Miracle (10 page)

Ah, yes. The Countess
Delarue
-Madras was exquisite: always willing, eager, voluptuous. Their times in bed had been hot and fierce.

Clayton had eventually grown bored, even with her. In truth, he had grown bored with nearly everything in his life. Wealth and success offered him little challenge any longer. Why else would he have agreed to come here, to the edge of this most inhospitable world, away from his predictable escapades at the gaming tables or clubs? While Basingstoke Hall offered the sanctuary of comfort and home, in the last years it had grown unbearably lonely. One could only throw so many soirees, so many hunts. Christ, his disregardful friends had blasted away every fox within three counties.

Stepping from the room, closing the door behind him, Clayton glanced up and down the immense corridor, acknowledging the primitive little candles sputtering in the badly corroded brass sconces on the wall. No carpets here, only stone. The dampness seemed to creep up through the soles of his boots. No paintings hung on the walls, only an occasional spider's web fluttering from the low oaken beamed ceiling.

What woman in her right mind wouldn't jump at any opportunity to escape these surroundings?
he mused as he carefully picked his way down the shadowy hall.
What woman in her right mind would live here?
The year was 1800, for God's sake, yet the castle was not much more modern than something Henry the Eighth might have lived in, and that was being generous, he decided. If he could believe what the old farmer had told him, Cavisbrooke

Castle had been erected in the days of William the Conqueror.

Mostly, why the blazes would his brother choose this particular, obviously insane hoyden to marry . . . even if he did simply wish to spite the duchess?

Clayton stopped and listened. He had heard a noise behind him.

He glanced around, into the dark from which he had just come.

There was a movement there. A scurrying. Perhaps a rat. No doubt the place was crawling with them.

Pulling his watch from his coat, he flipped it open and strained hard to make out the time.

Eight in the morning. Perhaps it was too early yet for the lady of the manse to be about. He wandered on, down the maze of corridors, eventually becoming totally lost in the vast maze of sprawling, empty rooms and galleries that virtually echoed with their own silence. Clayton rehearsed the excuses he would make to his hosts—reasons why he would be forced to leave on such short notice—not that he needed an excuse, of course. The Lady Cavendish would be more than happy to escort him right off the perilous lip of the Undercliff.

What was her name? He tried to remember.

Trey had only referred to her as Lady Cavendish, but had, in passing, called
her . . .
Marianne? Margaret?

Damn. Was there not one blasted servant in the wretched place? A soul could starve for lack of food and
heat . . .
for even a slender thread of daylight to warm
him. . . .

At last, he passed through an entry leading to a narrow, arched corridor that glowed with occasional shafts of yellow light spilling through a scattering of paltry embrasures. The sound of voices touched his ear, and cautiously, he moved toward them, pausing at the entrance of a generous cell. It was not a commodious apartment, certainly, but in the matter of light and air, at least it had the advantage over the black closet of rooms he had previously passed through.

Instead, it was a garden, lush and riot, its walls offering sanctuary to the plant and animal life abiding there. The garden was full of wonderful wall fruit, Indian corn, Caroline beans, and watermelons. Glowing in the sun were pyramids of hollyhocks and masses of China asters, cloves, mignonettes, and geraniums.

Even in its present ruined and roofless state, the great gray mass of the donjon rose to a height of a hundred feet above the ground. The floors were all gone, certainly, long since having fallen to complete collapse under the onslaught of centuries and the constant bombardment of wind and rain. Still, an outside stair led to a doorway on the second floor, formerly probably reached only by ladder. There, he noted what must have once been a small oratory, a chapel of sorts, since the altar could still be seen. Some traces of red and yellow frescoes clung to the ruined wall.

Yet it was not the sad mystery of a bygone era that captured his eye but the girl.

The red-haired girl who, with the sun washing profusely over her head and shoulders as she stooped among the verdantly growing flowers and vegetables, conversed in a musical voice with her companion.

"I would much prefer to debate Don Francisco
Salva's
discovery of galvanic electricity than the distasteful topic of our visitor . . . Duke What's-His-Name."

"Salterdon," Hoyt reminded her with an air of amused disgruntlement.

For a while she remained silent, immersed in her pleasant task of turning the dark soil around the roots of the plants. Her cheeks appeared rosy from her exertion, her countenance thoughtful. Odd how these
cloisterlike
surroundings enhanced the serenity of the moment, and the strange, surprising, and discomfiting realization pricked him that the lass yonder (no siren, wraith, or wretch—far from it) might soon belong to his brother, should Clayton decide to go through with the implausible ruse.

"I found him rude," she finally said, plucking a weed from a clump of peonies. "And arrogant. You know how I feel about arrogance, Johnny."

"He's a duke. He has a right to be arrogant."

"Nay. No man has the right to hold himself above another. You and mama taught me that yourselves."

"Aye, damn me. I never realized my own sense of morality would bare its teeth and bite me. Still, he's a guest. Did your mother not teach you the blessings of cordiality? For if she did not—"

"His hands are cold."

Clayton raised one eyebrow, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned against the wall.

"Cold!" she reiterated and poked at the ground with her trowel. "And his eyes
are . . .
are mean-spirited. Yes, mean-spirited. A woman should be made to feel—"

"Pretty!" Johnny exclaimed. "Desirable! By granny, lass, you're more like your mother than I thought. She who crows about disliking arrogance. What about vanity? Eh?"

Her laughter rang in the
ceilingless
chamber like bells, the music echoing off the walls, floating like sun motes onto the brilliant, top-heavy flowers. Silence lingered as she sat back on her heels with her face turned into the light that drifted from the roofless height. She remained that way, her features growing flushed and slightly moist. The profound quiet was broken only by the cries of the rooks circling and swooping in black flocks above the summit where, across the deep blue square of sky, white clouds drove in quick succession.

Transfixed, Clayton could do little but stare. Even when something made her turn her head and her enormous aqua eyes met his, he could not move.

"Oh," her soft lips whispered. "He's here."

Johnny looked around from his cushioned perch on a lichen-covered stone chair whose base resembled burdened cherubs. His round face broke into a smile, and his blue eyes twinkled. "Your Grace! Please join us."

Rewarding the man with a dry smile, Clayton said, "Dare I? Is she dangerous?"

"Ho
ho
! I would not put it past her this morn. Seems her mood is a trifle sore, though I cannot imagine why."

Finally, the young woman regained her feet, stood uncertainly among the bowing geraniums, her fawn-colored skirt brushing her legs just above her ankles. She wore brown kid slippers and ribbed worsted stockings. She clutched a basket of onions and cabbages in one hand, pruning shears in the other. "Your Grace," she said. "Duke—"

"What's-His-Name," Clayton quipped.

Lifting her chin, flashing Hoyt a look, she set her shoulders in a stubborn angle and chewed her lower lip.

"Join us, Your Grace. Please." Hoyt motioned toward another chair, partially buried in a tangle of honeysuckle.

"Only if my arrogance and rudeness doesn't offend you."

Hoyt guffawed and chuckled under his breath. Lady Cavendish lowered her eyes briefly, then she gazed at Clayton from beneath her heavy lashes, her scrutiny of him intense and cautious, as if she had been caught unprepared.

Clayton stepped into the garden, hesitated long enough to enjoy the feel of the sun on his shoulders, then took his place beside Johnny, releasing a spray of perfume from the pollen-laden blooms.

"Miracle," said the old man. "It isn't polite to stare at your guest."

Miracle. So that was her name. Unusual. Like her. It suited her,
Clayton decided, then mentally did his best to bury the thought. He had prepared himself not to like her, to thumb his nose at any attempt to woo her (for his brother's sake), to accept her invitation to leave as soon as possible. After all, he'd tried—and that was all he owed Trey.

Then again, he had not been prepared for her, poised amid peonies, sunshine splashing across her perfect features.

Miracle turned away, carefully threaded her way through the flowers, fetching up another basket of turnips and carrots she had earlier placed against a far wall that was festooned in maidenhair ferns, delicate trailing vines, and velvety moss. She looked, he thought, like a fairy nymph, and she was just as elusive. He suddenly understood why his brother had chosen her as his duchess. Her
naïveté
radiated from her features in a way that was breathtaking. There was no hypocrisy in that face, no envy, no jealousy, certainly no cynicism. And she was surely no lunatic. The lunacy was in her being here, residing in this medieval dungeon when there was an entire world out there starving for her sort of innocence.

"Did you rest well?" Johnny asked him.

"Never better," Clayton lied, his gaze still on the girl.

"I'll see that more peat is delivered to your room. Can't have you freezing on us. Agreed,
Mira?"

"Perhaps his dukeship won't be staying," she said pointedly, her fine dark brows drawing slightly together as she continued to regard Clayton.

"Poppycock! His Grace has traveled all this way to see you again. Why shouldn't he be staying? Right, Salterdon?"

Clayton crossed his legs, reason thumping him on the back of his head. He had made up his mind not to become involved in Trey's caper. He had rehearsed his reasons for bidding his hosts a fond farewell—right up until the moment he had stepped up to that door and set eyes on
a . . .
Miracle.

"Yes," he responded thoughtfully. "You're absolutely right."

A stilted moment, then Miracle turned back to her work, going to her knees again in the rich dirt. Her hair flowed in fiery silken streams over her shoulders and pooled on the ground near her hands where she dug.

"Mira
told me you landed at the Race," Johnny said.

"After
your initial bout with those bloody rocks, I might have assumed you would opt for the ferry this time."

"My first bout?" Clayton frowned, his thoughts occupied on the girl's hands, dusty, long-fingered, and delicate. For an instant he forgot his brother's flirtation with death and why he, Lord Basingstoke—no, the duke—was there in the first place.

Where the blazes is my head?
he wondered, narrowing his eyes and regarding Miracle even harder, his sense of annoyance growing that she could so easily ignore him, in light of the circumstances. "I had business in France," he finally replied. "It seemed a waste of time to sail all the way around the island just to catch the ferry."

"Where are your friends?" Miracle said without looking at him.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said—"

"I can't hear you, my lady."

Exasperated, Miracle jabbed her trowel into the dirt and turned to face him. "Are you deaf?" she demanded.