And Then Comes Marriage (34 page)

Constance lifted her lip in a sneer, forgetting for a moment to be saintly. “Your family’s ways, then. Bad blood always tells, Miranda. You have very bad blood!”

“So you have never hesitated to remind me.” Miranda worked her jaw. “Constance, I beg of you, get to the blasted point!”

Constance shot her a knowing glance and Miranda regretted the vulgarity—but honestly, the woman was enough to try the good nature of an angel!

“I arranged for Mr. Seymour to be well compensated for his efforts, should they come to fruition. I had planned—that is, we had planned—to
persuade
you to agree to a financial arrangement, Miranda, wherein Mr. Seymour and I kept our silence in exchange for the house and certain supplemental benefits.”

“How prettily you describe blackmail, Constance.” Miranda realized that she was shaking with fury. “But the spectacle was quite public. How do you blackmail a woman with no secrets? You have nothing with which to bend me to your will.”

Constance smiled and Miranda’s hot fury chilled to fear.

“Oh, but dearest Miranda, there is no longer any need to … ah,
persuade
you. Surely you recall the scandal clause in Gideon’s last will and testament?”

Scandal clause? Miranda quickly cast her mind back—that reading had been so very long and dreary—all those stock pins.

Ah. Yes. In the event of Miranda causing a scandal that would somehow impact or diminish the name of Talbot in social circles, her inheritance—the house, Gideon’s prudent investments—would be rescinded. All would go to his sister, Constance, instead, and Miranda would be evicted with only what she could carry.

At the time, Miranda had found the notion vaguely amusing. Imagine her, a scandal?

Only now she need imagine nothing. She was every bit the tawdriest scandal of the Season!

Nothing. That was what she was left with.

Nothing but painful memory and the clothes she wore.

If only I dared, I might be the most blissful of women—although tiresome good sense rushes to assure me I might well be the unhappiest, with a lifetime of regret ahead of me and only sweet memories behind.

She had inscribed those words in her diary more than a month before. Miranda pressed her fingertips to her forehead.
How prescient of me.

Had it only been a few days ago that she’d thought herself that “most blissful of women?” How odd, to go from having everything to having nothing.

Constance’s smile became sharp, bringing to Miranda’s mind the nasty dagger shape of shark teeth. “I encouraged the inclusion of that clause,” Constance boasted, “although even Gideon saw the sense of it, once I reminded him of your poor father’s predicament with that unruly mother of yours.” Constance made it sound as though nine-year-old Miranda ought to have been able to leash her wayward mother’s ways.

In her shock, Miranda had entirely forgotten Mr. Seymour’s presence. Now, it was his significant clearing of his throat that drew her stunned attention.

He smiled spitefully. “I’ll wager you’ll remember me now.”

Chapter Thirty-one

Attie stood in the hallway outside the parlor, listening very intently to the evil within.

When she had arrived at Miranda’s, lonely for someone to talk to—or, in her case, to think at while scowling fiercely—she had seen the strange carriage sitting before the house. She had slipped around to the back and tapped on the kitchen door instead.

Tildy had let her in and sent her to wait for the missus in her little morning room.

Attie never waited for anyone if there was something more interesting to do—like spy.

Twigg turned the corner and spotted her. When he opened his mouth to admonish her, she waved him silent and grabbed his hand to pull him against the wall next to her.

“It’s bad,” she whispered soundlessly, which she was perfectly capable of. She just liked to annoy people by whisper-shouting their secrets. “They’ve got her cornered. The old cow wants the house and the jackal-man wants the money.”

Twigg’s frown deepened. “We’ll all be out, then.” His soundless whisper was as practiced as Attie’s. “They’ll not want any of the loyal staff. They’d know we’d know what they did.”

Attie bit her lip. “It’s a rotten mess, all right. But I think I know just who to call to help clean it up.”

*   *   *

Miranda stood before her open wardrobe, gazing with vast apathy at the dreary assortment of mourning and half-mourning gowns. The only lovely thing she had ever possessed was the Turkish-blue silk that had lived so briefly on her skin before being torn and scorched and tainted by betrayal. She’d left it at Button’s without a thought, undoubtedly to be destroyed.

Everything she gazed at now had been of Constance’s choosing—much like the contents of the house itself. At this very moment, heavy, oppressive draperies were being rescued from the attic and rehung, blocking out the light. The process was overseen by a glum Twigg, who had survived the staff purge by virtue of having been originally hired by the sainted Gideon himself. The heavy carved furniture that Miranda had cleared out had been carried down from the attic and once more crowded the house, pressing the life from it. She had no doubt that the little china spaniels had invaded once more.

It was as if Miranda had never happened at all.

Spurning the gossamer nightdress and wrapper that reminded her too forcefully of nights best forgotten, Miranda packed a sensible batiste gown, a staid flannel wrapper, the plainest and therefore least ugly of her lavender gowns—and her diary.

She contemplated the leather-bound book for a long moment before placing it into the satchel. It was full of protest and powerless wrath and silly, secret nonsense dreams about one or the other of the Worthington rogues.

Her own gullibility made her flinch, but she resolutely placed the diary deep into her bag, for it was clear that she could not trust her own sense. Since her wonderful adventure had been a lie, and the punishment for stepping outside the boundaries had been breathtakingly severe, she would not risk doing so again.

The diary, full of such thoughtless idiocy that Miranda cringed from it, would ensure that she never forgot this lesson.

Swiftly, Miranda fastened the straps of the old leather satchel—the only item, other than the then-blank diary, still remaining from her arrival in this house as a young bride—and stalked from the swirl of rich, vicious memories contained in the mistress’s bedchamber of the house on Breton Square.

*   *   *

Poll entered the workshop to find Attie hard at work on some project involving a dining room chair placed next to a hanging curtain that was strung from the rafters with clothesline.

“Ellie said you needed my help with something?” Poll felt oddly tentative around his little sister, but she’d been so odd the last few days, as if she knew about Miranda.

Which was impossible, of course. While the family might be open about many things, he truly didn’t think any one of his siblings would wish to involve Attie in the sordid knowledge of what he and Cas had done.

However, now Attie smirked at him with a light of delighted mischief in her eyes. “I’ve invented the best trick—wait until you see it! Only I can’t test it, because I’m not heavy enough to release the spring I put in the seat. Sit down and put your hands on the arms, like this.” She demonstrated, which put Poll’s mind somewhat at ease. The chair did not respond to her weight at all.

The trick probably didn’t even work. Most good tricks took weeks to get right, and Attie had been out here only for an afternoon.

Eager to get back into Attie’s good graces, so at least someone in his family might be speaking to him, Poll moved to the chair to take Attie’s place. As he began to lower himself gingerly into the seat, he hesitated.

“Do you hear that?”

There was a strange noise coming from somewhere.
Squeak-squeak.
Attie shrugged. “Rats. I’ll bring some of the cats outside for a few days. They’ll love it. Sit!”

Poll sat. Nothing happened. He turned his head to look at her. “I think it needs a bit more work, pet—”

Attie had her hand on a rope. As he watched her, she yanked it hard.

Spring-loaded clamps sprang from beneath the arms of the chair to arch around his wrists and pin them to the wood.

“Ouch!” It didn’t hurt that bad, but—“Attie, that’s marvelous, but these are quite tight—”

She pulled another rope and the curtain fell. With horror, Poll saw a mirror image of himself in the chair—except that the other man was most thoroughly gagged with a length of sprigged muslin.

Cas rolled his eyes and rocked his body violently in the sturdy chair.
Squeak-squeak. Squeak-squeak-squeak!

“I see.” Poll nodded. “Yes, I am an idiot. Obviously, so are you.” He turned to glare at Attie. “What is this about? We haven’t lifted a finger against you for weeks. Pax, remember?” He’d never slept so well. Apparently the peace was over.

“It is about me.”

Cas and Poll turned their heads to see a spare figure outlined in the open carriage door of the workshop.

Button stepped fastidiously into the workshop, weaving his way carefully through the piles and cupboards and random mechanical parts that lay on the floor.

Poll turned to Attie. “You could have just told us Button wanted to see us.”

Attie regarded Cas and Poll with a sad scowl. Poll had to admit that disappointing Attie disturbed him more than he’d ever dreamed it would.

“Yes, I could have just told you—or I could have done something much, much worse.”

It was true. Poll felt Cas shudder slightly at his side.

Attie went on. “So if I were you, I’d take the lesson as well deserved and shut up about it.” She had another length of sprigged muslin in her hands.

In an instant, he was gagged just as Cas was. They never should have taught her those instantly looping knots!

Button paced slowly back and forth before the twins and their Spanish Inquisition chairs. “And what of you two? Would you leave a member of your family out in the cold?”

Poll shook his head no. He saw Cas do the same.

“Right. A
Worthington
would never be left alone in the world, disgraced and driven from her home.” Button spread his hands. Then he walked around behind the chairs and gave both brothers an idiot slap on the backs of their respective thick skulls.

“Mmph!” Poll twisted his head to glare at the man.

Cas, however stared at the dressmaker with dawning horror in his eyes. Poll frowned at his twin, confused. Then—

Oh, God. Miranda.

Button crossed back in front of them again with his hands behind his back. He regarded them with his head tilted to one side. “I can see you have questions. I shall attempt to address them.”

He held out his hand and counted off one finger. “Is Miranda in desperate trouble? Yes, she is.”

Poll turned to glare belligerently at Cas, only to find Cas glaring right back.

This time it was Attie who delivered a pair of idiot slaps.

“This is no longer about the two of you.” Button bent slightly and frowned into their faces with narrowed eyes, his usually mischievous face etched in hard lines that gave credence to Iris’s hints that her old friend used to be a dangerous spy.

“Because of your irresponsible little games, a lovely woman has been robbed of her fortune, her home, and her reputation! When are you two going to realize that you cannot play games with people’s lives!”

Cas and Poll and Attie shared a look. Now was not the time to point out how odd that was, coming from Button.

“This is all your fault!” He straightened and glared at them. “Fix this at once!”

Poll glanced at his twin to see Cas’s expression shadowed with a similar sickened cast. Cas stared back at him, queasy shame emanating from every pore. Poll knew he looked the same.

Button let out a sigh. “Finally.” He waved a hand at Attie. “Release them.”

Attie did something to the back of each chair and the clamps released. Cas and Poll quickly disengaged themselves, tossing the muslin gag strips to the hay-speckled floor as they ran from the carriage house and toward Miranda.

Button walked to the large doorway and gazed out at the fine summer day.

Miss Atalanta had done amazingly well. Much better than the dress rehearsal, in fact.

When she came to stand next to him, he smiled gently down at her. “Such a lovely plan. The only thing I don’t understand is how you made those chairs so quickly.”

“I didn’t. Orion did.”

Button nodded. “Well, that explains why they worked the first time.”

“Oh, we practiced on Ellie. I’ve been locking her up for hours. It was great fun.”

*   *   *

Miranda stepped from the door of her house—Constance’s house—with a cool nod at an obviously distressed Twigg.

She had little enough breath to face the world outside, but she spared some to turn to the unhappy butler for a moment. “This was not your fault,” she told him. “You did try to warn me.”

Every one of the man’s efforts to resist commands that might anger Constance was now seen in a clearer light. He’d been trying to protect her, to keep her from pushing her spiteful sister-in-law to enact drastic measures.