by Anne Mallory
“Dress?” Miranda asked in some last feeble attempt at ignorance.
Georgette gave her a look that would freeze the Thames, her second finger already out to tap whatever was next on her list.
Miranda sighed again, her shoulders drooping. “It’s upstairs.”
The frozen look turned to unmitigated excitement. Georgette tried to temper the excitement but was doing a poor job. She folded her hands once more, ticking fingers forgotten. “Very well.” Her fingers threading together. “Very well.”
“Georgette?”
“Oh, Miranda!” she very nearly squealed, her hands parting and pressing against her chest. “I will kill you later for not telling me. In the bushes, legs in the air?”
“Shhh!” Miranda leaned back frantically to gaze around the corner. “It wasn’t like that.” Her legs hadn’t been in the air.
But Georgette was hardly listening. “Learn everything you can from him. Take notes if you must. And make sure you share it all with me.” She propped her chin on her hand, avidly watching her as if she would start spilling secrets right then.
Miranda stared at her, nearly speechless. “Learn from him? Take notes?”
“Yes. Everything you can. Then use those tactics on the man you mean to marry.”
Miranda just stared at her. She felt like her uncle for a second—not comprehending anything outside the sphere he had set for himself. “Use them on…Georgette, have you gone mad?”
“I admit to a slight madness of envy.” Georgette pinched her fingers together to demonstrate, seemed to reconsider, then expanded the space between her thumb and forefinger.
“Use them on the man I mean to marry?”
“You will own that man, if you do.” Georgette twirled a lock of hair dreamily. “Oh, I do intend to pry all of the details out of you, I hope you know.”
“I have no details to give.” Nothing willingly, at least. “It was a misunderstanding. I shan’t repeat it.” Not if the strange atmosphere of the carriage was anything to go by. The sudden separation between them.
“Of course you must repeat it!”
“I’m in the paper.”
“I know, I’m absolutely green. As green as a dress of Mrs. Q.”
Miranda sat in stunned silence for a second, then folded her arms and dropped her head on top. “Oh, Lord. I can’t return to the house.”
“Not return? I thought we had already discussed this before. I won the argument, I do recall.”
“They will all know.”
“Who?”
“The servants! They dressed me last night!”
“Oh! They did?” Georgette gave a dreamy sigh. “I bet you were lovely. What coiffure did they use? I must see the dress.”
Miranda put a hand out to stop Georgette’s rise. “I’m in the paper. Surely they read the paper. They’ll know.” She laughed a little hysterically. “What am I worried about, I have a room! They made me a room!”
“Dear,” Georgette said soothingly, as if petting a crazed beast. “You are talking like a madwoman.”
“I am a madwoman.”
“Really, Miranda,” Georgette chastised. “I am the one who reserves the right to be dramatic.”
Miranda put a hand to her head. “Everyone will think I’m doing something else with him besides organizing his library. Even the papers.” And really, they wouldn’t be wrong based on the previous night’s events.
Miranda opened her mouth to verbally kick herself some more, and Georgette held up a hand. “Wait. Who is going to think a thing?”
Miranda pushed her hair, which had fallen in a nicely dramatic manner into her face, behind her free ear. “His servants. And anyone who found out that he’d escorted me there.”
“You mean the aristocrats that pass you and greet you on the street? All of the society matrons who might bar you from your grand debut at Almack’s?” Georgette said, an overly serious expression upon her face.
Miranda flushed beneath the overt sarcasm. “Well, no, of course not.”
“Oh, you mean all of the people who know you are a Russian princess?”
“Um…”
“That bit of news—a scandalous foreign princess in our midst—eclipsed even the scuttlebutt of Lady Werston and her erstwhile suitors. The promised duel.” She pointed at the page. “There is a tiny footnote about someone hitting someone else. Barely a word. All of it is taken up by you. Believe me, if they knew who you were, it would be here on the page.”
“Well, that…” Her voice trailed off. That was…interesting information.
A curl of unease threaded through her.
She grabbed for the paper. “Let me see that.”
“Miranda!” Georgette huffed.
But Miranda was too busy scouring the section.
It was hardly an occasion that Mr. E. was found knocked cold in Lady W.’s box. We, dear readers, are much more interested in what her son was up to…
She stared at the page. “He did it on purpose.”
“What? Who?”
“The viscount.”
“What? What did he do?”
“He used me to cover up the news of his mother.”
Georgette blinked at her, her expression completely blank.
Miranda narrowed her eyes. “He used me.”
“Oh, well, use him back, dear. And tell me exactly what works and how.”
Miranda drummed her fingers militantly. “Oh, he had his amusement already.”
“So the papers were not making it up about the bushes? The legs?” Georgette leaned forward. “What was it like? Did he make you mad with desire? Did you feel all those things everyone goes on about? Tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”
Miranda ignored her. “It is probably better this way anyway.”
“Better what way? You are torturing me.” Georgette’s hand went to her forehead.
“Because frankly, temptation that he is—was—or not, there was something, well, rather alarming about the whole matter. And about the viscount.”
“He’s not a fluffed cake. I keep telling you that you don’t want one, but do you listen?” Her friend shook her fist at her.
Miranda drummed her fingers, thoughts colliding. “He purposefully baited me to help him with his library even after speaking of it with uncle.”
“So?”
“Like some nefarious scheme.”
Georgette’s eyebrows lifted. “Really, Miranda. A nefarious scheme?”
“I tell you, he purposely baited me.”
“And?”
“And…” Miranda drummed her fingers harder. “There is—was—something quite off with the whole matter.” She pressed her lips together. “Very off. Why me?”
Georgette’s eyes softened. “Darling, why not you?”
Miranda shook her head, lips unable to move for a moment, lest some other emotion peep through. “And now this? What is his game?”
Georgette sighed. “You are in a mood, and I know better than to argue with you though I’d like to murder you right now in my complete madness to question you on everything. You are being unconscionably tight-lipped, and really, it is beyond poor of you to keep your best friend on edge like this.”
Miranda swallowed, unable to say anything else.
Georgette’s eyes turned concerned for a second, then she strove for lightness. “I’ll forgive you, dear. Just this once.”
Miranda cracked a smile under slightly blurry eyes.
“I don’t know what happened, but don’t hide away,” Georgette said softly. “I can see on your face that you want to. Catalog his books. Leave if you become uncomfortable. Visit his bedroom if you don’t. Just don’t dream about villainous plots and white knights while the perfectly delectable real man escapes from your grasp.”
“He’s not in my grasp.”
“Well, then use those seduction secrets you are always nattering on about and get him there.”
“I don’t want him in my grasp. He is uncomfortable.”
“I don’t pretend. A good man of sense—”
“Is boring. You need this, Miranda. You truly do. Just guard your heart, and the rest will be fine.”
Returning to the house took all of her courage. She could feel the stares of the servants. But honestly, she was being a ninny. What had she expected them to think? They had probably even heard the viscount challenging her to a test of seduction. They probably knew everything.
Well, maybe not all of the princess bits and the actuality that she had been used in some cold way—but the seduction, the dress, the room, his attendance each day to her. Where that all might lead…
Had he really trapped her here in some piece of master villainy? And if so, what was it? And why? To be his mistress? But Downing never kept a mistress. He always had liaisons. Short-term affairs. Mistresses were too permanent for the man according to the papers.
The room she had been given was probably turned over on a regular basis. Miranda frowned in sudden distaste.
And if not that, then what? To make her into a princess and cover his mother’s scandals? To cover the duel that had been threatened in the papers, should it occur? But he could have persuaded anyone to play that role—better suited to an actress who could tread the boards and pull off the part.
Why her?
Had it simply been a convenience because she had been in the position when he’d needed her to be? That made the most rational sense. That she could think rationally about it at all made her feel a bit better.
Miranda tapped her pen on the library desk while she ate the slices of apple that a quiet, watchful servant had kindly brought. She needed to organize her thoughts before she saw him. Perhaps shoot off a note at the same time.
Dear Mr. Pitts,
I confess that I’ve met someone who turns me inside out. Is respectability something that one should seek? Or is it so constrained by the norms to which everyone else conforms that I should strike out on my own path?
I know you always tell me to follow my good sense, but I feel as if my senses are pulling me in opposite directions. One toward the passion of adventure and the other toward the respectability that I have always been taught to crave.
When reading a tale, confusion and dangerous desires are always so captivating. But in reality, it causes my stomach to knot, my pulse to race, my feelings to soar up and down like a butterfly caught in a gale.
What to do then…grab the adventure or feel contentment with the reputable choice?
Mr. Pitts always had an answer, whether she chose to follow it or not, he always made his opinion clear. She gave the note and a penny to a waiting servant to put into the posting box.
What would he think of her liaison with Lord Downing? How would he view her splashed across the scandal pages, however hidden her identity was?
She thwacked a book on a stack. She was going to murder Lord Downing when she saw him. For making her have these confusing, conflicting thoughts.
But he never appeared.
Not once through the long morning or afternoon. Lunch was brought, and she ate it alone. Snacks and tea, quiet offers to assist, a question of whether she would like to retire to her “room” for a bit…all done without a single glimpse of the man himself.
She walked down the steps toward the front entrance as the shadows grew long. Jeffries emerged from their depths.
“Miss Chase, the driver will see you home.”
“Oh. Thank you, but that is unnecessary.”
The butler reached out a hand and opened the door. “The carriage is waiting at the end of the drive. Lord Downing insisted.” He held something out to her. “Also, this is for you. Good day, Miss.”
Miranda took the offered folio. The Bengal. She’d bet her week’s salary that the parcel contained the book. She numbly walked down the stone steps, feeling even more confused. Really, confusion didn’t even begin to put a name to it, especially after Giles and Benjamin jauntily greeted her at the carriage as if she were still an honored guest.
The viscount didn’t appear the next day either.
Jeffries apologetically stated that the viscount was away on suddenly urgent business and that he sent his regards.
Regards? Not even a personal note in his illegible chicken scrawl to the woman he had seduced?
All of the camaraderie and the flirtation disappeared in the dark thorny gardens and waning moonlight. Underneath the chortles of raucous men and odd secrets in the night.
Another box was wordlessly handed to her. A beautiful diamond cuff nestled inside. She stared at it and tucked it into her armoire that night, along with the other temptation he had offered.
And Mr. Pitts still did not reply.
Miranda thought about Georgette’s words as she collected the post. Her heart gave a tentative lurch at seeing the looping scrawl of Eleutherios upon a package. He wasn’t a fluffed cake. Well, all right, if he looked as she pictured him, perhaps he would fall under the category of a fluffed cake. Mr. Pitts would definitely concur. But Georgette had agreed that Eleutherios was likely a man who knew how to use his hands.
Miranda sniffed at the idea of fluffed-cake men. Just because she liked to picture her heroes with flowing brown hair and soft, kind brown eyes, didn’t mean anything. The image of black eyes and blacker hair overrode the image. She firmly shoved it aside. And just because she didn’t prefer sarcastic words and sharp features, and instead dreamed of vacant—no, dreamy—expressions, didn’t mean a thing.
She frowned and broke the seal on the note attached.
Dear Mistress Chase,
My heart beats in utter pleasure that you enjoyed the book. Please enjoy the enclosed as well.
Eleutherios
She couldn’t believe her eyes as the wrapping opened beneath her fingers. Another novel she had highly anticipated, and which had not yet been released to the public.
She immediately opened it and began devouring it, happy to have something to take her mind off the viscount. But every time the man who appeared to be the hero of the tale, a slightly fluffed cake, showed on the page, she compared him to the dark man antagonizing the heroine from the shadows.
The stump of her candle flickered the last of the flame as she was halfway through. Normally she might be tempted to use another of the precious sticks, but she needed to help her uncle in the morning before returning to the viscount’s library.
And she could barely concentrate on the tale. Her mind refused to stop conjuring images of dark men who weren’t as faceless as they’d once been.
She sent an irritated thought the viscount’s way. And to Mr. Pitts as well. Why hadn’t he responded? The one time she needed to see his scathing opinion, and he chose to stay silent.
The viscount didn’t appear the next day either.
Not even a glimpse of him in a hall or outside the door. Another adequate apology for his absence was delivered by his taciturn butler, along with a box of something that she firmly set on the library table without opening.
The house was quiet. Watchful. The servants who rotated through the library to help her were warming up a fraction with each passing day sans their master. She was actually amazed at the number of servants he had who were able to help with the titles. She mentioned it to Lottie, the woman she had met outside in the yard during her first two visits.
“Naw, I can’t read. But can recognize the same pattern. This one and this one.” Lottie pointed. “They are the same author, yes?”
Miranda looked at the spines, which both read Locke. “They are.” She surveyed the maid. “If you can see that, it is only a short step to reading. Would you like to learn how to read?”
“Cor, girl. What need of it have I? Chester’ll read for me. God granted me with this giant maw and large ears just so I’d be able to find my way around by asking.”
Lottie turned and
continued her task. Galina though stared hard at Miranda. Miranda opened her mouth, but the pretty girl quickly turned and went back to her task, a deliberate dismissal of conversation. She was a bit more strident than the others but still inclined to show that extra bit of respect and reserve that Miranda’s position, whatever it was, demanded.
Frankly, Miranda couldn’t stand the odd limbo any longer.
She determinedly walked down the hallway to the back stairs of the grand house later that day. More servants watched curiously as she moved farther into the bowels of their domain. But she could hear the noise and camaraderie, and she resolutely walked toward it, determined to join in.
She came within ten paces of the kitchen before the cook intercepted her.
“Miss Chase. May I be of assistance?”
“Good day, Mrs. Harper.” The woman’s eyes changed from how one might view a bug to a more passive form of militancy. Even though they hadn’t immediately come into contact, Miranda had deliberately learned her name along with those of the other upper-tier servants on the first day. She’d concentrated on learning the names of the lower ones next, and could almost pick each one out by name now—quite a feat with as many as worked here.
Always good to know one’s environment and to gather allies. Or at least not enemies. “I was just thinking of picking up an apple or some bread and cheese.”
“I will send up a tray, Miss Chase. As usual.” She motioned back to the stairs. “Please.”
“Oh, I don’t mind grabbing something and saving someone the trip.” She tried to skirt the woman.
Mrs. Humphries, the housekeeper, appeared and smoothly stepped in front of her too, the two rulers providing a united front. “Don’t be silly, Miss Chase. Please.” She motioned as well.
Miranda sighed and took the “suggestion,” returning above stairs to the cool, uninhabited library. It was a curse really. If the viscount hadn’t paid her attention, especially the inordinate amount of attention he had shown, she could have been on friendly terms with the staff. They seemed a mostly jolly bunch aside from the upper-tier detachment. Now that he had played with and abandoned her, she was on her own.