The Lady Risks All

by Stephanie Laurens

  It was up to her to make of her life what she would. She had choices, options, and with the ladies’ clarification of her social status, it seemed she had significantly more options than she’d thought.

  One point was clear—her role as Roderick’s keeper had ended. Whether he chose Sarah or another as his wife, he was already standing on his own feet, making his own life-determining decisions. He’d stepped past her in that; she could now see and admit that because of her familiar and, to her, dominant role as his keeper, she’d put off making any such decisions of her own. She’d flirted with them, but she’d never accorded her life, her future, the same attention she’d given Roderick’s.

  So she was now twenty-nine, wealthy enough to do as she pleased, with no duty to any other to claim her. The slate of her life was presently empty; according to Lucasta, it was up to her to fill it in, to define what her life would be.

  Her feet reached the pool and she halted, her gaze fixing on the still surface. What did she want her life to be like?

  She had to reach back through many years to remember her dreams, her untarnished hopes.

  If she allowed herself to choose with complete freedom, entertaining no preconceived restrictions, then despite all the ifs, buts, and maybes, marrying and having a family of her own still reigned as her most dearly held aspiration. But marrying and having a family of her own were ultimate goals; in order to secure them, she had first to find an acceptable suitor and—if she allowed her dreams full sway—love.

  She stood by the pool’s edge and stared into the water, hearing in her mind all the usual arguments, many in her aunt’s voice, that she, with her background, simply couldn’t hope for such things, that love was a foolish and unnecessary complication, one only indulged in by the reckless, the feckless, the weak-minded . . . she heard all the old strictures one more time, then firmly shut a mental door on them and listened instead to Lucasta’s dictate.

  It was up to her to decide, to choose the details and make them happen, to forge the life she wanted, to fight for it if need be. To choose a husband, to choose to love . . .

  Drawing in a shallow breath, she set her imagination free, let it paint as it would . . . as her heart desired.

  Eventually, she blinked and refocused on the water at her feet. Roscoe’s wishing pool. It wasn’t night, yet . . . she closed her eyes, saw again in her mind the future her reckless heart desired, and wished . . .

  “Miranda?”

  Opening her eyes, she turned to see Caroline walking toward her.

  Caroline smiled. “I hoped to have a chance to speak with you before you left.”

  “And I you.” Habit, Miranda discovered, was hard to break, and she suspected she knew what subject Caroline wished to broach. “I wanted to ask for your thoughts about Sarah and Roderick, whether in your estimation encouraging further acquaintance would be wise.”

  Joining her by the pool, Caroline looked puzzled.

  Miranda drew breath and raised her head. “In short, from your knowledge of Sarah’s family, would an offer from Roderick sometime in the future be likely to be entertained?”

  “Speaking with utter frankness,” Caroline said, “I know the family would welcome the connection—and yes, like you, I see the potential for it already there. They seem quite amazingly suited.”

  Gathering her shawl more tightly about her, Caroline went on, “I should make something clear—about Sarah.” She glanced around, then waved. “Let’s walk.” A narrower path circled the walled garden; they set off along it, leaving the wishing pool behind. “The reason Sarah is here, staying with me in the country, far from London and all associated diversions, is because over the past two years—ever since her come-out—she’s been . . . well, wild. Her behavior has flirted on the knife-edge of disaster, so much so that her poor mother was literally turning gray. Sarah’s second season earlier this year left her parents shaken—her behavior was frivolous, flighty, verging on fast. Not that any disaster actually occurred—and yes, I’m speaking of social disaster, of behavior unacceptable in a young unmarried ton lady, but underneath it all, there’s nothing at all wrong with Sarah’s heart. I think that’s what has made this so hard for everyone to deal with—it was as if she believed she had to behave that way rather than be the sweet young thing she had been until her come-out. It was as if, on stepping into society, she had no anchor but was just swept into, irresistibly drawn into, the most reckless circles.”

  Caroline sighed. “It’s been very hard on her mother, but, all that said, since she’s been here, she’s been much quieter, although I still had reservations as to her direction. Yet from the moment Roderick arrived, she’s been transformed. Or rather she’s reverted to the good-hearted, sweet-natured young lady we’ve always known her to be.” Caroline drew breath. “It’s as if Roderick gives her focus. As if he acts as her anchor and encourages her real self, so she lets the false façade fall.”

  Miranda nodded. “I wasn’t sure about her at first, but I’ve seen more than enough to feel convinced that she would be good for him, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he wants to continue the acquaintance. I can’t give any assurances as to how deeply he feels about her, but I can say that I have never known him to take such interest in any young lady before.”

  Caroline nodded. “We’re in agreement, then—the connection should be encouraged. I’ll write to her parents and older sisters.” Caroline glanced at Miranda. “We’ll have to see what we can organize.”

  “I was thinking that once we’re back in London, Roderick will quickly grow bored. He has to stay largely off his feet for several more weeks. I wondered, if Sarah were back in London, if she might come and spend the days with him in Claverton Street, much as she has been doing here.”

  “I’ll suggest it to her parents. At this time of year, with London so quiet, I can’t see anything against that plan.”

  Miranda looked down. “I know you’ve reassured me on this point before, but I still have to ask—and know the answer before this goes any further.” Glancing up, she met Caroline’s eyes. “Are you sure Sarah’s family will consider Roderick’s birth good enough?”

  Caroline’s smile was swift and sure. “I can absolutely assure you the family will be more concerned that the shoe may be on the other foot—that Roderick’s family might consider Sarah’s recent near indiscretions as an indication of underlying social irresponsibility too great to overlook.”

  Miranda smiled back. “As Roderick’s family is, in this context, primarily me, you may reassure them that that is not the case.”

  In pleased accord, they walked on, then Caroline looked down. “I didn’t come to speak about Roderick and Sarah but about something—someone—else.”

  “Oh?”

  Glancing sideways, Caroline caught her gaze. “Julian hasn’t told you why he became Roscoe, has he?”

  Curiosity and more leaping, Miranda shook her head.

  “He won’t.” Caroline returned her gaze to the path before them. “Because it affects so many of us—Lucasta, his sisters, me, Henry, indeed, everyone who lives here—he deems it not his story, his secret to tell.” Caroline looked up at the house, visible above the garden wall. “What he fails to see is that now all of us and everyone here owe him a huge debt, and we would love to repay it if only we could. We can’t, not directly, but perhaps . . .” Caroline drew in a breath, then, still not looking at Miranda, walked slowly on. “I decided I should tell you because I know he won’t and I think you need to know.”

  Miranda hesitated, then quietly said, “I would like to know.”

  Caroline nodded. “It started when they were children—George, my late husband, and Julian, three years younger—and came to a head twelve years ago.”

  Miranda listened while Caroline described the Delbraith curse, explained the difference between how George had reacted and how Julian had responded to the same challenge. Explained how, unknown to anyone in the family, her husband, the late duke, had bankrupted the estate, red
uced his family to penury, and then had taken the coward’s way out, leaving his younger brother to step in, pick up the pieces, and set all right.

  “The long and the short of it is that Julian sacrificed his life—the comfortable life he otherwise would have lived as a wealthy aristocrat, one of old and honored lineage—so that we, all of us, could live the lives we’d expected to live.” Caroline paused, then, her voice lower still, said, “I never imagined any man, especially the man I at that time thought he was, would behave with such . . . unrelenting selflessness. But he did. He rescued us all.”

  Caroline glanced at her. “I know Lucasta is nurturing the hope that he might, now the battle is won, reverse the process and reappear as Julian, as her son, and while I might wish that for her, his sisters, for Henry, and Julian himself, too, I will never again make the mistake of thinking I know his mind. Whatever decision he makes on that score will be the right one—he’s that sort of man. I will not presume to push one way or the other.”

  They strolled on. Miranda’s mind whirled, reviewing, revising; she’d assumed that the reason behind Julian’s transformation had been some major upheaval involving money, but she hadn’t imagined a situation as fraught as what Caroline had described—the layers of betrayal, the helplessness of those affected. But she could imagine, and fully comprehended, the compulsion that had driven the man who had become Roscoe; to rescue his family . . . she had no difficulty understanding why he’d done as he had.

  Eventually, she reached the point of considering Caroline’s last words. The entrance to the rose garden lay not far ahead when, puzzled, she asked, “If you don’t want to push one way or the other . . .”

  “Why am I telling you the family secret?” Caroline’s lips lifted wryly. “Because I’m not blind and, as I said, I want to repay him and will take any route to that that offers.” Halting, she faced Miranda as she, too, halted. “More than anyone, Julian deserves to be happy. If there’s any justice in this world, then he of all of us should find peace and happiness, contentment and joy.” Caroline held Miranda’s gaze. “If there should come a time, an opportunity, a situation in which you might have it in your power to grant him any degree of happiness, should you do so, then I, his entire family, and all those here will be forever in your debt.”

  Looking into Caroline’s eyes, Miranda couldn’t pretend not to understand, but . . . “Between us . . . it’s complicated.”

  “He’s a complex man.”

  A minute ticked past, then Miranda drew in a tight breath. “If an opportunity presents, I’ll . . . try. But I don’t know what’s in his mind.”

  “Nor do I—nor does anyone. But that’s all I could ask of you—that you will try.” Caroline laid a hand on Miranda’s arm, gently squeezed. “Thank you.” Releasing her, she turned to the archway. “Come—we should get back to the house or Lucasta will be wondering where we are.”

  As, alongside Caroline, Miranda walked briskly back along the path, she reflected that she’d gone to the rose garden to think her way through things. While she’d resolved her direction on some issues, she was leaving the garden, leaving Ridgware, with even more complex matters weighing on her mind.

  While scandalously riveting in itself, the story of why Lord Julian Delbraith had become Neville Roscoe, London’s gambling king, had come as no real shock. It had underscored what she’d already learned on so many levels, in so many ways, that learning of Roscoe’s past had merely rendered his present into a cohesive, comprehensible whole.

  Standing before the window in her room, gazing at the shadows playing over the woodland and lawns as heavy clouds scudded across the waning moon, she now saw the reality of him clearly and felt no great surprise.

  Complex, yes, but also, in some ways, predictable.

  Caroline’s revelations had emphasized the similarities between what had, to date, driven him and herself, which perhaps accounted for the attraction between them, on one level at least. In living their lives, they’d both put their families, those they’d deemed in their care and under their protection, first, and to their different respective ends they’d both succeed in their aims. Yet for both of them their families’ need was waning. Fading. Their roles were changing.

  For them both.

  That was something she hadn’t known and could never have seen or learned in London. It was an insight their stay at Ridgware had afforded her, and she was grateful for it. Knowing that he, too, was trying to find his way through a similar maze and into a fulfilling future was comforting. Reassuring.

  They’d worked as partners in rescuing Roderick. Perhaps they could work as partners in defining their respective futures, too . . . they would have to in order to divine whether or not those futures might be mutual. Coinciding.

  Could he revert to being Lord Julian and so be eligible as a husband, as Roscoe could never be? More importantly, if he could, would he marry her? Which, she conceded as she turned from the window, were two separate, albeit sequential, questions.

  He didn’t tap on the door but simply opened it; she had, she realized, heard and recognized his footsteps in the corridor an instant before. She watched as he entered, shut the door, considered her for a moment, then walked toward her.

  Roscoe had one and only one thought in his mind: to make the most of this night. Tomorrow they would start their journey back to London and their normal lives, and this interlude—an unforeseen time in a protected place—would end. He drank her in as he closed the distance, let his gaze trace the svelte lines of her figure, the lush curves of breasts and hips, the sleek lines of her thighs alluringly framed by the amber silk of her gown.

  Halting before her, he didn’t give her a chance to speak but raised his hands and cradled her face. Tipping it to his, he met her eyes for an instant, then bent his head and kissed her.

  Long, slow, inexpressibly sweet, the kiss drew out, spun on without intention or will; she yielded her mouth, one hand rising to cup the back of one of his, lips parting further, tongue stroking, inviting him deeper. She tasted like the elixir of life to him; he couldn’t get enough of her bounty, but . . . realizing just how revealing his fascination with just a kiss was, he forced himself to draw back, to at least make some attempt at savoir faire, at being the sophisticated lover that, were she any other woman, he would have been.

  With her, he was a different man. He knew it even as he let their lips part, as he raised his head and, like a man starved of tactile stimulation, sent his fingers sliding into the thick mass of her hair, coiled tonight in a loose chignon.

  Her hands had risen to rest on his shoulders; now they drifted to his cravat and she drew out the pin, slid the haft back into the material, then, setting her palms to his chest, she slid them down and to his sides, spreading his coat wide.

  He drew his hands from her hair only long enough to shrug out of his coat and toss it toward a chair, then returned his attention to unraveling the wonder of her silken locks.

  Fingers freeing the buttons of his waistcoat, she studied his face through the shadows.

  He didn’t want her thinking so hard, or focusing too intently on him. “I saw you walking with Caroline this afternoon.”

  “Hmm.” She pushed his waistcoat open. Spread her hands over the fine linen covering his chest, lightly gripped. “We talked about how to arrange for Sarah to visit Roderick in London.”

  “A wise idea.” Her hair came loose and spilled in luxuriant splendor over her shoulders and down her back. Drawing his hands from the clinging tresses, he stripped off his waistcoat, flicked his cuffs undone, then reached around her and set his fingers to her laces. Drew her closer. “Better than leaving them to mope and grow desperate before trying to arrange some meeting on their own.”

  Busy untying the complex knot of his cravat, from beneath her lashes she looked up, caught his eyes. Hesitated, then, lids lowering, murmured, “This is our last night here.”

  He didn’t want to talk about that. About them. “Yes.” Raising one hand, he slid his
fingers past her delicate jaw, gently cupped her nape. Tipping her lips to his, he bent his head. “So let’s take everything from it we can.”

  He kissed her and this time didn’t stop. He didn’t want to speak of the looming end of their liaison, didn’t want to voice the words and make it real. That was for the day after tomorrow; for tonight, and with any luck tomorrow night, he could still have her in his arms.

  Drawing her more firmly to him once she was fully engaged with the kiss, he eased his fingers from her nape, let them cruise down the length of her throat. Felt her quiver.

  He let his fingertips drift over her collarbone, lightly tracing to the point of her shoulder, and drank in her response. Tonight he was determined to take his time and savor. Every last moment, every gasp, every shivering instant of anticipatory tension, every last fulfilling second of the consequent pleasure. Every scintillating heartbeat of passion, desire, building tension, and release.

  Her laces came free; without breaking the kiss, fingers stroking, tracing, lingering over the graceful curves of her arms and shoulders, the alluring swells of her breasts, palms caressing, he drew the gown down to her hips, then let the heavy silk fall of its own volition to the floor.

  Through the gossamer silk of her chemise, he closed one hand about her breast, gloried in the swollen firmness, the perfect fit, the evocative weight. Without conscious direction his fingers found her nipple and squeezed, teased . . . she gasped into the kiss, then pressed closer.

  Stepped boldly nearer, her hands spreading, fingers splayed, over his chest, then sliding down and around, slipping beneath the shirt she tugged free of his waistband to slide around and up, over the planes of his back. To claim.

  He quelled a shudder at the flagrant, loverlike possession in her touch. Something he wanted, something he delighted in—something he craved.

  The melding of their mouths grew hotter, hungrier, demand escalating by steady degrees. And there was no need to mute it, to restrain it in any way. Tonight was all for her, and therefore him. With her as with no other woman before, her pleasure was his delight.