Oh Miranda!

by Joan Smith

  “That was well done of him,” Mrs. Hazard said, but with a little frown between her eyebrows.

  Miranda also found this interesting. It was hardly the behavior of a lover. Was he serious about finding someone else to get Dotty off his hands? This must mean he didn’t intend to marry her. He had realized it was too farouche to have an affair with his bride’s best friend. But it didn’t mean he was interested in marrying herself. Not a widow. He would never marry a widow. A gentleman would not make such violent love to a lady he respected as he had made to her that afternoon. He would not say such things to her.

  It was understood that the Hiscott’s do was only a small, informal affair, so the ladies did not worry unduly about their toilettes. Miranda, bored with her coiffure, parted her hair in the center and pulled it back in a chignon. As she was wearing a deep burgundy gown, she wore the garnet necklace and ear drops John had given her as a birthday gift. “I wish they were rubies,” he had said. So sweet. The stones were not very valuable, but she liked the baroque setting of dark gold, like something from a medieval painting.

  She had mentioned Mrs. Hazard’s custom of arriving too early at the parties to Bolton, and he decided to do the same that evening. He might find an opportunity to talk to Miranda before the crowd arrived. He knew she was angry with him, and that she would try to avoid him. He meant to apologize and explain, if he could. How did you tell a lady you were so overcome at being alone with her that you literally couldn’t control yourself? If she believed it, she would think him an animal. And if she didn’t, he would seem either a liar or a demmed fool.

  He would control himself this evening. He would behave with perfect propriety, and trust to words to do his job for him.

  But when he saw her walk in the door, looking like a beautiful Spanish señorita with her black hair framing that exquisite, pale face, he was bereft of words. His eyes lingered on the perfection of her sculptured white shoulders rising from the rich wine of her gown.

  He watched as her dark eyes made a darting, wary tour of the room. Who was she looking for? Not that old slice, Hume, surely? And when she saw himself, her moving eyes stopped, and she became even paler. She hastily averted her gaze, but not before Bolton caught the flash of interest that enlivened her face. Was it pleasure or disdain that caused her eyebrows to lift a trifle, and her lips to open just a fraction? Those beguiling cherry lips, that burned like divine fire on his…

  He looked at his hands, and noticed they were trembling. Trembling like a schoolboy at his first grownup party. God, what was happening to him? He hadn’t felt like this since... A rapid survey of his checkered past told him he had never felt like this before. Certainly not about a woman. The closest he could come to matching this nervous clenching of his stomach was just before engaging in battle.

  He took two deep breaths and went forward to greet her. He didn’t notice that Dotty was regarding him with a peculiarly assessing eye. He didn’t notice that Mrs. Hazard was smiling in pleasure at his advance. He only noticed that Miranda had turned and swiftly walked away to speak to someone. Lydia, it was, her old friend.

  Miranda had not publicly cut him, but her action told him as clearly as words that she wanted no part of him. How was it possible? He had made love to enough women to know her body wanted him. He was eligible, his character was good, he had a title and fortune that exceeded anything she was accustomed to, his intentions were honorable. Why did she behave in this inexplicable manner?

  When he found himself standing up with Dotty for the first set, he had no memory of how he had got there. He must have said the proper things, done the right things from force of habit, as his feet performed the accustomed steps of the cotillion without conscious effort on his part.

  “You’re looking very lovely this evening, Miss Hazard,” he said. The polite, social lie came out without thought. Miss Hazard did not look lovely. Miss Hazard never looked lovely.

  Her appearance was only tolerable at the best of times. And due to the onslaught of admirers since her arrival in London, she was acquiring a certain air of condescension that sat very ill on such a plain lady. She didn’t even bother to reply to his compliment, but just looked over his shoulder, searching for —whom? He didn’t know. He certainly didn’t care.

  “Did you enjoy your outing this afternoon?” he asked, making conversation for civility’s sake.

  “Yes, Mr. West is very amusing,” she said, with a smug look that he realized was meant as a setdown. It was the emphasis on Mr. West that did it. More amusing than the present company, that tone implied. Well, thank God for that anyway.

  “His manner is not so rough and impatient as some gentlemen,” she added.

  He took this as a slur on the provincial gentlemen she was accustomed to and thought nothing of it. Conversation was desultory during those spaces in the dance when they were together. When the set was over, he returned her to Mrs. Hazard, glancing around the room to see if Miranda was also joining her friend. She wasn’t. After a moment, he discovered her in a corner again with Lydia and Lord Robert. She didn’t see him. He began walking purposefully toward her. That is when he realized she had only pretended not to see him, because she turned and hastened away as he drew closer.

  He asked Lydia to stand up with him, thinking Miranda might have said something to her. But a discreet quizzing told him that Miranda had not spoken of him at all. Lydia’s teasing was just good natured banter about Miss Hazard, and how he had captured the heiress’s heart.

  “You won her before the rest of the field got a whiff of her,” she said. “Killed in covert, as you sporting gentlemen would say. Is she really worth fifty thousand?”

  “I believe twenty-five or thirty thousand,” he said vaguely. “I’m really not sure. No doubt your friend, Lady Wetherby, would know.”

  “I must ask her. And what do you think of her catch? I swear old Hume is mad for her.”

  He felt the angry blood pulse through his veins. “And is she mad for him?” he asked.

  “Oh heavens, I don’t know what she thinks. Miranda was always a perfect oyster. The very soul of discretion. Robert and I are trying to convince her to remove to London. You must add your persuasions, Bolton.”

  He was convinced that the discreet Miranda had said nothing about him, not even to her oldest friend. Since Miranda was playing hide and seek with him, he would have to take her by surprise, preferably in some private place where she couldn’t easily escape.

  It proved impossible to accomplish at a polite party when she was on her guard against him. Even when he shared her table at supper, she managed to place herself well away from him, and never once met his eye. She was guarded like a Vestal Virgin on one side by Hume, and on the other by Lord Robert.

  Bolton sat between Dotty and Mrs. Hazard. He was too distracted to notice that Dotty spent most of her time talking to Jeremy, on her other side, although he did notice that Jeremy kept casting languishing glances down the board to Miranda.

  It was a wretched, interminable evening. The only words he exchanged with Miranda occurred when she was with the Hazards, waiting at the door for their carriage. Lady Bolton and Jeremy were also there, which meant they had a large audience.

  “We didn’t have a dance this evening, Lady Wetherby,” he said, trying for a polite, neutral tone.

  Her dark eyes just flickered over his face for a brief second. “No, we didn’t,” she said distractedly, fumbling with the catch of her reticule to avoid looking at him.

  “Perhaps the next party,” he said.

  “There is our rig now,” Mrs. Hazard exclaimed. “The footman is signaling us. Goodnight, all.”

  “We’ll see you tomorrow,” Lady Bolton called as they left. She cocked an ear to hear if Max also planned to see them tomorrow, and was delighted when he just turned and walked away with a distraught look.

  “His nose is out of joint that you took Miss Hazard to supper,” she informed Jeremy.

  “I didn’t get a dance with Lady Wetherby,
” was his sulky reply.

  “Deuce take Lady Wetherby. She is near old enough to be your mama. And furthermore, she hasn’t a feather to fly with, goose. Miss Hazard is worth hundreds of thousands.”

  “But Lady Wetherby is marvelous,” he said simply.

  “Old Hume seems to think so. He is looking as calf sick as you are. I’m sure I don’t know what the gentlemen see in her. She is not a day under thirty, and dresses like a vicar’s lady. Those were garnets she was wearing this evening. Not rubies.”

  The ladies on Berkeley Square met as usual for their post-party cocoa discussion.

  “I thought Lord Bolton looked a bit put out tonight,” Mrs. Hazard said, settling her slipperless feet comfortably on a footstool. “You were paying too much attention to young Jeremy West, Dotty. I would watch that if I were you.”

  “Bolton is actually quite a boor,” was Dotty’s surprising reply. “Really, Mama, he hardly bothered to talk at all when I stood up with him. He was frowning like an old grouch. Mr. West says it is the war that does that to men. His uncle was so out of sorts when he came home from the war that he slit his own throat. Imagine!”

  “Good gracious!” Mrs. Hazard cried. “Have you noticed this streak of melancholia before?”

  “He was always moody,” Dotty decided.

  Miranda’s first jolt of alarm at this talk of suicide soon settled down to cynicism. This sounded like Jeremy’s efforts to turn Dotty away from Lord Bolton. And as far as Miranda was concerned, it was no bad thing. His morals were not what one could want in an innocent girl’s husband.

  “Mr. West says so, does he?” Mrs. Hazard said, with heavy sarcasm. “It is a scheme to turn you against Bolton. Don’t be such a gudgeon as to be taken in by it. They just want our blunt for themselves. Mr. West indeed! We are not home if he should come calling in a crested carriage borrowed from his mama to make him seem what he is not.”

  “He will be a baronet when his Uncle Deveril dies,” Dotty said. “Like Miranda’s husband.”

  “A baronet’s lady isn’t a countess though, is she?” the mama retorted. “A baronet is only one of those Lord Christian name sorts of handles. Lord Peter or Jeremy or John. No offense, Miranda.”

  It was Dotty who took offense. “You always said you don’t care about such things, Mama.”

  “Your papa wished it for you.”

  “Papa is dead,” Dotty said, with unaccustomed vigor.

  “What do you think, Miranda?” Mrs. Hazard said, to spread the blame a little.

  “I don’t care much for Jeremy,” she said.

  Dotty turned on her like a viper. “You only say that because you want him for yourself. You think because you’re an older lady that all the gentlemen like you, but don’t expect them to offer marriage. That is not what Lord Bolton has in mind, or Jeremy either.”

  On this setdown, she stomped from the room.

  “Well, what on earth ails her?” Mrs. Hazard said. “She almost sounded jealous of you, Miranda. It was the way young West was trailing after you all evening that accounts for it. Surely she cannot think you would give a penniless lad like young West the time of day.”

  “I expect she is just tired and overly excited,” Miranda said.

  “Aye, that’s it, depend on it. She is not used to trotting so hard as we have been doing. I shall keep her home tomorrow evening.”

  “A good idea,” Miranda said.

  And it was a good idea for her too. She was tired of the whole business of love and marriage. No man seemed right for her. Lord Bolton was too rich and noble and too lecherous. Mr. Hume was too old. Jeremy was too young and too poor, and besides he was an ass. She had been happier at home at Hornby Hall. She wished she had not come to London.

  Chapter Twelve

  By the next morning, Dotty was over her fit of the sulks. She apologized to Miranda, who assured her she had no interest whatsoever in Jeremy West. In the afternoon, the modiste brought the new gowns she had made up for Dotty and Mrs. Hazard. The gowns were so lovely that an evening at home was no longer deemed necessary.

  On Lady Bolton’s advice, they attended a private concert at which the audience was subjected to a bad Italian tenor and a worse English amateur pianist. As the hostess had the notion of ending the concert with a magician who did clever things with silk scarves and cards, she was forgiven.

  The evening pleased Miranda as it left little opportunity for harassment by any of the three gentlemen who were making this visit to London so complicated. She contrived to seat herself between Dotty and Mrs. Hazard and kept her eyes on the platform that was being used as a stage. She only had to awaken Mrs. Hazard once. Fortunately, no one heard the gentle snore that escaped before Miranda roused her.

  The following days proved busy ones at Lord Croft’s mansion on Berkeley Square. The main preoccupation was Mrs. Hazard’s party. As it grew in size and magnificence to a ball in all but name, Miranda found it beyond her experience to organize. The Ladies Bolton were only too happy to lend their expertise. Adelaide found it made an excellent excuse to bring Jeremy along and dangle him under Dotty’s nose. Helen soon realized she was more likely to run Mr. Hume to ground there than anywhere else and added herself to the list of helpers.

  Jeremy’s mama found many reasons and invented a host of excuses to send her son and Dotty off together in her carriage — to hire musicians and select flowers, to speak to the caterers (which speaking consisted of telling them to call at Berkeley Square), to deliver invitations and if all else failed, to ‘get a breath of air,” for dear Dotty was looking peaked from working so hard.

  Jeremy courted Dotty assiduously during these outings, with nothing to distract his thoughts from her fortune. But at Berkeley Square, he took every opportunity to dangle after Miranda as well. She could not lift a vase weighing no more than sixteen ounces without him darting forward to help her. “Let me give you a hand with that, Miranda. We don’t want you to tire yourself out.” They had achieved a first name basis.

  “I can manage, thank you,” was no deterrent.

  He took the vase from her with a great show of virility and much fondling of fingers and gazing into eyes.

  During the intimacies of frequent visits, the ladies were also soon on a first name basis with each other. The nuisance of having to identify which Lady Bolton one was speaking to sped it along. They became Helen and Adelaide, the Hazards became Minnie and Dotty, and Lady Wetherby became Miranda.

  Lydia and Lord Robert were also frequent callers. Miranda was always happy to see them, happier than to see Mr. Hume (now called Alfred by all save Mrs. Hazard, who called him Alf.) He called on Miranda daily, and more than once she went out for a drive with him to escape Jeremy’s or Bolton’s attentions.

  Lord Bolton also came, and was now Max to everyone except Miranda, who did not call him anything. She didn’t speak to him. She didn’t look at him if she could avoid it. With so many other people in the house, her trick went unnoticed by everyone except Bolton himself. It infuriated him to see Miranda smiling and chatting to that old rake, Hume, who was old enough to be her papa. Jeremy’s attentions to her bothered him less. He knew Adelaide’s influence, if not Miranda’s own good sense, precluded any serious entanglement in that quarter.

  As his frustration grew, he was often seen wearing a scowl. Dotty feared the war had permanently destroyed his temper and gave up any thought of accepting an offer from him, although she was not above using him to make Jeremy jealous from time to time when he was paying too much attention to Miranda.

  Helen had by no means thrown in the towel in her pursuit of Hume. She found nearly as many errands to run as Adelaide found for Jeremy and Dotty. As an experienced hunter, she knew the value of a disabled carriage. For four days hers “was having a new wheel put on,’ which necessitated her coming to Berkeley Square with Adelaide, and requiring a drive on whatever errand she could find to perform. These errands had the cleverness to occur only when Dotty and Jeremy were out in Adelaide’s rig.

&
nbsp; On a gusty, overcast afternoon two days before the party, she joined Hume and Miranda in a sequestered nook in the saloon, where they sat at a corner desk arranging the seating for the dinner that was to precede the party. Bolton sat on the sofa a few feet away, ostensibly reading the Morning Observer, but with his ears cocked, ready to take advantage if Hume should leave the desk for a moment.

  “Dear Alfred, would you mind terribly to drive me to New Bond Street?” Helen asked, batting her long eyelashes at him. “My carriage is hors de combat. Lord Croft has only two dozen wine glasses in the house! Can you imagine? Minnie wants me to pick up a few more dozens for her. You must come and help me choose.”

  “I am helping Miranda with this seating arrangement, Helen,” he replied. “I see Max is not busy. Ask him to take you.”

  She lowered her voice to a seductive purr. “But he hasn’t your exquisite taste, Alfred.”

  Hume was proud of his exquisite taste. He also liked shopping for expensive, beautiful things, like crystal and jewelry and women. Nor had he any aversion to being seen on the strut with young, lovely ladies.

  “What do you say, Miranda?” he asked. “Shall we take a little break and give Helen a hand in choosing wine glasses?”

  “No need to interrupt the work,” Helen said brightly. “Max can help Miranda with the seating. He knows everyone who is coming as well as you do.” She turned to him. “Max, you won’t mind giving Miranda a hand?”

  Miranda spoke up before he could answer. “As a matter of fact, I would like to get out for a little air. I have been cooped up all day.”

  “There you are, then,” Hume said, satisfied.

  Helen agreed, before it should occur to Hume that he and Miranda could select the crystal, and she could remain behind to help Bolton with the seating plan.

  No one was really happy with the arrangement except Hume, but Bolton was the most dissatisfied of all. He had heard the edge of panic in Miranda’s voice when she agreed to go with them. She didn’t want to be alone with him. That was the top and bottom of it. He had never met such determined opposition in his quest of a woman, and didn’t know how to overcome it. His experience was all of the opposite sort, having to extricate himself from a lady’s unwanted advances.