by Anne Mallory
She wondered what renting a rig like this might cost. If the coachman took pennies or pounds. Probably pure silver nuggets.
The carriage slowed, and Miranda’s nerves jumped again. They truly were stopping at Lady Banning’s then. She touched the soft fabric. “What do I do while you are speaking to the countess or whomever?”
She wasn’t his servant. But she certainly wasn’t a member of society. She could pretend around the viscount, but stepping a foot into another part of the realm was like waking from a dream to find all one’s covers and nightwear on the floor.
She was completely out of her element. Should she act like a lady’s maid or a feminine valet? Both images might have caused her to chuckle in another situation, but at the moment she felt a little more like casting up her contents.
“‘Whomever’ is quite vague,” he said.
And she was a female. The viscount decidedly was not.
“Whomever you speak with in that house will be above my station, so it is not actually vague.”
She couldn’t contain a relieved breath as the door opened, and she exited the contraption.
“Ah. But station is quite like the fingers in the pool, is it not? A small stirring uncovers far more about one’s character.”
She glared as he exited behind her. A governess then, with a charge in need of a swat. No. Even the image of the viscount turned over her knee didn’t make her laugh. This was going to be terrible.
“What do I do while you are entertaining?”
“Join in the conversation?”
“Are you mad?”
“Not at the moment. I feel quite calm.”
“In the mind!”
“That either.”
“You are finding amusement then.” She touched a patch in her skirt. “You…you aren’t going to introduce me to anyone, correct?”
“Of course not. A lowly shopgirl like you? Never.”
She couldn’t discern from his flippant tone as to whether he was joking or not. She found herself unaccountably disgruntled again. Which was absurd. He was making her bold with his flirting.
As they walked through the entrance hall, everything in her imaginings proved true. Lady Banning’s house was downright intimidating. Even the servants swaggered. The viscount’s servants were upright and efficient, but they seemed a much happier bunch. These servants might as well have had horse dung permanently embedded in the collars of their livery for the way their noses pinched and rose.
There were numerous people loitering in the entrance, more than she’d anticipated. Almost as if it were a coffeehouse, and people congregated there to speak.
The viscount pointed to a blissfully empty corner of the columned room, and she automatically positioned herself behind the farthest column as soon as they reached it. It was a great place to observe first, act second. The viscount’s mouth curved as he took in her position and opened to make an assuredly slicing comment.
A woman in bold peacock blue sashayed up and touched the viscount’s sleeve, halting his comment. A fleeting butterfly touch that went with her airy plumes and fluttering lashes. “Downing. It has been nearly a sennight since I’ve seen you.”
“Lady Hucknun, a pleasure.” He bowed over her hand, and Miranda watched as his fingers slipped over hers. A public display, and nothing beyond the pale. It just seemed that his every action held a certain seductive bent.
Miranda stood still in her partially hidden position. Lady Hucknun’s eyes moved over Miranda, dismissing her as quickly as a butterfly touching, then fluttering off.
She tapped the viscount with her fan. “Naughty man, depriving us of your company.”
“I endlessly require chastening.”
“That you do.” Her look was sly.
A man stepped to the viscount’s other side, just far enough so that she had to peek around to see him. “Downing.”
“Colin.”
Silence descended on the group—awkward to someone as out of her element as Miranda was. She thought maybe she could even slip away in the heavy fog.
The woman looked back and forth between the men with speculative eyes. The gleam that sometimes gathered in Georgette’s eyes when a bit of gossip was about to form sprung in hers. The viscount seemed unconcerned. The Colin fellow fidgeted, then stared pointedly at the lady.
Her lips moued. “Later then, my lord.”
The viscount tipped his head and looked back at Colin as the woman sashayed away.
Colin’s eyes didn’t even touch on Miranda, half-hidden behind the column. She supposed even at a glance she looked like one of the dozen other personal servants milling about, waiting for instructions. Colin wasted little time, the other woman barely out of earshot. “The marchioness has been asking for you.”
“Has she?” The viscount seemed relaxed, but Miranda saw his fingers tighten around the handle of his walking stick.
“She requires your assistance.”
“What a surprise.”
“Mother constantly aims to do so,” Colin said bitterly.
Miranda’s eyes shifted abruptly back to the man. Mother? Colin must be his Christian name. Georgette would know right off where he fell in the order. Miranda took in his appearance. Blue eyes and sandy brown hair.
But then she looked closer. The clothing was similar. As if the one was trying to imitate the other, however unconsciously. It was obvious who was whom in that matter as the viscount owned the way he stood and the way the fabric draped over him. His clothing was an accent to him versus the way Colin’s clothing was almost wearing him.
Colin had the uncomfortable, rough edges of a sculpture being molded and shaped still, showing promise but incomplete. He was perhaps twenty or twenty-one.
“Don’t we all?” The viscount’s words were careless, but there was a hard edge to the syllables. “There is so little these days to amuse.”
“Some of us manage reasonable, scholarly lives and have no need to be splattered all over the gossip pages.”
“Ah, the voice of ever-epic reason. Given to you by the inimitable deans in their vast wisdom.” The viscount snapped his fingers, swirled them, and continued his studied nonchalance. “I lament what will happen when you matriculate and experience life on your own.”
Colin’s eyes narrowed. “Drinking already, I see, Downing?”
“What care have you, Colin? Go back to your correspondence and literary pursuits.” The last was said in a dark tone.
“Our plight concerns me. The family name.”
The viscount watched him without saying a word.
Colin pursed his lips. “My morality and ethics teacher said that we are on a downward spiral.”
“He sounds like a boor.”
“He’s brilliant,” Colin said harshly.
“And what do you wish me to do about this sad spiral?”
“It is your responsibility to solve it.”
“It is?” The viscount’s brow raised.
Colin’s hands fisted. “You are the heir.”
“And?”
“You need to rein Mother in.”
“I am the heir. Which means it isn’t my job to rein her in. Nor withdraw her funds. It is our father’s.”
Colin gave an ugly little laugh. “Amusing.”
“Is it?” Downing took his drink from a quick servant. “I seem to recall seeing him still breathing just the other week. He could speak to her of it if it bothers him.”
“He cares for nothing except his own amusements. We could all perish, and he wouldn’t look up from the pair of legs he is currently between.”
Miranda tried to keep her color from blazing too warm. The rose would surely show against the stark white Corinthian columns behind her.
The viscount sipped the golden liquid. “Quite possibly.”
“And?”
The viscount raised a brow in response.
“What will you do with Mother?” his brother demanded.
“What do you want me to do with her? Be
at her?”
Colin’s lips pulled together. “Tell her to stop. It is beyond embarrassing. The looks everyone gives me at Oxford.”
“Be a man, Colin. Give them right back.”
“Have you heard the rumors?” he demanded.
“Gossip groveling, Colin? Tut. I thought such things beneath you.” Miranda would have thought the viscount unaffected by the whole conversation if not for the fingers of his hand, hands she always noticed, gripping the glass. “I don’t see you getting wroth with Father when he is on the front lines of the scandal sheets.”
Colin’s fists clenched. “I don’t find his actions much more palatable.”
“‘Much more.’ Exactly.”
Colin didn’t seem happy with the comment. “It is worse for her.”
“Undoubtedly.”
Miranda wondered if Colin understood that the viscount’s words contained double meanings. She felt oddly pleased with Downing.
“You coddle her,” Colin said.
“Do I?”
The man’s face grew beet red. “Conrad thinks you will salvage the family name. I don’t share his optimism. I want to know what you intend to do.”
“I plan to purchase a book, perhaps stop by the club and gamble away a bit of the money left in my pockets, then drunkenly retire with a scantily clad woman.”
The last was said with a slight, nearly unnoticeable tilt toward her, and it was as if scalding tea had been poured over her head and left to drip down and coat her limbs.
Colin didn’t seem to notice, too coiled to catch any nuances.
“And Mother?”
“Why don’t you speak to her if you are so anxious.”
Colin’s lips tightened in a line so thin all color disappeared. “As if she’d care. You are her firstborn. Her favorite. From her favorite tree.”
There was a derisive twist to the words.
“We all have our burdens to bear. Now, if you are through?”
“Why do I even bother speaking to you? You are just as flawed as they are. As tainted.”
The viscount smiled pleasantly, saying nothing.
“The family name is being ruined.”
“You do realize you are discussing this out in the open, don’t you? Adding to the family drama? Aren’t you concerned with who might overhear? Or are you too busy when you come to my house to talk of it then?”
Colin blanched, then scoffed. “There is no one here to overhear.”
“Let me introduce you to Miss Chase.” The viscount stepped back and waved a hand to her. “New to the house.”
Colin seemed beyond embarrassed at finally spying her, but then anger appeared to override the emotion. “Your servants overhear worse every day in your household anyway,” he muttered.
“I do hope Miss Chase has formed the correct opinion from what she’s overheard me say.” Downing’s eyes turned languid, and Miranda’s face flamed.
His brother’s expression grew suddenly dark, and there was a fear there that was strange and unexpected. “You are dallying with your staff now? I thought you had your limits.”
The viscount’s expression turned deadly. “You overstep yourself.”
Colin backed up a pace, face blanching of color. “You can’t dally with the staff.” The words spilled from his lips. “At least if you were respectable, if you turned the marquess and marchioness respectable, the rest of us could rest upon the goodwill of society should our pockets go to let.”
“Do you plan to take up the cloth? Regain our respectability through prayer and sermon? Or to take up trade and refill our rumored empty coffers? Sell your melancholy memoirs?”
Colin’s face grew redder still. Huh. She had thought that awful shade was hers alone. The strange thing was the sliver of desperation beneath his anger.
“No? Then simply be blind to it like Conrad and the ladies. Buy your expensive clothing and attend your favorite events. Go to your balls and think nothing of where the money is coming from or going to. Think nothing of the gossip rags.” The viscount sipped his drink. “Woo whom you will and don’t take your feelings of shame over it out on the rest of us.”
Colin didn’t respond. In fact, he looked like he had been stabbed in the gut.
“You are full of your school’s goodwill, Colin, and unable to reconcile your own confusion with that of the way of the world.” The viscount leaned toward his brother, dark intentions in his posture. “And if you say aught to Mother in a negative manner because of it, you will answer to me. Good day.”
The viscount strode away, long legs eating up the distance to cross the room, and she hurried to follow.
“The countess should appear soon,” he said over his shoulder, as she tried to keep pace. “We can appreciate the paintings here in the corner until she does. Better company that way.”
She glanced back to the other man, taking in his hair, skin tone, and eye color as he stared hollowly after the viscount. “You are brothers?”
“Strange, is it not?”
“Well, you are both a bit intense,” she admitted.
He glanced at her as they walked, slowing his pace a bit, his expression clearly amused. “Intense, am I?”
“Yes.” There was nothing risked by admitting the obvious.
“Never thought Colin and I had much in common apart from blood, however much of it he wants to claim.” The last was said with a decided snipe.
She dearly wished to ask questions but didn’t dare. It was none of her business and beyond good manners. But everyone knew of the marchioness and her exploits. The woman who permanently resided in the scandal sheets as Lady W. Who had a string of liaisons as long as a continuous thread on the largest loom. Only eclipsed by her husband and oldest son.
The father’s, the mother’s, the son’s. The scandals always followed a pattern. If the marchioness performed an outrage, it was almost certain that the viscount would eclipse it in some way.
The pattern was noticeable if one paid attention over time and followed the flow of the gossip surrounding Downing. If one looked between the inked lines to see the strange and complicated picture.
Miranda coughed into her glove. She was sure everyone paid that type of attention, not just her.
The viscount’s scandals, while particularly succulent at the outset, eventually turned out mostly well. Though there were a few that had been utter disasters. But for the most part, heavy, scandalous bets became new fortunes. Ghastly trade endeavors produced obscene riches. Rakish conquests turned into speedy, happy weddings—other people’s weddings. It was almost as if his scandals were designed and planned, when one thought on it.
But the brother’s talk about finances…perhaps there was something hidden beneath the print.
“Colin is taken with sentiment,” the viscount said, examining a magnificent portrait. “Overly reliant on other people’s opinions. And on emotion, not unlike our mother, though he’d be horrified to have it pointed out.” He tilted his head, a tight smile about his lips. “I will do so the very next time I speak with him.”
“Are you…are you sure we should be purchasing books?” She said it all in a rush, horrified that the words were spilling from her lips even as they did. Impugning a gentleman’s honor…questioning the gossip…he’d probably turn her right out.
Instead, he looked more amused. “I think I can afford the expense. And you. At least for the moment.” He took a drink from his glass. “Besides, you know we live to rack up as much credit as the bankers can extend.”
It was a practice that was very common for her to see in the bookstore, but it was completely foreign to her own way of life. “But eventually it catches up.”
“Will you take me in if it does?” He leaned toward her, his elbow brushing her arm, hovering just above her breast—one sliver of air away if she as much as breathed. “I could be your kept man. Slave to your desires.”
His lips curved as her cheeks heated.
“All it would take is one tiny concession on your
part. Give me that concession, Miranda. Surrender to it.”
The spell curled around her, demanding an answer.
Demanding capitulation.
The crowd around her melted away as she prepared to give it.
Chapter 8
Dear Chase,
Sometimes the measure of a person can only be gleaned through his interactions with others. But it takes a quick eye to see what he tries to hide behind a disarming grin.
Mr. Pitts to Miranda Chase
A woman with powdered hair ornately and elaborately styled walked through the door, breaking the atmosphere of the room and Miranda’s own trance. The answer to the question submerged back into the ever-present tension between them.
The woman was obviously the most important person in the room. In the house. It didn’t take the jewels dripping from her neck, strung through her hair, or covering her gloved hands and wrists to determine such. It was the way she walked. The way she stopped, stood, and waited for the perfect moment. Holding herself there a beat too long, making Miranda want to shift. A few of the others in the room gave in and moved in the space of awkward awareness.
Then the woman moved her hand, commanding notice. Successfully gaining the attention of the entire gathering without saying a word. Miranda was impressed. Georgette would likely trade in her interest in Mrs. Q—shove her into the Thames—if she ever met Lady Banning and had a chance to study her.
The woman surveyed the crowd and walked straight toward the viscount. Conversation recommenced, more muted though than before.
“Lord Downing.”
“Lady Banning.” He bowed over her hand. One white eyebrow rose at how close he came. “Still able to bring everyone to heel. Still as beautiful as the day of your comeout.”
“Still the silver tongue, Downing. Your father wouldn’t even remember my comeout. And you weren’t even a thought in his sapless head when I made mine.”
“But I am sure that his thoughts would have been full of me after he saw you.”
The countess gave him a frosty glance, but there was amusement at the edges. “Did I call your tongue silver? Do not overstep yourself, viscount.”