Miracle (38 page)

"I'm well aware of the young lady's name, Clay. You needn't remind me."

"She's twenty years old going on ten. She talks to animals—"

"Do they talk back?"

"Yes."

Again, Trey grinned. He dropped into a chair and stretched out his long legs. The top two buttons on his trousers were undone. His shirt fell open, completely exposing his hard chest, and he waited.

"She's . . . lost," Clayton continued. "Without home or family. But then, I'm quite certain you are already aware of that. Predators have a way of sensing weakness in their prey. She's desperately afraid of being abandoned again, but she trusts
me . . .
you.
The duke.
And she believes me—you—when I—
you
—say you'll never desert her."

Salterdon frowned and slightly pursed his lips.

"I fully believe that London society will break her heart, not to mention her spirit. The sooner you can get her away from here, the better."

"What about children?" Trey said. "Is she healthy enough to supply me with a few?"

"I thought you were interested in only one."

"A son, of course. Then again, our first might be cursed as female. We'll simply have to keep trying until a male or two is produced."

"And once she's produced the required son, or sons, what then? When you've finished breeding her, what then?"

"I suppose we'll cross that stream when we come to it, good brother."

Clayton took a long, slow breath and held it until his head buzzed. "I wonder if we might have turned out differently had our parents not died," he said.

"My goodness, we're maudlin today. This should be a day of celebration,
m'lord
Basingstoke. I finally intend to be married. I'll give our dour dowager duchess exactly what she wants: an heir to the dukedom. In the meantime, it's up to you to see that our little mouse remains adequately satisfied and sufficiently hidden until the time comes to reveal her. Of course, I'll pop in now and again to acquaint myself. Simply wouldn't do for me to marry a virtual stranger, now would it? Might make our wedding night a bit awkward. Wouldn't you agree?"

Clayton said nothing, just stood before his brother with
his hands fisted at his sides, anger and confusion roiling in his gut as bitter as bile.

"Anything else?" the duke said, one corner of his mouth curled so sardonically Clayton thought of smashing in his teeth. "Is there something you wish to tell me?"

At last, Clayton shook his head. He quit the room, slamming the door behind him.

Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water

is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies,

but never destroys it.

ELIZA TABOR

Chapter Fifteen

After searching the house on Park Lane for Miracle, Clayton still posing as the duke was informed by the tittering servants, Gertrude and Ethel, that her ladyship could be located out back, where she had spent most of her time since arriving yesterday. Clayton found Miracle in the small but adequate stable, a brick structure with a cobblestone floor and three stalls. She was giving the gangly, pimple-faced groom a thorough verbal trouncing.

"These conditions are appalling, Thaddeus. Simply appalling."

"Yes, milady."

"The bedding is filthy and the poor animals look as if they've not been curried in a fortnight. Subsequently, they're obviously miserable."

The lad's Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he hunched his shoulders and shuffled his feet.

"A healthy horse is a happy horse, Thaddeus, just like us. How would
you
like to spend
your
days and nights bogged up to
your
hocks in offal?"

"Yes, milady." Thad's eyes then found Clayton, where he casually leaned one shoulder against the
laystall
door. He smiled thinly and raised a finger to his lips, silencing the distressed young groom. The boy's face went beet red.

"A horse is a noble creature, Thaddeus," Miracle continued as she paced, hands on her hips, brow furrowed in a frown as she stared in concentration at the floor. "Once shown care and respect, the beast's loyalty will surpass even the most devoted friend's. Give me that fork.

"Thank you. Now, our first challenge will be to remove the morass and
rebed
with fresh straw. Filthy stables cause weak eyes, and a running at the nose. The decomposition of vegetable matter and the urine give out stimulating and unhealthy vapors, and a strong smell of
hartshorn
. How can it but cause inflammation of the eyes or lung, or
glanders
and
farcy
?

"I daresay the animals' hooves will be reeking of thrush, but we'll remedy that with a bit of . . . let me think." She chewed on the tip of one finger. "A poultice with linseed meal, I believe. Yes! We shall put it on hot and let it remain twelve hours; then use a paste made of two ounces of blue vitriol, one ounce white vitriol, powdered as finely as possible, and mixed well with one pound of tar and two pounds of lard. Will you remember this, Thaddeus?"

He nodded and stared at her dumbly.

"You'll apply the mixture into the cleft of the hoof and allow it to remain twelve hours, then remove it with soap and water. Once that's accomplished, I'll speak with His Grace about refurbishing this bleak abode with a few windows. '
Tis
no wonder the gelding drains so at the nostrils. The respiratory problems caused by these damp, stinking surroundings will ultimately find His Grace's steeds dead as the proverbial doornail. I simply cannot think what would motivate a man of such esteem to ignore these trusted friends."

"Perhaps because that man of such esteem is too busy courting the woman of his dreams," Clayton announced, causing Miracle to jump and drop the fork. Her beautiful eyes suddenly wide and flashing with excitement, she flew into his arms, jumping up and down on his toes.

"You're back," she cried, covering his neck and jaw in kisses, hugging him fiercely. "I've missed you dreadfully, sir! I waited up half the night for you to return—"

Planting his hands on her shoulders to stop her jigging,

Clayton flashed Thaddeus a smile and a quick nod of his head. In a wink, the lad scurried from the stable, leaving them alone.

"I should be careful about flaunting your obvious unbridled affections in public. No one talks faster, longer, or louder than the help."

"Why should we care?" she asked, trying her best to plant another wet kiss on his cheek.

Laughing, Clayton shook his head.
"Meri
Mine, what am I going to do with you?"

"Marry me, of course. Just as soon as possible."

"In due time."

"I thought you were most eager to make an honest woman of me, sir." She tilted her head and smiled temptingly.

He grinned at her infectious merriment. "There are certain—"

"Don't tell me," she interrupted, exasperated. Stepping away, grabbing up the fork, she proceeded to stab at the rotting straw. "There is a certain etiquette dukes must follow when they intend to take a wife, which is obviously why you didn't return to Park House once depositing me here so unceremoniously last evening."

"We hardly have the privacy that we did at Cavisbrooke."

She said nothing for a while, just poked at and slung straw into a pile outside the stall. Stink and flies rose in a cloud around her shoulders; she didn't seem to notice. "Your stalls, sir, are beggarly."

"I apologize."

She stabbed the straw once more before turning on him again. There was hay in her hair and fire in her eyes. The old belligerence was there, tottering on the edge of her forbearance. Clayton didn't know whether to be relieved that after these last three days of emotional lassitude she was finally showing signs of her old self, or to be wary.

"What now?" she demanded. "Do I spend my days talking to myself out of boredom while you hop about the city with your friends? And speaking of friends, you won't subject me to
their
company again, will you?"

"Their company?"

"The witless ne'er-do-wells I helped fish out of the tide along with you."

"Ah. I hadn't thought of that." He shrugged and replied, "I suppose it won't be beyond the realm of reason that you should find yourself in their company again. I'll try to keep it brief and infrequent, however. Will that make you happy?"

" '
Twould
make me happier if you saw them not at all," she pointed out seriously.

"Good God. The woman is already attempting to peck at me. The next thing I know she'll be telling me what to eat, how to dress, and at what time I'm to be home at night."

"Which is what a wife is for, sir." She rewarded him with a sunny, entrancing smile that roused a surge of tenderness and protectiveness in him—and envy, if not outright jealousy of his brother. Yes, he was finally admitting it to himself. He wanted to break Trey in two with his hands, not only for perpetrating this damnable farce, but because he would have this glorious, breathtaking face to look at for the rest of his bastardly life.

"Among other things," he added under his breath, and grinned, allowing his gaze to travel slowly up from her ankles, to her breasts, to her face. Her big eyes regarded him languidly. Her soft, pink lips carried the slightest hint of a pout. Her cheeks looked rosy from her exertion and the heat in the stifling enclosure.

"Don't look at me in that manner," he told her in a rough, urgent voice.

"What manner, Your Grace?"

"As if you want me to come over there this minute and tear off your clothes. As if you want me to make love to you here and now."

"You haven't made love to me since the chapel," she pointed out in so low and sultry a voice he barely heard her. She briefly lowered her eyes; a move that, in any other woman, would have seemed excessively coy and would have irritated him to extremes. After all, he was not, and never had been, a man whose mind, heart, and body could be manipulated by female wiles. Miracle, on the other hand . . .

Forcing himself to look away, to ignore his body's rise in heat, the not so subtle awakening of his lower extremities, he ran his finger around the high, miserably stiff collar of his shirt. Damn her for her
naïveté.
Damn her for being so beautiful she robbed him of all willpower. Damn her for agreeing to marry him—or rather his brother. Damn her for falling in love with Trey Hawthorne, duke of Salterdon.