Miranda's Dilemma

by Natasha Blackthorne

He leaned closer to her and placed his hand on hers. “I see the pain in your eyes, I must know. I must. Share your pain with me. Share it and let me judge what I can do to protect you in this situation.”

  “You cannot protect me, no one can.” Sadness welled in her heart.

  “I can. I will. Just share your past with me.”

  His voice was so tender. She somehow found the will to begin. “When I was a girl, shortly after my baby brother died, Winterton abandoned us. I mean he left her with just the possessions she could carry, no severance pay. No pension. Nothing. Cassandra paid for us to have some rooms in Soho. They were quite shabby, but we made the best of things.

  “Mama was on the verge of attaining protection from another man. A young, handsome lord. Winterton apparently grew jealous and he came to our rooms, the very night before we were to move to the little house the young baron was to provide for her.

  Winterton cornered Mama in the kitchen. Their voices awoke me. Cassandra had given me a pistol for just such an occasion. She had shown me how to use it as Mama would never be any good at such a matter. Cassandra told me, ‘you have fire in you, Miranda, use it and you will have the world at your feet.’ Well, I used it that night.” She laughed weakly.

  “Winterton had forced Mama to her feet. He was forcing her to…to…” Vomit rushed into her throat. She clamped a hand to her mouth and choked it back only through extreme force of her will.

  She would not be ill in front of others. She would not show the depth of her weakness.

  Adrian’s face contorted with concern, and he stepped forward, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t think about it any longer, not if it distresses you so much.”

  She panted, struggling to regain her control. “He was hurting her. I had no choice, no choice.” She took a deep, gulping breath. “No choice.”

  “His unfortunate hunting accident, I remember that. He was the laughing stock of Mayfair for a time. The duke who shot himself in the leg.”

  “Yes.”

  “Apparently not so unfortunate, but just.”

  “He certainly does not see it that way.” She laughed weakly, hearing the note of near hysteria in her own voice. “He would have turned me over to the watch. But his brother and his wife pleaded with him not to make a scandal. He was delirious, out of his mind with fever. But he finally came to his senses and threatened me. He promised that he would see me ruined.

  “Mama slipped into one of her bad spells then, and she could never again even think of having a man touch her. Needless to say, the young lord withdrew his offer of protection. We were, once again, all but penniless and with Winterton making his threats.

  “Cassandra told me then that I had no other options but to find myself a rich and powerful, noble protector.” She sighed. “You know how infamous Carrville was as a champion of damsels in distress. And he was never hesitant to take the matter to the dueling field. He was too kind, always too kind. That was the reason why Cassandra found him acceptable, despite his lack of exceptional wealth.

  The energy that had sustained her through the telling suddenly drained from her. She sagged. “Now I need a new protector, someone excessively wealthy.”

  “You can’t spend your life running from Winterton, dancing to his tune.”

  “What other choice do I have?”

  “This current problem might simply go away.”

  She gasped in derision. “Oh, I doubt I should ever be that lucky.”

  “What a pity he didn’t die of the infection when you shot him.”

  “Oh, please don’t say that. No matter what he has done, I am not sure I could live with my own father’s blood on my hands.”

  “So that is why you cannot bring yourself to give a man pleasure in the way Froster expects.”

  “Yes, and you can see why I could never tell him my reasons.”

  “Quite so.” Adrian scowled. “But it still does not excuse his intent to force you.”

  “No, it does not. Still, I have no choice but to submit.”

  Adrian’s expression turned stony.

  “You’re not going to Froster,” he said firmly.

  “I have to. I have a duty to protect and provide for Mama. I have no choice.”

  He touched her cheek. “Miranda, I can protect you.”

  “I need money right now, more than you can afford to risk. I am sorry, but neither of us can change the way of things.”

  “I cannot afford to give you the money you need, that is true. But what if I can make things right in some other way?”

  “What other way?”

  “That’s my concern. But I am asking you to trust me. Don’t go to Froster. Wait and let me handle Winterton.” His expression was so sincere and his voice so strong. She wanted to believe that he could protect her.

  But if she failed Mama…why she would never be able to live with herself.

  “If I deny Froster now, I will lose my chance with him forever. I just can’t take that risk.”

  His face became a mask of pain. “I can’t believe that you won’t trust me.”

  It cut into her, deeply, that she had hurt him. Once she would have reveled in the power to affect him emotionally, even to hurt him. But now giving him pain, made her heart ache so unbearably. “Oh Adrian, please do not despise me! I could not bear it if you began to despise me again. But I must do what I must do. I am all that Mama has in the world.” She reached for his hands. “Please tell me now that you understand.”

  He took her hands. “Oh my God, love, how could you believe that I could ever bring myself to hate you?”

  “Tell me you never will.”

  He released her hands and cupped her face. “I never will.”

  Tears of relief welled in her eyes. She couldn’t believe that she would cry in front of anyone. But now she didn’t care. She would show him her sincere face of pain. “If there was any other way, I would never be with another man again.” She vowed.

  He leaned toward her and kissed her.

  The taste of his kiss was just as sweet as she remembered. As she had longed for each night. She didn’t want to live without his kiss.

  But she had to.

  Duty.

  She must remember her duty. Because she feared what she might say or do if she allowed him to continue to touch her, she pressed on his chest and pushed him away.

  He stared at her, longing, desire and shock on his handsome face. “Why are you pushing me away? I can feel how much you want me.” He put his hand to her left breast. “I feel your heart beating just as hard as mine is, Miranda. I know you want me.”

  “It just cannot be. Circumstances have conspired against us.”

  “No, it is your doing to part us this time. I have told you. I can make things right. If only you would trust me.” Pain and disbelief were stamped into his face.

  “If it was just me, I would trust you, I would follow you where ever. I would be yours. But I have a duty to my mother. No one else is there for her. What kind of person would I be, how would I live with myself if I betrayed her.” She took a deep breath. “How would you live with yourself if you betrayed your duty to your sons?”

  ****

  With Miranda’s statement about how he would feel if he betrayed his sons echoing in his mind, Adrian came to understand her position. She was afraid of betraying everything that she believed in. He would have to prove his ability to protect her interests. That night in bed, he came up with a plan of action.

  Now a few days later, he found himself in the position of hiring a very peculiar type of expert.

  Very peculiar indeed.

  “What would you wish to see happen to Winterton?” Baron Drake held a piece of thread to his lips and dampened it. Then he frowned with concentration and pushed it through the eye of a needle. He looked up at Adrian. “Perhaps if he was to quietly disappear?”

  The utter coldness in the man’s eyes made Adrian pause. “Winterton is a duke.”

  Drake stared at him, blinki
ng twice. “Yes, I know.”

  After much cautious inquiry on Adrian’s part, Drake had been recommended as someone who was able to look into difficult situations and bring them to closure.

  So he had come to the baron’s modest, unassuming house in Chelsea and told him a highly selective and edited account of Miranda’s troubles with Winterton.

  “Papa, Papa.” A child’s piping voice cut the tension. A mop of wild raven curls framed an angelic face made more adorable with plump, rosy cheeks. She tugged on Drake’s sleeve.

  Drake gave her a stern look. “Patience, Becca.”

  Drake turned his attention to his lap and re-positioned the rag doll and lined the disconnected arm up with the body. He took a stick pin and, with painstaking slowness, affixed the arm to the body.

  “Are you hurting her?” The child’s voice was filled with anxiety.

  Drake glanced at her. “No, I gave her a potion, she cannot feel any pain.”

  The child’s face visibly relaxed.

  The full import of what Drake had asked him finally dawned on Adrian. Shock washed through him.

  “A duke cannot just simply… disappear.”

  Drake lifted his brows briefly, then “I don’t know Winterton well.” He pierced the cloth doll with the needle and then made a series of tiny, neat stitches. “But he sounds most troublesome.”

  “Yes, most troublesome.”

  “Well, what would you suggest be done about this problem?”

  Adrian been most disconcerted to find the man sitting in his withdrawing chamber sewing a rag doll.

  But now the cold, calculating intelligence in the eyes that were studying him, weighting him, made Adrian wonder if he had just inadvertently walked into the lair of the devil himself.

  Adrian wasn’t sure that he was quite ready for the extreme measures that Drake was suggesting. For God’s sake, he was a civilized man.

  Wasn’t he?

  He was stunned to find that he couldn’t completely dismiss the possibility of seeing Winterton simply vanish.

  No, no, that wasn’t what he’d come here to discuss at all. He took a deep breath to clear his burning emotions, and then he tried to explain better, “There must be something in Winterton’s past that could bring about his ruin. A man so heartless as to hate his own natural daughter must be evil.”

  Drake turned the doll over and began to make another set of equally precise stitches. “Yes, it is unnatural for a man to hate his own child. Not unheard of but most unnatural.”

  “He must have done evil deeds. There must be something that could bring about his ruin. Something that he would not want society to know. Something that could be used to force him to relent in his demands toward his daughter.”

  “Most of us are not like Winterton. We will do anything to protect those we love,” Baron Drake said, reaching down to hand the doll to Becca.

  The girl took the doll and immediately put the head to her mouth and began gnawing at the bright yellow yarn hair.

  “Maybe this time her arm will stay connected,” Drake said, giving the child’s profusion of raven black curls a tussle. He set aside the sewing implements and turned back to Adrian. “The only cases I take now are those involving an innocent who is being abused or threatened, or otherwise in danger. I no longer care to be involved in matters concerning competing men of business and politics.”

  “Then you can help me?”

  “It is far easier a matter to cause a duke to disappear than it is to ruin him.” Drake frowned. “Are you sure you don’t want some cakes and tea?”

  Adrian’s tense stomach roiled at the mention of food in this moment. "No.”

  Christ, they were speaking so casually of making Winterton ‘disappear’.

  Drake made it sound so easy.

  And Adrian was tempted…

  “I regret that Lady Drake cannot join us,” Drake’s voice cut into Adrian’s thoughts. “She has been somewhat indisposed of late.”

  “I am sorry to hear that.”

  “Yes, it is worse this time, lasting each day into the afternoon.” Drake leaned back against the settee. “You’ve children of your own, I am sure you understand.”

  Adrian nodded. “Ah, well, I see congratulations are in order,” he said, but inside his thoughts whirled and seethed.

  “You’re here about Miranda.” The Duke of Winterton’s face took on a hardened expression. “I am sorry, Danvers, I can’t quite ascertain if you are her protector or not. The gossip is too irregular and vague.”

  “I will protect her interests. So be warned.”

  Winterton nodded. “Miranda knows my price. She knows what she must do to protect her dear Mama. Believe me, she will do it, too. She is like a lioness in her protectiveness of that woman.” His voice had taken on a sneering tone.

  That tone rankled Adrian. “I don’t believe that is the extent of your ‘price’. You appear to me as a wolf, scenting blood and narrowing in for the kill.”

  Winterton’s mouth twisted into something between a smile and a snarl. “You don’t know about that girl and me. You don’t know the duplicity and savagery that she is capable of enacting.” He re positioned his silver-headed walking stick and then limped toward his chair near the fire. He motioned to the settee. “Please have a seat, Danvers. If you will pardon me, I move slowly.” He glanced down at his leg. “An unfortunate…accident several years ago has rendered my leg stiff and almost useless.”

  Adrian wondered if the man had been shot by a cuckolded husband. But he really did not care. “What can you possibly hold so strongly against your own flesh and blood?”

  He had no understanding. He would die for his sons. He couldn’t imagine a sin they could commit so foul that would ever cause him to feel any differently.

  “I am not so blinded by hate that I cannot see her beauty. She has form on her the likes of which I have seen but once or twice before.” Winterton chuckled softly. “I see why you would be moved to be her champion, even though it would appear she is ready to throw you over for the Duke of Froster. But you see only her beauty. I warn you, that girl is a she-devil, and she will only become worse as she ages.”

  At the mention of Froster, a look had crossed Winterton’s face that reminded Adrian so much of a slithering reptile.

  “What do you know about Miranda and Froster?”

  Winterton chuckled again, his tone cold as air in a crypt. “I know he wants something very specific from her. Something she cannot bear to give.”

  A sense of pure pleasure glowed in Winterton’s eyes.

  “You vile sack of pus,” Adrian said. “You disgust me, as you would disgust any decent gentleman worthy of the title. Any decent man. If only society knew your true nature.”

  “Ah, there’s the rub. You cannot expose me without exposing Miranda’s crime.”

  “You were forcing her mother. What did you expect to happen? You know Cassandra Jones, you should have expected that she would help her niece to learn how to fight you.”

  “No one will care if I was forcing my former mistress. She’s nothing more than a nobleman’s plaything. None of them is.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s true. Most would not care. But they will care when the truth about Miss Paula Peyton comes to light.”

  Winterton froze then eyes widened. “What do you know of Miss Peyton?”

  “Miss Peyton, a beautiful girl from a family poorer than church mice. A respectable girl, the child of a minister known for his tireless devotion and endless personal sacrifice. She came to work for you as a highly recommended governess for your legitimate daughters. And you forced her to submit to your lusts. When she found herself pregnant, she came to you, hoping that you would promise her support for her child. You said you would never accept the child as yours or provide for it. And in a fit of hopelessness and shame, she hanged herself.”

  “Miss Peyton died in an accident. She had an unfortunate propensity for claret. She often became intoxicated. It was only out of charity f
or her family that we tried to work with her and keep her employed with us. My wife is a very sympathetic lady. She does many good works.

  “It is true that your wife is a remarkable lady who does many charitable works. But it is also true that Miss Peyton hanged herself in a fit of despair over your vile seduction and heartless abandonment of her.”

  “No, she fell down the stairs, late one night when she was ill with too much drink.”

  “That’s not what I have heard. I am told that she was found hanging by a rope in her chamber at your estate. And that, once found, you saw to it that her body was thrown down the well.”

  “You’ll never prove that.”

  “The beautiful Miss Peyton was unmarried at age thirty for a reason. She preferred the affections of those of her own sex. She was in love with one of your below stairs maids. I have her final letter to this girl in my possession.”

  “What a fantastical tale.” Winterton scowled. “How would you come to possess such a letter?”

  “I cannot divulge my sources. But I will say that you should have been kinder to your servants. You should have made fewer enemies. There are other more unsavory rumors circulating about you. A bit of deep digging into any one of them might produce equally damning evidence. Does the name Miss Annabelle Riles mean anything to you?”

  Winterton’s face turned so pale that it appeared to be grayish. He leaned back in his seat. “Well, you certainly have proven yourself Miranda’s advocate.” Winterton shook his head. “Young men fall in love with women when they are still the next thing to a girl. Then it is all roses, paradise. She worships you, and she would do anything to please you.

  “But then one day, she comes to you, all smiles and excited. She’s so excited that she causes you to be excited, and you wonder what pleasurable surprise can she possibly be planning?

  “She says she is with child. You’re shocked, you weren’t expecting that kind of surprise. But she’s so over the moon about it, she seduces you into being just as joyful over the matter. You even tolerate her widening girth as the child grows; after all there are always other women about to find distraction with.

  “But then the child comes and you realize that you’ve suddenly been supplanted. This little creature, this puling girl-child, this red-faced scrap of nothing demands all of her affection, all of her attention. When you come to your former dear lover, she’s frowning and tired and unhappy with everything you say and do. But when the child comes into view, she’s all smiles and radiant joy.