Winter Wonderland (24 page)

Miranda dropped her eyes. “He certainly seems so to me.”

“Does he? Truly?” Honoria peered closely at the young woman opposite her. She hoped that Miranda would say more. If there was anything she liked to hear, it was praise for her beloved Barnaby.

“Oh, yes,” Miranda said, her lips curling into a reflective smile as the many qualities that had endeared Barnaby to her flew into her mind. “He's so clever and quick-witted and …” She stared into the fire with unseeing eyes, her heart swelling with fondness and a strange sort of pride. “… and very brave, of course. Fearless, almost …”

Honoria beamed. “And handsome, wouldn't you say?”

“Handsome, of course. And so devoted to his family, and …”

“And …” Honoria prodded.

“And spontaneous … impulsive, I mean …”

That surprised Honoria. “Impulsive? My Barnaby?”

“Yes. At least, he seems so to me.”

“Does he? In what way?”

“Well, for instance, he once …” Blushing, she quickly picked up her cup and took a sip, berating herself for going too far. “No, never mind,” she murmured in embarrassment.

“No, please, Miranda,” Honoria urged, “don't be shy with me. He once what?”

Miranda glanced up at her and quickly looked down again. “He once … very impulsively—Oh, dear, I don't know why I'm telling you this!”

“Please go on, my dear. You can't imagine how much this talk means to me.”

“He … kissed me.”

“You don't say! When did he do that?”

“Just a few days ago. But you mustn't think … it was not … you mustn't make too much of it. As soon as he'd done it, he thought better of it. I only mention it to show his … his …”

“His spontaneity. I quite understand.” Honoria smiled, wondering what Delia might make of that information. But it wouldn't do to press Miranda on the matter now. She was still red-cheeked over having mentioned the incident. “So you think him impulsive. And what else?”

“What else?” Miranda echoed, still too embarrassed to think clearly.

“Some young women call him forbidding. Would you describe him so?”

“Forbidding?” Miranda recovered herself with a start. Why had she been so loose of tongue with this woman who claimed to dislike her? And why had she revealed so much? But Honoria's warm and motherly manner made it difficult not to open up to her. “Yes, I'd say he's forbidding sometimes. He has a frown that can chill one's blood.”

Honoria, remembering a similar conversation with Livy, was enchanted with Miranda's very different, very honest responses. “Then you wouldn't call him kind?”

“No, I wouldn't say he was kind,” Miranda said with a rueful smile. “At least, he's not very kind to me.”

“Oh? Isn't he?”

“No, not at all. But then, who can blame him? At first, at the inn, I believed him to be the worst of rudesbys. But now that I know the circumstances, I understand why he's often unkind.”

“Oh, but that is really too bad.” Honoria threw Miranda a darting glance. “Delia will be disappointed.”

“
Delia
? Really? Why?”

“She believes that you and Barnaby would be well suited.”

Miranda's eyes widened. “She
does
? How very astounding!”

“Isn't it? In truth, when she said it, I was convinced she was quite mad. But lately, I've not been so certain.”

Miranda's breath caught in her throat, and she felt her fingers begin to tremble. “Lady Shallcross! You're not suggesting, are you, that you,
too
—?” She put a shaking hand to her forehead. “But you said you never liked me.”

“Not until now.” Honoria gazed with new eyes at the woman she'd so long disliked. All Miranda's comments had been honest and modest and very satisfying. Honoria had not enjoyed a conversation so much in years.
Good God
, she thought,
Delia is right about the girl after all
. Miranda Pardew might have been a flibbertigibbet, but Miranda Velacott was someone else entirely. This one—she had to admit—was a delight.

“But you … you
can't
like me!” Miranda was saying.

“Why not? If you can change, so can I. Besides, I don't have to like you. Barnaby has to.”

“What are you saying?” Miranda, already shaken not only by Honoria's unexpected kindness but by these astounding revelations, felt her eyes fill up with the tears she'd suppressed all day long. Barnaby's icy words—the rude barbs he'd thrown at her this very afternoon—now rang in her ears in painful counterpoint to his sister-in-law's warmth. “But I've already told you,” she said, her voice choked, “Barnaby hates me.”

Honoria nodded sadly. “Yes, I suppose he does. And I suppose you dislike him, too.”

“I?” She stared across the table into Honoria's soft, kind eyes. “Dislike him? No, I w-wouldn't say
that
, ma'am.” The tears began to spill down her cheeks, and overwhelmed with emotion, she dropped her head in her arms right there on the table. “I l-love him!”

Honoria clutched her hands to her breast, astonished and touched to the heart. The anger and resentment that had built up for years seemed to fall away. Tenderly, with a heart aching with regret, she reached over and gently smoothed Miranda's lovely hair. “Oh, my poor dear!” she murmured.

Miranda looked up. “You are very k-kind,” she whispered. “I'm so ashamed. I shouldn't have revealed—”

“Of course you should. I'm glad you told me.” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped the younger woman's cheeks. “I only wish I could offer more than this handkerchief to dry your tears.”

“You have. You can't know how much! I've had no one to open my heart to for a long, long time.”

“Oh, my dear!” Honoria held the handkerchief to her own eyes. “It has just occurred to me that you could have been the daughter I always dreamed of!”

It was true, Honoria realized with a shock. Miranda Pardew Velacott, of all the women in the world, was just the sort of woman that Barnaby—and she herself—could love. Her throat choked with the painful knowledge that she'd closed her mind for too long … and that all her actions in regard to Barnaby's prospects for wedlock had been nothing but dreadful blunders.

Twenty-eight

Barnaby rode through through the night toward his brother's manor house, feeling as elated as any soldier after a battle won. Though the cold wind nipped at his nose and froze his fingers, and though the horse had to pick his way carefully through the snow and could not be made to gallop, Barnaby's spirits soared. He even sang for a while, an old Scottish air that Honoria used to sing to him when he was a child. Every once in a while, he'd put his hand in his pocket and finger the trophies that he'd won for himself this night: the watch and fob, and Miranda's cameo. The felons had broken the chain on which the cameo had hung, but he could fix it. Every time his fingers touched the little trinket, he smiled to himself. He couldn't wait to see her face when he dropped it into her lap.

But as he drew closer to the house, his spirits waned, and a depression, as chilling as the night air, enveloped him. At first he didn't recognize the cause, but after thinking about it for a while, he knew what it was. He was riding home to Livy Ponsonby, not Miranda.

Here in the icy darkness the truth became blindingly clear. The prospect of bringing Miranda back her cameo brought him a singing joy; the prospect of bringing himself to Livy brought a smothering gloom.

Not that these feelings made any sense. The fact was that Livy had accepted him; Miranda never would. Besides, he was convinced that Livy was everything a bride should be: pretty and gentle and agreeable and sweet. On the other hand, she was also tongue-tied and conventional and unsurprising and dull. Miranda was just the opposite: shocking, argumentative, insulting, dangerous and … and more exciting than any woman he'd ever met. That was the crux of it, he realized. Livy was—he had to admit it—tiresome. And Miranda was … dazzling.

That was the word. Every encounter he'd had with her dazzled him. Riding with her in the carriage, tied with her to the tree, playing cards with her at the inn, arguing with her about Jamie—every one of those moments had set his blood dancing in his veins. And kissing her had been … well, even “dazzling” was an inadequate word for
that
.

He'd loved her since he was a boy of nineteen, he knew that now. Some part of his mind had held on to his boyhood infatuation with an unshakable tenacity, becoming with time an unacknowledged conviction that she was the only woman he would ever truly love. And though she had not responded to him when he was young, she was different now. She had even, he believed, occasionally shown a liking for him. There had been warmth in her eyes from time to time, but each time he'd seen it, he'd stupidly cut her down. Even when he'd kissed her and—had he imagined it?—she'd melted in his arms, he'd pushed her away. Why on earth had he done it?

He tried to reconstruct his thinking from the time he'd rediscovered her in the carriage. The incident at the Lydell ball was the problem, of course. He'd kept it in his mind every time he saw her, a stubborn memory that had stood between them, as thick and impenetrable as a wall. He'd used it as a shield to protect himself from pain. How stupid! Didn't he know he was no longer a vulnerable boy? He'd long since learned how to handle hurt. What was he afraid of? True, Miranda was a challenge to his manhood, but he didn't meet the other challenges of his life so fearfully. No one could say that Barnaby Traherne lacked courage. Why had he turned cowardly with Miranda?

Instead of making a mature attempt to win her, he'd thought only of taking revenge, of giving her a set-down to equal the one she'd given him. In seeking an idiotic revenge for a minor insult, he'd made a major blunder. He'd lost his chance.

He put his hand in his pocket and fingered the little cameo once more. He pictured the chain hanging round her marvelous throat and the cameo lying between the curves of her breasts. The image made him dizzy with desire. That settled it. He could not—would not!—give up the girl he'd wanted for so long, not without a fight. After all, he was not yet wed. The holiday was not yet over. There was still time.

Twenty-nine

Miranda awoke the next morning with a feeling of bubbling anticipation. She could not account for it, but it was quite real. She drew back the curtains and discovered a day that matched her mood. The snow sparkled in the brightest sunlight she'd seen since her arrival, and the sky reflected back that sparkle with a crystalline-blue gleam. In the distance, she could see a wagon moving along the road, indicating that traffic was returning to normal. And somewhere nearby, a hardy winter bird was chirping excitedly, the chirp an embodiment in sound of what she herself was feeling inside.

But neither the bird nor the sky nor the glinting snow could account for her sense of tingling excitement. Of course, her conversation with Lady Shallcross last night could have something to do with it. Lady Shallcross had indicated that both she and Delia believed Miranda to be a more suitable wife to Barnaby than Livy Ponsonby. That
anyone
could wish to pair her with Barnaby Traherne was the outside of enough, but that the two women closest to Barnaby wished it quite took her breath away.

But of course, if one thought more carefully about it, the idea was ridiculous. Barnaby would never learn to like her. Besides, he was betrothed. It would be best to put such thoughts out of her mind.

She dressed quickly, for she had a great deal to do to get ready for the day's studies, but when she hurriedly threw open her door, she heard a strange rattle. Something was hanging on her outer doorknob. She looked down curiously and discovered—hanging by its chain, with a little note pinned to it—her cameo!

Her heart leaped into her throat. He'd recovered it! Barnaby himself! Staring down at the bauble, she felt like Elaine of Astolat, or even Queen Guinevere herself. Barnaby had been her knight on a quest. He'd tracked the dragon to its lair and recovered his lady's talisman! Now that it was over, and the knight was apparently unhurt, the idea of the quest delighted her.
And oh
, she thought,
how thrilled the boys will be to hear about it!

With eager fingers, she unpinned the note and opened it, and her eyes flew over the words.
It is customary
, he'd written,
for the recoverer of a treasure to receive a reward. I shall be coming, in due course, to claim one. I hope you can think of something suitable, but if you can't, I have one or two suggestions
.

She clutched the trinket to her bosom, her spirit soaring. Even the note had the quality of knightly romance: the triumphant knight coming to claim his prize. Could it be that her feelings on awakening had been prophetic—that this was going to be a very exciting day?

But no, she warned herself. Barnaby was no knight and she was no prize. His recovery of her cameo was a gesture. It was a kind and generous gesture, of course, but nothing more. She should not make too much of it. Later, when the boys took their recess, she would go downstairs, thank him nicely and make an end of it.

But he was asking for a reward. What did he mean? He knew she had nothing to give him. Was he joking? But even if he were, she wanted to give him something tangible as a symbol of her gratitude. Would her finest, lace-edged handkerchief be acceptable? It was a modest reward, but it would have to do.

With these sobering thoughts, she was able to bring her spirits back down to earth. She had work to do.

On the floor below, at that very moment, all Barnaby's brothers, both his sisters-in-law, and Lady Isabel, were gathered in his bedroom. They surrounded the bed where he was soundly asleep. “Wake up, you gudgeon,” Harry shouted into the sleeper's ear.