The Turner Series

by Courtney Milan

Mr. Blasseur shook his head. “No,” he said in subdued tones. “I don’t believe there can be justice. Not for this.”

  AFTER JEREMY LEFT, MIRANDA wasn’t sure what to say. Turner hadn’t pushed Jeremy out or made him feel unwelcome. Nonetheless, he stood now and looked out the window of her parlor. She stayed seated on the sofa, watching him.

  He turned his head slightly. “I suppose you’d prefer to be alone?”

  Miranda shook her head. She almost never preferred to be alone.

  He didn’t move toward her. “Do you…you don’t want to talk, do you?” He made no effort to hide the unsubtle horror in his voice.

  Miranda shook her head once more. Her grief was rolled up inside her—more for Jeremy than herself. It was Jeremy, after all, who grieved most for George. It was Jeremy who hadn’t yet comprehended that one of his best friends was gone forever. Miranda had known George only through his friendship with Jeremy.

  Still, young people weren’t supposed to die.

  “Smite,” she asked softly, “do you have any idea what to say to me in a situation like this?”

  “Of course I do,” he retorted. “I have plenty of ideas.” He met her gaze ruefully. “Of course, they’re all wrong, and so I’m totally at sea.”

  She patted the cushion next to her. He crossed the room and lowered himself down. And then, because he didn’t seem inclined to do it himself, she picked up his hand and slid it around her shoulders. His muscles stiffened for a moment, but she leaned her head against his chest and he relaxed. His other hand came up to stroke her shoulder in a light caress, and Miranda shut her eyes and melted into him.

  “I feel cold,” she said.

  It wasn’t a cold that could be driven away by fire. The only warmth she found was in the butterfly-light touch of his fingers. He seemed hesitant to hold her, as if afraid she might break. But when she leaned into him, he grew bolder. Tiny caresses gave way to broad strokes of his hand, covering her arm from shoulder to elbow. After long minutes of that, she looked up at him.

  He was watching her intently. She gave him a tentative smile, but he didn’t return it. Instead, he shifted. His breath touched her cheek. His hands continued to stroke her arms, and Miranda let herself fall back onto the cushions of the sofa. When he paused, she pulled him atop her. He levered himself over her gingerly, his weight neither heavy nor stifling, but comforting. The warmth of his breath touched her cheek.

  If death had its opposite, it was this. She came to life for him, her whole body tingling. Her breasts awakened. Her thighs parted. She fairly sizzled. And when he leaned in and captured her lips, it sent a shot of vitality through her being.

  She didn’t wait for him to take the lead. Miranda slid her hands down his hips of her own accord. She found the hard ridge of his erection in his trousers.

  He froze and pushed away from her. “I’m not so ruled by my lusts that I must consort with you, even under these trying circumstances.”

  “I don’t want you to consort with me. I want…” Miranda lifted her head and looked into the blue of his eyes. “I need you to touch me. To hold me. To remind me I’m still living.”

  He focused on her intently. Then slowly, slowly, he leaned back into her. He set his lips against hers, light at first.

  This was what it meant to be alive—to conjure his want from kisses, to have her breath stolen with desire. She kicked her skirts up to her knee, and he obliged her by pushing up onto his forearms and then sliding the material farther up, parting her legs as he did so.

  She spread herself out for him, and he slid to the floor beside her. Her drawers slid off, and he parted her folds with his thumbs. Before she could quite comprehend what was happening, he leaned over her and set his mouth on her sex.

  He was the most determined, intense man she’d ever met. Small surprise that when he brought that intensity to bear on her, she exploded. His tongue slid down the length of her slit and then up, up, to swirl around the button of her sex. He slipped a finger inside her, and then another.

  “Oh God,” she heard herself moan. “God, Smite. Do that again.”

  He did. He did it harder and faster, until the heat pulsed around them in waves, until she felt elevated on high. Her orgasm passed through her, tearing her to pieces. Her fists clenched in her skirts, and she screamed. It wasn’t just a release. It was a vindication of sorts.

  He pulled away an inch and reached for his own trousers. Miranda had a moment of dim comprehension, before she set her hands atop his.

  “Wait. I don’t have my sponge in.”

  He paused for only the briefest of moments. “Where is it?”

  “Upstairs. My bedchamber.”

  He slipped one arm under her knees and the other about her shoulders. Before she quite knew what was happening, he lifted her in the air. Her hand slid across the straining muscles in his back. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you upstairs.”

  He did. She never would have imagined that it might feel so lovely to be held. He cradled her close, up the two flights of stairs. When he arrived in her bedchamber, he set her on her bed, and then crossed to her chest of drawers. He pulled the stopper on the vial of vinegar and a sweetly sour scent filled the room; glass clinked, and he turned back to her.

  She held out her hand, but he didn’t give the sponge to her. Instead, he climbed beside her. He pulled up her skirts and parted her legs. The sponge was cold for one second against her flesh—but he pushed it inside her, trailing both heat and cold in his wake.

  “Is that right?” he asked, his fingers still lodged inside her.

  “Yes.”

  He curled his finger inside her passage. “And that?”

  “God,” she breathed. “Yes.”

  “What about this?” His thumb ran along her.

  “Too much. Not enough.” She pulled his hands away from her, sat up, and reached for his trousers. This time, the buttons came undone easily. His member sprang out, hot and hard.

  “I want you,” she said.

  He made a deep noise in his throat, almost a growl. He kicked off his trousers and knelt before her. “Say it again.”

  His hands found her thighs.

  “I want you,” she repeated.

  He pushed inside her, stretching her. “God. You’re so good.”

  She gripped his arms and watched his face. His thrusts were hard and impatient; he bit his lip in concentration. His breath grew ragged. He was warm, so warm, and so alive. His hands found hers and clenched tightly around her fingers. And she was connected to him—deeply, intimately, perfectly. He drove away the last cold threads of fear from her, replacing them with life. He came hard inside her in a burst of heat.

  He collapsed on top of her. They didn’t speak for long minutes. He played his hand through her hair, twirling it about his fingers casually.

  This was the point where she would have reached up and caressed his jaw. She would have run her fingers down the bridge of his nose and cupped his cheek in her palm. Instead, she took his hand in hers. She spread his fingers across her own cheek, guided him to stroke the side of her face.

  “This is what I’d give you,” she whispered. If she could.

  His eyes drifted shut. She maneuvered his hand along her jaw; his fingers trailed along her lips. She couldn’t touch his face, but she could still touch him. She could feel him relaxing against her, all that residual awareness seeping away. She entangled his fingers in hers.

  “Stay with me,” she heard herself whisper. Stay all night.

  He must have known what she was asking. His arm curled around her. He inclined his head to hers.

  “Miranda,” he murmured. “Darling.”

  There had been a space between the words, a single breath. He hadn’t stayed with her before, but tonight…tonight was different. Tonight she needed to be held. She needed someone warm and vital to remind her that not all youth ended in death.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “Can’t?”

 
He let out another breath. “Won’t,” he clarified.

  He didn’t apologize. He didn’t explain. Miranda had never expected to have all of him, and so no matter how she yearned to hold him, she opened her hands and let him go.

  SMITE HAD SET THE term of his arrangement with Miranda at one month because he’d thought it just short enough that they’d both avoid unnecessary emotional entanglement.

  As the curtain rose at the Theatre Royal six days into the affair, he was contemplating how enormously he’d mistaken the matter. He was entangled already.

  Miranda sat beside him, her gloved hands folded in her lap. Her attention was fixed on the stage before them. Her eyes were bright and she leaned forward eagerly.

  They had taken seats in the pit of the theater. Both of them had dressed in plainer, simpler clothing, so as to not draw attention to themselves. It had been a tactical decision on his part to sit among the common folk. In a box, dressed in finery, everyone would see them. And everyone would talk.

  Smite had enough ribald jokes to contend with from his fellow magistrates; he didn’t want them to add Miranda to their repertoire.

  Normally, he’d have kept Miranda in seclusion. But when she talked of the theater, her eyes lit. Her voice grew animated. And maybe—just maybe—he’d wanted to see them light more.

  He was definitely in danger.

  But Miranda’s eyes were not alight with pleasure now. They were narrowed on the stage in front of her, and she sat back in her seat.

  “Oh dear,” she whispered.

  “What is it?”

  “If they brush that castle wall the wrong way, it’s going to topple over,” she said under her breath.

  He followed where she gestured with her chin. He hadn’t noticed it himself. But now that she mentioned it…the wall swayed in a light draft. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged. It had never occurred to him that she might criticize the theater.

  It should have.

  As the first act proceeded, she muttered about the acting, the execution of stage directions, the costumes. Miranda apparently took the business of putting on a play quite seriously.

  If she’d been writing scathing commentary for the Bristol Mercury, she’d have had an adoring readership.

  “It’s a ghost,” she muttered. “You’re scared! You’re acting as if you’re speaking to a passing dairyman.”

  Then, a moment later: “Oh, no wonder. That has to be the least frightening ghost in all of England. Could he deliver his lines with any less feeling? ‘Avenge me. Has the post arrived yet? Pass the saltcellar.’”

  Smite choked back an outraged laugh.

  Not so successfully. The man next to him nudged him with his elbow and glared at him pointedly. “Shhh!” he warned.

  The other man hadn’t noticed Miranda’s commentary. Indeed, Smite could scarcely hear her himself. It was Smite’s poorly-suppressed response that he was condemning. But Miranda didn’t stop, and the theater seemed more and more absurd with every whispered remark. She drew his attention to people walking in before their time, lines got wrong, speeches mangled. She mocked costumes. He actually did laugh out loud. Twice.

  Perhaps that was why, as the curtain fell on the first act, the man beside him jostled his shoulder. Smite turned, and found himself looking up and up into the narrowed eyes of a behemoth of a man. He was burly and dressed in laborer’s clothing.

  “That’s the Bard you’re laughing at,” the man rumbled.

  Smite considered explaining that he was, in fact, laughing at the woman who sat next to him, but something about the glint in the man’s dark eyes made him hold his tongue.

  “I saved my wages for a month to come,” the behemoth continued. He flexed his arms; beneath the dirt of his coat, heavy muscles rippled. “And I’m not going to have my play ruined by some frivolous fleabite of a man. Get out now, or I’ll throw you out. Quick, before the next act comes on.”

  There were a great many things that had never happened to Smite in his life. Getting into a brawl in a theater was one of them. If the man had known who he was—if he’d been sitting in a box overlooking the stage—he would never have interfered. But for tonight, Smite had chosen to be as close to anonymous as possible. He wasn’t worried that the man could do him any harm: big men hit hard, but they moved slowly. Still…

  “Oh, dear,” Miranda was saying, looking as if she were truly sorry. “I do beg your pardon.” She’d matched her accent to the man’s—broad and ponderous. “My man, he’s a little thick sometimes. Can’t appreciate good Shakespeare. I’ll take him off, and no more trouble to you.”

  The man touched his head. “Sorry, little miss,” he said. “I could tell you were enjoying it. Paying close attention, you were. If you want me to send him off, I’ll see you home.”

  He’d never found himself in a brawl over a woman, either, but Smite felt his fists clench.

  But Miranda’s eyes simply danced as she stood up. “No need to worry yourself. I’ll take him out of your way, then.” She gathered up her things, and Smite trailed after her in bemusement. She whispered to him the entire way, but he couldn’t make out her words until they slipped through the double doors into the vestibule.

  “…cardinal sin,” she was saying. “It doesn’t matter how bad it is, I shouldn’t have disrupted the proceedings. If others are enjoying themselves, who am I to cause trouble?” She sighed and looked forlorn.

  “Did I hear you right?” Smite echoed. “You think that interfering with someone’s enjoyment of a play is a cardinal sin?”

  “Yes,” she said, with no indication that she exaggerated. “And we deserve to have been tossed out. Although I do wish we could see the rest.”

  “You want to see the rest?” he asked. “I had the distinct impression that you thought the players were inept.”

  Miranda shrugged. “Even so. I was enjoying myself. It was that kind of awful.” Her face lit. “Oh, I know. There was a box upstairs that was empty,” she said. “We could sneak in.”

  Smite simply stared at her. “You think that disrupting someone’s enjoyment of a play is a cardinal sin, but have no qualms about sneaking into a box that we didn’t pay for?”

  She gave him a saucy smile and turned to head up the stairs for the boxes.

  He lunged after her, grabbed hold of her hand. “I mean it. No. That would be wrong. I won’t be party to that.”

  “Nobody’s using it. Where’s the harm?”

  “Maybe someone is using it. Maybe he’s just late to the theater.”

  She took another few steps up the stairs, and looked back at him. “Then he can oust us when he arrives. We’ve already been pushed out once; what’s a second time? Besides, whoever he is, he deserves it. What kind of booby is late to the theater?” She spoke the last in scathing tones, as if she could think of no greater failing.

  As if to answer her question, a man turned the corner and started up the staircase. “Pardon,” he said, as he brushed past Smite and Miranda.

  Just that one word, and Smite knew who he was. He froze, willing the fellow not to stop. Not to turn around.

  Too late. The man halted two steps above them, as if registering what he’d seen. He turned around. And then, ever so slowly, Richard Dalrymple’s jaw went slack at the sight of Smite with his arms halfway round a woman.

  “I see,” he said slowly. “So when I sent round that note yesterday afternoon, you really weren’t just putting me off. You have been busy.”

  Smite had not wanted to think of the man.

  Dalrymple gave a wave of his hand. “I know what that stubborn set of your chin means,” he said. “It means you’re planning to tell me to go to the devil. If you want to put me off, put me off. Nevertheless, I don’t suppose you’d care to join me?” He cast a glance at Miranda—a glance that bespoke a certain curiosity. Smite wanted to strike that look off his face. “I have a box tonight, and I’m the only one in it.”

  “Ah, so that empty box is occupied, then.” Smite glanc
ed at Miranda beside him.

  Miranda met his censorious gaze with doe-eyed innocence. “I repent,” she said. “It would have been utterly unforgivable if we had been caught out in your—” She paused, looking at Dalrymple, and Smite realized he’d not introduced them.

  “His brother-in-law,” Dalrymple supplied. His eyes had grown large at this exchange.

  “This is my…brother-in-law, Richard Dalrymple,” he said. “Dalrymple, Miss Miranda Darling.”

  Dalrymple’s eyes widened further at the Miss, but he said nothing more.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Miranda said. “I’ll be even more pleased to sit in your box, as Mr. Turner here has got us cast out of our own seats.”

  Dalrymple glanced again at Smite, an utterly befuddled look on his face. And when Smite did not bother to contradict this particular tale—it was true, after all, if not precisely the way she’d laid it out—Dalrymple shook his head. “Miss Darling,” he said slowly. “I fear that you are not a good influence on our upright friend. I’m not sure what to say.”

  Miranda gave Dalrymple a beatific smile. “I know what you should say: ‘Thank you’ comes to mind.”

  Dalrymple gave a surprised snort of laughter.

  “You see?” Smite said. “That is precisely how we came to be arguing in the hall and not watching the play.”

  “Well. Then. Turner, if you please? I can conduct Miss Darling up, if you’re worried about your upright reputation.” Dalrymple smiled slightly. “It would probably be as good for my reputation as it would be for yours, if you’re thinking about being observed.”

  Before he could answer—before he could even think of how he should answer—Miranda stepped forward and threaded her arm through Dalrymple’s.

  “We would love to,” she said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  MIRANDA WAS BEGINNING TO understand precisely who Richard Dalrymple was—or, rather, who he wasn’t—by the end of the play. She’d had few enough clues. Smite had maneuvered Miranda to sit between the two of them, effectively forestalling any opportunity for him to converse with the man. That knocked out the possibility that they’d had any pretension to friendliness.