And Then Comes Marriage

by Celeste Bradley

  Had he only pretended interest in order to get closer to her? Or had she thrown too much at him at once? She shook off a tide of combined hurt and regret. She hadn’t handled the afternoon well—but then, neither had Mr. Worthington!

  Standing before her still, Twigg cleared his throat.

  Miranda opened one eye. “Yes, Twigg?” She hoped she was not in for another discussion about the insubordination of her carefully chosen staff. Heavens, she was weary of his insecurities.

  But it was not Twigg she was to be dealt now.

  “Mr. Seymour, madam. He called while you were out. He asked to wait, but after nearly an hour he took his leave.”

  Twigg looked a bit sour at the notion of having a visitor to tend to without his employer to view what a good job he was doing. “He left behind a parcel for you. I placed it in the parlor. I hope that is acceptable.”

  Miranda could not help a weary sigh. “Yes, Twigg, that is acceptable.” Yes, Twigg, you are the finest butler in the history of mankind. You are a genius, a beacon of high servitude, a legend in your own time.

  Knowing that venting her sarcasm would only wound him, she nodded and escaped his hovering by going to the parlor for the parcel herself.

  “Oh … bother.” A few moments later, she sat frowning down at the opened parcel in her lap in consternation. Now, what in heaven’s name was she supposed to do about this?

  Mr. Seymour, for some odd reason uniquely his own, had purchased her a gown.

  What sort of man bought a dress for a woman without consulting her, making sure of her approval? Or even her consent?

  The gown itself was fine silk, but it was of such a muddy green that the sheen very nearly looked to be slime. After pondering it for several long moments, it occurred to Miranda that the color had been chosen to match her eyes—if her eyes were the color of pond scum!

  Her fingers found a note tucked into the folds. My dearest Miranda—

  Presumptuous fellow. She had no memory of ascending to a given-name basis with Mr. Seymour.

  I hope you accept this trifle in the spirit in which it is meant. I only wish to assist in speeding you from your mourning and back into the sparkling life you deserve.

  Well, that was rather dear … and if she was not mistaken, precisely the same reason she’d been introduced to the great Lementeur. But that had not been Mr. Seymour’s doing. This ugly silken offering assured her of that.

  I hope that you will wear it for me soon, and often. I long to sit next to you in your parlor and consider you in my chosen raiment.

  “Oh, dear.”

  It was odd, and inappropriate, considering that they’d only taken tea in this parlor a bare dozen times, and what was more, it seemed rather scheming.

  Did Mr. Seymour assume the right to decide her wardrobe with this “offering”?

  “Not bloody likely!” After the exquisite silks she’d had to chose from in Lementeur’s salon, the gown made her actually shudder. She pushed it aside and stood.

  She was most decidedly going to have to do something about Mr. Seymour!

  * * *

  When Poll returned to Worthington House, he hesitated before entering. He still felt out of sorts and restless from his blunder with Miranda. He knew that if Ellie started in on him, or if Dade gave him that ridiculous look of disappointment—ridiculous since Dade was only a few years the elder!—that he might just end up in Newgate himself!

  Therefore, since whom he really had to avoid was Cas, it would be a good idea if he cooled off before he saw anyone. Instead of going inside, he ducked around to the back of the rambling old house by way of the mews and entered the old carriage house. This was where Dade and Callie had banished the twins’ workshop when they were twelve and that truly inspiring experiment in lamp oil had taken a sadly wrong turn.

  It still seemed like a good idea—a lamp oil in a solid form that would burn in a cake. It wouldn’t spill when overturned and there would be vastly fewer fires but it had never quite gelled and there had been a great many fires. If his mood hadn’t already been sour, it would have made him smile to remember Callie, barely sixteen, standing in the doorway of their smoking bedchamber, with her foot a-tapping with vexation.

  Now it only made him twitch under the cloak of the weight of his family’s ever-present … well, presence.

  The mews consisted of the barnlike structure that held the carriage and the stables where lived the two elderly mounts who had taught all eight Worthington siblings everything they needed to know about lazy, stubborn, intractable mounts. Also residing there, side by side with the ancient nags, much to his evident equine bemusement, was Dade’s rather lovely gelding, Icarus.

  One really couldn’t envy Dade his good fortune for possessing such a creature, for Dade had actually scrimped and saved and worked for him. The acquisition had taken years, what with the family’s finances being, ah, unstable.

  That was fine for Dade, but Poll still held out the hope that he would win a good horse of his own in a card game or at dice, so why bother scrimping when there were tempting waistcoats to purchase and good-natured barmaids to impress?

  Except that he didn’t feel like playing cards at the moment and he had lost interest in dandified attire and he hadn’t so much as spoken to a barmaid in a month and a half. Was that all he was, in the end—cards and clothes and pretty, forgettable women? Was that all he was ever going to be? Was that all there was to look forward to, year after year of playing?

  He rubbed a hand over his face, not quite sure what he should do with his unexpectedly serious existence.

  I wonder, would the world stop spinning if, just once, you did something other than play?

  With this thought roiling through his brain, it was no wonder that he opened the door of the workshop with a kick and shut it with a decided slam.

  “Do you mind?” came a voice from one side of the doorway.

  Poll turned to see Cas seated on a stool at one of the worktables, surrounded by lanterns and bent close over some sort of intricate drawing.

  Once he would have pulled up another stool, eager to hear all about his twin’s new idea. At that point, he would usually take over the drawing, for he had a knack for such things.

  Instead, Poll turned his back on Cas and strode thoughtfully to the other, second-best workbench, the one with the wobbly leg and the grain so scorched and burned that it was difficult to write legible notes on.

  There was nothing on the table, other than dust and the odd wooden splinter from that unfortunately under-built guillotine trial. They’d be finding those fragments for years, no doubt.

  He didn’t have a current project of his own, at the moment. The last thing he’d made alone was the jouncing ball toy, and that had been more than six weeks ago.…

  Yes. Well. He was beginning to see a pattern emerging that he truly didn’t feel like facing tonight.

  Well, he was here now and he’d be damned if he would leave in order to suit Cas! Just so he would look like he had a purpose and required the workroom just as much as Cas did, he lighted the last lantern and dug out a fresh quill and several sheets of paper.

  Bloody hell. Cas had all the ink.

  Poll took a deep breath. With infinite patience that practically trembled with rage, Poll put the quill away and found a stub of a pencil that he sharpened carefully with his penknife. It was no more than two inches long. When he wrote, it looked as though he were laying down lines on the paper from his own magical fingertip.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  With his jaw clenched, he commenced to sketch a box. It began as a simple one, just to be doing something, until he imagined that the edge had a graceful double curve and the top was inlaid with ebony and rosewood in a pattern that looked like … ivy.

  Yes. Miranda would remember the ivy.

  As he drew out the design, his rage faded, soothed away by his easy skill with the pencil. One part of his mind fiddled with the proportions and the curve and created a clever little secret compa
rtment while another part of mind was lolling with Miranda on the palace lawn on a fine afternoon.

  He didn’t know if a jewel case was an important contribution to society—definitely not like aiding an orphanage—but it was pretty and it might make Miranda smile at him again.

  Or he could allow her to remain upset with him—he could allow Cas the advantage, just this once.

  To Poll’s knowledge, his brother had never lurked for a woman before. Cas didn’t lurk, or loiter, or even long. Women longed for Cas, not the other way around.

  Yet there Cas had been, lurking outside Miranda’s house, following them in the hack—and, if Poll wasn’t mistaken, there had been a definite prickle on the back of his neck, the unmistakable sensation of being watched, as he and Miranda left the children’s home.

  Cas wasn’t just competing with Poll. He wasn’t simply attending Miranda out of boredom, or the hopes of an easy conquest.

  Which meant, what?

  Could it be? Could the infamous cocksman Castor Worthington finally have fallen in love?

  Poll frowned down at his hands, allowing them to continue the work while his mind went round and round a single question.

  If Cas were really in love with Miranda, if his twin had finally found a mate for his troubled soul—

  Should he, Poll, stand aside?

  * * *

  On the other side of the workshop, Cas bent over the plans on his worktable and tried to ignore his brother’s presence. He’d been working so well, too, before Poll’s obnoxious entrance.

  Once, having Poll in the room would have been of great benefit. Ideas always became ideas more exciting. Notions became drawings became reality, if not always functionally. Cas loved the process of working with Poll. Poll was the one who made truly fine pieces, for he was infinitely patient—once he was working, anyway—and would spend days perfecting the smallest, most insignificant part.

  Cas was more often more interested in power than beauty. As he looked down at the plans of the machine he had come up with, he wondered how he was going to make it look appealing without Poll’s help.

  He ought not to need Poll for this. It was his idea and his alone. He wanted to do something, anything, to take his mind off Miranda. He was confused by his own actions today; first the avoidance, then the secretive pursuit. He’d never followed a woman in his adult life. He’d rarely even thought about one once he’d left her presence. Miranda had him tied up in twisted ropes of his own feelings and her lovely, generous soul.

  She was, quite simply, astonishing. He didn’t want her body—well, he did, but he didn’t want only her body. He wanted to see the world through her cool, deep sea eyes. He wanted to immerse himself in her clean, unsullied soul.

  But most of all, for the first time in his life, he wanted to be a different sort of man. He wanted to be the kind of man she deserved.

  I wonder, would the world stop spinning if, just once, you did something other than play?

  It didn’t matter that she’d not said those words to him. He was no different from his brother. They had both forgone serious thinking at about the age of … well, always.

  Does she believe that this is all I am fit to offer humankind? A handsome place card at a dinner, an amusing companion for an evening of cards, or drinking, or wenching?

  It seemed a very small suit to wear, fit for a small man with a small world. It had choked him for some time. He had finally outgrown it, outgrown the need to flee the darkness within him with asinine, shallow pursuits.

  Forcing himself to ignore the scratching of Poll’s pencil from across the dead silent workshop, Cas rubbed a hand through his hair and narrowed his vision to the next line of his sketch and the next and the next.…

  Chapter Sixteen

  Far above their heads and carefully out of their sight, Attie perched in the rafters of the workshop and watched her dearest brothers split apart at the seams. The workshop was one of her favorite places in the world, as much as her book cave or her under-bed hideout or even Lementeur’s Cluttered Cubicle of Coruscation.

  She’d sat on those worktables a hundred times over the years, swinging her legs and gently guiding—or sometimes bellowing at the top of her lungs—her brothers to new and greater heights. They never actually credited her ideas as such, but she didn’t mind. She had scroll after scroll of her own designs hidden in various nooks and crannies of the house. Someday she would create them all.

  She was closer over Poll, so she lay down on her belly on the great beam and hooked her heels together beneath it to keep her balance as she peered at his sketch in the dim light of his single lantern.

  It was quite pretty, and Attie always had a great appreciation for a secret compartment … but the ivy was boring. Why not a hunting scene? Or better yet, a battle scene! Vikings with broadswords, beheading hapless Britons—that would be much more the thing.

  And jewel cases were just jewel cases, in the end. Of course, Miranda would like it, certainly, for she liked good pieces. Attie could tell exactly which pieces Miranda had chosen in her house and exactly which pieces had been there for ages and ages. It was like an Egyptian archeological dig, or like trying to sort out a room in Worthington House. Just layers of people and time and dust and more time.

  Once Attie had found a mystery corner of a carpet in an unoccupied servant’s room. No one had lived there for years, yet there had been a circular area of white fur embedded into the wool, just as if some large white beast had slept there for months.

  The family had never owned a dog for as long as Attie could remember, although there were some cats mousing their way through the jungle of objects filling every room. Sometimes Attie would catch one and hug it until it stopped struggling, obviously deciding that tolerating her would get it freed sooner. They reminded Attie of Ellie that way.

  But in that high attic room Attie pictured a secret polar bear, captured by her father on some long ago adventure and concealed there until he could present it to her mother for a grand wedding gift. Attie wasn’t sure why she always imagined a wedding, but—white bear, white dress—it made sense, didn’t it?

  As she pondered the enigma of the great white mystery beast, she had risen to her feet and strolled easily down the beam as it if were a sidewalk and not a ten-inch-wide catwalk above a twenty-foot drop. It was dark, but she didn’t need any light. She could, and had, performed cartwheels on these beams, though that had been with Cas and Poll holding a blanket stretched tight beneath her. The fall had been the best part.

  Reaching the spot above Cas, she dropped down to straddle the beam and leaned over, just as she had with Poll.

  Cas sat in a great circle of bright light, so she could see his drawing very clearly. He wasn’t the draftsman that Poll was, though that was mainly because Poll had more practice. Attie refused to feel any sort of preference for either twin. Such a thing, she felt strongly, was the first step to some great and terrible rift.

  A rift like right now. Attie chewed her lip for a moment, feeling the tension in the silence like a tangible barrier down the middle of the room.

  Tomorrow she ought to work on the Miranda end of the plan a bit more. It was time this nonsense ended!

  * * *

  “You ought to have more beaus.”

  Miranda looked at little Attie, who lay upon Miranda’s bed with her head hanging off the edge so that their eyes met upside down. It was a rainy afternoon and they’d already had their fill of tea and cakes.

  Sometimes Miranda wondered how it was that Attie never visited when her brothers were in attendance. However she managed it, Miranda was grateful that she could be Attie’s obviously much-needed friend—and not just her brothers’ … ah, whatever it was that she was to them.

  She watched Attie closely without seeming to. “More beaus? Why would you say that?”

  Attie rolled over onto her stomach and propped her chin on her fists. “You’re pretty. You’re almost as pretty as Elektra. She has scads of beaus, and she’s only jus
t out.”

  Since Elektra, according to her brothers and sister and even Button, was considered entirely breathtaking, Miranda dipped a little sitting curtsy from her perch on her dressing table stool. “Why, thank you, dear child.”

  Attie scowled. “I mean it. You could have lots and lots of lovers.”

  Miranda turned, for she’d been having this conversation via her dressing table mirror, to regard the child directly. “Attie! Goodness, what do you know of such things?”

  Attie pushed back her tangled mop of hopeless curls and sent Miranda a worldly look. “I know all about it. Mama gave me a book. She said my body is my carriage and I ought to know how to drive it … or was it my body is my driver and I’m the carriage?” Attie shrugged. “Mama gets a bit turned about sometimes.”

  Miranda had heard enough about the elder Worthingtons to understand Attie’s meaning. They must be entirely crackers, to let Attie roam the city unescorted—to let Attie leave her room unescorted, especially with her hair and clothing in such a state!

  Today Attie wore a too-short, too-tight dress over a pair of boy’s pegged knee-length trousers and clunky country riding boots two sizes too large, which had thankfully been left down in the parlor to dry by the fire.

  Her hair … Miranda despaired of Attie’s hair. She wasn’t even entirely sure the mess was recoverable, it had been tangled for so long. She’d never so much as breathe mention of a brush, sensing that Attie would withdraw from her at once.

  Miranda didn’t want Attie to withdraw. She wanted her to come closer, so she allowed her to come and go at will, always ready with sugary tea cakes and a decided lack of censure, no matter how hoydenish she was. Like a lonely wild thing, Attie circled closer by the day.

  The little girl missed her married eldest sister, Calliope, with a dreadful ache that Miranda could feel emanating from her in waves. Callie had been as much mother as sister. It was evident that while adored, Elektra was most thoroughly a sister, and Iris Worthington was rather more like a beloved but exasperating pet.

  So Miranda set out to inspire little Atalanta by example. Even now, she ran her brush through her own gleaming hair, though it scarcely needed it.