Then again, I don’t look like a woman who is secretly having a wildly wicked affair. Miranda looked down at herself in the fitted bronze gown that did miraculous things for her middling bosom. Or perhaps I do.
Miranda adored Mr. Button, and Mr. Button adored Lady Alicia. That was all Miranda needed to know about her. She smiled back at her hostess in delight.
“Button has told me so much about you!” they said simultaneously.
They both laughed. Lady Alicia smiled at her conspiratorially. “Button has perhaps told me a bit too much about you! Tell me, are Worthington men as delicious as they look?”
“Exceptionally scrumptious.” Miranda quirked a brow. “And how fares your stab wound, my lady? Have you saved the nation lately?”
“I like you!” Lady Alicia giggled. “Mutual blackmail guarantees mutual silence!”
She tucked her arm through Miranda’s and walked her into the ballroom, glancing down at their similar gowns. “Button thinks of everything. We look quite well matched, don’t we?”
Miranda agreed. “We are most appetizing. I fully intend to systematically break hearts all evening long.”
Lady Alicia snickered. “Come, then! Let us make grown men weep!”
* * *
Miranda wasn’t sure whether it was Lady Alicia’s patronage or the Lementeur gown, but by the end of the first hour, Mrs. Gideon Talbot was officially declared a devastating Original.
By the end of the second hour, she could scarcely move for the circle of new suitors about her. Even Mr. Seymour lurked nearby, though he could not possibly have mistaken her refusal for anything but definitive. She saw him eyeing her gown sourly.
However, she refused to allow anyone’s bitterness to ruin her evening!
By the end of the third hour, she’d had three spontaneous offers of marriage from young men barely old enough to shave. One of them did actually weep, just as Lady Alicia had predicted. A few older, married fellows had dropped barely veiled hints that she’d make a wonderful mistress, and she’d received one forthright offer from a distinguished silver-haired gentleman for a single night in her arms: a very fine house on the edge of Mayfair, furnishings negotiable.
She knew the street well. It was an extremely pretty house. She smiled. “Very tempting, my lord, but I fear I am well claimed already.”
This response set up a clamor to know who the lucky bastard was, but Miranda only smiled mysteriously and accepted the next offer to waltz. However, as she danced, she could not help but keep her eye out for a certain tall brown-haired man.
The only thing that would make her triumph complete would be if Cas could see her transformation. Unfortunately, there was as yet no sign of a single Worthington.
Damn it.
* * *
Cas strolled through Mrs. Blythe’s Midsummer Madness ball and tried to remember why he’d once found this sort of thing so exciting.
So there’s somewhere you’d rather be tonight?
No. No there was not. This was precisely where he belonged.
After all, it was another outstanding orgy. This year’s theme was “Country Faire.” Stalls lined the ballroom, with signs above them proclaiming SHOOT THE BASKET or STRONGMAN COMPETITION.
The activities were, of course, not something one would ever see in public. Cas, for one, would never think of bobbing for apples in quite the same way again.
He paused curiously at a booth where pretty young women and young men were dressed as dolls, with matching dresses and suits and faces painted with bow lips and round pink cheeks. He tilted his head, trying to figure out what the game might possibly be.
The sign above said only HIT THE MARK!
As he watched, a portly gent was blindfolded and spun round and round. As he turned about, Cas saw more of the bloke than he really wished.
“Oh!” His brows flew up. “Ninepins!”
Sure enough, the man rushed forward and ran directly into the line of “pins.” There was much blushing and ribbing when he found the last one still standing was a young man, but he allowed the “pin” to take his hand and lead him into one of the small private tents anyway.
Cas turned away with a shake of his head. He wondered if the young man’s name was “Mark.” Fortunately for all concerned, the events that occurred at Blythe’s remained at Blythe’s.
All around him, men and women were enjoying thrills and satisfaction. In contrast, Cas felt hollow. There was an ache in his chest. All he wanted, all he could feel, was Miranda.
I am not a puppet on her string.
I am my own man.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Poll strolling past the ninepins and stopping to gawk in surprise. Poll. Like a shadow Cas could not shake.
Like a spy.
Cas reached down and tested his fury. Yes, it was still there, still sick and roiling and black. Enough fury for a lifetime.
Enough to get him laid at least three times before he thought of Miranda again!
Enjoy the show, Poll!
* * *
Poll saw Cas throw a glare over his shoulder at him, then watched as Cas strode purposefully toward two beautiful blond women.
Lily and Dilly, on the prowl.
Unfortunately for the fellows trying to chat them up at the moment, they saw Cas coming and turned their backs on their companions, lifting their smiles up to Cas’s sardonically smiling face like flowers to the sun.
The two men, younger than most at the event, were strapping fellows still in their prime, although getting a bit thick about the middles. Poll well knew that blokes like that could really pack a punch if they wished.
From the looks on their disappointed faces as they watched Cas walk away with an arm about each twin, they wished.
Damn it, Cas, if you’re so damn determined to misbehave, can you not at least pick on some smaller, older fellows? Blind and creaky, doddering, even?
Sure enough, he saw Cas glance back over his shoulder at the fuming duo and laugh shortly. Then his gaze sought and met Poll’s.
Twins hardly needed to speak to communicate. Poll knew precisely what Cas wanted to say.
I do as I please. No one controls me—not even you, brother!
Poll sighed. “Too bloody right no one controls you,” he muttered to Cas from across the room. “Not even yourself, apparently!”
Poll reached a long arm to snatch a drink off a tray carried by a girl dressed as a barefoot country milkmaid—one in dire need of a needle and thread!—and tossed it back without even looking at it.
The whiskey hit his throat like a hammer. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and tossed the glass to the milkmaid, who caught it with one hand. Poll barely noticed that the movement caused her tattered bodice to fail in its duty. His focus was entirely on his brother, and in keeping his furious twin from self-destruction or, worse, from breaking Miranda’s heart!
* * *
Miranda whirled in yet another waltz, this time in the arms of a tall, handsome man who might have once seemed quite pleasing to her. Lord Something. Lord Fowler? No, Foley!
She was relieved that she would be able to bid her partner a polite good-bye despite the fact that he had yet to look her in the eye, obviously preferring the view somewhat lower.
Bosoms were for peeking at, not for staring! Such behavior showed a certain lack of self-control, or perhaps an infantile obsession, neither of which tendencies made her interested in becoming more closely acquainted.
She turned her smile down by several candlepower and added a tinge of entirely false regret. “Oh my! I’ve been danced off my feet! I believe I ought to sit this one out. I’m terribly sorry,” she lied.
“Please, do not wait upon me. There are so many lovely ladies who have yet to dance. There.” She pointed out the most bosomy of all the adult women. “She hasn’t had a partner for an hour!” She gave him a little push, then turned and fled while he leered.
Not even the attentions of unworthy men could upset her tonight! She felt shimmering and light as she moved ab
out the floor, as if her body weighed nothing, buoyed skyward by exhilaration.
So this is what happiness feels like.
A servant in the stylish forest green livery of Wyndham House bowed to Miranda.
“A message for you, Mrs. Talbot.”
Miranda widened her eyes, then took it from him eagerly. The smile she gave the man made him draw in his breath. She turned aside, unfolding the note.
Miranda—
She smiled. It was in Poll’s cramped hand. As she read on, however, her smile faded.
I need you. Cas has been wounded in a brawl. Please, come at once!
Her heart went still with fear. Her hand shaking, she read on.
There was an address next, one nearly a half mile off.
I dare not ask anyone else. Please, tell no one!
Miranda swallowed, her dry throat catching tightly. Wildly, she looked about the room and found the liveried man. His face brightened as she neared him, but when he saw her expression, he came to instant alertness.
“Madam, how may I serve you?”
“Please, who gave this to you?”
He blinked. “It came to the door, madam. A runner boy brought it and said it was for you. Is there anything I may assist you with?”
“No. Yes! I need a carriage!”
“Lord Wyndham has several prepared. He would wish for you to take one. I shall have it brought around the front, madam.”
Miranda nodded and turned away. She must go at once.
The front hall would be reached by going up the grand curving stair at the end of the ballroom. Miranda tried to move quickly, but found the way blocked. Hurriedly she dodged the lady with the ridiculously puffed sleeves, and sidestepped a servant with a tray of champagne flutes.
Keeping her eye on her escape route, she dipped and spun her way through the dancers.
I look as if I’ve lost my partner. He is somewhere else, hurt and in trouble.
She was agasp by the time she made it across the ballroom. Picking up her skirts, she ran lightly up the winding stair that led to the great double doors at the top.
Three steps up, she encountered a familiar lady coming down.
“Oh, good evening, Mrs. Teagarden.” She was a friend of Constance’s, someone in fact that Constance had always longed to impress. Miranda had no such intention, but her lifelong habit of good manners forced her to slow and nod in greeting. “You are looking most stylish this evening.”
The woman’s stole looked as if she’d forgotten and brought one of her many cats instead. Perhaps it had died of old age on the journey and she’d thrown it over her shoulder for a later burial?
“Oh, it’s you.” Mrs. Teagarden blinked at her in surprise. “But I thought you’d been run out of London!”
Miranda shook her head, confused but unwilling to take a single moment to untangle the dowager’s meaning. She brushed past Mrs. Teagarden, heading upstream, dodging ladies and gentlemen and servants alike.
Just before the hall, she paused for a moment, pressing her hand to the stitch in her side. The corset that enabled her to fit into her dress made her lungs fail to fill completely and her head swam a bit, although perhaps that was because her very blood had turned to ice.
Lightheaded with fear, she pressed her cool hands to her hot cheeks and made for the hall beyond the doors.
She must get to Cas!
Chapter Twenty-seven
Upstairs at last, Miranda rushed through the milling guests, some still arriving and doffing their wraps amid helpful servants.
A familiar face swam through Miranda’s distracted vision.
Elektra Worthington! And that must be their mother, Iris, as well. Miranda hurried forward as more Worthingtons entered the hall.
There was that fair-haired brother, what was his name? Yes, Daedalus. Such an odd name to saddle a son with. Of course, all the names in that family were a mouthful … Elektra, Daedalus, Atalanta.
“Miranda!” Elektra beamed at her. Miranda found herself noticing the girl’s incredible beauty, even in her preoccupied state. “Mama, this is Mrs. Gideon Talbot! Miranda, this is my mother, Iris Worthington.”
Miranda almost threw herself on Elektra, ready to share her worry, then remembered that Poll had said to tell no one. Not even his family—Cas’s family?
Tell no one.
If he’d felt able to turn to his family, would he not have called upon his parents, or at least his brothers?
No, whatever had happened, it was clear to Miranda that she must not breathe a word.
She rushed past Elektra and Mrs. Worthington with only a nod. “So sorry. I will call, soon, but I must go—”
* * *
Elektra helped her mother remove her best, if slightly tatty, velvet cape—all the while watching Miranda Talbot, the world’s most serene and even-tempered woman, flee the house in a white-faced panic.
“Mother, something is afoot.” She frowned. “I smell a fracas brewing.”
Iris peered dreamily up at the chandeliers. “Yes, my dear. Aren’t those crystals lovely? They shimmer like fairy wings, casting rainbows about the room..”
Elektra patted her mother’s arm absently. “Yes, Mama. Like fairy wings.” For all she knew, her mother knew exactly whereof she spoke. It must be lovely to live in dreams. Unfortunately, someone had to be practical in Worthington House.
Where the bloody hell was Dade? Oh, there, bringing Papa in from the front steps where he’d been distracted by the grand ornate knocker on the door to Wyndham House.
“It’s Perseus, you see,” Archie was telling Dade. “Just marvelous! I know it appears at first glance to be a simple Medusa, but if you look closely, there is the hand of Perseus, clasping the snakes—”
Elektra caught Dade’s eye across the hall and lifted her chin and rolled her eyes. Trouble.
Dade narrowed his and did a swift head count in the hallway. Everyone was accounted for but Attie and the twins. Who?
Elektra smirked and held up two fingers.
Who the bloody hell do you think?
Dade towed Archie closer. “How do you know?”
Elektra explained Miranda’s unusual departure. “Who else would Miranda get all atwitter about? It has to be Cas or Poll.”
“Or Cas and Poll,” Dade finished grimly.
“You know where they are tonight,” Elektra said meaningfully. “She … she wouldn’t go there, would she?”
Dade frowned. “No. No, she wouldn’t. Would she?”
* * *
Wyndham’s driver exchanged a shocked glance with the liveried servant when Miranda recited the address she’d been given.
“Ah … madam, are you sure that is where you wish to go?”
Miranda, who by this time was nearly on fire with urgency, snapped uncharacteristically. “Of course, I’m sure. Now, let us go or let me find another conveyance!”
The servant looked up at the driver. “Wait for her,” he instructed the man. “Er, outside.”
The driver nodded silently, but gave Miranda another strange look as the servant helped her into the carriage.
“Are you sure you won’t let me send a footman along, madam?”
Tell no one. Miranda shook her head at the reasonable and somewhat tempting offer. “I shall be fine with the driver.” Whatever Poll’s secret was, he would not be betrayed by her!
The man looked worried, but shut the door and gave it a knock to signal the driver to roll on.
Traffic was not yet heavy, for the worst had been earlier and would be again later, when the various events broke up for the evening, but Miranda felt as though the carriage traveled on the back of a turtle. She fretted at every slowing of the wheels, and nearly burst into tears when a tipped cart held the carriage traffic back for half a block whilst it was righted.
At last the driver stopped before a large house on a street Miranda had never visited.
She didn’t wait for him to jump down to take her hand, but slipped out of the carriage and ran
up the steps.
The fellow at the door hardly even looked at her, but simply opened the door as if he saw disheveled, out-of-breath ladies every day.
Miranda ran into the front hall and then stopped, her mouth dropping open. A half-dozen ladies … er, women were dashing to and fro, carrying trays and looking as if they’d been dressed by someone who wished them all to catch a chill!
Apparently disheveled and breathless were quite the norm.
Miranda might be a bit unworldly, but one did not need to be a whore to recognize a whorehouse when one saw it.
A spectacularly underdressed woman approached her. “Blimey, it’s about bloody time! I’m overrun! It ain’t just you, is it, lovey? You’ve brought along a dozen friends, I hope?”
Belatedly, Miranda realized that the girl was dressed as a sort of milkmaid, if milkmaids were prone to going about with their bosom released for an airing.
She pulled her shocked gaze up to the woman’s face. “I’m—I’m looking for Mr. Worthington. I need to find him at once.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Don’t we all, pet? Lily and Dilly snapped up those two months back. Twins for twins, I suppose, eh?”
So Miranda was in the right place.
The outré location at least explained the “tell no one” portion of the message. Poll would hardly want his poor mother to know that he and Cas had come to a place of ill repute!
But why were they in a place like this when she’d been expecting them at Wyndham’s ball?
Miranda threw off her cape and tossed it to the milkmaid. “I am here to see Mr. Worthington,” she commanded. “Show me to him, now!”
The girl gaped at the stylish gown and the pearls and Miranda’s no-nonsense lady-of-the-house expression and, despite her earlier cheekiness, curtsied, her generous breasts bobbing cheerfully. “Yes, miss. Right away, miss.”
Miranda followed the woman into the house and down into yet another ballroom. She could see from the top of the stairs that this one was laid out in some sort of bazaar or faire.
“There.” The girl stood at the railing and pointed. “That’s ’im, ain’t it?”
Miranda looked down the steps to an area partitioned off by bales of hay—really, some people carried a theme a bit far. Hay in a ballroom?—where she saw a familiar brown-haired fellow sitting on a velvet-lined nook carved out of the stack of bales.
And Then Comes Marriage Page 23