by Candace Camp
Veronica, who was also riding outside the carriage, came back to join them. “It’s a castle! Are we really going to live there? Mama, look!”
Elizabeth, who was sitting beside Miranda, pushed aside the curtain on the other side of the carriage and looked out. Her eyes widened, and a little color came into her cheeks. “Oh, my,” she breathed. “I never realized…”
“Isn’t it grand?” Veronica went on merrily. “Doesn’t it look like someplace a king would live?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yes. It does.”
“I can’t wait to see my room,” Veronica continued. “Miranda, may I choose which one is to be my room?”
“Yes, I suppose so—though to be polite, you must stay at least tonight where Lady Ravenscar has put you. After that, I don’t see why you cannot choose which one you prefer.”
“I want windows that look out this way. I want to see whoever comes up the road. That way, when you have parties—before I’m old enough to attend them, I mean—I can watch everybody arrive from my window. Will you give lots and lots of balls? It must have a ballroom, don’t you think?”
“I am sure it does. However, I don’t know how many people there are out here to attend ‘lots and lots’ of balls,” Miranda responded, smiling indulgently at her stepsister.
“I will get to go to some parties here, won’t I? Mama said that when she lived in the country, girls could attend small parties now and then, even before they made their debut.”
“I don’t see why not,” Miranda agreed. “I am sure your mother is much more of an expert on that subject than I am.” Since she herself had been hostessing her father’s parties when she was fifteen, Miranda could hardly be said to have lived her life according to the proper social rules.
Veronica dropped back and came up on the other side of the carriage beside her mother to pursue this interesting subject, and Miranda was left to her own thoughts as she gazed at the house as the carriage rolled up to its door. Those thoughts soon turned from the house to her future husband. He had been on her mind the whole trip from London, and now that she was about to see him again, an almost unbearable excitement welled up inside her. She would have given a great deal to know whether he had thought of her, too—and whether he had been waiting for her the past few days, wondering impatiently when she would arrive. It was too much to hope for, she told herself; she had to take this slowly. But she could not keep her heart from hoping anyway.
Their post chaise pulled up in front of the house, and a footman hurried out to open the door and help them down. As Miranda climbed down the carriage step to the ground, she glanced off to the left. A horse and rider sailed over a low hedge and thundered on toward them. Miranda’s heart began to pound as she recognized Devin’s broad-shouldered form. He slowed down, skirting the front garden, and came to a halt a few yards from them.
“Miranda!” Fluidly, he dismounted, tossing his reins to the footman. “I mean, Miss Upshaw.”
He strode toward them, his eyes on Miranda. Miranda’s pulse was hammering in her ears so hard that she could barely hear. Here, in the sunlight, fresh from physical exertion, his green eyes alight, he was even more handsome than she remembered. It made her feel a trifle weak in the knees.
“Lord Ravenscar,” she returned, pleased that her voice came out evenly. Surely his riding hell-bent-for-leather to meet them was a good sign.
“I saw your carriage approaching, so I tried to catch you.” He came to a halt in front of her and looked down at her for a long moment. This close, in the bright light of day, she could see that his green eyes had a small ring of gold around the pupil, like a sunburst, and she found the small detail captivating. Stripping off his riding gloves, he reached out, and Miranda managed to recover enough presence of mind to extend her hand to him. He took her hand and raised it to his lips, brushing a kiss on the back of it. “Welcome to Darkwater. We’ve been wondering when you would come. Mother was expecting you yesterday. Rachel was worried you wouldn’t even make it in time for the wedding.”
“And you?”
His engaging grin flashed. “I knew that you would arrive exactly when you should, neither too early nor too late, since you were managing it.”
Miranda chuckled. He continued to hold her hand far longer than was polite, but she had no desire for him to let go. “Your faith in me is touching, my lord.”
“It’s knowledge, Miss Upshaw, not mere faith.” With a final squeeze of her hand, he let it go and turned to the rest of the party. “Mrs. Upshaw. Mr. Upshaw. Welcome to Darkwater.” His eyes went past them to Veronica, who was still seated on her horse. “And who is this lovely young lady?”
“I am Veronica,” she answered pertly. “I’m the one you never see because I’m too young.”
“Too beautiful,” he corrected with a grin, and stepped forward to help her dismount. “Your parents are doubtless afraid someone will snap you up far too soon.”
Veronica giggled. Miranda knew that Ravenscar had earned himself a permanent place in Veronica’s good books by paying attention to her, as few adults did. And, Miranda had to admit, it had raised him in her estimation, too. She had been afraid that he would play the haughty aristocrat with her family, as he had before with her, and she was particularly anxious about Veronica’s easily hurt adolescent feelings. But Ravenscar had handled her with just the right tone of flattery and friendliness.
“I’m surprised to see you riding instead of in the carriage,” he told Veronica.
“Oh, I love to ride,” Veronica said eagerly. “And it’s too beautiful to be cooped up inside some stuffy post chaise.”
“You are right about that,” Ravenscar agreed. “If you like to ride, you will be happy here. Lots of room and, at the risk of sounding arrogant—” he cut his eyes humorously toward Miranda “—our stable is one of the best in the country, I warrant.”
“Oh! Can I see the horses?” Veronica asked eagerly.
“Of course. I shall take you on a personal tour tomorrow.”
Grooms had arrived to take care of the horses, and the footman was waiting to open the door, so Devin led the group into the house. They stepped inside to find an imposing line of servants, all uniformed and starched, stretching down the entry hall.
Devin leaned down to whisper in Miranda’s ear, “Eager to meet the new mistress. They are wondering how hard a taskmaster you shall be. I didn’t want to break it to them that you are a tyrant.”
Miranda looked up at him indignantly. “I’m not—”
She broke off, seeing the twinkle in his eyes. “I am very kind to servants,” she whispered back primly. “It is those in a higher position whom I am likely to take to task.”
“I am trembling in my boots.” His grin belied any truth in his words.
He turned toward the first man in line. “Cummings. Miss Upshaw, allow me to introduce you to the staff. This is Cummings, our estimable butler. And Mrs. Watkins, the housekeeper.”
He went down the line of servants, introducing each of them. Miranda was surprised and impressed to find that Devin knew the names of almost all of them, drawing a blank on only the newest and youngest of the group. Miranda would have expected a man like him to have known no one lower than the butler and housekeeper, especially given the fact that he had been in residence there so rarely the last few years. She commented on the fact as they were walking away, having introduced the rest of the family, as well.
“You mean you think I am too arrogant to know the names of the people I grew up with? You have an odd opinion of me, Miss Upshaw.”
“I am pleased to find that it is an incorrect one.”
He shrugged. “My relationships with the servants was never considered a very sterling quality, I’m afraid. Father always thought it was another manifestation of my basically low character. I spent more time with the head groom and the gamesman and his children growing up than I did with the suffocatingly dull sons and daughters of the local gentry.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“Not to my father, it didn’t.”
Devin’s mother and sister were waiting for them in the formal drawing room, a large room decorated in the white-and-gilt style of the century before. It was an elegant room, and it took a second or third glance to notice that the heavy blue draperies and the blue velvet cushions of the chairs and sofa were becoming threadbare, and that the Persian carpet beneath their feet was almost worn through in places.
The occupants of the room rose to their feet politely when Miranda and her family entered. Rachel came forward to greet Miranda warmly, and she, like her brother, gave Veronica a special bit of attention. Lady Ravenscar was formal but polite, as she had been every time Miranda was around her, and she paid only scant attention to Elizabeth and Veronica. Miranda could not help but feel that the woman was making an effort to treat them well because they were going to rescue her from poverty rather than out of any real liking for them. She doubted that she would ever feel really close to Lady Ravenscar.
There was a third person in the room, a tall, slender man with blond hair and gray eyes, handsome in a quiet, subtle way. He smiled now and came forward as Devin said, “Miss Upshaw, allow me to introduce you to my brother-in-law, Lord Westhampton.”
“How do you do?” Miranda asked, intrigued. This was Rachel’s husband, the one with whom she maintained a formal, separated marriage.
“Very well, thank you. It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Upshaw.” He smiled down at her kindly. “Lady Westhampton speaks highly of you.”
“Thank you.”
“I am sure that you must all be wanting to freshen up after your long journey, perhaps take a rest before supper,” Lady Ravenscar said. “Rachel, why don’t you show the Upshaws to their rooms?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll take Miss Upshaw,” Devin told his sister casually, offering Miranda his arm.
Rachel led the others from the room and up the stairs to the chambers they had set aside for them, and Devin and Miranda brought up the rear. It was hard to take in all the details of the magnificent house, especially with the distraction of Devin’s presence so close to her. It was difficult enough to maintain the cool, insouciant attitude that she wanted.
At the top of the stairs, Rachel turned to the right to take Veronica and the others to their rooms, but Devin went in the opposite direction. “Your room is this way. Since the wedding is only a few days away, there seemed little point in making you change rooms.” He stopped at the doorway of a spacious room. “This is the Countess’s chambers.”
Miranda looked in, puzzled. “You mean, your mother’s room?”
He smiled at her in a way that made her pulse beat a little faster. “No, my dear Miss Upshaw. I mean the room which connects to mine.”
Miranda could feel a blush spreading across her cheeks. “Oh.” She walked past him into the room to conceal her reaction.
It was a large room, with two tall windows that looked down on the rear gardens. There was a sitting area with sofa and chair in one quadrant of the room, and further along that wall stood a fireplace with an ornate marble mantel. Between the two stood a door. The room was furnished with heavy mahogany pieces, the most dominant of which was a large tester bed hung with dark-green velvet curtains. A large fading medieval tapestry hung on one wall. It was an impressive, formal room, one befitting a Countess and one in which Miranda could well imagine Lady Ravenscar having lived. It was not one that appealed overmuch to her.
“Of course, I expect you will want to change things,” Devin went on, coming into the room after her and closing the door behind him.
Miranda nodded faintly. It seemed odd to think that she was going to be living in this room from now on, except when they traveled to London or somewhere else. There was a permanence, a gravity, to the idea that almost took her breath away. She glanced over at Devin. She hardly knew him, she thought. She would be living in a strange house in a strange land. She wondered if all brides felt this same little spurt of panic, or if it was because of the businesslike circumstances of their marriage.
Partly to hide her sudden, unaccustomed fit of nerves, she wandered about the room, looking into the wardrobe and dressers. She opened the door that stood in the wall beside the fireplace. Beyond it lay another room, even larger than this one and obviously occupied by a man.
“My chamber,” Devin said, coming up behind her.
Miranda jumped, startled, and quickly shut the door. “Of course.”
She would have moved away then, but Devin was standing in front of her. He braced his hand on the door behind her, blocking off that direction, too, and leaned closer to her.
“I have been thinking the last two weeks. I’ve had a great deal of time to do so, you know. And it seems absurd for this to be a sham marriage.”
“It is no sham, my lord. I regard it as something quite real. It is just not…romantic.”
“There is no need for that, either,” he responded. “I am attracted to you. And you cannot deny that you are attracted to me. I have felt the desire in you. So why deny what we both feel?”
His face loomed closer. Miranda found it difficult to breathe—or even think coherently. His lips brushed across hers gently, sending a delightful tingle all through her.
“We have a connecting door,” he murmured. “It seems to me that we might as well make use of it.”
For an instant his mouth hovered over hers. She could feel his breath against her face, the warmth of his body. Her skin prickled. All she could think of, all she wanted, was his kiss.
Just before his lips touched hers, she jumped to the side. Her heart was racing so hard it was a wonder he couldn’t hear it, she thought, and her hands were trembling. But she managed to put on a calm face as she said, “I think not, my lord. It would seem foolish to introduce emotions into our arrangement. It will work so perfectly as it is.”
She gave him a perfunctory smile and reached back with one hand to turn the lock of the connecting door. “There. This room will do fine.”
11
Devin walked into the study and closed the door behind him with a resounding thud. Across the room Michael, Lord Westhampton, raised his eyes from the book he was reading and looked at Devin with a mildly questioning face.
“Bad day?”
Devin grimaced. “Oh. Hullo, Michael. Didn’t know you were here. I thought everyone else had gone to bed.”
It was almost midnight, and the house was dark. Devin, lying in his bedroom thinking about the locked door into Miranda’s room, had been unable to sleep and had gone prowling.
“Just a bit of reading before sleep,” Michael replied. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to invade your study. Shall I leave? Or does that look on your face mean you would prefer to have a listening ear?”
“I would prefer to change my life,” Devin said, disgruntled. He walked over to the teak cabinet beneath the windows and opened the door. “Whiskey? I have brandy if you’d prefer.”
“Whiskey’s fine,” Michael replied. “And what exactly would you change about your life?”
“Living it. I don’t know. Oh, Christ.” He poured two drinks into fine crystal glasses and handed his brother-in-law one, then drank half the other one in a single gulp. He sighed. “What am I doing marrying that woman? I must have been out of my mind to agree to it.”
“I was rather under the impression that you had no other choice,” Michael pointed out mildly. “Besides, I rather liked your bride-to-be. She’s quite…different.”
Devin grimaced. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Her theories about education for women certainly made for stimulating dinner conversation.”
A smile cracked Devin’s face as he remembered the look on his mother’s face at supper tonight when Miranda had advocated that women be allowed to attend university. “It was a livelier dinner than usual,” he admitted. “But you see my point—she has been here since four o’clock, not even half a day, and already she has stirred everything up. The woman
is a menace.”
“If you feel that strongly about it, perhaps you should cry off.”
“Cry off! Are you mad? The wedding is in two days. Besides, a gentleman can’t back out of it, and you know it.”
Michael raised his eyebrows. “Yes, I can see how it would damage your reputation.”
Devin shot him a disgusted look. “Oh, hell, Michael, you know I can’t. I need the money. The Aincourts have never had the luxury of marrying for love.”
“Yes, I know,” Michael replied quietly.
“Of course you do. I mean, you and Rachel—you had the same sort of arrangement. But it’s different for you. The two of you are rational, civilized sorts. You can live in harmony—do what you want, live separate lives.”
“Yes. We do.”
“But Miranda! She’s an odd creature. She has strange ideas about things.”
Michael nodded, waiting.
Devin downed the rest of his whiskey and set his glass down with a crack. “Dammit, she wants a platonic marriage!”
Michael blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Have you ever heard of such a thing? She says we don’t love each other, so we shall go our separate ways, do what we want.”
Michael hesitated, then said, “I would think that such an accommodating wife would appeal to you.”
“Accommodating? I have never met anyone less accommodating than Miranda. She thinks we should go out and have affairs with other people.”
“I see. And you are against that?”
“The Countess of Ravenscar, having affairs with God knows who? Of course I am against it.”
“Then you are in favor of the two of you having a true marriage—fidelity and—”
Devin fixed him with a piercing look. “Don’t mock me, Michael. You know I never had any intention of being faithful to her. Of course I want to do what I want, have affairs. I just—well, I didn’t expect her to want them, too. She’s as bold and brassy as any bird of paradise.”