Caroline regarded her for a moment, then gently smiled. “I could retreat to being the haughty duchess and remind you that this is a ducal household, and as such more than up to the task of catering for a mere two unexpected guests, which is nothing more than the truth. However, if we are speaking of truth, then, to deal first with Sarah, I’m very pleased to see her so engaged in being useful—more, in happily putting herself out to entertain someone else, rather than, as she previously has, expecting the world to revolve around her. I cannot stress how much good having your brother here, injured and in need, is doing her, so enough said on that score.
“As to us putting ourselves out to entertain you, dear Miranda, quite aside from you being the most easily entertained guest I’ve ever had, you must accept that we”—with a wave Caroline included Lucasta—“will do all in our power to make staying at Ridgware pleasant for the guest whose presence ensures Julian remains as well.”
Lucasta nodded. “We simply don’t see enough of him otherwise, so naturally we’re beyond grateful to anyone or anything that results in us having his company. Having him arrive with you and Roderick was a gift to us all. But you not only brought him here without there having to be some estate disaster to claim his complete attention, you, my dear, have kept him here. Kept him here because he wants to be here, which for us, for Henry and Edwina especially, is a special treat.” Looking up, Lucasta met her eyes. “And so, my dear Miranda, we can sincerely assure you that to us, having you and your brother to stay, even for ten or more days, is no imposition at all.”
Miranda studied Lucasta’s eyes, like her son’s so dark a blue they were never easy to read. “I know he—Julian—has many and constant claims on his time in London. I had thought he was staying because of estate business, because of Henry.”
Caroline shook her head. “He’s taking advantage of remaining here to spend time about the estate with Henry, but that’s because he’s too much the gentleman to monopolize your entire day.”
Lucasta snorted. “Not so much the gentleman as the shrewd tactician. If he spent every minute by your side, you’d find him too much, too irritating. He’s too wise for that.”
Miranda inwardly blinked. Lucasta and Caroline refocused on their embroideries, and a pleasant silence fell over the room. Miranda had to wonder whether they knew she and Roscoe were lovers . . . perhaps they did. Relaxing into her corner of the sofa, she sent her mind circling to her hostesses’ perspective, their view of why Julian—Roscoe—was remaining at Ridgware. To Lucasta’s assertion that he would spend every minute of the day by her side if such behavior were acceptable. Acceptable to her.
She found it hard to believe that desire for her and her company was sufficiently powerful to keep him, of all men, there, away from his London concerns. Then again, their liaison and her fascination with it and him was certainly sufficient to rivet her interest.
She’d assumed said fascination was a result of her being a novice in that sphere, and that therefore he, being beyond experienced, wouldn’t feel anything comparable, wouldn’t be subject to the same enthrallment.
If Lucasta and Caroline were right, then she was wrong.
But . . . what did that mean? What might it mean?
What might he decide it meant?
She wished she knew more about men, specifically about their views on liaisons. As it was, she had no idea what he might think or do, none at all.
Which left her with only one way forward.
Late in the afternoon, Roscoe tapped on Roderick’s door and heard Miranda’s voice, a trifle strained, bid him enter. Opening the door, he scanned the room. Stifling a curse, leaving the door swinging, he strode in and, dislodging Sarah, looped his arms about Roderick’s waist and hauled his weight off Miranda, staggering as she strove to support her teetering brother from his other side.
“Thank you,” Roderick gasped. “Entwhistle suggested I try a few short walks—he didn’t mention that my balance might be shot.”
“It’ll come back soon enough, but you’ll be staggering for the first little while.” Across Roderick, Roscoe looked at Miranda.
With Roderick’s good arm over her shoulders, still catching her breath, she nodded. “Thank you.”
He sent her an acerbic look. “You can thank me by letting me take that side.”
Her eyes widened a fraction, then she eased out from under Roderick’s arm. Holding Roderick up, he shifted to take her place. Roderick’s right foot had been broken, but it was his left collarbone that had cracked, his left arm that was immobilized in a sling strapped across his chest. He was wearing a thick dressing robe; a crude slipper fashioned from strips of leather and bandages covered his injured foot.
Roscoe was a few inches taller than Roderick. Once he’d settled Roderick’s arm around him and Roderick had caught his balance, Roscoe nodded toward the door. “The corridor’s a good place to practice—the gallery with its rail will be even better.”
Roderick nodded, and they moved slowly forward.
Roscoe saw Sarah hovering. “Find Mrs. Viner and ask for the crutches George used when he broke his leg. She’ll have them stored somewhere.”
Sarah nodded and slipped past. “I’ll get them.”
Having heard from Caroline the full story of why Sarah was presently at Ridgware and not with her parents in London, he was favorably impressed with the young woman’s continued willingness to help.
Guiding Roderick’s uncertain steps, Roscoe steered him out of the door. Once they were in the long corridor and making steady progress down the runner, Roderick gradually grew more assured.
“One thing to remember—you’ll have to walk back. The instant you feel your strength fading, turn back.”
Roderick nodded. “I can make it to the gallery. After that, we’ll see.”
With Miranda hovering, Roscoe supported Roderick into the gallery, then let Roderick grasp the wooden balustrade circling the stairwell. Roderick limped along, step by slow step.
Capturing Miranda’s hand, drawing her with him, Roscoe stepped back to the nearest window.
Halting beside him, her gaze on Roderick, Miranda blew out a breath and let herself collapse onto the window seat. Eyes on her brother, she felt Roscoe glance down at her. “I had no idea he was so heavy.” She’d had no real appreciation of the effort he must have exerted in carrying Roderick’s dead weight from the cottage and lifting him into the curricle; now she did.
He snorted. “He’s not exactly your little brother anymore.”
“True.” And in so many ways.
After a moment of studying Roderick, he stirred, then sat beside her. “Watch his lips. When the line becomes too grim, it’ll be time for him to head back.”
“Thank you. I seem to be saying that a lot these days.”
He reached for her hand, twined his fingers with hers. “A situation with which I have no complaint.”
She managed not to blush as an all-too-vivid memory of her thanking him—effusively—in the dark watches of the previous night flared to life.
He’d come to her bed every night, and every night she’d welcomed him with open arms and a thrill shivering down her spine. And every night he’d lived up to her expectations, and more. He’d been assiduous in his attentions; he’d taught her so much over those dark hours, had revealed to her so much of herself, and allowed her to explore both her own responses and reactions, and his.
He was a generous lover, attentive, often frighteningly intuitive, and at times almost reverent, yet beneath his smooth sophistication ran a demand so strong, so raw . . . every time it rose to his surface, as it inevitably and invariably did, his every touch made her shiver with unadulterated delight, shudder with consuming need, and wantonly glory in their passion.
So she sat and watched Roderick take his first difficult steps toward renewed health, with her hand openly clasped in Roscoe’s, felt his thumb idly cruising the back of her hand, felt heat spread from the simple contact. Felt her skin come alive, awakened
by his nearness, by the expectation of pleasure having him near evoked.
She watched Roderick halt, turn, then make his way slowly back along the gallery. Hearing a clatter on the stairs, she looked to their head and saw Sarah arrive, triumphantly bearing a pair of wooden crutches.
Roderick halted and smiled.
Beaming, Sarah carried the crutches to him.
Roscoe let out a small sigh, released Miranda’s hand and rose, then went to show Roderick how to properly use the supports.
With only a modicum of instruction, Roderick mastered the long pegs and managed to get himself back to his room without incident.
Miranda halted by the door, watched as Roscoe stood ready to catch Roderick if he fell, but with Sarah deftly removing the crutches as Roderick let them go, he managed to get himself back into his chair without drama. Settling, the smile he sent her reassured her as no words could have.
With an answering smile, she drew back from the doorway as, after a last word and a nod, Roscoe came striding out. Stepping through the door, shutting it behind him, his gaze locked with hers.
He read her eyes, then his lips curved. “You don’t need to say it.”
Instead, her own lips curving, she stepped close, stretched up and brushed her lips over his. Murmured against them, “So I’ll say it without words,” and kissed him.
Lightly—that was her intent, but his hands caught her waist and he drew her in, angled his head and drank her thanks from her lips, her mouth. Claimed his reward and set her senses whirling.
Purring.
Wanting.
Eventually, he raised his head and broke the kiss. The calculation burgeoning in her head was mirrored in his dark sapphire eyes, but then he laughed softly, wryly regretful. “The dinner gong will sound too soon.”
She sighed and stepped back; reluctantly, his hands slid from her waist. “In that case, you’ll have to wait to savor your reward.” She was inwardly amazed that the sultriness in her voice and expression came so easily. Turning, she held his gaze until the last second. “Until later.”
Roscoe watched her walk away, hips seductively swaying . . . then he smiled appreciatively, in anticipation, and, turning, forced himself to walk in the opposite direction.
The next morning Miranda seized the opportunity created by Caroline being closeted with Mrs. Viner, and Lucasta and Edwina becoming embroiled in a discussion of the family members to be invited to Edwina’s wedding, to stroll in the gardens and focus on something she rarely did—herself, her own life. What was important, what would remain so in the future—what her future should be like.
Her life was changing, on multiple planes. And on many of those planes she stood at a crossroads with more than one avenue, more than one path she might take. And decision time was nearing, but how could she make the correct choice without knowing the pertinent facts?
Strolling down the path that circled the south lawn, between the drifts of autumn leaves the gardeners had raked to either side of the gravel, she attempted to bring order to her thoughts. She had so many questions to which she’d yet to learn the answers, and every day, every night, only added to the list.
Last night, for instance . . . when Roscoe had joined her in her room, she’d insisted that the purpose of their engagement, the tenor of it, should be driven by her wish to thank him. She’d pressed her claim and, indulgent, he’d granted it—allowed her to explore and seek and learn what most pleasured him, and then to wantonly deliver that, to fulfill his every wish and press on him his every carnal desire, raining pleasure and delight upon him, and yet . . . and yet . . . at the shattering end, long after he’d taken over, seized their reins and taken command, she’d been left with the conviction, absolute, ringing true, that his greatest pleasure derived not from anything she could do to him, but in her surrender, in her allowing him to pleasure her.
He delighted in her passion, gloried in having her beneath him. In having her with him as together they raced through the fire and up and over the peak. As exhausted, wrung out, they slumped, deliriously ecstatic, in each other’s arms.
Joy, pleasure, and delight—and the greatest gift she could give him, it seemed, was to show him how much those were shared.
She had, and the intimacy, the closeness of the moment when he’d settled her in his arms, her head pillowed on his chest, and he’d raised her hand, pressed a kiss to her palm, then settled her hand, palm down, over his heart, had been shattering.
Acute, intense, soul-deep.
What they shared . . . she thought, sensed, that it was something special. She’d had no other lover, no other affair with which to compare, so the fact that it felt special to her didn’t mean that it would feel special to him, yet . . . perhaps there was something in Lucasta and Caroline’s view. Perhaps being with her was at least part of what was holding him at Ridgware.
But what would that mean in terms of what came later? After?
She’d taken him as her lover initially purely as a means to an end, as a way to learn something, to experience something she’d needed to experience at least once in her life.
Once had extended effortlessly into many more times; their liaison, their affair, had come to exist without any huge effort from either of them, more as a natural extrapolation of a connection that had suited them both.
How long would it suit them? How far could it go?
She halted, unsettled, unnerved by the strength of her reaction to the prospect those questions evoked—a vision of a time when their liaison was no more and he was no longer in her life.
Looking inward, she recognized and admitted that she didn’t want their liaison to end. That she would rather go forward and see what they might make of it. That she’d already gone too far, become too enthralled with him, with them together, to be unaffected by their connection ending. Severing.
Yet once they returned to London, to their lives there, how could such a connection survive? If as Lord Julian Delbraith he was, if not out of, then certainly at the limit of Miranda Clifford’s reach, when he was Neville Roscoe she was absolutely definitely out of his.
The only way their liaison could continue was illicitly, as a carefully guarded secret.
Still, perhaps that would do. Would suit them both.
Would allow them to continue—
“Miranda!”
She blinked back to her surroundings and saw Henry striding over the lawn.
“Are you strolling alone?” He halted before her, a smile wreathing his face. “I’m sure it says somewhere that we can’t have that.”
She smiled. “Your mother, your grandmother, and your aunt were busy, so I took myself for a stroll.” She started to walk on. “Where’s your uncle?”
Henry fell in beside her. “We just rode in, but the family solicitors were waiting, so he’s gone off to deal with them. We’ve all agreed that I’m not yet up to wrestling with the legal stuff, so I’m excused.” He glanced ahead, then at her. “Were you wanting to explore some particular area? It looked like you were lost—or perhaps didn’t know which way to go?”
An accurate observation, but . . . she shook her head. “I was just woolgathering.”
“Oh.” He paused, then more diffidently said, “Would you rather continue alone?”
“No.” There was no point pondering unanswerable questions. She smiled at him encouragingly. “Actually, I would welcome your company.”
“Well, then.” Relaxing, he looked around. “The rose garden is over there—have you seen it?”
Several times, mostly in moonlight. “Yes, but . . .” The rose garden now held a lingering presence, one that would only distract her. “I’d thought to wander through the shrubbery—I haven’t been there, yet.”
“Right-ho.” With an elegance he had to have copied from his uncle, he gestured ahead. “We can go this way.”
She walked on, and he paced beside her. “Tell me, how does your uncle manage with you? I know he’s your guardian. Do you meet with him often?”
r /> Henry waggled his head. “Yes and no. If all is going well, I only see him in summer and at Christmas here, when he visits Ridgware. Until recently I was at school, of course, so wasn’t here during his occasional other visits.”
“If all is going well . . . but what if you have a problem? Do you send word and he comes to you, or do you go to him?” She knew Roscoe well enough to know it would be one or the other.
“Both. Sometimes he would come and stay near the school, and send for me—the headmaster hated that, but given the family, they couldn’t argue. And at other times, when he couldn’t leave London, he’d send for me and I’d go to his house there.”
“In Chichester Street?”
“Yes.” Henry glanced at her. “Do you know it?”
“We live close by.”
“Oh. Then you know . . .”
“Roderick and I know your uncle as Roscoe.”
Henry nodded. “I keep tripping over his name when I’m there . . . but, oh! I say—you must be sure never to mention that I go there to Mama, or Grandmama, or—heaven help us all—the aunts.”
When she turned questioning eyes on him, Henry pulled a face. “He doesn’t allow them to visit him there, and I don’t think—in fact, I’m perfectly certain—he’s never let on that he allows me to visit.”
She could understand that. “Consider my lips sealed.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want him to have to face the lot of them, all pining to come and visit him.” Henry shuddered feelingly. “They’ll pour on the histrionics, and then get angry when he refuses to budge.”
She glanced at him. “You’re sure he won’t budge?”
“Never.” The conviction in Henry’s tone was absolute. “If he decides something’s necessary for your own good, nothing short of the apocalypse will shift him.”