And Then Comes Marriage (31 page)

“Not me.” Poll grabbed the fellow’s wrist and pulled his hand from Miranda. “Back off, you bounder!”

The man took exception to Poll taking exception. A brief tug-of-war resulted, until the silk of Miranda’s gown gave way at the shoulder. The abrupt sound of tearing gave both men pause, their grips slackening enough for Miranda to twist away.

Poll, much less drunk, much more angry, reacted first, taking a mighty swing at the mountainous fellow’s jaw.

The blow connected, but the man only rocked backward slightly, too numbed by drink to feel much at all.

Miranda watched breathlessly as Poll ducked from a ham-fisted blow, only to be struck so hard by the other fist in the belly that she heard the thick impact of it standing two yards away.

With a gasp, Poll spun back, into Miranda. She felt herself miss a step and shrieked, twisting desperately, recalling the long fall down to the ballroom beneath!

The railing caught her at the waist and she bent over it, almost losing her balance, but her hands scrabbled at the ironwork and her fingers found purchase. She had a swift, intense impression of Cas’s face below her, turned upward and staring in utter shock as she dangled half over the ballroom floor.

Someone, Poll, grabbed her by the waist and dragged her upright again, away from the dangers of gravity and hard marble floors far, far below.

*   *   *

Looking back, Miranda could honestly say that it wasn’t so much the fight between Poll and the aggressive stranger as it was the ensuing brawl.

Actually, it wasn’t so much the brawl as it was the lanterns that fell onto the bales of hay when the roiling mass of fighting men—and some women!—tumbled into them.

Although, to be truthful, it wasn’t so much the fire as it was the way that the swiftly expanding flames drove everyone from the house into the street.

Everyone, male and female, old and young, dressed and undressed—and truly, one hadn’t lived until one had seen the retreating naked arses of a dozen stately older gentlemen flowing before one like a pasty, waggling river.…

However, for Miranda, the ultimate moment was when she and Poll dragged Cas’s barely conscious form—he’d taken exception to the way the first ham-fisted fellow had torn Miranda’s gown. The aforementioned fellow took exception to Cas taking exception, of course, et cetera, et cetera—out of the burning whorehouse into the smoky, riotous street, where scantily clad milkmaids and farmer’s daughters bounced and jiggled in squealing alarm—really, the country faire theme was ruinously overdone!—and Miranda found herself brought up short by the shocked gasp emitted from the darkened confines of an expensive carriage stopped by all the fracas.

“Miranda?”

Miranda looked up into the familiar face of that crony of Constance’s—and Society Gossip Extraordinaire. “Oh. Good evening, Mrs. Teagarden.”

It was a nightmare, born of every one of Miranda’s worst fears.

No. It was much, much worse than a nightmare, for Miranda was completely, sickeningly awake.

*   *   *

“Miranda?”

“Miranda, dear, please speak to us.”

Miranda could hear her name, and realized she’d been hearing it for some time. She opened her eyes and turned her head to see an older woman with loads of lovely silver hair piled on top of her head gazing at her with pale blue eyes.

The woman’s identity swam reluctantly out of Miranda’s memory. “Mrs. Worthington?”

The lady smiled sweetly at her. “Yes, dear.”

A man with wild silver curls bent into her field of vision. “And who am I, Miranda? Who am I?”

Miranda blinked. “I don’t know.”

He turned to Iris Worthington with a worried frown. “Is she injured as well? Did she strike her head in the brawl?”

“No, Archie. Poll swears that she took not a single blow.”

Miranda shook her head. It was a bad idea. She pressed a hand to her brow. “I don’t know you, sir, because we have n … not yet been introduced.”

Whatever was the matter with her? She lifted her head to look about her, but she did not know where she was. It was a small chamber, rather like a billiards room, though there were no tables set up. It was, however, filled most bizarrely with the luridly painted wooden slats, parts of the set of … a carnival?

A carved and gaudily dabbed flying carousel horse gazed back at Miranda, its arched neck and flat, black eyes accusing.
Fool.

Her hands clenched on fistfuls of silk. She looked down her own hands where they lay draped across her lap. Turkish-blue silk. Mustn’t sit in this gown. Well, she wasn’t sitting; she was lying down in the billiards room with no table and a self-righteous carnival horse.

How had she come here? Oh, yes. The fire. Cas’s knock to the head. A silent, appalled journey through the dark streets in Lord Wyndham’s carriage to this house.

She would not have left an injured cur in the street, so she could hardly abandon Cas when she had conveyance at hand.

The last she remembered, she’d sat down next to a sleeping Attie while she waited for the physician to finish examining Cas—

Then, in a rush that flooded her mind and body with heat and fury, she remembered.

Two identical men, playing with her, toying with her like two hounds tussling over a bone. Bargains and betrayals. She turned accusing eyes on her companions. “Worthingtons!”

“I fear our sons have behaved very badly toward you,” Iris agreed.

Archie nodded sadly. “By foul play, as thou say’st, were we heaved thence.”

“
The Tempest,
Act One, Scene Two,” Iris said to Miranda, her voice soft with sympathy. “Doesn’t Archie make a fine Prospero?”

Miranda stared at the woman. “What?” She sat up, easing away from Iris’s hands that attempted to soothe.

As she moved, she felt something rain down onto the backs of her hands, like grains of sand. She looked down to find that a portion of the beading of her gown had been torn from its stitches on her shoulder and was even now spilling from its threads.

Her first impulse was to clutch at the trickling beads to stop the ruination of the beautiful work—but what did it matter now? The night was over. The torn, smoky—and yes, that was blood!—ruined gown had done its part to make of her as public a fool as anyone could ever wish.

She lifted her gaze to fix the elder Worthingtons with eyes filled with fury. “What”—she bit out—“did I ever do to your family to deserve such wicked trickery?”

Standing, she found with bitter relief that she swayed only a little. She pushed away Iris’s and Archie’s helping hands, knowing that they were only trying to be kind, knowing that they couldn’t help their foolishness and their terrible example to their offspring that the world and those who dwelt in it were nothing but toys for the breaking—

Fury sharpened her mind and hurried her step. Pulling away, she ran from the room and from the cluttered, fascinating squalor of Worthington House.

She could not flee them fast enough, these Worthingtons! She didn’t wish to vent her fury at those poor fools anyway.

There was someone else who made a much more suitable target.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Miranda helped herself out of her borrowed-for-so-long-it-might-be-considered-stolen carriage before her driver had time to descend from his seat. She spared not a moment of sympathy for Wyndham’s poor beleaguered driver. She picked up her skirts and strode to the discreetly set door on the most desirable shopping street in London.

And pounded on the door with both fists.

“Are you in there? You … you
schemer
!”

She pounded and kept pounding, until the door was unlocked and thrown open by a furious and half-dressed Cabot.

Now, normally a half-dressed Cabot would be enough to stop any woman, and not a few men, in their tracks, but it took Miranda only a moment to remember to inhale, such was her rage.

She pushed past Cabot into the dark shop. “Where is he? I want to see that—that manipulative, mendacious—”

Cabot stared down at her. “Well, he isn’t here with
me
!”

The young man sounded rather regretful about that, but Miranda fought back the twinge of sympathy she felt and spun about to glare at him.

“Cabot, you take me to that—that
Liar,
right now!”

Cabot held up both hands and backed away a step. “Mrs. Talbot, I’m sure that whatever happened—”

Miranda advanced on him, sneering. “Whatever happened? Whatever happened? Did you know that tonight I was lured away from my unveiling to a brothel? Rushing to rescue them, mind you, only to find them having the time of their lives?” The pretty blonde, draped across Cas’s body as he smiled up at her—

She gasped, her chest tightening, the pain leaking in past the rage she had armored herself with, and then she released a single, rending sob.

Cabot took a step forward, but before Miranda gave in to her understandable feminine curiosity about precisely how Cabot meant to comfort her, she flung herself away from him to pace the shop.

“Where is he? Where does he live? I’m going to find him. You can’t stop me. Someone, somewhere, knows his address!”

Cabot nodded in resignation. “I will take you, but you must give me a moment to—”

“No!” Miranda grabbed Cabot’s hand, dragged him from the shop and all but lifted him bodily into her waiting carriage.

The driver pretended not to see his temporary mistress kidnapping a bare-chested young god from a dark shop. He did a creditable job of it, too.

It was not far, mere blocks, to a pretty, tree-shaded street lined with neat terraced houses. One was of them was painted mauve.

Miranda didn’t need to be told which one was Button’s.

Once again, she picked up two fistfuls of skirt and stomped her way up the steps. Cabot had to bodily thrust himself between her and his master’s door.

“I have a key.” He opened the door and she followed him into the house. He stopped at a door that led into a dark parlor. “Stay here. I will alert his staff to wake him and bring us all a pot of tea. Doesn’t tea sound nice?”

He was treating her like a dangerous idiot and perhaps she was—“But I don’t want any bloody tea!” she shrieked.

“Well,
he
does, so you’ll drink it or you won’t get to speak to him tonight!”

Frustrated by the logic of that answer, Miranda turned away to pace the dark, chilled parlor.

Someone bustled in with a coal scuttle and lighted the fire. Someone else slipped in to light candlesticks about the room. They both avoided Miranda as if she were a tigress loose in the center of the room.

Like that tigress, Miranda paced back and forth, her fury barely leashed, from the window to the figurine-encrusted mantel. They were lovely, graceful little shepherdesses, not mournful-eyed spaniels. Miranda hissed at them in loathing anyway.

Button came down, tying the belt of his dressing gown as he hurried into the room. “Cabot, what—!”

Miranda turned to see the little man gaping at his half-dressed assistant. He didn’t even notice her.

She regretted the figurine that went flying toward Button as soon as it left her hand. Fortunately, it was snatched from the air an instant before impact by Cabot, who then walked over to her, carefully returned the little shepherdess to her empty spot, and then took Miranda by the shoulders.

“Breathe.”

He had the loveliest eyes.

Miranda breathed.

It was terrible mistake. The moment her fury slipped, the pain came flooding over the wall like a river after a storm.

She pressed both hands to her heart and backed away from Cabot with another gasp. She felt both men help her to a chair, easing her down onto a throne of cream velvet and rosewood. She could see the grain of the wood through heightened vision as the pain stole her breath.

The lovely woman, draped over his body—

His hands—his hands that had brought her back to life!—his hands on the woman’s bare, pale skin—

She couldn’t breathe around the agony in her heart. It tightened about her, feeding her broken sobs, growing tighter and tighter.
A fool, a fool, I’m such a fool.

She’d not been enough woman for him, she’d been too naïve, too restrained, too repressed—a boring little widow, untutored and tentative—he’d wanted more, of course he’d wanted more!—once again she hadn’t been good enough—

Cabot held something under her nose. The sharp tang of the vinaigrette pierced the graying fog, and Miranda was once again in control. She leaned back in the chair with both hands gripping the arms tightly and closed her eyes.
Breathe. Breathe.

She heard Button’s gentle voice. “Miranda, dearest, I’m sure there is some reasonable explanation for—”

“For leaving me behind to consort with beautiful demi-reps?” Her grief switched back to rage so quickly it left her breathless once again. “For brawling? For burning down Mrs. Blythe’s House of Pleasure?”
For making me into the biggest fool ever known!

Button blinked, then looked at Cabot, who nodded. “The driver confirmed it. The gossips will tattle for
years.”