That Kind of Woman (21 page)

Emma gave a dramatic sigh and sauntered from the room, stopping a maid and ordering a bit of refreshment to be sent to her chambers before Father’s edict could be made known to the staff.

Spring was, after all, a time of planting. Now, if only she could convince Henry to go to Town so those seeds could germinate between her father and her aunt…

*

No matter how hard he tried to go back to reading or to find some other way to occupy his time, Andrew finally had to go downstairs and reassure himself that Henry was not trying to take Miranda in with that harebrained notion of his. Half-brothers marrying their sisters-in-law. Indeed!

It was nonsense, wasn’t it? Surely the law applied to a half-brother. If Lettie would fight Andrew to keep him from wedding Miranda, she’d wage all-out war to keep her son from doing it. It was out of the question!

But they weren’t in the drawing room, the music room, or the library. He checked the small dining room in case they had worked up an appetite riding. He finally found Miranda and Lettie in the salon, playing cards. He was so relieved she wasn’t with Henry, it didn’t occur to him that he had never before seen the two women interact without more of the family present.

“I was just telling Miranda she ought to come to London with Henry and me. She could spend some time with her family,” Lettie told him.

“Stay with you and Henry in London?” Andrew asked. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Lettie pursed her lips and frowned. “No. She would accompany us there, but she would stay with Montheath. After all, the Season is the only time she really has with him and her mother.”

“They’re never around much then,” Miranda said. “I’d never see them anyway. I’ll see Mother here, though, at Christmas.”

Lettie shook her head and tsked. “Christmas was one thing when George was alive…”

“Lettie,” Andrew interrupted, “Barbara is still family.”

Lettie gave an indelicate snort. “What sort of influence do you think she might have on an impressionable girl like Emma?”

Andrew winced at the thought of the conversation he had just finished having with said “impressionable young girl.”

Miranda laid her cards face down on the table. “I wasn’t aware you considered my presence here so dangerous…”

“Sit, sit,” Lettie said with a placating smile. “I’m not objecting to you, dear. You’ve been good for Emma. I’ll be the first to admit it. I just think your mother is a different story. As for the Season, you can hardly stay here alone with Andrew.”

“With me and a legion of servants and a fourteen-year-old girl,” Andrew said.

“Precisely my point,” Lettie replied.

Miranda pondered the problem for a moment. She didn’t want to go to London, but Lettie was right. Servants in fear for their jobs and a naïve child were hardly enough to hold off the passion threatening to erupt between her and Andrew. The kiss they should never have shared happened with his daughter perilously close by! She would not—would
not
—fall into her parents’ life.

At last, she turned to Lettie. “I think you are right. It is hardly suitable for Andrew and me to live in the same house while you are away.” Lettie rewarded her with a beatific smile.

Andrew tried not to let his disappointment show. “Then you are going with them?”

Miranda narrowed her eyes in thought and absently tapped a manicured finger against the tablecloth. “I would rather not. I mean no offense, Lettie. I just have no fondness for London. You have never seemed to have any desire to use the dowager residence…”

“I prefer to be close to Henry and Emma.”

“Of course. I was just thinking…”

“The dowager house,” Andrew said. “Of course. It is the perfect solution.”

It was close enough to visit easily, yet far from the prying eyes of servants. It would give them all the discretion they needed to protect Emma. To think, he had believed that Miranda had meant what she’d said about never being with him. Now, she had hit upon a brilliant plan to take whatever stolen moments they could manage.

Miranda traced an idle pattern on the table with her fingertip as she thought. She would miss having Emma’s room just upstairs from hers and having the music room at her disposal at all hours, but she wouldn’t be all that far away. And she desperately needed to put some distance between herself and the Earl of Danford. The dowager house seemed a sound compromise.

Lettie fidgeted with her cards. “I don’t know…”

“It wouldn’t just be during the Season. I would stay there the year round, and there is plenty of room out there for my mother when she visits.”

“But surely,” Lettie protested, “you will one day wish to return to London. You’re far too young to keep the mantle of widowhood about you.”

Miranda dared a glance at Andrew. Was the dowager house far enough away to protect her year in and year out? She almost laughed out loud. Not remotely. But for just a while more? Another year, at most? A woman was not helpless against her own desires. Whether she succumbed to her feelings for him was in her hands alone, and she would not!

Andrew felt her eyes upon him, and he kept his own carefully averted. If they looked at each other now, the ruse would be out, and Lettie would have an apoplectic fit and move into the dowager residence herself just to spite them.

Finally, Lettie set her cards aside altogether. “Well, I suppose it makes sense for Miranda to stay through her mourning, and the holidays fall soon after. I imagine the dowager residence will do until next spring, when I think we can agree that London will be best for her.”

Miranda released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. So, she would have one more year of illusion—a family, a home. She had only to resist allowing herself to believe it could ever be anything more than a fantasy.

For a young man who had done nothing for months but mope about how terribly dull life was in the country, Henry pouted even more as he climbed into the carriage with his mother, bound for London. He struck a Byronesque pose, eyes tortured and soulful, shoulders slumped, when he bid Miranda farewell. Miranda carefully contained her sigh of relief. For good measure, she sent up a little prayer that he would find some fascinating debutante to take his mind off her.

Andrew stood on the front steps of the house, behind Miranda, and scowled at his younger brother. The boy could be as bad as Emma when it came to manipulation and play-acting.

Lettie stood at the carriage door and rattled off a list of dos and don’ts for Emma, who stood at Miranda’s side. “Now do not spend every minute at Miranda’s house. She is entitled to some privacy. Do
not
give your father fits and try to start fights. Practice your music. Read only good, wholesome literature.” She sighed. “I cannot believe I am leaving you behind. I’ll send you renderings and fabric swatches for your fall wardrobe. Are you certain I cannot do the same for you, Miranda?”

“Thank you, Lady Danford, but my mother loves to shop. I wouldn’t dream of depriving her of the chance to bring more than enough clothing for me at Christmas.”

“Well then,” Lettie said. She looked back to Emma. “You must choose promptly. I’ll send the dressmaker out here when your gowns are ready to be fitted. I do hope your measurements are accurate.”

“Lizzie was meticulous when she took them,” Miranda assured her.

“At this rate, you’ll be a full week getting to London, Lettie,” Andrew said. He stepped lightly down the stairs and offered her his arm. “In you go.”

Lettie took another look at Emma and sniffed, her eyes wet. “I know all my friends shall miss you so at tea.”

For the first time, Emma’s face showed a trace of regret, and Miranda leaned down. “You shall miss all your friends, I think,” she whispered.

Emma nodded, but her face stayed resolute. “I will. But I wish to be here with you and Father.”

Andrew helped Lettie into the carriage, and the three remaining Carringtons waved good-bye to the London-bound pair. He linked his arm through his daughter’s. “I can take you to Town for a week or so, if you’d like.”

Emma’s face brightened. “Would Randa come with us?” Miranda shook her head, but before she could say anything, Emma said, “I’d rather stay here.”

“I’ll have to go anyway, at least once,” Andrew said.

Emma pouted. “Why? Why not send Colbert? What’s the use of a secretary if you can’t send him off to London?”

“Emma,” Miranda chided, “didn’t your grandmama just tell you not to start fights with your father?”

To both her and Andrew’s surprise, Emma retreated immediately. “Quite right. I have a sketch I was working on in my room. I think I’ll go and finish it.” In a trice, she was up the stairs and through the front door. The servants all seemed to take her cue and followed after.

Miranda and Andrew were alone for the first time since the day of the picnic.

“My, doesn’t it seem quiet?” Miranda commented.

“Delightfully so,” Andrew said, moving closer to her. Her hair was piled on top of her head, but tiny tendrils had been allowed to escape and curl freely around her face and at the nape of her neck. He wanted to kiss the creamy skin where those tiny curls lay. “I thought they would never leave.”

Wanting to savor the moment, make himself wait in delicious anticipation, he didn’t pull her to him and bury his face in her hair as he wished. He simply caught a wispy ringlet at her temple and twisted it about his finger.

His smile was warm, his eyes hot, and Miranda took an involuntary step closer to him. From the corner of her eye, she saw that the carriage was still within sight, and she pushed his hand away. “My lord, you mustn’t!”

Andrew was oblivious to anything but her. He reached for her again and said, “My lady, I must.”

Miranda pushed his hand away again and took several steps back. “The carriage, and the servants…”

“The carriage will crest the hill shortly, and the servants are all inside.”

“Peering out the windows, no doubt.”

Reluctantly, he ceased his pursuit. “Then you should retire to your cottage. In half an hour or so, I shall find some reason to go out for a walk.”

Miranda gave him a steady look. “And where shall you walk, my lord?”

His eyes traveled the length of her, and she felt as though he had caressed her with one of his fine, strong hands. Her breath came a little faster.

“To the home of my dearest neighbor,” he replied. “I have dreamed of this every night since you suggested you stay here in the dowager residence.”

She stepped back again, nearly tripping over the stair behind her. “You thought I meant it as a trysting place?”

“A brilliant trysting place. No worry that Emma may stumble upon us late at night.”

“A-Andrew…” He smiled at her, and she was engulfed in a wave of desire that nearly drowned her next words before they were out. “That wasn’t my intention! I knew I could not share a house with you, not even one the size of Danford. I would feel you. The heat of you would pour through the walls and call to me, and how should I resist? I asked for the dowager residence to keep a distance between us.”

The passion in Andrew’s eyes grew more intense, a mixture of anger and desire. “And you thought a mere hundred yards could disperse the heat between us, Miranda? I have tossed and turned at night, the memory of the feel, the taste of you still sweet. When at last I sleep, I dream…”

“No.”

“I do. I dream of your skin in the lamplight, your hair against the pillow, your body and mine…”

Desperate for some wall to throw up between them, she cried, “And what of George? Do you not think him worthy of some mourning on our parts?”

Andrew took a deep breath. George had wanted this. He had said so. Did he dare to tell Miranda? Would she feel hurt that George hadn’t felt more possessive? Would she understand that it had been because he had loved her too much to leave her lonely?

“I think he would understand,” he said.

“And Emma? Do you
want
her to understand?”

“That’s why the cottage is so perfect. Besides, Emma’s not a child. She’s met your parents.”

“Do you want to show her that this is an acceptable way of living? It is not, my lord. It is a sham, a pretense.”

“Is your parents’ love for each other a sham? They have been together nearly thirty years and are still madly in love. Have you any idea how few married couples are so devoted?”

“Have you any idea the price my mother and I have paid for it?”

“Your father is married. I am not.”

“And should you ever wish to marry? If we are lovers, then I will have to step aside entirely. I would lose not only you, but Emma and Henry, as well.”

Andrew scowled. “What is Henry to you?”

Miranda snorted. “Foolish man. Henry is like Emma to me. The point is I have far more at stake here than you; do not ask me to jeopardize it. I believe I
will
go to the cottage now. Please, if you care for me at all, please do not follow me.”

He let her go, but he couldn’t imagine what would possess him to marry with such a mistress in his bed.

*

Emma stood at the drawing room window and watched Miranda walk to the dowager residence. She was a little disappointed that her father wasn’t following her, but that would hardly be discreet, and Papa would care a great deal about discretion. By the time he came through the front door, Emma was halfway up the stairs. She turned around and descended at a considerably slower pace than she had climbed.

“I have decided not to sketch after all,” she said, trying not to sound out of breath. “I thought I would practice my music. Piano, voice, and now violin; it shall take me the better part of the afternoon. I rather imagine you shall hear me plainly through the open window, so that you may, at all times, know I am quite busy in the music room. Why, I shouldn’t be surprised if you couldn’t hear it all the way to Aunt Randa’s.”

Her father stopped and gave her a long, hard look. “Really?”

She widened her eyes a little and smiled. “Quite probably.”

He scratched his head. “Well, then, I suppose I’ll hear you just as well in the library. I have work to do, but stop by if you finish and want to play a game or read together.”