Miracle (58 page)

"I think you'll be comfortable here," Ellie said. "I'll be just down the hallway. After you've rested, we'll discuss your desire to return to Cavisbrooke."

Miracle said nothing as her friend quit the room. What could she say? She had made up her mind. There was no turning back, no matter how nagging was the pang of putting the hopeless love she continued to feel for Salterdon behind her.

Why did it continue to hurt? To disturb her and confuse her? Had she been so ridiculously naive as to believe he could so totally change from the man he had been months ago?

She tried to nap. Sleep refused her. She paced for a while, then discovered a vestibule leading from double French doors off one side of her room. She wandered out onto a quiet garden where a nightingale perched on a tree limb and heralded the encroaching dusk.

What delicious serenity. How she had missed the birds, the trees, and the sky. Wrapping herself up in the peace of it all, she could almost put everything else from her mind. But, as always, his memory wormed its way back in: images of their passion paraded before her mind's eye in shameful and disquieting array, until her blood warmed and her breathing quickened, and the alarming realization came to her that she might never again experience the sort of desire and longing for a man that she felt even now for His Grace.

So she walked out across the lawns in her bare feet. Dusk dew beaded upon her toes. The crisp breeze of encroaching nightfall kissed her cheeks and made them tingle. Her spirits lifted.

Ah, freedom! To run again, to dance again. She spun on her toes. To leap again. Surely, this was heaven.

In the distance were twinkling lights. Pausing upon a hilltop, she gazed down on the sprawling stone barns—the most beautiful she had ever seen—with tiled roofs and arched windows and Dutch doors. There were arenas as well, full of soft sand encircled by white-painted fences.

Raising her skirt slightly, she ran slowly at first, then faster, like a naughty child on some clandestine mission to disobey her parent. She startled a grazing deer and laughed as it bounded away, white tail rising and falling, zigzagging, until it diminished into the dark.

Panting, she fell against the barn wall, closed her eyes, allowed the sounds and smells to enfold her. Fresh hay. Grain with molasses. Dung. Horse . . . And something else. Perfume? Incense? No, not here.

Voices.

She moved toward the open door where golden light spilled over the ground.

"Thief. That you are, sir. I wager you've a card or two slipped up your sleeve," came the familiar voice.

"That's an entire shilling you owe me now, Ben."

The men laughed.

Miracle stepped through the door and focused on the gentlemen with their gray heads bowed over a table strewn with cards.

Benjamin looked up first. His eyes became saucers. He leapt to his feet, capsizing the milk stool on which he was perched. "Good God," he declared, then stuttered and exclaimed again, "
Good God\
What are you doing here?"

"Benjamin? Oh, Benjamin!" she cried, and breaking into a smile, and laughing in pleasure, she flew across the floor and flung herself on the stunned servant, hugging him fiercely, even as he stood stiff as a corpse in her arms. "I've missed you," she confessed. Then, drawing back, she stared up into his ashen face and round eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"I . . .
ahem.
I . . ."

"Have you come back to work for Lord Basingstoke?"

"Back to work?" He blinked and swallowed and nodded.

"Yes. Yes, that's right. I was working for His Grace . . . temporarily. I believe that was the arrangement," he muttered to himself, then relaxed and smiled. "Right-o. I've come back to work for Basingstoke."

She gave him a fond squeeze, then turned to his companion, who no longer sat at the table. Against his empty milk stool, however, lay a walking stick with a horse-head grip. Her gaze flew to the distant stable door, where John was apparently attempting to escape.

He froze. And slowly turned.

Miracle could say nothing. She forgot to breathe. Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She thought she might faint.

Lowering his red-rimmed eyes, he said faintly, "Well now, imagine this. A man sits down to share a nip and a game with an associate, and who drops by for a cheery hello but an old friend."

"A friend, sir?" she replied softly. "Would you hurt me further by refusing to acknowledge me for who I really am?" She shook her head. "How could I have been so blind all these years? How could I not have known? Of all the times you tucked me into my bed and told me stories and kissed me good night, I would
ofttimes
go to sleep imagining that you were my father."

Drawing back his shoulders, clearing his throat, John met her eyes at last. "I loved her,
ya
know. More than life itself."

"I know that."

"But she loved Cavendish. And what's buried that deeply in the heart don't change overnight, if ever. Not if it's real. In love . . .
ya
take the good with the bad,
knowin
' that the good will make the bad seem inconsequential. That's the sacrifice I made to stay with her . . . and you. I'll make no more excuses for what I done."

Smiling, she went to him. He opened his strong arms and she fell into them. He hugged her fiercely for long minutes, each gaining control of their emotions.

At last, she sniffed and pulled away, fixed him with her old belligerent stare, her eyes widening. "Just what the blazes are you doing here, anyway?"

He looked beyond her, to Benjamin, who continued to stand stiffly, regarding the emotional scene. "Tell her why I'm here, Ben of boy," John said.

"Why you're here?
Ah .. .
er
. . .
hmm, well . . ."

"A
weddin
' gift," John blurted so suddenly Miracle jumped. "That's it.
Yer
fiancé
brung
me. His Grace. Felt
ya
couldn't be married without
yer
only friend and family
bein
' in attendance."

"But to Basingstoke? Why not to London?"

"To London?"

Somewhere in the distance, a horse snorted. Then came the thunder, the powerful pounding of hooves clashing upon the cobblestone floor of the long string of stables. Slowly, Miracle stepped around John, and peered down the barn corridor, into the dark. Her heart pounded, and her breathing quickened.

Napitov emerged from the stables, neck arched, ears pointed, nostrils flared and drinking in the wind. He emitted a roaring greeting upon seeing her, and tossed his exquisite head, his black eyes flashing.

Miracle ran to meet him, threw her arms around his sleek neck, and buried her face against it. "John, you darling man, you brought them—" Laughing and crying too, she turned back to John. "That's why you didn't go to London—the horses."

"Aye." John glanced back at Benjamin, who cut his eyes to John, then back to Miracle.

"They were to be a wedding gift," Benjamin announced. "Right. A wedding gift. A surprise. To be given you after the ceremony. From Lord Basingstoke."

John scowled.

Benjamin pressed his lips.

"Basingstoke?" Miracle asked. "Why Basingstoke?"

"His Grace mentioned the horses to his lordship," John hurried to explain.

Miracle's face turned cold. "He promised he would never say a word about the horses to anyone. If word got back—"

"You needn't worry," Ben proclaimed. "Basingstoke understands your love of the horses."

"Why would Basingstoke understand anything about me?" she demanded, her panic rising.

Obviously deciding he had already said too much, Ben closed his mouth and set his shoulders.

Napitov lowered his velvety muzzle into her hand, and Miracle felt her irritation subside. "It doesn't matter," she said more softly. "Because I'll be returning to Cavisbrooke soon. There shan't be a wedding."

Both men stepped forward. "No wedding?" they said in unison.

"Nay. No wedding. I fear His Grace and I have come to a parting of the minds and hearts." To John, she said, "I can't be something or someone I'm not. I would never fit into his world, and he obviously has no desire to fit into mine. So you see, John, you came all this way for nothing. I've made up my mind, and I don't care what Her Grace or Ellie or any of you say. I won't marry the duke of Salterdon. No matter how much it grieves me to admit it, I just don't think that I love him any longer."

Along with the laborers employed to cultivate and manage the hundreds of sections of crops, Clayton had worked until well after sunset. He enjoyed the peaceful ride back to the hall. After a strenuous day of toiling with his body under the sun, he was too tired to think, too exhausted to dwell on the last weeks. Astride the bay horse, he allowed the reins to fall loose and closed his eyes, concentrated on the burning of each muscle, the swirl of hunger in his belly, the stirring of drowsiness in his mind.

Perhaps tonight, at last, he would find sleep . . . without the dreams. Without waking in the middle of the night with Miracle's eyes haunting him and the memory of her unabashed lovemaking driving him from his bed to pace.

The horse stopped suddenly. Its body tensed and quivered. Clayton searched the darkness up ahead. Finally, the sound came to him: A wagon, crashing along the stony path at breakneck speed.

Clayton's eyebrows raised at the sight of Ben bouncing up and down on the driver's perch, hands desperately clutching the reins, his suit coat flapping with each exaggerated bounce.

"Whoa!" the servant shouted upon seeing Clayton. "Whoa! I said whoa, you bleeding sack of larvae infested dung! Whoa, I say!" As the horse, wagon, and driver careened past Clayton, the valet shouted, "Help!"

Clayton whistled. The wagon stopped.

His gray hair standing on end, his face white, and his hound's eyes bulging, Ben stared at Clayton dumbly. "Good gosh," he finally uttered. "I thought I was going to die."

"Chester." Clayton pointed to a bony, mulish horse that, upon hearing his name, looked back at Clayton with his upper lip curled up and his teeth showing. "I bought him from gypsies. He's a trick horse and responds only to certain whistles. Would you like to see what he'll do if I warble like a nightingale?"

"I would not," Ben declared.

He laughed. "Mind telling me what you're doing here?"

"A situation has arisen. An unannounced guest has arrived at Basingstoke. Just thought you should know."

Clayton waited. Unannounced guests were hardly out of the norm. There wasn't a solitary member of society who had not happened by Basingstoke conveniently at nightfall. Inevitably, their overnights would linger for several days.

"Lady Cavendish," Ben announced.

Meri.

"It seems your grandmother sent her here to 'think over, and hopefully reconsider' her decision to scrub her engagement to His Grace." Keeping a wary eye on Chester,

Ben
smoothed
down
his hair and straightened his coat. "Seems the lady has misgivings about His Grace. Can't find much to like in him, she says. Not the man she . . . fell in love with at Cavisbrooke."

"And John—"

"Blundered upon as we were wagering at cards in the barn."