“Lord Pratt, her father, was an emotionless tyrant.” She frowned. “My understanding is that he all but sold her to Lord Starling. Lucky for her, Starling was a decent man. I believe he might even have loved her.”
“Where is her father now?” She’d admitted that she hadn’t any siblings, nor her mother.
“Died shortly after she married. Hand me the tea, will you, dear?”
Before Peter could reach it, one of the footmen stepped forward and poured it into his mother’s cup. Peter bit back other questions, curious to know more about Miranda but wanting to learn such things from the lady herself.
“Has Stone already left for Jackson’s?” When not in London, his brother spent most of his time overseeing their father’s estates, along with the oldest of his brothers, Roman, his father’s heir. But whenever Stone was in London, if not carousing with other like gentlemen, he could be found sparring at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Salon.
“Went after Lady Tabetha, I believe she’s taken off with the Duke of Culpepper for Gretna Green. It’s all hush hush, though. Of course.”
Peter rose his brows, his brother had been keeping tabs on the young woman at the request of her brother, Lord Westerley. Likely, there was a good deal more to that story than his mother was saying.
“Ah. Well then. I suppose I won’t have to endure the night on the town he’s promised me.” Which was just as well. “Drinking and brothels—"
“I’ve no need to hear such details.” His mother made a face and Peter chuckled.
“If you’ll excuse me, Mother, Rosa beckons from the music room.” Although not as persistently as normal, having been quieted some by sensual recollections of the night before. Even so, he needed to perfect the pieces Sir Bickford-Crowden expected him to know when he arrived.
And besides the ever-present need to practice, it was perhaps best that he spent as little time as possible alone with his mother. She had an uncanny ability to extract information he had no intention of sharing—private information. And he wouldn’t put it past her to do that this morning.
“I’m going to miss you, my love. Perhaps your father and I can travel down to Brighton for a few weeks after the Season ends.”
A lump formed in his throat at the reminder. He wasn’t leaving London to get away from his family. He was leaving because he needed to be better. He’d not entered the church or the army as many second and third sons did. At the very least, he wanted to prove that his decision to give himself over to his instrument had been the right one.
“I’m not sure I’ll have time to spare, but I imagine even Sir Bickford-Crowden must allow his apprentices time to eat.” He grinned.
“Of course, he will. And, Peter?” She stopped him again.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Give Lady Starling my best if you see her again.” A gleam sparkled in his mother’s eyes. “And tell her I’d love to have her for tea when she has a free afternoon.” She lowered her cup back to the saucer. In less than two minutes, his mother had sniffed out his interest in the widow.
This, he reminded himself, was why he would take Miranda to a hotel.
“Mr. Spencer.”
Peter turned from the window in the elegantly furnished drawing room, having waited nearly half an hour for Miranda to appear.
“I was beginning to think you were going to stand me up.” He all but drank her in with his gaze. The wait had been well worth it. Auburn curls peeked out from beneath a jaunty hat that was more decorative than functional. And today she wore a periwinkle muslin gown, decorated with emerald embroidered stitches that, although tiny, managed to complement her eyes.
Some of the darkness he’d felt from her was absent today. She appeared fresh, lovely, and innocent-looking.
“I considered it.” She licked her lips. “I can’t think your mother is going to approve.”
“Well, you are wrong on that count. Incidentally, she wants to take tea with you sometime in the near future.” He didn’t need to add after he was gone. “She’ll send a missive over to arrange it. My mother likes you, you know.”
“She’s in the minority then.” But he could tell that she believed him, and that knowing such a small thing gave her pleasure. “Should I bring a wrap?”
“Only if you wish to show it off. You’ll be plenty warm without one.” He found it difficult to grasp the fact that he had been inside this pristine-looking lady not quite twenty-four hours ago. He knew her intimately and yet he didn’t know her at all.
“Very well.” Her cheeks were flushed from his mention of his mother, and her lace gloves had her almost looking like a debutante.
“You look stunning,” he told her because it was true. Because she deserved to know he appreciated the efforts she’d taken.
“Thank you.” She lowered her gaze to the floor. “Shall we go then?”
Peter took one of her hands in his. He doubted his presence was the reason for her nervousness. It likely had something to do with his family. Her affair with Chaswick had been public knowledge, but Chase had been a known rake, a rogue. Carrying on like that had practically been expected of him.
Peter… was none of those things.
And as much as he’d like to deny it, his family’s influence in London had grown to almost epic proportions. His drive with the infamous Lady Starling in the park would indubitably be mentioned in the Gazette. But most Mayfair residents would learn of it first from their neighbors.
If his vehicle was seen parked outside of her townhouse, he’d never hear the end of it. He simply wanted to be alone with her. He wanted to know her.
“It’s fantastic!” She stared up at his curricle and then sent him a dazzling smile. He’d not seen her smile like that before, and the effect nearly had him stumbling backward. “Do you race it?”
“I used to.” He assisted her up before walking around and climbing aboard from the opposite side. Rather than have Michaels, his groom, ride on the back, Peter had instructed him to meet him at Mivart’s. That way, he wouldn’t need to park it in their mews. Peter trusted Michaels implicitly. Their privacy would be assured.
“You will drive at a snail’s pace in your journey down, then?” she teased, even as she gripped the edges of the seat.
“Six years ago,” he began, carefully steering off of South Audley and into traffic. “I had just achieved my majority and was racing against my brother, Stone.”
Although the race had initially been exhilarating, the memory was not a pleasant one. “Idiots. We were both idiots. He went to pass, and I edged into the center of the road. Unfortunately, neither of us saw the farmer’s cart approaching us from the opposite direction. I rolled to the right, into a harmless field, Stone veered to the left. If he’d rolled a few feet more, he would have fallen off a small cliff. Luckily for him, he only broke his arm, and I walked away with just a few scratches.”
“But it was enough to deter you from doing it again?”
“Along with knowing he could have been killed, seeing my brother unable to perform the simplest of tasks for nearly six months was an effective warning. I realized how much damage an injury like that could do to my playing. Of course, my brothers teased me to no end, but I didn’t care. As exciting as a race can be, acting so recklessly isn’t worth the risk.” But he didn’t want to talk about himself. He wanted to know more about her. She was watching the horses and the road in front of them. “Would you like to drive?”
“I don’t know how.”
“Now is as good a time as any to learn… if you want to.”
He sensed her ennui waging with her curiosity. It pleased him when her curiosity won.
“I do.”
Peter placed the reins in her hands but didn’t release them. Over the next few minutes, he explained how to stop and how to turn. After they turned onto one of the less-popular roads in the park, he took back the leather straps to demonstrate his techniques and then handed them back so she could practice them herself.
“You ha
ve the makings of an excellent driver.” Better than that, she was laughing. It was an self-conscious sounding laugh, but it was also pleasing. He wondered how often she’d laughed since her husband’s death.
When they approached the fashionable driving route, she relinquished the straps again and he felt, as well as heard, her sigh. This time, it was only two-thirds of an octave, sweet, though, starting at a high C.
“We can drive somewhere else,” he suggested.
She hesitated. “You wouldn’t mind?”
In answer to her question, he jerked the reins to the left and turned the horses in a full circle, heading them back toward the opposite end of the park. He’d rather talk with her than make nice for the ton any day of the week.
Rather than make directly for the hotel, as Miranda had half expected, Mr. Spencer instead turned into a section of the park that she hadn’t realized existed. The road was barely wide enough for one vehicle, and it twisted between so many trees that she could almost imagine she was in the country, far away from the bustle of London.
“Tell me about your marriage.” He made his request casually, as if he wasn’t intent upon peering into wounds she was waiting to scar over.
“What do you mean?”
“Most of what I know of you is hearsay. I’d rather know you from… you.” He grimaced.
She blinked at that. Because of course, she knew the rumors. They ranged from lurid tales of depravity to some so horrid as to suggest that she’d murdered Baldwin.
“I cared for my husband very much,” she answered truthfully.
“Did you love him?”
“I’m not sure what love feels like. I do know that he made me very happy. He cared about me and, in turn, I did my best to keep him happy as well.”
“Love is a bit of a mystery,” he answered from beside her, paying particular attention to steer the pair of bays around a sharp corner. “I’ve yet to experience romantic love myself although my parents and three of my siblings seem to have discovered it. And I doubt they would feign it. I certainly love all of them.”
“I did not love my father.” The words escaped before she could stop them.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think much is required of a person for his children to love him. If you hated him, Miranda, he must have been a horrid creature.”
“He wasn’t horrid to me.” She shrugged. Hate seemed too powerful to describe how she’d felt about the man who’d sired her. “He was nothing. And I was nothing to him. Nothing until, that was, he had use of me.”
Mr. Spencer nodded beside her, as though he already knew that her father had married her off in order to pay a debt. Thank god he had owed the debt to an honorable man.
“If love exists, I imagine I loved Baldwin,” she contemplated out loud. “And I do miss him dreadfully. And here I am being maudlin again. I’m not sure what it is about you, Mr. Spencer, but you have a dreadful knack for turning me into a self-pitying chatterbox.”
“Peter.” He turned his head to meet her gaze. Sitting this close, she recognized immediately that his pupils had dilated. “Call me Peter.”
She thought he was going to kiss her but instead, he turned his face back to the road.
“And I like listening to you. You have a beautiful voice.”
She laughed. It was a silly thing to say.
Again, he glanced sideways, this time only for a moment. “You think I’m joking?” He shook his head. “Your voice is melodic but not too high-pitched. Smooth and rich, with a hint of breathiness, a sound that enfolds me like sunshine on a winter’s day.”
“I thought you were a musician, not a poet.” But his words had a similar warmth enfolding her. “Or perhaps you are describing your favorite wine.”
He moved the leather straps into his right hand, and then dropped his left atop both of hers. “Why did you walk with me last night?”
His questions weren’t easy ones. She clamped her mouth together.
“As I’ve only a few days to become better acquainted with you, I have no wish to waste them discussing the weather.” The man’s persistence wasn’t easily thwarted.
“Why do you want to become acquainted with me at all?”
He sat silent, seemingly contemplating her question. It was only fair that she could ask personal questions as well.
“I think I’d like to be your friend.”
Her first instinct was to laugh at that. Because most friends didn’t do the things they’d done with one another. Nor did they do the things she imagined they would do later this evening. But before her cynical self could mock his answer, her aching heart stopped her.
Because she hadn’t any friends. She had acquaintances, social equals, and servants, but no one she truly considered a friend.
Her father hadn’t allowed her much freedom as a young girl. If he had, she wondered if she would have been nearly as amenable to his wishes. She hadn’t been allowed to mingle with other ladies until after she’d become betrothed, and by then most had all but dismissed her. One in particular, had outright accused her of seducing Baldwin to gain position and wealth.
She hadn’t denied it because she hadn’t understood what they’d meant.
Baldwin had been her first true friend, her only friend, her last friend. Perhaps that was why she was the way she was. Disconnected, separated.
“When my father brought me to London for my debut, my friendships were limited to meaningless conversations with other ladies in between dances. A few of the young women were friendly, but I wasn’t one of them.” She realized she was talking about herself again, but he seemed not to mind. “After I married, Baldwin allowed me all the freedom I’d ever wanted, but by then.” She shrugged, “I kept myself busy at home. I’ve accepted a few invitations since coming out of mourning but...” People treated her much the same as they had before.
But now it was because of her behavior. Because gentlemen gossiped worse than ladies and because she’d not cared to pretend to be something other than what she was.
“Ladies pretend to like me. I am a Countess, after all. But their comments are often just thinly veiled insults. Always with a smile, of course, and always spoken in the most condescending tone of voice. There. Now you’ve done it. You’ve got me complaining.”
He didn’t respond, and so she stared off into the distance.
And then she lifted her chin. “My affairs with gentlemen aren’t nearly as complicated, nor are they as hypocritical. They are… a straightforward transaction. An equal exchange involving mutual benefits.” She needed him to know that although he was acting as though they were courting, she required nothing more.
“So, you don’t want my friendship.”
“I didn’t say that.” But had she?
“You said your affairs with gentlemen were a transaction. What if I want more than that?”
She inhaled sharply. “You don’t.” And yet she was squeezing his hand with both of hers. “You are going to Brighton and will focus all of your passion on your music. You are destined for greatness and then you will settle down with someone of whom your family approves.”
“Would you be amenable if I was to be so presumptuous as to tell you I knew what you wanted? Would you like it if I dictated your future to you?”
“I would not like it.” But she was right, although she wouldn’t argue with him.
“So, you will be my friend?” He was smiling again. “And my lover.”
“Tonight. As for more than that—” She lifted one shoulder and then dropped it.
“Let’s take this one step at a time, shall we?” And then the horses emerged from the trees into a clearing near the water. “Would you care to walk a little before we drive to Mivart’s?”
His mention of the hotel caused her heart to skip a beat, which made no sense at all. She was excited to be with him but her normal emptiness didn’t seem to be fueling her actions as much as usual.
“I’d like that.” She sat primly, feeling like a fraud when he hopped do
wn and walked around to assist her to the ground.
“I’ve never been to this part of the park,” she admitted as he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm.
“Don’t tell anyone, but it’s where all the duels are held,” he whispered dramatically and then told her about a few of the illegal face-offs he’d witnessed, one where he had acted as second.
“But you have never dueled?’ she guessed.
He shook his head. “My brother does enough of that for both of us. And as I’ve never felt there was a need, as well as for my mother’s sake, I have not.”
“I envy your relationship with your family.” Before he could offer a sympathetic comment, she hurried on to ask, “Is there anything you would enter a duel for? Anything you’d risk your life for?”
He nodded. “To protect the people I love.” They paused their walking, and he stared out at the water. “Or to avenge them.”
Peter Spencer was a sensitive soul and not inclined to violence, but the thread of determination in his voice sent a chill down Miranda’s spine.
“For Rosa?” she wondered.
“I wouldn’t kill for her.” He slid his eyes in her direction and grinned. “But I would maim.”
They both turned and resumed walking along the shoreline, not going far as to keep the horses and his shiny curricle in sight.
“I have only heard you play as part of a group but I think, before you leave, that I must hear you play a solo piece. How am I to know that you are not pretending to play?” It was her turn to tease him.
And for the remainder of their walk and drive, Miranda found herself flirting, laughing, and getting to know this young man who’d entered her life so very unexpectedly. And their companionship was not only about asking questions and learning one another’s histories but simply enjoying the other person’s company.
Being.
For the first time in months, she didn’t feel completely alone.
Chapter 4
Torn
Mayfair Maiden: Eighth Day of Christmas: A Lord Love A Lady Novella (Regency Cocky Gents Book 4) Page 3