Beatrice snapped her mouth.
“Excellent,” said Jason. “I shall expect you and your husband to be gone from the house by morning.” He smiled thinly. “My footman, Mr. Briggs, shall supervise the packing to ensure no Thornwood silver or china finds its way into your luggage. Now kindly take yourself off. My forbearance has its limits.”
By late afternoon, Beatrice and Clarence, furious at Jason’s high-handedness but helpless against the steely force of his will, had departed the grounds. When they were gone Miranda sent a message to her brother and her old nurse Hannah, bidding them to return immediately to Thornwood Hall. They arrived from Jason’s estates in Buckinghamshire in the early evening, bumping up the long drive in an elegant carriage.
“But what happened, Miri?” William demanded, once the first round of embraces and greetings had been exchanged, and brother and sister had retired to the lovely airy chamber known as the Peacock Room, which their mother had made especially her own. “Uncle Clarence wasn’t dead after all? I should have hit him harder!”
“No, he isn’t dead,” said Miranda severely, “and I’m glad of it too, for it would have been a great deal more complicated to have you cleared from charges of murder than charges of assault.”
She explained quickly the plan Beatrice had concocted to help Laurence inherit the viscountcy, and when she had finished, her brother snorted and said, “Aunt Beatrice always did have more malice than brains. But how did you manage it? How did you get Uncle Clarence and Aunt Beatrice to leave?”
Miranda tried to stall. “It wasn’t easy. They weren’t pleased to be packed off like that, I assure you.”
“I wish I had been here to see their faces,” said William.
She permitted herself a small smile. “It was enormously satisfying,” she conceded.
“I can imagine,” said William. “But where have you been this last fortnight? Why did you make me go with those men to Buckinghamshire? Hannah and I were so worried about you until we heard from you a few days ago.”
Miranda sighed and succumbed to the inevitable.
“I went to London,” said Miranda, glossing over the thirty-five mile walk in the freezing rain and the week she had spent without food or shelter. “I went to Blakewell’s.”
There was a long silence. She did not permit herself to meet her brother’s gaze, instead studying the material of her skirts with absorbed attention. At last, William repeated in a very soft voice, “You went to Blakewell’s? The club?”
“Yes,” said Miranda. “I didn’t know where else I could go. You know Papa did not have many friends and his lawyers were useless when I tried to write. Blakewell’s was easy to find, and when I told Jason what had happened, he agreed immediately to move you to his estate in Buckinghamshire and to come back to Hertfordshire to help us.”
“Miri—”
“He was very kind,” said Miranda brightly. “We left London this morning. You should have seen him, William, he was splendid, he truly was. I thought Aunt Beatrice should have an apoplexy and die on the spot.”
“Miri—”
“You had better go to bed now, William,” she said hastily. “It’s getting late.”
“I’m not tired,” said William, his mouth set in a stubborn line that ten years ago would have signaled the onset of a pout.
Miranda smiled in spite of herself. “Well, I am,” she said, rising to her feet and kissing her brother firmly on the forehead. “It’s been a very long day for me. I’m going to retire now. Have a good night, dear. We’ll talk more in the morning. I’m afraid we have a great deal of work ahead of us if we’re to undo the damages Uncle Clarence managed to inflict on Thornwood, and we’ll want to begin right away. I’ll start going through the accounts immediately.”
She almost made it to the doorway when William asked, “Is Jason Blakewell still here?”
She paused without turning. “Yes,” she said softly. “He’s still here.”
“How long does he intend to stay?”
She caught her breath. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think—I think he’ll be gone in the morning.”
“I see,” said William, without inflection.
Miranda turned and managed another bright smile for his sake. “Goodnight, darling,” she said. “Don’t fret too much. We’ll settle everything in the morning.”
But when she had left the Peacock Room, instead of retiring to her bedchamber, she made her way slowly to the gardens. What she had told William was true. Jason was going, of course; he had no reason to remain. Hertfordshire was the land of his childhood and his past; his future was in London now, and he certainly did not love her anymore. He was going to be out of her life again, and this time, like before, she could do nothing to keep him here. But ten years ago he had wanted her to go with him; now he wanted only to be rid of her. His behavior that morning in the carriage had certainly been ample evidence of his current feelings toward her.
Well, she had learned to live without him once, a long time ago. Only she did not think she would survive the lesson a second time.
In the library, Jason poured himself a glass of brandy. He had spent the day in the village, tracking down all the old Thornwood retainers, and bringing them back to the estate at Miranda’s request. Seeing his old friends, the closest people he had ever had to a family, had thawed something that had lay frozen and dormant inside him for a very long time.
Now he tried to consider his next step. He had behaved very badly toward Miranda that morning, he knew, but after ten years of guarding himself against emotion, the intimacy of the night before had shaken him, and he had needed to distance himself from her in order to concentrate on the damnable mess at Thornwood.
Now, standing in her father’s library—the room he had never been permitted to enter when he had lived at Thornwood—he knew with a bone deep certainty he could not bear leaving her a second time. Oliver had been right. Ten years ago she had been very young, and he would not hold the past against her.
But now a new and terrible fear gripped him. He did not know if Miranda had any desire to marry him. She had admitted she came to him freely, but she was still the daughter of a viscount, and though he could now offer her wealth and a life of comfort, he did not know if it was enough. No matter how much money he made, he could not alter the circumstances of his birth.
The door suddenly opened, interrupting his thoughts. A tall, slender figure, neatly garbed and impeccably groomed, came inside the room. Jason had not seen William, Lord Thornwood, for over ten years; the last time they had met, William had been six years old, but Jason recognized him immediately. He had the look of his sister—dark hair, large eyes set in a narrow and sensitive face.
Emotion, sudden and unexpected, rushed through him as he watched the boy cross the length of the library. He had helped William mount his first pony, had taught him to fish in the streams running through Thornwood land, had shown him how to skip smooth stones across the surface of the lake. Now, ten years later, William had grown up, but Jason could recall as though it had been yesterday the unguarded smile, the outstretched arms, the lisping voice calling, Wait for me, Jason! I want to come too!
“William,” said Jason, his voice faintly husky. “I see you survived your stay in Buckinghamshire.”
William did not seem to have heard him. He crossed the length of the Aubusson with long, purposeful strides, and as he came closer, the grimness of his mouth, the determination in his dark eyes, became clear.
“I might not have killed my uncle,” said William without preamble. “But I’m definitely going to kill you, and with pleasure.”
Too late, Jason realized the boy’s intention. He tried to sidestep the punch, but William was fast, and he was very, very angry, and the force of the blow sent Jason stumbling backwards against a bookcase.
Jason scowled up at the boy, wondering if the insolent puppy had taken up boxing at Eton. It seemed rather likely, for the blow had been both well-placed and powerful.
“I assumed you would be more grateful after what I’ve done for you,” he said, touching his jaw gingerly.
“I’ll thank you for saving me later,” William retorted. “That was for what you did to my sister, only I should have hit you harder.”
“What I did to your sister? What I did to your sister?” Jason pushed himself to his feet. He could feel his control slipping, but he didn’t care. Suddenly, ten years of suffering, of wanting and not having, was too much for him to endure.
“What about what your sister did to me?” He was shouting. He could not remember the last time he had raised his voice, but he could not seem to stop. “I was twenty-one, and she had your father throw me into the hulks for having the audacity to love her. God, what a fool I was! Do you know what the hulks are like, William? Do you know what it’s like to live without light, without food, without some shred of human kindness or decency? I nearly died there.”
To his horror, his voice trembled very faintly.
“What are you talking about?” William asked, the blood draining from his face.
Jason took a deep breath and tried to regain his composure.
“What’s the use?” he asked, wearily. He passed a hand over his face. “It’s over now. It was years ago, and she was very young. I survived.”
“No, what did you mean about Miranda asking our father to throw you into the hulks?”
Jason laughed bitterly. “You never heard the story? I suppose you were very young then. I made plans for us to run away together. On the night we were supposed to meet in the village, your father showed up instead with a constable. He told me she had changed her mind and had me arrested on trumped up charges of thievery. He said if I ever came back to Thornwood he would have me hung from a gibbet.”
The room was utterly silent. William stared at him, his thickly lashed black eyes, so like his sister’s, huge and unreadable in his darkly handsome face. “And you believed him? All these years? You believed Miranda changed her mind and had our father get rid of you instead of telling you herself?”
“It’s the truth,” said Jason bitterly. “Your father told me so himself.”
“He lied,” said William. “When she came to you this week, Miranda didn’t tell you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Miranda didn’t change her mind,” said William. “Our father didn’t find out about your plans from her. He found out because of me. I didn’t mean to, but Miranda had explained to me she was going. I suppose she couldn’t bear to let me think she had abandoned me. I was only six. I didn’t mean to tell him, but he found me crying because I didn’t think she would ever come back, and he got the truth out of me.” William fell silent for a moment, and Jason, remembering the old viscount, had no doubt Emmett Thornwood, damn his rotten black soul to hell, had beaten the truth out of the boy.
A long moment passed before William spoke again.
“Father wanted you out of the way, permanently,” he said. “He wanted to make sure you never came back, because he knew if you did, Miranda would try to go with you, at whatever cost to herself. He locked her up in her room for more than half a year and permitted her nothing but bread and water. He set a guard on her door and took away all of her clothes except an awful old night dress so she couldn’t run away. Even I wasn’t permitted to see her. She finally collapsed with a fever after six months. She was very ill; the doctor did not think she would live. But she asked for you—repeatedly.”
Jason made a sound in his throat. He felt his hands flex and close. William did not notice.
“When she finally recovered, she was never the same again. Father was pleased, of course. She had finally become the docile, quiet daughter he wanted. But when he tried to announce her betrothal to Lord Linley the year she was twenty-one, she told Father he could kill her or he could beat her or he could even drag her to the altar, but nothing he said or did to her could induce her to marry Linley.”
William paused and drew a breath as he gazed out onto the rolling parks and gardens of the land.
“Then, four years ago, Father was thrown from his horse during a hunt,” he continued. “He never walked again. Miranda nursed him faithfully. She never left his side, though he was moody and irritable. She eased considerably the last years of his life. When he died, and Uncle Clarence and his family came to Thornwood Hall, and they were—” He broke off. “Jason?”
The door clicked behind him. Jason had heard enough.
Miranda sat on the rim of a fountain in her mother’s beloved gardens. Like the rest of Thornwood Hall, the gardens had suffered under her uncle’s stewardship, but she imagined how it as she would make it: the ivy rambling across the walls and entwined lovingly around the pillars of the graceful Roman folly; Queen Anne’s lace frothing onto the cobblestone; the roses her mother had loved, dark as spilled wine, pink as the heart of shells, white as snow at dawn, growing in wild, fragrant profusion across the arbors and trellises. After Jason had been sent away, after her father had died, after William had left for Eton and her uncle had invaded her home, this garden had been the one place she could come to when she needed comfort, needed escape, needed to feel close to her mother. Now she drew a slow breath and rested her head in her hands. She felt very tired and terribly alone.
Her uncle was gone. He would never return, and Jason, having fulfilled his part of their bargain, would be gone soon too. Perhaps as soon as the morning. Her heart cried out in violent protest; to have to learn a second time to live without him would destroy her. But somehow, it had to be done. She would do it. She was not Emmett Thornwood’s daughter for nothing. Surely there was something for her still.
She opened her eyes; the beauty of the night settled around her; the stars above her shining bright and clear. Yes. There was something. Thornwood Hall was hers again; all the old retainers her uncle had dismissed had come back. William would return to school, of course, when the term began again, but he would come home for holidays. In a year’s time he would start at Oxford. And someday, not so long from now, he would take a bride. Miranda knew no home was big enough for two women; she would have to go somewhere, she supposed. The dower house, perhaps. It would need repairs, but William would certainly not begrudge the expense. She would become the favorite aunt of her nieces and nephews; she would learn to knit possibly, and keep cats, and grow roses.
The days, the months, the years seemed to stretch endlessly before her, each one identical to the next, colorless and without meaning.
“Miranda.”
She lifted her head at the sound of her name, spoken in the tender accents so familiar to her from her girlhood. She could not stop the sudden, fierce joy that gripped her as Jason walked toward her in the twilight, his stride purposeful, his gaze intent. Ten years stood between them; he no longer loved her and would never love her again, but he was here, at Thornwood Hall, and if her heart must be ashes again in the morning, tonight she was alive.
“Jason.” She rose to her feet. His name on her lips was involuntary.
He had reached her. He stilled her with a touch, but nothing could still the sudden pounding of her heart.
In the next moment his lips were on hers, the perfect, precious familiarity of his mouth pressing upon hers, of his hands in her hair, moving down her jaw to skim her throat, and then once again along the side of her face. She could not breathe, but when she was with him, she didn’t need to breathe; she simply needed him, needed the touch of his fingers upon her skin, the sound of his voice shaping her name.
When he finally lifted his head, she stared up at him in a daze and whispered, “Jason?”
“I just spoke with your brother,” he said in a low, ragged tone. She had gone boneless, and he held her to him now, one big hand resting on her waist, the other supporting her spine.
She blinked up at him, warm and stupidly content in his arms, wondering if she had finally and truly lost her mind. “You spoke with William?” she echoed.
He gave her a little sh
ake.
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth about what your father did, Miranda? Why did I have to hear it from your brother? Why have you kept us apart all these years?”
She felt her entire body go numb. “What did William tell you?” she asked through lips she could barely seem to move.
“What you should have told me years ago—you never sent me away, your father acted without your knowledge, he locked you away to keep you from going with me—did you not think I would come for you? Did you think any force of heaven or earth could have kept me away?”
She could no longer bear to look him in the face. Tearing her hands from his, she stepped away from him and sat back on the edge of the fountain.
“For so long I thought you were dead,” she said. “I had heard what happened to men in the hulks. Seven years ago I sent someone to find out what had happened to you, and no one could tell me. You vanished. I believed you were dead, Jason.” She closed her eyes. Even now, the memory of that time made her catch her breath on a throb of pain. “When your name began appearing in the papers as the owner of Blakewell’s, I finally learned you were alive. I wanted to find you, but I didn’t know if you would still want to see me. And then Father was thrown from his horse. I could not leave him.” She swallowed and looked down at her furled fingers. “He was a difficult man, and he could be unjust,” she said softly. “But he was my father.”
“But after he died—”
“Ten years had passed, Jason,” she said in a low voice. “We were so young then. It did not seem possible to me you might still love me.”
“What of when you came to the club to ask for my help? Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“William came first. I needed your promise to help him. And then, after we had—” She flushed. “After we had—I didn’t want you to marry me out of guilt. I didn’t know what good it would do to bring up the past again if you didn’t love me anymore.”
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