A Most Demanding Mistress (Fashionably Impure Book 2) (13 page)

She sensed Adrian’s gaze upon her.

Felt his touch on her shoulder. The barest
touch.

“It is a lot to ask,” he whispered, at
length.

“To give you back your own son?” Miranda said,
trying to conceal her bitterness towards Dorothy Chadwick.

“No.” He brushed her elaborate spill of
ringlets off her neck and caressed her nape with his fingertips. “It would be a
lot to ask of a mistress.”

Her heart suddenly began to beat very fast. “What
would be?”

“That you would take my son home with you
and watch over him for me.”

Her breath began to quicken. Her chest
tightening. “Goodness, Adrian,” she whispered. “You can’t mean that.”

“But I do.” He placed a kiss on her neck.
“You must help me. You’re only one I can trust.”

“That’s not true…what about that cousin of
yours. Rule?”

“Jon? No, his countess is about to have a
lying in and their son is not strong. Jon is consumed by politics. My Davey
would be just as lost in that household as he was in my uncle’s, through no
fault of anyone. It is just that he needs individual care. He needs a woman’s
nurturing and understanding, her softness.”

“Oh God,” she whispered. “I know nothing of
children and their care.”

“You knew enough to manipulate him into
telling you what he’d like to eat. Do you know how hard my aunt and Dorothy and
myself and a whole staff of nannies and housekeepers have tried to ply that boy
with all manner of food and treats in the days before the doctors were called
in? And he remained silent, stubborn.”

“Do you hear me, my lord?” she whispered
more stridently.

A flash in the corner of her eye made
Miranda turn. She saw that Davey had looked away from his vantage point, where
he had stood watching the people who were still arriving in the gardens. Now he
glanced their way.

She gave him a reassuring smile.

He turned back to watch the people and she
made a more conscious effort to lower her voice. “I have been trained,
carefully coached in how to talk to and draw out the male sex to know their
wants, despite their stubborn, arrogant natures. But I know nothing of caring
for children.”

“I’ll send Davey’s nanny to you.”

“Oh my God…Adrian…” Miranda felt as though
all her air had been sucked away, with the shock of his suggestion. “She is an
upper-level servant, with references and training that allow her to be employed
in an earl’s home. Do you know how she would resent me? How shamed she would be
to even visit my home?”

“She will do as she is told.” Adrian’s jaw
set firmly.

“You can’t just–”

“I can and I will.”

At his expression of rock-hard, utterly
self-assured authority, she sucked in her breath. She realized that he had
never quite shown her the full face of his aristocratic arrogance, until this
moment.

It alarmed her.

At the same time, elation flooded her to see
him use that strength and authority for his son’s sake.

But still…

His look softened. “Miranda, I love you.”

The sincerity in his eyes…Oh, God, that he
should choose to use their love as leverage for this.

She shook her head.

“Please do this for me. Out of love for me.”

She gaped at him.

Adrian took her by the shoulders and gently
turned her closer to Davey. “If you won’t do it for me. Do it for him.”
Adrian’s lips brushed her ear. “He loves you, too.”

Chapter
Ten

“Andi! Andi”

The crying voice cut into Miranda’s sleep.
She forced herself to open her eyes, but her foggy brain followed slowly.

“Andi, she’s after me! She’s coming for me!”

Miranda’s eyes came back open. She hadn’t
intended to fall back to sleep.

Andi was Davey’s nickname for her. Clad in
her flannel nightdress, she dragged herself from the bed.

How many nights had she lost sleep now?

She’d lost track.

Yanking her wrapper from the hook, she
donned it and hurried from her chamber and down the corridor to his.

But he was waiting for her outside his door.
In the moonlight from the window, tear streaks glistened on his cheeks. “Oh,
Andi, she’s coming for me!”

Miranda dropped to her knees, opening her
arms and drawing him to herself. “Hush.”

He sucked in a trembling cry, his little
body vibrating within her embrace. A fresh torrent of tears exploded from him.

“What’s all this about?”

“The lady…” His voice quavered.

She stroked his hair. “The lady in white, in
your dreams?”

“Yes, oh…” He trembled, mightily.

“She’s not real.” She smoothed his
sweat-dampened hair back. “My darling boy, she’s not real.”

“She wants to take me.”

This was new. Miranda held herself perfectly
still for a moment, hoping he would expand on that.

He sagged into her.

Her heart panged with sympathy, and she
hugged him.

He hugged her back, fiercely. It startled
her that he could manage with his thin little boy’s body. And she was caught
off guard when he pushed away and ran from her.

“Davey!” She sprung to her feet and hurried after
him, following him down the stairs and out the door, calling for him to stop
the whole way.

He refused to turn around.

Her housekeeper came stumbling into the
hall, sleepy-eyed, with her lace trimmed cap askew. “Miss Jones?” It was more
of a yawn than a question.

“I’ll deal with this!” Miranda cried over
her shoulder as she ran after Davey.

Davey was running back and forth at the edge
of the garden, where the Cypress trees stood tall and well trimmed. “Where is
the lake? Where is it?”

His voice held a note of despair.

He looked up at the imposing cherub fountain
and froze. “Oh, mighty angels in heaven, be kind to my Mama! Don’t punish her!”

He glanced over his shoulder and saw
Miranda’s approach, and he began running back and forth again. “The lake, I
must find the lake. They will punish Mama!”

She panted as she ran back and forth trying
to catch him. “Davey! Stop, please.”

“My Mama, she’s calling to me from the other
side! She wants me there.” He stopped and sobbed. “I must go to her! I must!”

Miranda froze, afraid to make any sudden
moves or else he might flee. “No, Davey, your place is here.”

“Mama needs me!”

“Your Mama has God and his angels and her
own Mama and Papa to comfort her.”

“Yes, yes…” he said, sounding as though he
were considering her words. “But, she wants me too!”

“She has no right to ask that.”

“She is my Mama!”

“Yes, but your Papa needs you, too. He has
only you and Brentwood.”

“He needs Brentwood more.”

She gasped at the pain in Davey’s voice.
“How can you say that?” She took another breath. “How can you possibly believe
it?”

“Brentwood is his heir. I am only here in
case Brentwood dies.”

“That’s not true!” Miranda felt ill. “Who
told you this?”

Davey compressed his lips, his eyes darting
from side to side. “She-they made me promise not to tell. It is our secret. If
I tell, Mama may be punished by the angels.”

Miranda clamped a hand over her mouth. Shock
made her weak.

She
made Davey promise not to tell?

Had Dorothy done this?

Yes, of course, she had!

Who else?

But why? Obviously to upset Adrian’s son.
But why?

“You’re wrong, Davey. Your Papa loves you
very much. If you were to leave and join your mother with the angels, he would
be sad so very sad.”

“I don’t believe you. I never see him.” Davey
took a gulping sob. “And when I do, he doesn’t listen.”

Most of the time, when Adrian was around his
son, lately, since that dreadful morning at Applewaite, he was at least
partially in his cups. He
was
distracted.

And before he had begun to drink heavily
again, he had spent the majority of his time at cards, trying to win back the
Sutherland family fortune, a fortune he somehow believed he was duty-bound to
earn back in full.

Even though it had been a fortune built up
on generations of rents and other forms of yearly incomes.

But however well-intentioned Adrian’s goals
had been, they had kept him from being a true father to his sons. Though she
knew he would rather cut off his right arm than neglect or hurt his sons, he
had hurt and neglected them all the same.

She hurt for Adrian, for the pain of his
mistakes.

She hurt for his sons, who would pay the
price for his mistakes.

But what could she do to convince Davey that
a truth was not a truth?

Nothing.

It was up to Adrian to repair the breech
he’d allowed to come between his sons and himself.

So, she did the only thing she knew to do.
She dropped to her knees again and held out her arms. “Davey,” she said,
softly, letting the wind carry the echo to him. “If no one else in this world
would be sad if you left to join the angels, I would be.”

He lifted his chin, his eyes glowing huge in
his pale, too thin face in the moonlight. “You would?” He gulped back a lengthy
sob. “You truly would?”

She nodded. “Yes, I would be terribly sad.”

“Oh,” He paused for a long time, appearing
to consider her words. “Are we friends then, Andi?”

“Yes, we are friends.”

“Forever?”

“Only for forever and ever,” she said.

“Promise?”

“Yes, definitely I promise,” she said,
smiling. “Come to me and give me a hug to seal it.”

His expression much brighter, he ran to her.

Chapter
Eleven

Miranda most always came to greet him
halfway up the walk from the drive. Adrian found it rather touching and
reassuring. Yet, today, there was something different about her walk.

A laziness to her stride? Or was that a lack
of self-consciousness?

He couldn’t quite place a finger on exactly
what.

But it was different.

She walked into his embrace and held her
face up to his.

She was his Miranda but different. Younger.
Something very changed.

The sun glinted on her lashes, causing fiery
sparks of red and gold to flare. And then he knew. For the first time since
he’d known her, he was seeing her without any cosmetics. Her eyelashes were
normally dark and flat black.

Now they sparkled with color, making her
pale green eyes seem all the more luminescent. Her brows matched her lashes and
were somewhat thinner than normal, with less of a dramatic arch. A spattering
of pale beige freckles lay across the bridge of her nose. Her lips were a pale
rose rather than the usual wine red and the lines of her mouth softer.

He cupped her face, drinking his fill of
this new Miranda.

“My God,” he said at length.

She laughed, softly, a little abashed.

She was such a skilled artist with her
cosmetics, had applied them so well, that he had no previous idea how much she
altered her appearance with them.

“You look so different.”

She pulled away from him. “You are one of
the first people, besides Sally, of course, to see me like this in years.”

“My God,” he said, reaching for her, trying
to turn her face back to him.

Because he wanted to get another look. A
look at
his
girl.

“I wanted to give you something that you had
asked for a long time ago. You asked me to strip away all my artifice and show
you the woman who remains. Now you see her.”

“Miranda…”

“If you don’t like it, I will wear the
paint.” She allowed him to pull her face into view. “I hated the heavy feel of
it at first but it is second nature now.”

“Where is Davey?” he asked, tersely.

“What?” she said, obviously startled by the
change in topic.

“Where is he?” Adrian normally visited her
in the early hours of the morning, before Davey arose. But today he’d been
delayed with business.

“He is napping, as he always does this time
of the afternoon.” She laughed. “I allow him to ask for whatever he wants and
he eats a huge gentleman’s breakfast for his luncheon, complete with kidneys.”
She made a face. “And bacon and then he sleeps, very deeply.”

“God.” He cupped her face. “You-you…” Hunger
scrambled his thinking and made him incapable of finding the right words and he
kissed her deeply, all the while pressing his rearing erection into her belly.
“I…” He couldn’t keep from kissing those rose colored lips again, then he
continued. “You are so lovely. So God-damned lovely.”

He kissed her neck, licking at her flesh,
savoring the salty taste. He sucked at her neck with fierce hunger then bit at
her, not all that lightly. “I want you. Now.”

“You have me, any way that you want.” Her
voice was soft, seductive.

He swept her up into his arms and carried
her into the small withdrawing chamber, just off the main hall.

“I can’t wait. I have to have you.” He swept
her skirts up and touched her between the legs, relieved to find her a little
wet. He worked his fingers against her opening, encouraging her to become
slicker until he could put his fingers inside her.

She gasped then arched her hips.

He brushed her nub with his thumb.

“Don’t,” he cupped her face. “Don’t wear
your cosmetics again.”

She shook her head and traced a finger over
the bridge of her nose. “I can’t allow myself to be seen in public with these
freckles. Cassandra tells me I wouldn’t get them if I would only stay out of
the sun. But I love the feel of the sun on my face when I am in the country. I
haven’t had enough time for them to fade since I spent those all those months
working in the garden with Mama after Carrville died.”

A smile tweaked at his mouth. She saw him
fight to subdue it. “Well, you can conceal your freckles in public of you must.
But don’t wear your paint when it is just you and me alone.” He caressed her
cheek. “You’re just a country girl at heart, aren’t you?”

How bemused he sounded. She shrugged. “I was
raised in the country.”

“And forced to come to the city when
Winterton…” He broke off abruptly. “I am by no means perfect, Miranda. But I am
trying, hard, to be what you need. To give you what you need.”

“I know. That’s why I shared my real self
with you today. It is something you wanted, and I wanted to give it to you.”
Her voice was breaking for sadness had entered her heart.

“But what, Miranda?” There was no mistaking
the irritability in his voice.

“Well, I do know how hard you try to give
those you love what you think they need most.”

His expression hardened. “Not this again.”

He moved to retrieve his coat.

No, he would not run from her! She hurried
to block his exit. “You will listen to me,” she said, her voice shaking with
her daring.

He gave her as disdainful a look as he ever
had.

And yes, it did frighten her. But she
wouldn’t be intimidated. For Davey’s sake, she could not be. “You drink too
much, too often,” she blurted, without any of the finesse that she’d been
taught to use with men.

“Miranda—”

“You ignore your son. He
needs
you.”

“I am doing what I must for his future.”

“Are you?”

“What are you saying?”

“Are you running away?”

“That’s a damnable thing to say. I won’t
stand for it.” He laid his hand on the doorknob, turning from her to go.

“Do you know why he couldn’t eat, couldn’t
sleep without nightmares?”

He spun back to face her, eyes as dark as a
thundercloud. “He’s grieving his mother.”

“No, not completely. A woman was feeding his
fertile imagination with all manner of ideas.”

He stood there, with his arms crossed over
his chest, his coat dropped to the floor. “He told you that?”

“And more.”

“He told you that when he wouldn’t tell me?”

“How could he tell you? You’re never around
and those few times when you are, you are so into your cups that you all but
ignore him.”

For a moment, it seemed his expression was about
to crumple. But she must have only imagined it for in the next moment; it was
as stony as before. “What did he tell you?”

“A woman was telling him that his mother
wanted him to come to heaven to join her.”

He blanched and then he scowled. “The hell you
say.”

“She told him that if he didn’t go to join
his mother in heaven right away, the angels would punish his mother.”

Adrian gaped at her. ‘You’re saying this
woman wanted to drive him to take his own life? My God, Miranda, such a woman
would be a monster.”

“This is what he told me. And since the
telling, he hasn’t had another nightmare.”

Adrian leaned back against the door. “It’s
too fantastical, Miranda.”

“You don’t believe me then?”

“You say he told you this?”

“So it is your own son whom you do not believe.”

He just stared at her. “Miranda, have you
heard what you’ve been saying? It sounds mad, utterly mad.”

“Yes, someone is mad indeed, my lord.”

“Obviously you’ve given this some thought.
You suspect someone?”

She compressed her lips. “Yes, but it is you
who must look into your own heart to find the culprit.”

“What devil kind of riddle is that?”

“If you had not left him, all alone with
your addle-brained uncle and aunt, the opportunity for this wouldn’t have
arisen. If you had him close to your side—if you had been a true father.” Her
voice broke on a sob. “If you had kept him safe.”

“God, Miranda, you better not be lying to
me.”

Her mouth dropped open. How could he ever
believe she would lie about something so terrible? “I don’t think you can love
me, not truly,” she blurted.

“What? Now you say not only haven’t I
been—what were your exact words?—a true father to my sons but now I don’t love
you either.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You are saying that the only
things that mean anything to me, the only thing that gives my life meaning are
illusions.”

“I am saying you had better change your
life.”

“Change my life?”

“Yes, accept your lesser wealth. Stop
running away from life in your brandy bottle and be a real father to your
sons.”

He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling.
“You-are-putting-me-in-hell!” he exploded.

Her heart jumped into her throat, but she
kept her outward courage. Her outward calm. “Adrian, you must do these things,
for me if not for your sons. But most of all, do it for your own self-respect.”

“Oh, my self-respect.” He clamped a hand
over his heart. Then a scowl came over his face, and he waved a hand about the
hall. “And if I give up cards, how am I to provide you with this largess, my
fine lady?”

“I don’t need this house. You could find me
a nice little cottage. Somewhere in greater London.”

“And how long until you find someone who can
give you more?”

“I am telling you that I am willing to live
with less if it means your sons can have more of you.”

“How self-sacrificial! Forgive me, if I
cannot believe it will last.”

“My God.” She felt the blood drain from her
face.

“What?” he said.

“Your disdain for me, because I was a
courtesan—”

“You told me that once a courtesan, always a
courtesan.”

“I never did, that’s your own imagination.”

“You alluded to it when you balked at my
suggestion that you tone down your use of cosmetics and the glittering, low cut
gowns.”

“Suggest? Ha! You ordered me!”

“Semantics.”

“No, not semantics. And we had just come to
know each other as mistress and provider. You wanted instant intimacy and trust
of a manner that takes time. You want this trust and emotional intimacy. You
want me to make sacrifices, but you want to make none towards me.”

“What sacrifices do you demand? You demand
that I end the very means of my financial existence and yours.”

“Well, it isn’t just about you and me, is
it? You have children.”

“And you want me to change. You want me to
stop drinking—”

“Yes, stop drinking to excess as a way to
run away from

“Or?” he asked.

“Or I shan’t be able to love you any longer.
I cannot love a man who I cannot respect. How could any woman respect a man who
will not do right by his children?”

He gaped at her.

“I should be enough for you. When your life
is too painful, you should be able to turn to me for solace.”

His face when ashen and without warning, he
slid to the floor and put his head in his hands. “My God.”

She dropped down to sit beside him. “Adrian!
Are you well?”

He looked up at her his face stricken. “Hell
no, I am not well.” He closed his eyes, his hand cupping her face.

She pressed his hand closer. “Tell me.”

“You tell me this fantastical tale about
some woman, some insane, sadistic devil woman who hurt my child. It’s such a
horrid tale that I can’t believe it. I don’t
want
to believe it. Yet, I
look into your face. I see nothing but sincerity.” He opened his eyes. “You
would not lie to me.” He compressed his lips then continued. “You would not lie
to me, not even about my own sins. Christ, Miranda, you love me enough to
accuse me of my own sins.”

Each word he spoke was like a knife in her
heart. “Oh, Adrian…”

“No, do not weaken. You are exactly correct
to press me on this.” He closed his eyes again. “My father neglected me.
Alternatively, he made me lavish promises to do better. I learned never to
trust the promises of others. Yet, in the end, his desire for—.” Adrian
tightened his jaw so firmly that Miranda could hear his teeth grinding. “Let’s
call it what it was, his desire for sexual congress with beautiful women, a
desire he would satisfy no matter the cost to anyone else around him, even me,
his son, in the end that desire destroyed him.

“Do you know what it is like, finding your
father with his wrists slashed because he drank himself into a delusional,
depressed stupor over some woman he’d become obsessed with and lost?”