She had at first glance taken him for Castor. Then, as he raised his gaze to see her enter, the flash of sweetness in his smile identified him as Pollux.
Miranda stood opposite Poll at the worktable and leaned both fists on the scarred and burned—and she wasn’t sure what that violent scarlet stain was but it was probably best to avoid touching it—tabletop.
“Poll, you must tell me everything—and don’t you dare edit it for my tender ears. I am a grown woman. I can handle anything.”
So he told her everything—all about Cas’s big dream, and his bargain with the Prince Regent.
Miranda pressed her fingertips to her lips. “Oh. Oh dear.” It seemed she wasn’t the only one who’d lost something on the night of the Wyndhams’ ball!
Poll told her of Cas’s anger at being manipulated—
“Well,” she reminded him, “I did tell you I didn’t care for the plan.”
Poll nodded, then went on to explain the orgy and Lily—and Dilly—who actually did sound like good sorts if one could overcome the whole prostitution obstacle.
“Do you really believe that Cas didn’t dally with Lily—or Dilly—” Miranda shook her head. So many flower names!
Poll gave her an exasperated glance. “Cas might not tell me everything, but he would never lie. Not to me.”
Miranda drew back at his vehemence. “Oh.” Biting her lip, she decided to believe him, for he had never lied to her. “So you believe that Cas’s, er, overreaction was because he does love me?”
“Love you?” Poll shook his head, laughing sadly. “Miranda, Cas is tearing himself, all of us, into tiny little pieces—and it’s all for you!”
“Me?” I don’t believe you, my friend. “I don’t understand. Poll, where is he? Why is everyone acting like he’s gone away forever?”
He shook his head again, sadly this time. “That was the bargain he made, you see. The Prince Regent promised to intercede on your behalf—to negate the Scandal Clause by Royal Order—if Cas took himself off. Permanently. The Prince Regent said that the scandal would never die as long as Cas remained visible in the eyes of Society.”
Miranda couldn’t breathe. Her chest was far too full of her expanding heart to engage in something as tedious as breathing! “He did that? Truly?”
Poll dropped his head into his hands. “God, you’re stubborn. How did someone so sweet and gentle become so stubborn?” He lifted his head and glared at her. “Yes. He. Did. That. For. You.”
Miranda straightened and gazed down at Poll primly. Joy spiked within her like luminous crystals quickly growing. “There’s no need to be surly, Pollux.” She tugged her spencer straight and pulled at the fingertips of her gloves, arranging them properly. “Now, where is this ship?”
Chapter Thirty-six
It was a big ship, and the rough men serving upon it eyed Miranda with grim concern as she crossed the plank and made her way through coils of thick, tarred rope and mysterious wrapped bundles. Do not fear. I am not traveling today. You won’t have to fetch me lemonade or carry my parasol on walks about the deck. Not that a little coddling would go so amiss, but she was there for only one reason.
Cas.
So as to hurry her on a bit, one of the sailors briskly showed her down to the small corridor of staterooms for those people brave enough to call themselves passengers.
The rather hairy, certainly smelly, man tapped at one door, rumbled out a slurred and accented string of words that had to run through Miranda’s mind twice before decanting to “Your missus is here to see you.”
Miranda hurried to correct the man, but the door was already opening. The sailor cast Miranda a rotten-toothed grin of farewell and thudded back up the narrow, ladder-like stairs toward the deck.
Cas, taller and darker somehow—not to mention just plain delicious—stood in the tiny hole of a doorway, staring at her.
“Miranda, what are you doing here?” Then his astonishment changed to alarm. “Mira, you ought not to be here. If Prinny learns of it—” He shook off the rest of his words. “I am not good for you. You should not associate with me.”
“It’s lovely to see you as well, Mr. Worthington.” Miranda folded her arms. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
He hesitated. She could actually sense the tumbling thoughts, the spinning gears inside his mind. With a slight smile, she gave him a hint. “If I am in your cabin, I am much less likely to be spied lurking outside it.”
He reached out a hand to hers and tugged her inside. Even she had to duck to go through the low-hung doorway.
Cas closed the door behind him, thinking quickly. She’s here! She’s here, with me! And that is not hatred in her eyes!
However, there was no need for such hope to rise in his heart. Prinny would not care to have Cas fail again. There would be no more chances.
His ship would be departing soon. It was good that he should leave her, erase himself from her life, from the gossip. It was also good that he would not be here, living less than a mile from her. He was no coward, but even he could not bear such torture.
Miranda started to speak, then stopped, her nerves showing in the tremor in her voice.
Flustered, she pressed her gloved fingertips to her lips—and Cas was lost.
In two strides he took her into his arms. She squeaked slightly, then relaxed as he kissed her.
Oh, how he kissed her! So softly, so tenderly. He tried to give her his very soul in that kiss. It was nothing like his old, raging self. He still wanted the fire, but just being near her fair to burned him to death.
The desperation was gone, he realized as he lifted his mouth from hers. He had already let her go.
He did not need to grasp or cling to her. He did not need to possess her—it was enough, almost, just to know that she was in the world and that she would be well.
It was no more than he deserved. Cas smiled around the spike in his heart. Good. The sooner she forgot him, the sooner the damage he had done to her would heal, and the sooner sweet Miranda would be whole again.
After all, he was willing to die for her, either swiftly or slowly, day by endless day, for the rest of his life.
Cas suddenly realized that Miranda stood in his arms, her hands upon him, claiming him.
Loving him? Present tense?
He gazed down at her, his throat tight. He tried to swallow but his mouth had gone dry with aching, impossible hope.
“Mira—”
She stroked her fingertips over his beard-roughened jaw. “Have I ever told you how much I like the way you say my name, as if you see right through the proper exterior to the woman within?”
His heart was thudding. “Mira, I must leave. If I go, the Prince Regent has offered to overthrow the Scandal Clause in Gideon’s will. If Prinny comes down on your side, most of Society will follow along.”
She drew back. “No! No more blasted bargains! We will not bargain away our happiness ever again!” Then she gentled once more. He felt the tingle of her fingers lacing through the hair on the back of his neck. “Besides, how can I pass up a man who would trample his own heart to make me happy?”
He tried very hard to push her away, he truly did. “But your inheritance—the house on Breton Square? Your reputation?” The fact that he shifted her not an inch said a great deal about her determination—or his complete inability to resist her.
She laughed and twined her arms about his neck. “I don’t care, Cas. I don’t need anyone else to tell me that I am a good woman … not as long as you think so.”
“You are not a good woman. You are an angel.” He ran a tender fingertip down her soft cheek. “I love you,” he said for the first time.
Miranda tilted her head back to look into his eyes. Surprise lighted the deep-sea green, and then, slowly, the shock transmuted into joy, like lead into gold.
And he was the alchemist who put it there. Perhaps he was an inventor after all, for he’d invented a new man, just for her. Pride and stunning, knee-weakening gratitude
overwhelmed him.
“One more bargain, my beautiful Mira.”
Her head began to shake before he could continue. “No.”
Cas chuckled. “I think you’ll like this one.” With the fingers of one hand he stroked her fallen hair back behind her ear. “Here are my terms.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I propose that you, Mrs. Gideon Talbot, will marry me and become a Worthington in truth.”
Her smile crept past her disapproval. “I suppose I should hear you out,” she agreed cautiously.
“Thank you.” A kiss for each eye. “In turn, you, soon-to-be Mrs. Castor Worthington, will receive protestations of my undying love every day for the rest of your life.”
She nodded. “Go on.”
“More? Very well. In addition, there will be episodes of spontaneous tempest-making in our bedchamber, at your discretion.”
She blushed. “Your proposal grows interesting. I should like to hear more.”
He grinned down at her. “You bargain like a Worthington already. All right, I will invent something absolutely, incredibly useful to assist your school.”
Nodding, she tightened her arms about his neck. “That would be most welcome.”
Cas began to worry. He had nothing, therefore he had nothing to offer her. He drew back and gazed down at her seriously. “I fear I cannot offer you a new house. We shall have to live with my family—”
Her eyes brightened yet more. “Sold!”
A small laugh burst from Cas. If he’d only known that the bedlam of Worthington House would be a selling point!
She lifted her chin. “I will not stop once begun. You may want me to stop, but you will wish in vain. You must embark knowing this.”
Cas swallowed hard. Damn. “I understand.”
“Very well. Your bargain is acceptable to me.” She grinned, dimpling. “That means yes.”
“Yes,” he murmured as he pulled her hard to him.
Mine.
He kissed her again, softly, then harder and harder still.
She kissed him back, matching his intensity. Cas could feel the fire, banked and contained, knowing she would meet his heat with her own flames. He also felt the warmth, soothing and uplifting, her love and acceptance smoothing over all the rough edges.
He’d never before realized that love could be more powerful than the ache of the past.
Epilogue
Miranda stood before the looking glass in the bedroom she shared with Cas. They had been given two small chambers on a mostly unused floor of the grand old house, and Orion had set about making it one large, convenient chamber.
The plaster still smelled of lime and there was a place where the floors rose to a peak, just where the wall between used to be, but other than that, one might never know it had been two rooms.
She turned this way and that, using the morning sunlight to hopefully cast a shadow across her hips, pressing her chemise down over her small belly, trying to see what an observer would see. “Tell me,” she said over her shoulder. “Am I an expectant mother or just a woman a bit too fond of her lemon tea cakes?”
“Both.” Cas was at his dressing table, brushing soap over his face in preparation for shaving.
There was no such thing as privacy in this house, Miranda had learned.
She loved it, every shabby, ancient, creaking square foot of it.
It was full of things, of books and music and inventions and costumes and people—people who loved her, who loved Cas, and who loved her child. Though there was still pain and some things would never be the same, the Worthingtons swelled to surround the two—three—of them.
Miranda had never been so happy in any of her three former homes.
Yet, she missed Poll. They all did, of course. Poll’s family tangibly ached.
There had been no stopping him, however. “If there’s more to life than play,” he’d told her with a smile and a shake of his head, “then I intend to go find it.”
As for Miranda, she knew she would miss her dearest friend. She’d confessed this to Cas, and he’d held her while she cried for that loss. She knew he hurt for the loss of his twin like he might hurt for a missing limb.
Poll had left the house the day that she and Cas were wed. Miranda knew Poll had done it for her, that he still felt he owed her something for the game in which she’d been a pawn. She wished she could tell him that the gifts he and his brother had both given her far outweighed the pain they’d caused, but he’d quietly disappeared sometime after the ceremony and only Iris received the occasional note to reassure his mother of his continued existence.
Cas spent every day in the workshop. So far he’d invented a corking device that Miranda had promptly put to use in the children’s home. Dr. Philpott’s Evening Tonic was doing very nicely in the shops and the school might even make a profit in a few months! With or without royal patronage, Cas meant to gain a name as a serious inventor.
Later, dressed and still annoyingly slender, Miranda trotted down the stairs in search of a hearty breakfast. The rare queasiness she had suffered for the first few months had now disappeared altogether and she couldn’t seem to stop eating.
Eggs, she thought with delight. And those creamy vegetables that Philpott made especially for her—although Philpott claimed not to like her at all and it was only the baby Worthington that made her presence tolerable—even as she sneaked Miranda another lemon tea cake.
At the bottom of the stairs, Miranda stopped and cocked her head. Was that—?
Sniffle.
Yes. Attie.
Miranda knew that the infamous Book Cave existed somewhere in this hall, so she walked slowly, half-crouching, listening for the next—
Sniffle.
It came from right in front of her. Miranda sat down on the floor, which all the Worthingtons did as a matter of course, and patting her belly, began to sing a little song.
“O merry maids do come afore, and let thy feet be dancing.”
Sniffle. “You can’t sing that song to the baby. It’s bawdy.”
It was, very. It wasn’t about dancing at all. “The baby doesn’t know that.”
“I did.” Attie crawled halfway out of her Book Cave and sat scowling sorrowfully at Miranda. “I knew everything. I remember being born.”
Miranda couldn’t remember a thing before the age of four or five, but she only nodded. Attie was special. Perhaps her child would be special as well.
“Then the baby knows you are crying. He’s probably wondering why.”
Attie rubbed her wrist beneath her nose and gazed at Miranda pityingly. “She’s a girl. Thalia.”
Miranda went quite still. “I think I like that name. Thalia is a muse, is she not?”
Attie nodded. “She’s going to have your hair, and Papa’s green eyes. She’s going to be taller than you. She’s going to be gentle, like Poll, not fierce, like Cas and I.”
A chill ran up Miranda’s spine. Sometimes Attie was a little extra odd. Miranda just patted her belly again. “Then, Thalia would very much like to know why you are crying.”
Attie just crumpled, then and there. Miranda scrambled on her knees across a wall of books to wrap the girl in her arms as she cried.
“No m—matter what I d—do, they k—keep leaving!”
Miranda nodded. Her own eyes began to leak, perhaps because of the pregnancy, or perhaps because Attie’s pain pierced Miranda’s bliss, straight to the place in her heart where the child she’d once been had wailed nearly the same words so long ago.
“Oh, pet, I know—”
Pounding footsteps came toward them. Miranda was very glad she was half in the safety of the Book Cave when Lysander came rushing down the hall. He stared wildly at them both.
“Hurry! Gather in the study!”
“What?” Miranda’s heart stuttered. Lysander never spoke. “What is wrong!”
“It’s Elektra! We have to do something about Elektra!”
“Elektra,” Miranda gasped. “Is she hurt?”
“No!” Lysander ran anxious hands through his thick shaggy hair. “She’s kidnapped an earl!”
Also by CELESTE BRADLEY
When She Said I Do
Fallen
Unbound
(with Susan Donovan)
The Runaway Brides
Devil in My Bed
Rogue in My Arms
Scoundrel in My Dreams
The Heiress Brides
Desperately Seeking a Duke
The Duke Next Door
The Duke Most Wanted
The Royal Four
To Wed a Scandalous Spy
Surrender to a Wicked Spy
One Night with a Spy
Seducing the Spy
The Liar’s Club
The Pretender
The Impostor
The Spy
The Charmer
The Rogue
Praise for New York Times bestselling author
CELESTE BRADLEY
and her previous novels and series
ROGUE IN MY ARMS
“Bradley doesn’t disappoint with the second in her Runaway Brides trilogy, which is certain to have readers laughing and crying. Her characters leap off the page, especially little Melody, the precocious ‘heroine,’ and her three fathers. There’s passion, adventure, nonstop action, and secrets that make the pages fly by.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
“When it comes to crafting fairy tale–like, wonderfully escapist historicals, Bradley is unrivaled, and the second addition to her Runaway Brides trilogy cleverly blends madcap adventure and sexy romance.”
—Booklist
DEVIL IN MY BED
“From its unconventional prologue to its superb con-clusion, every page of the first in Bradley’s Runaway Brides series is perfection and joy. Tinged with humor that never overshadows the poignancy and peopled with remarkable characters (especially the precocious Melody who will steal your heart), this one’s a keeper.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
And Then Comes Marriage Page 29