain and called out to Rupert with the address he needed. “Take me to Albany.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“One finds many companions for food and drink,
But in a serious business a man’s companions are few.”
—Theognis, c. 545 B.C.
“Where the devil have you been?” Jonathan, eleventh Earl of Barclay, greeted his cousin, Daniel, as soon as he walked through the door of Barclay’s Albany apartments. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“It’s good to see you too, Jonathan.” Daniel shook hands with his cousin and let out a groan when Jonathan clapped him about the shoulder.
“You had us worried.”
Daniel smiled. “I had a bit of trouble on my return from France.”
“I surmised as much,” Jonathan told him. “You need to shave, and you look as if you haven’t slept in days.” He looked down at Daniel’s feet. “And where the devil are your boots?”
“At Sussex House,” Daniel answered, “and since I’ve no intention of returning there for a while, I need to borrow a pair of yours.”
“Sit down.” Jonathan gestured toward a leather chair. “I’ll get you a pair.”
Daniel sank down on the chair and put his feet up on the matching ottoman while Jonathan disappeared into his bedroom and returned with a pair of tall boots. One of the nice things about having a cousin the same age and weight and approximate height was that he knew Jonathan’s boots would fit.
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