Her Wicked Ways (8 page)

Stratham let out a dark laugh. “She said at the vicarage she’s only here for the summer. She sees this town and its inhabitants as beneath her.”

Fox cocked a brow. “That doesn’t bode well for you then, does it?”

“You forget I spend a good deal of time in London. I do believe Lady Miranda does not consider me in the same
class
as the rest of Wootton Bassett.”

“Because you’re not. You’re not fit to clean the chamber pots of anyone I know.”

Stratham’s eyes narrowed. “Insolent ass—”

Fox jabbed his shoulder into Stratham’s chest as he turned. “Don’t waste your time.”

As he climbed back into the cart, Stratham backed away. “She’ll choose me in the end, you know. You’re the one who shouldn’t bother.”

Fox ignored the man’s taunts and urged his horse into a gentle trot. He was annoyed with himself for engaging Stratham, something he knew to be both futile and frustrating. Perhaps they should have dueled over the right to court her and saved everyone the plague of prolonged competition.

A waft of spicy citrus hit him and he savored the scent. His blood heated and the notion of marrying Miranda became more than about besting Stratham. More than about money.

He wanted her.

Wanted her in a way he hadn’t wanted a woman in a very long time. It transcended mere physical requirement and the vanity that came with having such a woman. No, she carried the promise of something much more.

And for that, he’d fight to win.

THE following Monday, Miranda found herself at the head of the long dining room table at Stipple’s End. More than two dozen children stared at her—some with interest, others with disdain, all of them with hunger.

When she’d offered daily assistance to Mrs. Gates, the kindly headmistress had quickly—and gleefully—assigned Miranda to overseeing lunch. Fear overtook the appetite pulling on her belly. How could she possibly manage twenty seven children? Twenty seven party-goers, certainly. But this gathering was not a party. Even so, it had to be a far sight better than delousing. And if she was lucky, she would prove good enough at this to avoid delousing permanently.

A maid from the kitchen brought in the food, placing covered dishes throughout the table. As soon as one landed, a hand snatched off the lid and dove for the contents. Miranda’s eyes widened at the lack of decorum. But that didn’t actually begin to describe the…the
mayhem
erupting about her. Carrots spilled from the serving spoon onto the table more often than onto a child’s plate. An unknown stewed vegetable—at least she assumed it was a vegetable—splattered a child’s arm as he ladled a portion for himself. And did that small girl just devour a bite of turnips directly from the serving dish?

“Children.” Miranda cleared her throat when no one responded. Why weren’t they listening? She tried again, “Children, please stop.” A few of the smaller girls looked up at her, their forks arrested in midair. When no one else halted their activity, they went back to their lunches. Presumably they gave Mrs. Gates their attention. Why not her, the daughter of a duke? Didn’t they realize her considerable position?

The kitchen maid shrugged at Miranda and took her leave. “Wait,” Miranda called after the young woman, but her request was either not heard or ignored. Given the chaos in the dining room, Miranda rather thought it was the former, but couldn’t dismiss the latter.

Squaring her shoulders, Miranda faced the raucous horde of children. Her knees trembled and nervous heat snaked down her neck.

“Hey, that’s my roll!”

“No, it’s mine. Get yer own!”

“Ouch, watch yer elbow!”

“I wanna glass of water!”

The cacophony was approaching a deafening roar. “Stop, please!” More children gave her their attention, but the majority continued to ignore her. Her anxiety gave way to ire. “I said, STOP!” Goodness, she sounded a bit like her father.

A few more children fell silent, but the skirmish over a roll continued at the other end of the table. Miranda stalked to the field of battle and seized the roll from the warring parties. Both lads stared up at her. One of them, she realized, was a shorn Bernard. Her scalp and neck twitched.

“There are plenty of rolls left. Why are you fighting over this particular one?” She hefted the bread in her hand, wondering if it would bounce off the boy’s head if she threw it. No, she was civilized, unlike these heathens, and civilized people didn’t throw food. Her job—and never did she more clearly understand it—was to civilize them.

The boys glared at each other a moment longer. “I guess I can get another one.” And then she witnessed firsthand that the rolls did indeed bounce as Bernard nicked a roll from the tray and chucked it at his opponent’s skull.

Instantly, other boys leaned over the table encouraging either Bernard or his foe. For his part, Bernard earned a spoonful of pudding aimed at his chest. A glop hit Miranda’s arm and slid onto the floor. Unable to move, she gaped at the uncontrollable pandemonium around her. Children were yelling, tossing food, and crying. Crying? Miranda looked around for someone to help before recalling she was the only adult present.

Her brother had misbehaved. What had their governess done? Ah yes,
that
. Miranda reached forward, but pulled her hand back at the last second. Grabbing Bernard by the ear meant touching an area that was, and perhaps still could be, infested with lice. Risk the lice or allow the boys to completely devolve?

The crying made her decision for her. Miranda grasped both troublemaking boys by their ears and dragged them out of their chairs. They shrieked in unison. The rest of the table’s occupants hushed almost immediately. Even the crying became a soft hiccupping.

“Both of you are finished eating. And you will clean up the table when our meal is over. Now go sit in the corner.” She thrust them away, and they goggled at her, each with a reddened ear. Miranda felt a little bad about that, but not enough to summon regret. “Well, go on then.” Reluctantly, they turned and shuffled toward the corner. “No, separately. One of you in that corner and the other in that corner.” She pointed, and they split up as ordered. Her chest puffed up a bit as she watched them heed her directions. Her triumph was short-lived, however, when Bernard shot her a sharp glare.

Miranda turned on her heel and started back toward her seat at the head. A small girl halfway up the table resumed her crying. Miranda crouched beside her and tried not to gag at the sight of so much…gunk coming out of the urchin’s nose. “What is it, dear?”

“I didn’t get a roll. I wanna roll.” Tears fell in earnest, dotting her stained dress. A roll she could manage, but what to do about the nose? Miranda picked up the urchin’s hem and wiped her nose and mouth. One of the older girls looked at her curiously. What difference did it make? The dress was impossibly stained anyway!

Miranda turned to the boy seated to the girl’s right. “Would you please ask for the rolls?” The boy stared at her for a moment as if he didn’t comprehend. She gritted her teeth. “
The rolls
. This girl would like a
roll
.”

He leapt onto his feet
on his chair
and reached across the table, his shirtsleeves dragging through a dish of turnips. When he shrank back to a seated position, he held a squashed roll in his grasp. He presented it to the girl with a toothless grin.

Horrified, Miranda waved her hand at nothing in particular. “You can’t just lean over the table like that! You ask for the rolls to be passed. Goodness, have you no manners at all?” She directed the last to the table at large, but received no response.

Dazedly, she returned to her chair while the meal carried on in a symphonic discord of screeching children, audible chewing, and, good Lord, burping. Were those boys at the end having a contest as to who could burp loudest and longest?

Suddenly, she recalled a similar occurrence from her own childhood. Though her brother was several years older, they often ate together. On one occasion, Jasper had burped. They’d laughed because they could never have done such a thing in front of their parents, and to continue the hilarity, Miranda had copied the sound. Extremely effectively, too.

But should she—could she? She was out of ideas and the only thing resonating in her brain was her mother’s admonishment, “If you can’t think how to behave, simply mimic those around you. That way you shall always fit in.” Perhaps her mother had never been more right. Miranda swallowed a great mouthful of air and burped it out as loudly as possible.

Everyone at the table froze. She couldn’t help but smile at finally getting their attention. After a blissful moment of utter silence, Bernard clapped his hands from the corner. Soon everyone was whooping, laughing, or clapping wildly. And burping. She’d encouraged an epic tournament.

Ah well, she’d have plenty of days to fix their manners. For now, she was tired, hungry, and not at all interested in spoiling their fun. Surprisingly, she found she envied their carefree ignorance—stained dresses and all.

FOX crouched low over the ground, scanning for the slightest sign of life. There! A tiny bit of green poked up from the soft brown earth.

“It’s late.” Rob frowned down at the meager sprout fighting to the surface of the orphanage’s vegetable garden.

Fox stood. “Better late than nonexistent.” He raised his gaze to the gray sky and was rewarded with a fat snowflake in his eye. Blinking, he said, “I was just going to say I brought a cartful of hay from Bassett Manor to cover the plants in case it froze tonight.”

Rob squinted upward as a scattering of flakes fluttered toward the ground. “I’ll get the wheelbarrow.”

“And I’ll get the pitchforks.”

A few moments later, they were pulling hay from the cart amidst a flurry of cold, damp snow. The yard filled with the gleeful shrieks of the children as they played.

By the time Fox and Rob got back to the garden, a thin layer of white covered their tiny seedlings. Fox dumped the wheelbarrow. “Damn. It’s really coming down. I’ll spread this. You go and get another load.”

A wet thwack against Fox’s back made him turn. Philip stood maybe twenty feet away with a mouth-splitting grin. While Fox was anxious to get their precious plants covered, Philip was starting a snowball fight.

“Philip!”

Fox spun toward the voice calling out from the back of the house. Miranda stood at the door garbed in a dark blue gown, her blond hair pulled back from her face in a simple chignon. Even from this distance her beauty made his breath catch. She was a vision of domestic perfection. He imagined her standing on the back terrace at Bassett Manor calling him into luncheon.

His trance was broken when she stalked toward Philip, her brows drawn together. He strained to hear her admonishment over the sounds around him. “Mr. Foxcroft is working there. You mustn’t throw snowballs.”

Too late, Fox noticed Bernard launching a snowball at Miranda’s back. With a gasp, she twirled around.

Fox ran to Bernard and yanked him toward the vegetable patch. “You will spread the hay over the plants. Quickly now.” Fox pointed at Philip. “And you will go help Mr. Knott.”

Philip nodded and took himself off.

Miranda gaped at him. “My goodness, they actually listen to you.”

“It takes a stern tone. And several days supervising them working in the fields.”

She hugged her arms around herself. “I can’t believe it’s snowing.”

He repressed the urge to draw her to his body and warm her. “You should get back inside. You’re not even wearing a cloak.”

Snowflakes clung to her eyelashes, accentuating their lush length. “But you look as if you need help.”

Fox watched as Rob and Philip hurried back to the garden with another load of hay. “It wouldn’t come amiss. Do you think you can round up some children to help?”

She grinned at him and he thought his knees might give out. “I can try.”

He stared after her, unable to tear his gaze away.

Rob cleared his throat as he sidled up next to Fox. “You going to gawk at her backside or take care of our beans and turnips?”

“If only I actually had a choice.” Fox tore his gaze from Miranda’s, yes, backside.

Rob waved at the boys in the vegetable patch. “Careful there! Cover the plants, but don’t step on them!” Three more boys joined Bernard and Philip. They appeared eager to toss hay around in the middle of a snowstorm. Rob addressed Fox again. “You make any further progress with her, then?”

“Not since I usurped Stratham’s place the other day when I took her for a drive.” Fox steered the wheelbarrow back to the cart.

Rob walked alongside. “Brilliant move, that. You don’t want him stealing her away.” Color crept up his neck, and he looked away, either suddenly interested in the swirling snow or belatedly realizing he was a complete ass for saying such an imbecilic thing.

Fox glared at his friend. “You know full well Jane didn’t choose him of her own accord, and neither will Miranda. I may not look as fancy as Stratham, but she’ll recognize I’m the better man.”