by Candace Camp
But Rachel was not about to let her get away so easily. She moved up beside them and linked her arm through one of Miranda’s. “Let me introduce you to some of my friends,” she told her, guiding Miranda in the direction of a knot of young matrons.
Rachel introduced her to all the women. Some were as warm as Rachel in their greetings, others almost frosty. Miranda could feel their eyes running over her gown, assessing style and cost. She knew that it had been made by one of the premiere modistes in London, so she had no fears on that score. No doubt the ones who wanted to would find something to criticize about her manner or speech, but Miranda did not care. She knew that she had dressed for only one person here tonight—and it seemed as if it might all be a waste. There was no sign of the Earl of Ravenscar anywhere.
She knew that people were talking about her. She saw the sidelong glances and heard the whispers behind hands and fans as Rachel led her along, introducing her to a dizzying array of girls dressed all in white, matrons in magnificent dresses and black-clad dowagers lined up in chairs against the wall. Every now and again, when Rachel turned away to speak to someone else, she could hear snippets of conversation:
“…so wild only an American would marry him…”
“…nothing but gambling dens and houses of ill repute…”
“Well, what can you expect? He’s run through all his fortune—cards, liquor and women.”
“…handsome as Lucifer himself, of course.”
“Thank heaven he never cast his lures to my Marie.”
“Well, she’ll be sorry.”
It was almost enough to make one feel a trifle sorry for the man, Miranda thought—if one were not already completely set against him. She also found it a bit irritating that everyone seemed to assume that if he offered, she would accept, as if an American would be happy to get a British aristocrat, no matter how low and vile he was. It was an attitude that she had encountered several times during their stay here. Back home, she and her family were counted among the highest of society; here, they seemed to be merely tolerated as something of an oddity. She found it distinctly peculiar that success in life counted for little compared to the name one carried. It was the same attitude that Ravenscar had held; the distaste and contempt at having to offer for a nobody from the former colonies had been apparent in his speech and manner. She supposed it was inevitable, having grown up among these people, that he should have turned out to be so arrogant.
She had been here almost an hour by now, and it seemed even longer, given the stultifying conversations that she had had the misfortune to be a part of. If the man did not show up soon, she thought, she was going to go home early and settle down with a nice book. It would be bound to be more entertaining than this.
At that moment, a deep voice spoke behind her and Rachel.
“My dear sister,” Ravenscar began. “A successful crush, as always.”
“Hello, Dev.” Miranda felt Rachel’s arm tense against hers, but she knew already who it was by the voice. It was the deep, wry tone of the man she had rescued, the faintest hint of amusement tingeing his voice, not the haughty drawl of the Ravenscar who had asked her to marry him.
She turned as Rachel did to face him. “And who is thi—” He stumbled gratifyingly over his words as he took his first look at Miranda. She saw the widening of his eyes and the quick way they swept down her body and back up, and she knew that her dress and hair had had exactly the effect she had hoped for. “—this lovely lady,” he went on, smoothly covering the brief hitch in his words. “Ah, but I recognize you now, Miss Upshaw. It is a pleasure to see you again.”
“It could scarcely be less of a pleasure than it was the last time we met,” Miranda replied in a voice equally smooth. “How do you do, Lord Ravenscar?”
“Better now that I have seen you.” He turned slightly toward his sister. “Rachel, I must take your guest from you. You have been monopolizing her time far too long. There is a waltz about to start, Miss Upshaw. If you would do me the honor…?”
He held out his hand, his eyes challenging in his handsome face. He knew that she would have liked to refuse him, but it would have been excessively rude, with his sister, the hostess of the party, standing right there beside them.
“I have scarcely had a chance to chat with Lady Westhampton,” Miranda lied, making an attempt to get out of the invitation.
But Rachel was too quick for her. “Oh, heavens, don’t consider me, Miss Upshaw. I have been neglecting my guests, I have so enjoyed speaking with you. Go ahead and dance with Dev. I can assure you, whatever his other faults, he is a divine dancer. You and I will have a chance to talk again later.”
“Of course.” Miranda could do nothing now, with everyone watching them, except to give in gracefully.
She took the arm he proffered and walked with him out onto the dance floor. They turned to face each other, and he took her hand in his, slipping the other lightly around her waist. She looked up at him, her heart beating faster than she would have liked. The man was undeniably handsome.
He swung her onto the floor as the first notes of the waltz began, and for the next few moments they did not speak, only moved with the music, concentrating on adjusting their steps to each other. It was easy to dance with him, Miranda found. He was, as his sister had said, an excellent dancer—moving gracefully and leading her with the slightest of guidance, not shoving and jerking one about as some men were prone to do. After they had settled into the rhythm of the dance, Devin smiled down at her a trifle ironically.
“Well, quite a transformation, I must say.”
“Not so much so—if one bothers to look beneath the surface of things.”
“Ah, a direct hit, Miss Upshaw. You have me there. I was careless the other day.”
“You were rude,” Miranda corrected him crisply. “Arrogant and rude and thoroughly dislikable.”
“Yes. I confess I was all that. And after you had come to my rescue the night before. It was very boorish of me.”
His ready admission of his lack of manners took Miranda by surprise. She had expected him to argue, or deny her statement—or perhaps simply ignore it. She was unprepared for him to agree with her. It left her, she found, with little to say.
He smiled at her expression. “You see, at least I am honest. You can give me credit for that.”
“That counts for something, I suppose…. A very small something.”
“At least I have something to build on, then. Perhaps I can make up for my lack of manners the other day.”
“I am not sure if that is possible. One would always know, you see, that your polished manners were merely a facade, and behind them lay the same fellow who behaved so badly.”
“No excuse will do, then? No apology suffice? Is there to be no allowance for improving oneself?”
“Improving oneself is a good thing, as long as it is real.”
“You obviously doubt my ability to do so…or my veracity.”
“I do not really know you well enough to say, Lord Ravenscar. The situations in which I have seen you…”
“I know. I have not appeared at my best.” A grin quirked one corner of his mouth. “Although there are many who would say that I have no best.”
“Indeed? So far you are not making a very good case for yourself.”
“No, I am not, am I? I think that it must be you, Miss Upshaw. I am usually much more glib. You leave me tongue-tied.”
“Indeed? I am amazed that I have such power over you. Especially given that you are the sixth Earl of Ravenscar, and I am just a provincial nobody who scarcely knows who her grandfather was.” She smiled up sweetly at him.
Ravenscar let out a groan. “You aren’t going to let me forget that, are you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Let me make my apologies, Miss Upshaw.”
“All right.” She looked up at him expectantly. “Go ahead. Make them.”
Her words seemed to fluster him. He glanced away, saying, “Well, ah…”
“I apologize,” he said finally, and looked back down at her. “I should not have acted the way I did or said the things I did. I have no excuse, except…frankly, I was angry, and I am afraid that I took it out on you.”
Ravenscar looked faintly surprised, as if he had not expected to say what he had—or perhaps had not realized the truth of it until this moment. He hesitated, then said, “May we talk?”
“I thought that is what we were doing.”
“No, I mean—” he guided them to the edge of the dance floor and stopped “—let’s take a stroll, get a breath of fresh air. And talk.”
“All right,” Miranda agreed. She wasn’t sure what Ravenscar was up to, or exactly why he had this sudden urge to talk. She supposed that he was working on some way to get her to accept his proposal. She would not put it past him to try some nefarious scheme to get her to marry him—such as ruining her reputation—but she was confident that she could outwit him. And she was interested in finding out what he had devised to convince—or force—her to accept his proposal.
She put her hand on his arm and walked with him around the perimeter of the room until they reached the wide double doors open onto the terrace of the spacious house. There were other people on the terrace, escaping the hot, confining air of the ballroom. Some strolled along as they did, and some stood in knots of conversation. Miranda saw more than one pair of eyes slide in their direction and away, and she glimpsed just as many hands raised to cover whispers. She felt sure that everyone was talking about them. She did not know exactly what the gossip was or how much everyone in Ravenscar’s set knew about his proposal, but it was obvious that there had been rumors flying.
Ravenscar smoothly guided Miranda away from the other occupants of the terrace and down the shallow steps onto one of the garden paths, lit by lanterns placed here and there among the trees.
“I did not want to have to marry,” he said to her. “That was why I was angry—and embarrassed. So I acted the fool.” He cast a sideways glance at her. “If I had known who you were, it would have been entirely different.”
“Indeed?” Miranda responded coolly. If the man thought that this was an adequate apology, then he had a great deal to learn.
He came to a stop, so that she had to stop, too, and turned her to him. Miranda looked up into his eyes, dark in the dim light of the garden, and suddenly her knees felt a trifle weak. Perhaps this apology was quite enough, after all. She felt a rush of sensations that had nothing to do with holding a grudge against the man.
“Why, yes. The mystery woman who came so boldly to my aid…the beautiful woman I see before me…how could I be anything but intrigued?”
“Despite being those things,” Miranda replied, “I am also still the American nobody whom your mother is forcing you to marry.”
His eyes flashed. “I am not forced by my mother to marry you. She hasn’t the power.”
Miranda turned away, hiding a smile. It was almost too easy to goad him. She had found that when others underestimated her, it was much simpler to manipulate them. It had often worked to her advantage when dealing with men who thought her incompetent simply because she was a woman. It was just as easy with these British aristocrats, who thought her unsophisticated and even dull-witted simply because she was an American.
“I am sorry. I should have said, whom you were forced to marry to keep out of—how is it you say it here?—dun territory?”
“If you wish to put it that way,” he said, irritation grating his voice. “Miss Upshaw, I am my own man. I shall marry as I choose.”
He came closer, moving around her so that he faced her again. Miranda kept her face downcast, more to hide the dance of humor in her eyes than out of any shyness. Ravenscar put his hand beneath her chin and tilted it up so that she looked up into his face.
“I rushed my fences with you,” he said, smiling faintly. “I apologize. I am not usually so cow-handed. Please accept my apologies and allow me to pay court to you.”
He reached down and took her arm in his hand, lifting it and bending to plant a gentle kiss on the inside of her wrist. “Let me show you the man I can be. Give me a chance. Give us a chance.”
As he spoke, his lips moved in soft kisses up her arm to her elbow. The cultivated charm of his words irritated Miranda, but she could not hold back the deep rush of pleasure at the touch of his lips on her flesh. She did not know how the merest feather of a kiss on the sensitive skin of her inner arm could make her abdomen flood with heat and her skin tingle.
“My lord,” she said, embarrassed to find that her voice trembled, “this is scarcely proper. We are in the garden alone.”
“Yes, we are.” His voice was husky. His hands slid around her waist and gently pulled her closer.
“People will—”
“Damn people.” He lowered his head and kissed her.
Desire thrilled through her as it had the first time he kissed her, startling and alarming her even as she melted against him. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her body into his. His body was hard and masculine, delightfully different from her own. Miranda had never felt the strength and power of a man’s body pressing into her this way; no man she knew would ever have dared to be so presumptuous. The fact that this man had no fear of her added somehow to the quiver of pure lust that darted through her. She tasted his mouth, hot and hungry, felt his heat as it rushed through his body. She trembled, her fingers curling into the lapels of his jacket, holding on to him in a suddenly unstable world.
Devin made a noise low in his throat and gathered her to him even more closely, the carefully calculated kiss turning unexpectedly into one of passion. His lips dug into hers, and she answered him with an equal enthusiasm, surprising him into an explosion of desire deep within. He had wanted to seduce her, to manipulate her into wanting him. Suddenly all he wanted was to feel her naked beneath him.
He slid his hands down her back and over her rounded buttocks, squeezing and lifting her up into him. Miranda could feel the hard length of him against her, and though she had had no experience in such things, she knew instinctively what it was, and the thought made her loins ache. Her arms went up and around his neck, and she strained against him. He groaned, his hands running wild over her back and hips.
Miranda clung to him, aware of little else except the intense pleasure coursing through her. Her breasts ached and tingled in a way she had never imagined, and her loins throbbed heavily. She wanted to wrap her legs around him and ease the emptiness growing there. She wanted to feel his hands on her breasts and legs…everywhere. His body was like a furnace, his breath hot against her cheek, and the feel of it spiraled her desire.
His mouth left hers, and she almost sobbed at the loss. Then his lips were trailing like fire down the column of her throat, caressing her like velvet as he nipped gently with his teeth. His hand slid up the front of her, between their bodies, and cupped her breast, shocking and arousing her. His thumb rubbed over her nipple through the material, hardening the little bud and sending a sizzle of desire through her so intense that she groaned aloud.
It was the sound of her own voice, uncontrolled and strange to her, that shocked her out of the trance of desire in which Ravenscar had locked her. She realized with a rush of shame where they were and what she was doing. She had planned to show up the arrogant earl, and instead he had seduced her as easily as the lowest tavern wench, making her hot and panting with desire for him, eager to feel his touch, his kiss…and so much more that it made her blush just to think of it.
“No!” She pulled away from him, and, startled, he let her go. He stood watching her, his arms shockingly empty, fire coursing, unfulfilled, through his veins.
Miranda smoothed down her dress and reached up to push a strand of disheveled hair back into place. “Really, Lord Ravenscar,” she said, forcing all the cool calm she could muster into her voice. She must not let him see how e
asily he could shake her; it would be too humiliating. “This is scarcely the time or place. Anyone could come upon us at any moment.”
“They won’t.” His voice was low and, it startled him to find, almost shaking with the intensity of his desire. “We can go farther back. I know a place—” Devin stopped abruptly, realizing with horror that he was almost begging.
A saving anger pierced Miranda at the thought that he knew the best place to seduce a woman in his sister’s garden. “Yes,” she said icily, “I am sure that you have had ample experience there. However, I do not intend to be one of your doxies.”
She turned to face him, her gray eyes shining silver with anger. “There really is no need for this charade, my lord. We both know what you want of me, and it is silly to pretend to a passion that neither one of us feels.” Her smile was chilly. “You will not seduce me into marriage.”
Her words were like salt on the raw sore of his sexual frustration. He had damn well felt passion—an alarming amount of it, in fact—in obvious contrast to her icy lack of it. It irritated him profoundly that he, who had set out to seduce her, had been the one to succumb to desire, while she stood there, cool and contemptuous.
“I do not intend to marry you. I never did, even before your tasteless proposal,” Miranda went on, feeling once again in control. It was frightening how easily she had almost lost that control. To think she had come so close to falling like a naive girl for this cad’s false seduction! “I am not interested in an arranged marriage—although, of course, I can see the advantages of one.”
“Indeed.” Devin folded his arms across his chest, regarding Miranda sourly.
“Oh, yes, indeed. For you, of course, there is my money. For me, well…I would be able to introduce my sister Veronica into London society in the way that my stepmother wishes. That would please both Veronica and my stepmother, who are both quite dear to me. And your name, of course, is an old and respected one, despite the fact that you have tarnished it with your dissipated ways.”
“What!” His eyes widened, and his hands dropped to his sides, balling into fists. “How dare you?”