The Fairy Tale Bride (27 page)

How could he do this to her? She needed his
male perspective in order to divine some answer as to what to do
about Simon. And now, with Simon avoiding her, Katherine too busy
with the children to practice her healing arts, and Grimthorpe
arriving as a guest within hours, Valentine had sent a note to say
he was not going to be here for the weekend.

Coward! Not that she could blame him. He had
ceased talking about Emily after those first few awful days. But
she knew that he had not ceased loving her.

Miranda had hoped for a reconciliation
between them. But she recognized as well as Valentine had that
Emily's engagement made such a dream impossible. Perhaps it was
just as well that he had not come. For him, at least.

She sighed. The first guests were due any
moment. The grooms, stable boys, and footmen stood at the ready
with their uniforms ironed and their boots polished. The dowager,
Hero, and Juliet waited in the largest receiving parlor. Where she
should be now, instead of sitting like an errant child on the
stair, reading over again this message that she most definitely did
not want to read.

"Have you decided to greet our guests from
here?" Simon came up behind her so softly she was unprepared. The
sound of his voice set her heart to beating rapidly. But she was
uneasy in his presence. He had been avoiding her since the night he
had thrown her out of his bed. It was humiliating even to think
about it. She hesitated to look up at him.

"No." Miranda glanced up and nearly lost her
breath. He was so handsome he made her heart ache.

Katherine, Hero, and Juliet had to be wrong
when they assured her that his love for her shone from his eyes. If
he loved her, he could not look so calmly at her, as if he had not
stolen her mother's necklace, not given it back to her and then
kissed her, as if he had not almost made love to her. If he loved
her, his heart would beat as wildly as hers and surely she would
hear it. She held out the note to him.

He took it without touching her hand. He
glanced at it and frowned. "I'm sorry. I know how much Valentine's
support meant to you." There was sympathy in his eyes, but relief,
too.

She knew he had been worried about having
Valentine and Emily under the same roof. But he had stood firm when
Emily's father had objected. Valentine was family, he had said.

His sympathy brought tears to her eyes. It
was sheer irony that she would not have needed Valentine's support
if things were well between she and Simon. "He would be here, if
only Emily were not."

He sat on the step next to her. For a moment
she thought he intended to put his arm around her, but he did not.
"I think he is showing wisdom. Emily's betrothed will be here, as
well as Emily and her parents."

How could he be so understanding and so very
distant while she could barely resist her impulse to climb into his
lap and bury her face in his neck? All at once it occurred to her
that this feeling of tension, this not knowing what to say to make
things right, was why Valentine had not come.

Her brother must feel helpless in the united
face of Emily, her family, and her betrothed. So he had chosen not
to put himself in that position. If only she had the freedom to
make such a choice. But where could she run? Anderlin was no longer
her home.

She whispered. "I don't know how he can bear
it. There is nothing worse than not being able to show the one you
love how much you love them." Even when one was married to him.

The sympathy in his expression receded, even
as she watched. He stood up. "Your brother survived army discipline
and the heat and rain of India, he most certainly will survive the
loss of one matrimonial possibility. With his fortunes looking up,
there will be many Mamas and Papas interested in an alliance with
him for their daughters, dowries and all."

"You don't understand." How could he love her
and say something like that? Katherine was blind to think Simon
felt anything for her at all. And then, she wasn't certain, but she
thought she saw a flicker of pain cross his features.

He held out his hand. "Yes. I understand very
well what he has lost." His fingers grasped hers as her hand met
his, and he pulled her to a standing position. He let go of her
hand as soon as she had her balance. "But we bear what we
must."

His voice sounded so cold and distant she
could almost have thought she was talking to the dowager. She
stared at him, suddenly angry at his withdrawal. "Do we?"

He didn't respond, would have turned away if
she hadn't reached out to put a hand on his arm. "I don't know if I
can bear this distance between us, Simon. Must I?"

The sound of carriage wheels on the drive
became clear in the silence between them. Then voices and a flurry
of activity as the footmen began to carry boxes into the hall.

Without acknowledging her question, Simon
turned toward the door. "We must go out to greet our guests."

Miranda did not stir. "Must we?"

He turned back to her and his coldness faded
as he smiled ruefully and touched her cheek gently. "Better to face
the enemy than to run and hide."

She pulled away, afraid that his touch would
make the tears that threatened spill forth. "Easy for you to say.
They are not your enemies." They were hers. And tears and tension
would just add spice to the gossip.

There were two carriages in the drive.
Grimthorpe, naturally would be among the first arrivals, and the
other carriage contained Emily and her parents. The passengers had
alighted from their coaches and were brushing off their clothing in
preparation for entering when Simon and Miranda went to greet them.
Arthur joined them as they began to welcome the tired
travelers.

The last time Miranda had seen Emily, the
girl had been laughing and waving as she headed off to the border
with Valentine. Her brother's love, looking paler and more sober
than that last time, greeted her politely, but did not meet her
eyes.

Her mother, the countess, was a thin,
forbidding woman. To Miranda's discomfort, she displayed an open
curiosity over how Simon and Miranda had met. Her questions began
immediately after her greeting and did not seem to have an end.

"Did you meet at a country dance at one of
the local squire's homes?"

"Had you known Simon long?"

"Did you expect to be pulled from the shelf
at this late date?"

Emily gave her one quick, sympathetic glance,
but then seemed to find herself entranced by the sight of her
slippers peeping from under her skirts as she walked. Miranda
looked toward Simon.

There was no rescue from that quarter,
however.

Emily's father had left the chattering to the
women and pulled Simon to the side. Before Miranda could blink,
before the countess could finish her latest question, the two men
were instantly deep in a discussion of business matters.

Seeing Grimthorpe's approach, Miranda braced
herself.

To her surprise, she heard Arthur's firm
greeting from behind her and was glad to find him there, as if he
knew that she needed support.

Grimthorpe drew near, a wolfish half-smile on
his face as he quickly surveyed — and dismissed — Emily, to turn
his attention to Arthur. "You're looking well, I see."

Arthur merely nodded and returned the
compliment. "As are you."

"Thought for sure you'd have popped off by
now, old man. Any bees around this weekend?"

"Certainly not." Arthur stiffened and gave
Grimthorpe a stern look. To her surprise, there appeared to be
animosity between the two men. Miranda had never before seen Arthur
appear anything more than mildly chagrined. But his attitude toward
Grimthorpe bordered on anger. She wondered from whence it
stemmed.

Seeing Emily's mother preparing for yet
another round of questions, and dreading lest Grimthorpe hear them,
Miranda hastily led the other women inside to where her sisters and
the dowager awaited.

She would let Simon handle the man. They
deserved each other.

As they walked, Miranda tried to reassure
Emily, without actually using words, that she did not need to fear
any embarrassing disclosures about her this weekend. Or any anger.
If Emily no longer wanted to marry Valentine, then so be it.
Miranda would not interfere.

But what if Emily still loved him? What if
she loathed her husband-to-be? Don't ask for trouble, she told
herself, already knowing that she would not be able to rest until
she was certain that Emily had truly put all hopes of marrying
Valentine behind her. After all, her love life — and the dowager's
both seemed so hopeless she must look elsewhere for a happy
ending.

"I hear the dowager and Simon have been
reconciled. Is that so?" There was no ignoring the way that Emily's
mother insinuated herself between them, even as she spewed her
questions, as if she were afraid that Miranda might contaminate her
daughter.

Or incite her to another elopement. Miranda
smiled politely and murmured a vague answer to yet another of the
countess's questions. She could not avoid the knowledge that the
weekend was likely to be the longest of her life.

The guests continued to arrive, keeping the
footman and maids busy scurrying to see to the needs of the new
arrivals and keeping Miranda so busy greeting people and making
sure of their comfort that she barely noticed how Simon always
seemed to glide away from wherever she moved. Even as the guests
gathered in the ballroom, dressed in their finest and prepared to
dance the night away, Simon stayed a room length away.

Not that she was overly eager to see the
distant look in his eye. Or to hear his detached comments about the
number of guests and the scheduling of entertainments for tomorrow.
Even worse would be his dry compliments on how beautifully the
ballroom had been decorated. They both knew it was all his mother's
work.

"May I have this dance?" She turned to find
one of the eligible young bachelors had detached himself from Hero.
He was tall and dark and the only feature which kept him from
handsomeness was a petulant set to his lips and a thinness to his
nostrils that suggested he did not like to breathe common air.

"Thank you," she accepted. She would have
preferred to decline, but the dowager was staring at her from
across the dance floor, and she had already been reminded three
times that she was a duchess now. Miranda presumed that duchesses
did not refuse dances from perfectly decent, if callow, young
guests.

He was an adequate, if not perfect, dancer,
and she was just beginning to enjoy herself when Simon cut in and
swept her away from the young man. With a flare of his nostrils,
the usurped gentleman headed quickly back toward Hero's vicinity,
leaving Miranda to deal with Simon on her own. Her heart dropped as
she looked up into his eyes.

He scowled. "I am not amused."

CHAPTER TWENTY

His scowl did not lessen as they danced,
despite the fact that she seemed genuinely perplexed by his
displeasure.

Evidently, despite her concern for his
"health", she was in no mood to coddle him. "By what are you not
amused?" she asked, impatience stamped into the tight set of her
mouth. "The decorations? The musicians? They seem more than
adequate to me."

"You know what I mean." He said it
forcefully, just to make certain she had not simply learned to hide
the truth in the time she had lived with him.

She stared at him in such puzzlement that his
scowl relaxed and he found himself feeling groundlessly grim.
Purposefully, he began directing their dance to carry them toward
the entryway. With barely a pause, he led her into the dining room,
its tables laden with food and guarded by huge blocks of sculpted
ice. "Look at this."

Her glance at the tables was not cursory, and
no glint of recognition shone in her eyes. He had just decided to
explain when he felt her start of surprise. She went nearer, on
tiptoe, as if she were afraid, and began to peer at the sculptures:
Cinder Ella, her prince at her feet; Rapunzel in her tower, her
hair let down; Sleeping Beauty, Little Redcape, Snow White, Beauty
and the Beast.

Fairytale characters captured in ice. And
that was not the worst: Every woman had Miranda's face and every
man was Simon – except that for the tale of Redcape he had been
rendered with angular, wolfish features.

She put her hand out to the familiar features
caught in ice and rested her fingers on the chill wolfen brow. "I
had no idea."

His lips tightened, then twitched. "My
mother, of course. Her idea of amusement." He gestured for a
footman. "Take these away immediately."

"No." Miranda shook her head, and the footman
halted, looking at Simon for further instruction. She touched his
arm. He could not hide his anger, but she met his gaze full on.
"Leave them. They are beautiful."

"We will be the laughingstock of society for
this folly," he muttered.

Miranda shook her head, a shuttered look of
sad certainly on her face. "Your mother would not do that. Your
family name is too important to her."

He jerked his arm away from her. So his
mother had even convinced her of the Watterly honor. How
ironic.

She reached for his arm again, touching him
lightly, "Please. Leave them, Simon. No one will laugh. They are
too beautiful for that."

Her eyes rested wistfully on the Sleeping
Beauty sculpture, the handsome, princely Simon bent so that his
lips met and melded with the lips of the icy Sleeping Beauty,
carved in the likeness of Miranda. "Leave them for my sake."

He watched her, hoping his inner war not
obvious in the taut lines of his face. Why did he continue to
torture them both like this? He should send her back to her family
before she was ruined forever — not her reputation, but her heart,
He remembered then that his mother had warned him of that very
thing. Damn her.