So Wild a Heart (30 page)

How had Miranda known that this need still lived inside him? He had not even known it himself.

Had he thought about it, he would have been a trifle surprised to realize how little he missed the activity of London and the pursuits he had indulged in for years. Consumed in the excitement of painting, the need to do it, he rarely even thought of gambling or going out carousing for an evening. Even his drinking diminished as his boredom did, and he was surprised to discover the pleasantness of waking up of a morning without a heavy head and befogged mind. When he did want entertainment or fun, his thoughts turned naturally to Miranda. A few months ago he would have laughed at the thought that an evening playing cards with his wife and her sister, or even just sitting talking to her, would have more appeal than a night of frolic and liquor, but that was the truth of the matter now.

One thing he discovered, however, was that the sudden hunger in him to paint did not diminish the ever-burgeoning hunger in him for Miranda. He would not have thought he could be doubly obsessed in this way, but it seemed, strangely, as if the two desires fed on one another. He painted Miranda's face and form on canvas, trying to satisfy the need inside him, trying to wear out the fascination of her face, but in doing so, he wound up looking at her—the image and the reality—most of his waking day. At night, tired though he might be, he could not stop thinking about her. She was right next door, soft and warm, waiting for him.

Ever since that night in the library, he had known that she would allow him into her bed. She had made no pretence of disinterest, no calm statement that it was wiser to go their separate ways. All she had asked was his fidelity. If he gave her that, he knew she would be his.

It would be easy to say the words, he knew. It wasn't as if he had not lied a thousand times, as if he had not told countless women that he loved them, when in fact he barely cared about them. But somehow, with Miranda, he could not lie. He could not look into those clear, penetrating gray eyes and tell her something that he knew was not the truth. At the moment all he wanted was her. But he did not know if that would continue. Once he had slept with her, he might grow tired of her, as he had of every other woman he had ever known, except Leona.

And how could he tell her that he would be faithful to her, when Leona waited for him?
Leona was, after all, the love of his life. He had known it at eighteen, and it had remained so for fourteen years. The strange disinterest he felt in Leona now was temporary, he was sure. It was something engendered by his irritation with her for wanting him to marry another and enlarged by his current dual obsessions with Miranda and his art. Guilt nibbled at him for the disinterest, no matter how much he told himself it was temporary. He could not honestly agree to giving her up in order to have Miranda. It would be an insult to Leona, even though she would never know it. And it would be an insult to Miranda, too, sleeping with her out of lust, knowing that he could not give her his heart

Miranda deserved far better than that. Deserved far better than him, really. She had somehow returned to him his love for painting. She had comforted him, given him strength. With all her strange, irritating ways, she had wormed her way into his affections. He could not allow himself to be less than the man she thought he was.

Devin found it distinctly irritating that his noble intentions were not easier to carry out. It was, in fact, hellaciously hard to lie in bed each night, knowing Miranda was next door and that only his newly acquired sense of honor kept him from enjoying the pleasure of her body. It would seem only fair, he thought, that denying himself the pleasure would be somehow made more endurable by the knowledge that he was doing what was right

Instead, each night he lay awake, remembering the taste of Miranda's lips, the soft give of her body in his arms, the shudder of response in her when he stroked her skin, and growing hotter and harder and more unable to sleep with each breath he took. He imagined undressing her, kissing her, caressing her— and he was cursed with a sensually vivid artist's imagination, so that each thought was almost unbearably real, except that there was no satisfaction.

During the day, as he looked at her, posing for her picture, the same thoughts intruded, winding through their innocuous conversation, tingeing his artwork with a undeniable atmosphere of sexuality. His breath came harder and faster; his skin warmed; his pulse quickened. He wanted her, but he knew he could not let himself have her, and the combination was slowly driving him mad.

The worst evening was at a party given by the local squire, a thin ascetic sort named Breakthorpe, whose wife was just the opposite of him, a jolly, plump, vocal woman. The party was small, containing once again the doctor and the vicar and his wife, as well as the Breakthorpe family and all those staying at Darkwater. However, after supper, when one of the Breakthorpe daughters began playing the piano, Mrs. Breakthorpe decided, after great wheedling by the Breakthorpe girls, to allow dancing while Catherine, the youngest and the quietest of the Breakthorpes, played the piano.

Devin had had no suspicion that the evening would be anything but dull. Instead he had spent the last hour of it dancing almost exclusively with his wife, and it had been the purest form of heaven and hell combined that he had ever experienced. He smelled me rose scent that she dabbed at her temples and between her breasts; he gazed down at the creamy, trembling tops of her breasts; he held her body in his arms, felt her skin against his. And desire pulsed dangerously in him.

Because of the size of their party, they had brought two carriages. Miranda's stepmother went home early, pleading a headache, with Joseph accompanying her, but this had left the rest of their party to crowd into the other carriage when they left the manor house. The result was that Miranda wound up sitting on her husband's lap, a satisfactory solution in everyone else's mind. Devin certainly would not deny that he enjoyed the ride, but by the end of it, after almost forty minutes of the rumbling vibration of the carriage, the constant fractional shifting of Miranda's buttocks against his body, the feel and smell of her so close to him, he was on fire and desperate for satisfaction.

He ached. His mind could fix on nothing except images of Miranda naked and writhing in his bed. His fingers itched to slide over her bare skin. He gazed out the window into the dark night, trapped in his own private pleasurable hell, the voices of the others swirling around him unintelligibly.

After they got home, he went straight to his study, where he downed two quick brandies. That seemed to help very little, so he made his way upstairs, passing Miranda's maid on her way down the stairs. That meant Miranda was undressed and in her nightgown, her hair taken down from its pins and falling free down her back

Devin thought about the night she had come into his bedroom when he had had the nightmare; her hair had been unbound, tumbling down around her shoulders and onto her breasts and back, luxurious and thick. Just the memory made his loins tighten. He wondered if the maid had brushed out her hair, too, or if Miranda was even now sitting before her dressing table in her nightgown, brushing her hair out in long silken strands, burnished in the soft glow of the candlelight. He swallowed a low groan at the thought.
It was too much to bear.

He went into his room, though his hand itched to knock at Miranda's door. He shrugged out of his coat, handing it over to his valet, then sent the man on his way, saying he would do the rest himself. He did not think he could stand another moment of anyone else's company. Ripping off his cravat in a way he knew would make his valet shudder, he tossed it over the back of a chair. He took off his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves, then unbuttoned his shirt, hoping to alleviate the stifling heat. It was not enough.

Devin walked to the window and opened the casement a little, letting the cooler night air waft in. It drifted over his face and chest, cooling his skin, although it could not ease the fire that burned within. He was not, he thought, up to being tried by fire.
He was a hedonist, for God's sake, not a man of the cloth!
He did not know how much more of this he could live with.

He stood for a long time, staring out into the night, then finally turned with a sigh and went to his empty bed.

******************

Miranda awoke, heavy-eyed, and rang for her maid. Last night, she thought, had been the last straw. She wasn't sure how much more of this sort of marriage she could take. She had hoped to tease and goad and tempt Devin into wanting her so much that he would be eager to be a real husband to her. But somehow she had managed to get caught in her own trap.

Passion had been growing in her since their wedding day, throwing all her careful plans into a mess. Every day she wanted Devin more and more, yet he remained apart from her, not even trying to kiss her. She had even reached the sorry point where she had sometimes brushed up against him "accidentally" in the hope that it would stir him to action. But he had stayed maddeningly stoic.

Last night had been the worst...dancing with him all evening, riding home on his lap, feeling his hard muscle and bone against her side, his desire pulsing beneath her. She had been shaken to the core. As her maid had undressed her, all she had been able to think about was Devin's hand on her, his mourn pressing into hers. She had brushed out her hair, all the while listening for Devin's footsteps in the hall, hoping and praying that he would open the door between their rooms and come inside. She had not locked the connecting door in a long, long time.

But he had not entered her room. He never did, and it was driving her to distraction. She was beginning to think that she would have to be the one to give in. She thought about going to him and telling him that she no longer demanded his fidelity, that she was willing to share him with Leona and anyone else, as long as he would make love to her. Everything in her recoiled at the thought, of course. She was
not
willing to share him. However, if she was never to know the sweetness of making love with him otherwise, she was afraid that she might have to accept the arrangement, no matter how she felt about it.

This morning when she went into the breakfast room there was no one else there. She had slept later than usual after the difficult time she had had going to sleep last night. Most of the others had probably already breakfasted. She ate a quick, solitary breakfast, then poured herself a cup of coffee and strolled with it out to the terrace. She drank it, looking down at the gardens before her.

The landscaper had already made a good deal of progress in the backyard, trimming hedges and eradicating the weeds, hacking down and digging up bushes and plants that had grown wild. It was not a pretty sight yet, for it was too spare, and too often the bushes had been cut back to mere sticks. But the walks were being repaired and relaid according to the original plans, and soon they would start replanting wherever they could. Some of the plants and flowers would have to wait, of course, for fall or even the following spring to be planted.

With many of the larger hedges uprooted or trimmed, one could see much farther now, almost all the way down to the still-wild orchards of fruit trees. Eventually they would be pulled under control as well, of course, but restoring all the grounds to their original state was a task that would take years to accomplish.

As she stood there, a flash of movement at the bottom of the yard caught her eye. A woman had stepped out of the tangle of trees that was the orchard, and Miranda realized, surprised, that it was her stepmother. It was unlike Elizabeth to take strolls around the grounds, particularly one to the edge of the garden. Even stranger, a man came out of the trees behind her. Miranda stared, her first shocked thought that Elizabeth was having a clandestine rendezvous with a lover.

She quickly realized, however, that these were not lovers talking, but a person of higher rank talking to one of lower rank. The man nodded as Elizabeth told him something, looking down more often than directly at her. He was dressed in simple, serviceable clothes, the clothes of a working man. Miranda relaxed, scolding herself for even considering such a thought about her stepmother. Elizabeth was deeply in love with Joseph, as he was with her. Miranda was sure that the reason the idea had sprung into her head was simply because her brain was so occupied these days with thoughts of sex.

As Miranda watched, Elizabeth nodded to the man and began to walk back toward the terrace. The man stood for a moment longer, looking after Elizabeth, and Miranda saw his face clearly. It was an ordinary face, somehow familiar, but she could not place it. Then he turned and was gone, ducking back into the trees and disappearing from sight.

She sat down on the railing and finished her coffee. About the time she set the cup down, Elizabeth was close enough that she saw Miranda sitting there. She stopped and waved, then continued up the new gravel path to the terrace steps.

"Hello, my dear," she said, coming up and kissing Miranda on the cheek. "What are you doing out here?"

"Drinking a last cup of coffee and looking at all the changes in the garden."

"Yes, it is quite different," Elizabeth agreed, turning to look at it, too. "Rather barren now, I'm afraid."

"But it will look much better before too long. Mr. Kitchens assures me of that."

"I do hope so."

"Who was that man?"

"What?" Elizabeth turned to her. "What man?"

“The one you were talking to down by the orchards. He looked familiar."