So Wild a Heart (16 page)

Miranda paused, looking off into space for a moment, then back to her stepsister. "You know...I think I just might."

_{Chapter 9}

“My lord...my lord..." The soft repeated words finally brought Devin wake.

He opened one eye and looked up to see his butler looming over him, wringing his hands and frowning. Devin growled something unintelligible and sat up.

He realized two things simultaneously as he did so: one was that he was incredibly stiff, particularly his neck; and the other was that his head was pounding furiously. The reason for the latter, he knew without even having to think. His head felt as it always did when he had consumed an excessively large amount of alcohol the night before—swollen and tender and as if a thousand tiny elves were going at it with hammers from the inside.

It took a moment to realize the reason for his unusual stiffness. He was seated at his desk in his study, not lying in bed, and he had fallen asleep on the desk, his head cradled on one arm, with the result that his neck felt permanently crooked, and his hand and arm were numb and useless.

He blinked against the light and groaned, trying to remember what he had been doing in his study and why he had fallen asleep there.

"My lord," his butler began again, but Devin raised an admonitory hand.

"No."

The butler stopped, shifting nervously from one foot to another, looking at his employer, then at the door, then back at Devin.

"Give me a minute to make sure I'm alive," Devin went on. "I think I may be in one of the circles of purgatory."

"I beg your pardon?" The butler added confusion to his expression of anxiety. He was not the man who had buttled for Devin for years, that good chap having been offered better pay elsewhere. This man had worked in the Earl's household for only two months, and he had found it both undemanding and unsettling. He still had not decided whether the easygoing manner of his employer was worth the strange hours he kept and the less than genteel folks who came and went there.

"Never mind. I need a glass of water. No, wait, coffee. Perhaps both."

"Yes, my lord. But first, there is the matter—"

Devin let out a groan. His memory was coming back to him by degrees. He recalled the opera the night before and leaving Leona in a huff, then going to Richard's house. They had played cards, finished off the bottle of port and opened another before he had finally left. It had been very early in the morning, he remembered, as he made his unsteady way home, for the sky had definitely shown signs of lightening in the east. A man of sense, he knew, would have gone straight to bed at that point, but he had not. He had been carrying their second bottle of port, which still contained some liquid, and he had taken the bottle into his study and continued to drink.

He had also, he regretted to remember, decided to try out his drawing skills. Richard's words had somehow implanted in him an urge to draw, to see if he was still capable of rendering a human face on paper. It had been an utterly useless thing to do, of course, but then, he frequently embarked on utterly useless courses of action when he was in the grip of drink. So he had dug out paper and pencil and had wasted an hour or two trying to draw faces—well, one face in particular. He had been unable to get Miss Upshaw's countenance out of his mind, and he had tried to exorcise it by recreating it. He had been singularly unsuccessful, a fact which was attested to by the number of balled-up sheets of paper in the waste bin and scattered around it. However hard he had tried, he had not been able to capture the exact look of penetrating intelligence and inner amusement that marked Miranda's face.

Somewhere along the line, obviously, he had fallen asleep. He leaned back against his chair now and fixed his butler with a deadly gaze. "I said coffee. Forget everything else."

"But it is the lady, sir—I don't know what to do."

"The lady?" Devin sank his fragile head onto his hands. "What lady?"

"The lady outside, my lord. She insists on seeing you, and she seems most determined. I told her you were unavailable, but she refused to believe me, sir. I—I didn't know what to do."

"Send the baggage packing."

"I would have, sir, but she—well, I recognized the unmistakable lines of Madame Ferrier in her dress and pelisse, sir, and her speech, her manner, well—" He lowered his voice, almost as if he were revealing a secret. "She appears to be a lady."

"You're daft."

"No, he's not," said a clear voice from the doorway.

Both Devin and the butler whipped around to look at the doorway, a movement that caused Devin's stomach to lurch dangerously.

"Miss Upshaw!" the butler exclaimed, obviously shocked.

Devin groaned and let his head sink into his hands. "I should have known."

"I am sorry," Miranda said, addressing the butler rather than Devin. "But I was getting rather bored cooling my heels out in the entry, and frankly, I was afraid that you might not have the nerve to awaken Lord Ravenscar. I thought you might need my help."

"Good God," Devin groaned, "am I to be plagued by you everywhere, even in my own house?"

"Rough night, eh?" Miranda said, not without sympathy, coming farther into the room. She turned to the butler. "He needs coffee, I imagine, Mr....what is your name?''

"Simmons, Miss. Just Simmons."

"All right, Simmons. Bring a pot of coffee as quickly as you can, and I think it would benefit the man greatly if you would also make a glass of my remedy. It works like a charm. Mr. Hoskins, Papa's trade representative in the Northwest Territory, used to swear by it. Poor man, he was given to drink, and whenever we arrived there, we were as likely as not to find him sunk in a hangover. It was the loneliness and snow, you know—drove him to drink. I always made him a glass of remedy, and it made him better in minutes. First you take a raw egg, then you add a pinch of crushed black pepper, a—"

Devin let out a pitiful moan. "No, please, I beg of you, no more description. I am sure that the cook would leave me if called upon to make such a concoction. Simmons, fetch the coffee. I shall deal with Miss Upshaw."

Devin rose to his feet, using the desk as a brace, and faced Miranda. He smoothed back his hair and unrolled his shirtsleeves, only then realizing that he was without coat or even waistcoat, both of which he had thrown over one of the chairs early this morning. His ascot was with them, leaving him in a thoroughly disheveled and improper state—shirttails out, the top button undone—to be receiving a visitor, much less a female one.

"Miss Upshaw, I am afraid this is highly improper," he began. "I don't know what you do in America, but in London, a lady simply does not enter a bachelor's quarters unescorted, unless she is a rel—" His voice died as his eyes fell on the pile of wadded-up papers beside the wastebin. Hastily, he kicked a number of them under his desk.

“It would be improper in the United States, as well, Lord Ravenscar," Miranda assured him, her eyes following his to the balls of paper in and around the trash can. The nervous, almost guilty look on his face intrigued her, and she wondered what the papers contained. "However, I had something I needed to talk to you about, and I saw no sense in sitting around hoping you would show up at my doorstep again, or that I would run into you at the opera or the theater or some party."

"You could have sent me a note requesting me to call on you."

"And you would have come?" Miranda quirked one eyebrow in disbelief. “Anyway, I dislike waiting. I like to take charge of my own destiny, not put it in the hands of others. So I decided to call on you myself. I suspect it is a trifle early in the day for you, since it is only half-past noon, but I wanted to be sure to catch you before you left."

"Left? For where?"

"I don't know. Anywhere. Left for the day, I mean. Really, my lord, are you sure you don't want me to pop into the kitchen and make you that remedy? You do seem to be having some difficulty keeping up with the conversation."

Devin regarded her balefully.

Miranda gazed back at him, never changing her pleasant expression. The man looked like hell, she thought.
It was almost enough to make one change one's mind.
But Miranda was not the sort who changed her mind easily. Once she had made a decision, as she had this morning after a nearly sleepless night of thinking about it, she was not likely to second-guess it. She was confident and ready to go forward. That was why she had decided to go directly to the Earl's house and get the thing started.

She knew what she wanted, and why. The only problem now was bringing it about. But Miranda was confident that she would be able to turn Ravenscar around.

"Miss Upshaw, let me be as blunt as you seem to like to be."

"Please do."

"What are you doing here?"

"That is quite simple. I have come to tell you that I have decided to accept your proposal. I will marry you."

Devin said nothing. He simply stood there staring at her. It occurred to him that perhaps his ears were playing tricks on him. He had, after all, had a great deal to drink the night before.

“I beg your pardon?''

"I said that I have changed my mind about marrying you. I accept your proposal."

"You can't do that," he protested. "I told you, I wouldn't marry you even if it would save me from debtors' prison."

"You offered for me."

"You refused my offer."

"A woman has the prerogative of changing her mind," Miranda pointed out. "Besides, you can't take back your offer. It would be ungentlemanly in the extreme."

"No, no, no," Devin said, coming around the desk toward her. "One offer, one chance. That's it. You refuse, and the offer is gone."

The butler reentered the room at that moment and almost backed out again after one glance at the wild look on his employer's face. But Miranda stopped him with a look and a gesture.

"Ah, the coffee. Set it on the desk, Simmons. Would you like for me to pour?''

"No!" Devin fixed the butler with a glare. "Put the tray on the table by the couch, Simmons. I'll pour."

"Yes, my lord." Simmons quickly did as Devin directed and beat a hasty retreat, skillfully managing to leave the door open a crack when he closed it.

Miranda followed him to the door and closed it. Devin turned to the table and poured himself a cup of hot coffee. Miranda seized the opportunity to walk softly to his desk and reach under it with one toe, nudging out one of the balls of paper that Devin had been at such pains to hide. While his back was turned, she reached down quickly and picked it up, stuffing it into her pocket. When he turned back around, she was regarding him placidly, her hands folded together in front of her.

"May I offer you a cup of coffee, Miss Upshaw?"

"No, thank you. I am sure you will benefit from it far more than I."

Devin took a sip of coffee and waited for a moment. When his stomach did not rebel, he took another drink. When he had downed the entire cup, he thought perhaps he was ready to deal with Miranda.

"Now..." Devin tried to fix a pleasant smile upon his face, despite the fact that his head was still pounding like thunder. "Miss Upshaw. I am not sure what has brought you to this turnaround, but if you think about it for a moment, you will realize that it is completely unworkable. You and I could never get along. We can't stay in the same room longer than five minutes without getting into some sort of wrangle. We could not possibly be married."

"You must know a very different sort of married couple to think that getting along is a requirement of marriage."

"You despise me!"

"Now that is a trifle harsh. I never said that I despised you," Miranda said thoughtfully. "I found you arrogant and rather unlikeable, I will admit, but it isn't a prerequisite of marriage to actually
like
one's spouse. I am sure that your feelings toward me are much the same as mine toward you."

“If that is the case, then one or the other of us will probably be dead before the end of our honeymoon," Devin commented dryly.

Miranda smiled faintly. "I assure you, my lord, that I am not homicidal. I am also well able to take care of myself."

"This is absurd." Devin set aside his empty coffee cup.

“No. I assure you it is not. It is well thought out. I spent all last night going over it. And I can tell you that I rarely come to the wrong conclusion."

"Speaking of arrogance..." Devin murmured. He settled himself against the edge of his desk, stretching his long legs out in front of him and crossing his arms over his chest, and regarded Miranda with a patient, if somewhat bloodshot, gaze. "All right. Let me hear these well thought-out reasons."

"As I told you the other night," Miranda began, "I had begun to realize the advantages of the sort of arranged marriage you offered me. It was not what I had expected in life, so it took a bit to grow accustomed to it. For you, the choice is obvious, however much you may dislike it. I have seen your financial statements, you know, and it is quite clear that you are teetering on the edge of ruin."

"You have seen my financial statements?" he asked, amazed.

"Your uncle was kind enough to send them to us."

"How nice of him."