Adrian rubbed his chin for a moment. “Now don’t go all hysterical, Dorothy. He’s just a child. He doesn’t know.”
“You took him into your bed with your whor—”
“Dorothy!” Adrian thundered, rising to sit up straight and glowered back at Dorothy. “He had a nightmare, and he wandered into my chamber. He saw nothing untoward. He will think nothing of it, or at least he had thought nothing of it until you made an issue of it.”
“You should have never had him in the same house with her.”
“It simply happened that way. She’d been ill—”
Dorothy’s body went rigid, her face stark white with rage. ‘Oh, yes, her great illness, I remember. Of course, she had to share your bed! Because of course, there are no other suitable beds at Applewaite!”
“He’s my son.”
Miranda breathed an inward sigh to see such passion from Adrian regarding his ownership of his son. She had wondered if he cared at all or if he intended to spend the whole of Davey’s childhood with the boy being bounced from household to household, never really staying or becoming close with the one person who loved him most of all.
“That’s my sister’s child. We all decided, after Jane’s death, what was best for her boys.” Dorothy replied. “Now you’re back frequent, excessive drink, and you keep company with your night bird.” Scorn dripped from her tone. “I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and—”
“He’s my son. I’ll decide what is best for him.”
Adrian and Dorothy glared at each other, remaining silent for several moments.
Davey gave a miserable little moan then snuggled closer to Miranda’s side. She put a hand on his cheek and bent close, making a sibilant sound meant to soothe him.
“Look at Davey now,” Dorothy said, turning to glare at Miranda. “Are you satisfied? He looks as though he were about to get a stomachache.”
Miranda lifted her chin. “I think he’s just upset that the two of you are quarrelling.”
“I can’t believe you allowed that woman her way to give him the beef. She’s no doctor. She’s not even a mother. What does she know about what is best for him?”
“Here, I thought the boy wasn’t to leave his bed,” Adrian replied, dryly.
“He appears to have suffered no ill-effects,” Dorothy said.
“Nor has he yet suffered any real adverse effects from the beef.”
“Well, it won’t be you coping with it, will you? He shall go home with me, and we know what happens in the night, don’t we?”
“He’ll go home with me,” Adrian said, resolutely. “And if there are ill-effects, I shall be the one to have to cope.”
“What?” Dorothy blurted.
“It’s time that Davey abided elsewhere.”
“You-you blame me?” Dorothy asked, her expression aghast. “I have only done what the doctors have suggested.”
“No, I don’t. I just think it is high time I paid far closer attention to Davey. A little common sense seems to have worked wonders.” He reached and ruffled Davey’s hair. “As well as some fresh air and roast beef.”
“I hate to quarrel with Dorothy,” Adrian said in a low tone as he watched Dorothy leave the box, his expression grim. “I know she’s still trying to come to terms with Jane’s death. It cannot be easy to lose a sister so early in one’s life.”
Miranda said nothing. Dorothy Chadwick did not interest her. At least not at this moment. She was too busy watching Davey eat some apple pie and apparently enjoying it very much.
She sensed Adrian’s gaze upon her.
Felt his touch on her shoulder. The barest touch.
“It is a lot to ask,” he whispered, at length.
“To give you back your own son?” Miranda said, trying to conceal her bitterness towards Dorothy Chadwick.
“No.” He brushed her elaborate spill of ringlets off her neck and caressed her nape with his fingertips. “It would be a lot to ask of a mistress.”
Her heart suddenly began to beat very fast. “What would be?”
“That you would take my son home with you and watch over him for me.”
Her breath began to quicken. Her chest tightening. “Goodness, Adrian,” she whispered. “You can’t mean that.”
“But I do.” He placed a kiss on her neck. “You must help me. You’re only one I can trust.”
“That’s not true…what about that cousin of yours. Rule?”
“Jon? No, his countess is about to have a lying in and their son is not strong. Jon is consumed by politics. My Davey would be just as lost in that household as he was in my uncle’s, through no fault of anyone. It is just that he needs individual care. He needs a woman’s nurturing and understanding, her softness.”
“Oh God,” she whispered. “I know nothing of children and their care.”
“You knew enough to manipulate him into telling you what he’d like to eat. Do you know how hard my aunt and Dorothy and myself and a whole staff of nannies and housekeepers have tried to ply that boy with all manner of food and treats in the days before the doctors were called in? And he remained silent, stubborn.”
“Do you hear me, my lord?” she whispered more stridently.
A flash in the corner of her eye made Miranda turn. She saw that Davey had looked away from his vantage point, where he had stood watching the people who were still arriving in the gardens. Now he glanced their way.
She gave him a reassuring smile.
He turned back to watch the people and she made a more conscious effort to lower her voice. “I have been trained, carefully coached in how to talk to and draw out the male sex to know their wants, despite their stubborn, arrogant natures. But I know nothing of caring for children.”
“I’ll send Davey’s nanny to you.”
“Oh my God…Adrian…” Miranda felt as though all her air had been sucked away, with the shock of his suggestion. “She is an upper-level servant, with references and training that allow her to be employed in an earl’s home. Do you know how she would resent me? How shamed she would be to even visit my home?”
“She will do as she is told.” Adrian’s jaw set firmly.
“You can’t just–”
“I can and I will.”
At his expression of rock-hard, utterly self-assured authority, she sucked in her breath. She realized that he had never quite shown her the full face of his aristocratic arrogance, until this moment.
It alarmed her.
At the same time, elation flooded her to see him use that strength and authority for his son’s sake.
But still…
His look softened. “Miranda, I love you.”
The sincerity in his eyes…Oh, God, that he should choose to use their love as leverage for this.
She shook her head.
“Please do this for me. Out of love for me.”
She gaped at him.
Adrian took her by the shoulders and gently turned her closer to Davey. “If you won’t do it for me. Do it for him.” Adrian’s lips brushed her ear. “He loves you, too.”
Chapter Ten
“Andi! Andi”
The crying voice cut into Miranda’s sleep. She forced herself to open her eyes, but her foggy brain followed slowly.
“Andi, she’s after me! She’s coming for me!”
Miranda’s eyes came back open. She hadn’t intended to fall back to sleep.
Andi was Davey’s nickname for her. Clad in her flannel nightdress, she dragged herself from the bed.
How many nights had she lost sleep now?
She’d lost track.
Yanking her wrapper from the hook, she donned it and hurried from her chamber and down the corridor to his.
But he was waiting for her outside his door. In the moonlight from the window, tear streaks glistened on his cheeks. “Oh, Andi, she’s coming for me!”
Miranda dropped to her knees, opening her arms and drawing him to herself. “Hush.”
He sucked in a trembling cry, his l
ittle body vibrating within her embrace. A fresh torrent of tears exploded from him.
“What’s all this about?”
“The lady…” His voice quavered.
She stroked his hair. “The lady in white, in your dreams?”
“Yes, oh…” He trembled, mightily.
“She’s not real.” She smoothed his sweat-dampened hair back. “My darling boy, she’s not real.”
“She wants to take me.”
This was new. Miranda held herself perfectly still for a moment, hoping he would expand on that.
He sagged into her.
Her heart panged with sympathy, and she hugged him.
He hugged her back, fiercely. It startled her that he could manage with his thin little boy’s body. And she was caught off guard when he pushed away and ran from her.
“Davey!” She sprung to her feet and hurried after him, following him down the stairs and out the door, calling for him to stop the whole way.
He refused to turn around.
Her housekeeper came stumbling into the hall, sleepy-eyed, with her lace trimmed cap askew. “Miss Jones?” It was more of a yawn than a question.
“I’ll deal with this!” Miranda cried over her shoulder as she ran after Davey.
Davey was running back and forth at the edge of the garden, where the Cypress trees stood tall and well trimmed. “Where is the lake? Where is it?”
His voice held a note of despair.
He looked up at the imposing cherub fountain and froze. “Oh, mighty angels in heaven, be kind to my Mama! Don’t punish her!”
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Miranda’s approach, and he began running back and forth again. “The lake, I must find the lake. They will punish Mama!”
She panted as she ran back and forth trying to catch him. “Davey! Stop, please.”
“My Mama, she’s calling to me from the other side! She wants me there.” He stopped and sobbed. “I must go to her! I must!”
Miranda froze, afraid to make any sudden moves or else he might flee. “No, Davey, your place is here.”
“Mama needs me!”
“Your Mama has God and his angels and her own Mama and Papa to comfort her.”
“Yes, yes…” he said, sounding as though he were considering her words. “But, she wants me too!”
“She has no right to ask that.”
“She is my Mama!”
“Yes, but your Papa needs you, too. He has only you and Brentwood.”
“He needs Brentwood more.”
She gasped at the pain in Davey’s voice. “How can you say that?” She took another breath. “How can you possibly believe it?”
“Brentwood is his heir. I am only here in case Brentwood dies.”
“That’s not true!” Miranda felt ill. “Who told you this?”
Davey compressed his lips, his eyes darting from side to side. “She-they made me promise not to tell. It is our secret. If I tell, Mama may be punished by the angels.”
Miranda clamped a hand over her mouth. Shock made her weak.
She made Davey promise not to tell?
Had Dorothy done this?
Yes, of course, she had!
Who else?
But why? Obviously to upset Adrian’s son. But why?
“You’re wrong, Davey. Your Papa loves you very much. If you were to leave and join your mother with the angels, he would be sad so very sad.”
“I don’t believe you. I never see him.” Davey took a gulping sob. “And when I do, he doesn’t listen.”
Most of the time, when Adrian was around his son, lately, since that dreadful morning at Applewaite, he was at least partially in his cups. He was distracted.
And before he had begun to drink heavily again, he had spent the majority of his time at cards, trying to win back the Sutherland family fortune, a fortune he somehow believed he was duty-bound to earn back in full.
Even though it had been a fortune built up on generations of rents and other forms of yearly incomes.
But however well-intentioned Adrian’s goals had been, they had kept him from being a true father to his sons. Though she knew he would rather cut off his right arm than neglect or hurt his sons, he had hurt and neglected them all the same.
She hurt for Adrian, for the pain of his mistakes.
She hurt for his sons, who would pay the price for his mistakes.
But what could she do to convince Davey that a truth was not a truth?
Nothing.
It was up to Adrian to repair the breech he’d allowed to come between his sons and himself.
So, she did the only thing she knew to do. She dropped to her knees again and held out her arms. “Davey,” she said, softly, letting the wind carry the echo to him. “If no one else in this world would be sad if you left to join the angels, I would be.”
He lifted his chin, his eyes glowing huge in his pale, too thin face in the moonlight. “You would?” He gulped back a lengthy sob. “You truly would?”
She nodded. “Yes, I would be terribly sad.”
“Oh,” He paused for a long time, appearing to consider her words. “Are we friends then, Andi?”
“Yes, we are friends.”
“Forever?”
“Only for forever and ever,” she said.
“Promise?”
“Yes, definitely I promise,” she said, smiling. “Come to me and give me a hug to seal it.”
His expression much brighter, he ran to her.
Chapter Eleven
Miranda most always came to greet him halfway up the walk from the drive. Adrian found it rather touching and reassuring. Yet, today, there was something different about her walk.
A laziness to her stride? Or was that a lack of self-consciousness?
He couldn’t quite place a finger on exactly what.
But it was different.
She walked into his embrace and held her face up to his.
She was his Miranda but different. Younger. Something very changed.
The sun glinted on her lashes, causing fiery sparks of red and gold to flare. And then he knew. For the first time since he’d known her, he was seeing her without any cosmetics. Her eyelashes were normally dark and flat black.
Now they sparkled with color, making her pale green eyes seem all the more luminescent. Her brows matched her lashes and were somewhat thinner than normal, with less of a dramatic arch. A spattering of pale beige freckles lay across the bridge of her nose. Her lips were a pale rose rather than the usual wine red and the lines of her mouth softer.
He cupped her face, drinking his fill of this new Miranda.
“My God,” he said at length.
She laughed, softly, a little abashed.
She was such a skilled artist with her cosmetics, had applied them so well, that he had no previous idea how much she altered her appearance with them.
“You look so different.”
She pulled away from him. “You are one of the first people, besides Sally, of course, to see me like this in years.”
“My God,” he said, reaching for her, trying to turn her face back to him.
Because he wanted to get another look. A look at his girl.
“I wanted to give you something that you had asked for a long time ago. You asked me to strip away all my artifice and show you the woman who remains. Now you see her.”
“Miranda…”
“If you don’t like it, I will wear the paint.” She allowed him to pull her face into view. “I hated the heavy feel of it at first but it is second nature now.”
“Where is Davey?” he asked, tersely.
“What?” she said, obviously startled by the change in topic.
“Where is he?” Adrian normally visited her in the early hours of the morning, before Davey arose. But today he’d been delayed with business.
“He is napping, as he always does this time of the afternoon.” She laughed. “I allow him to ask for whatever he wants and he eats a huge gentleman’s b
reakfast for his luncheon, complete with kidneys.” She made a face. “And bacon and then he sleeps, very deeply.”
“God.” He cupped her face. “You-you…” Hunger scrambled his thinking and made him incapable of finding the right words and he kissed her deeply, all the while pressing his rearing erection into her belly. “I…” He couldn’t keep from kissing those rose colored lips again, then he continued. “You are so lovely. So God-damned lovely.”
He kissed her neck, licking at her flesh, savoring the salty taste. He sucked at her neck with fierce hunger then bit at her, not all that lightly. “I want you. Now.”
“You have me, any way that you want.” Her voice was soft, seductive.
He swept her up into his arms and carried her into the small withdrawing chamber, just off the main hall.
“I can’t wait. I have to have you.” He swept her skirts up and touched her between the legs, relieved to find her a little wet. He worked his fingers against her opening, encouraging her to become slicker until he could put his fingers inside her.
She gasped then arched her hips.
He brushed her nub with his thumb.
“Don’t,” he cupped her face. “Don’t wear your cosmetics again.”
She shook her head and traced a finger over the bridge of her nose. “I can’t allow myself to be seen in public with these freckles. Cassandra tells me I wouldn’t get them if I would only stay out of the sun. But I love the feel of the sun on my face when I am in the country. I haven’t had enough time for them to fade since I spent those all those months working in the garden with Mama after Carrville died.”
A smile tweaked at his mouth. She saw him fight to subdue it. “Well, you can conceal your freckles in public of you must. But don’t wear your paint when it is just you and me alone.” He caressed her cheek. “You’re just a country girl at heart, aren’t you?”
How bemused he sounded. She shrugged. “I was raised in the country.”
“And forced to come to the city when Winterton…” He broke off abruptly. “I am by no means perfect, Miranda. But I am trying, hard, to be what you need. To give you what you need.”
“I know. That’s why I shared my real self with you today. It is something you wanted, and I wanted to give it to you.” Her voice was breaking for sadness had entered her heart.
A Most Demanding Mistress (Fashionably Impure Book 2) Page 11