“It’s no wonder,” she said. “You lost a lot of blood last night, and you haven’t had time or the nourishment to regain your strength.” She noticed the beads of perspiration forming on his upper lip and placed her palm against his forehead.
His fever had returned.
And it was his own fault, Miranda thought uncharitably. The stubborn man hadn’t stayed in bed but had insisted on opening the window and ordering breakfast.
“I bled on your ball gown,” Daniel suddenly remembered.
“No matter,” Miranda told him. “I’ve plenty of other dresses.”
“You don’t seem to be wearing one,” he commented dryly.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “And neither are you.”
“My meeting is very important,” he told her. “I must be there.”
“Important enough to risk having someone discover you’re injured?” she asked. “Because that’s what you’ll be doing if you try to go there. And even if you had the strength to manage, I cannot see you walking into your meeting wearing a pink bed sheet and bandages, and that’s all I have to offer until Ned returns.”
“When will that be?”
Miranda shrugged. “I’ve no idea,” she admitted. “He should have already returned, but he’s obviously been detained. Most likely my mother needed Ned and the coach for errands.”
“Most likely,” Daniel grumbled, unhappy with the state of affairs.
“I could find a runner who could send a note around to your valet at Sussex House requesting a full change of clothing,” she suggested.
“No!” Daniel protested. “My valet would insist on bringing it himself, and if Malden learned of my injury, there would be no keeping it quiet. The news would be in every ton household within minutes.”
“What?”
“It’s true,” Daniel affirmed. “I’ve learned over the years that Malden cannot keep a secret. It’s simply not in his nature.”
Miranda was alarmed at that admission. A man in Daniel’s position needed a valet he could trust implicitly. Especially since Daniel talked in his sleep. “Why do you keep him?”
“He’s an excellent valet, and he’s been with me since I left the university,” Daniel replied. “What grounds should I give to dismiss him? The fact that he cannot be trusted to keep a secret? He told me that when I hired him. I can’t dismiss him for it now simply because it’s sometimes inconvenient.”
“Make a list of what you need and I’ll send Ned to your tailor’s on Bond Street.”
“Ned isn’t here,” Daniel pointed out. “And even if he were, I doubt he could secure a suit of clothing for me in time for my meeting.”
The Free Fellows League meeting was important, but not important enough to risk having Jarrod find out he’d been shot. The information Daniel had to offer on French and Spanish troop movements was almost identical to the information Jonathan had brought back on the previous mission. The French and Spanish were massing their troops for a battle, and although Salamanca appeared to be the most likely place, no one could say for sure if that was the destination. All anyone knew for certain at the moment was that Wellington was retreating from Burgos by way of Venta del Pozo and heading toward the area where the French and the Spanish troops were gathering.
The only other thing Daniel knew for certain was that even if he were able to do so, there was no way he would walk into White’s wearing bandages and a pink toga for any reason. “My clothes are wet,” he said, “and yours are …”
“Ruined,” she replied.
“That’s a shame,” he said. “I liked the dress you wore last night. The one that matched those shoes.” He frowned. “I thought the style and the color were most becoming.”
So much so that he’d bled all over it and then been ill upon it.
“I’ll have Madam Racine make up another one just like it,” Miranda promised. “And send you the bill. Now, let me help you back into bed.” She gripped him around the waist, half-lifting, half-pulling him to his feet, and supporting his weight as she walked him back to the bed.
He tried to help her by carrying as much of his weight as possible, but Daniel was as weak as a newborn babe, and Miranda bore the brunt of it. “You may be hungry, but you aren’t in any danger of starving to death right away,” she said with a groan. “You weigh just as much this morning as you did last night.”
“A ton and a half if I remember correctly.”
If he remembered correctly. Miranda wondered how he could remember the inconsequential parts of the previous evening and not recall the most important few minutes of it. How could he remember that she had accused him of weighing a ton and a half as she had half-carried him across the lawn and not remember exchanging wedding vows with her? Using a bit more force than necessary, Miranda boosted Daniel into the mattress.
Daniel was a man accustomed to giving orders and accustomed to having servants at his beck and call twenty-four hours a day, but he wasn’t accustomed to having anyone care for him the way Miranda seemed determined to do.
Daniel hated succumbing to weakness and relying on Miranda’s help for the most basic of necessities, but he was only a man—a man who had been shot, lost a great deal of blood, and drunk a great deal of whisky the previous evening to mute the pain. He was only a man, who hurt like the very devil, and Daniel heaved a grateful sigh as Miranda shoved him back into bed—where he no doubt belonged for a while longer. “Thanks, Miranda.” He let go of the coverlet he’d wrapped around his waist and slipped between the sheets. “You’re the only woman I know strong enough to …”
Miranda held up her hand. “Please, Your Grace, don’t thank me or pay me any more compliments. I don’t think I can stand it.” She pulled the pink sheet up over him, then plumped the pillows at his head, arranging them so he could sit up and lean against them.
He stared up at her face, saw her red, puffy eyes, and realized that Miranda had been crying. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Making you cry.”
“You didn’t,” she said.
“Someone did.”
Miranda glared at him. “I don’t want to discuss it. And if you insist on pursuing this line of conversation or in paying me any more compliments, I’ll help myself to the pies and coffee you purchased with my shilling and let you do without.”
“Miranda, you wouldn’t …”
“Yes, Daniel, I would.”
He flashed her one of his devastating smiles. “You’re a very remarkable woman.”
Miranda’s heart seemed to skip a beat when he smiled at her like that, when he looked at her with that look of sincerity in his dark blue eyes … “That sounded suspiciously like a compliment, Your Grace.”
“It was.”
She slowly shook her head and clucked her tongue. “And I thought you were hungry …”
He studied the expression on her face and was convinced she was about to do as she’d promised.
When would he learn that Miranda St. Germaine wasn’t like other women? She was different. And that’s what he liked about her. She was strong and straightforward and intelligent and honest and dependable. She didn’t play girlish games, didn’t pretend to be what she wasn’t, and she didn’t expect him to pretend to be what he wasn’t. He had been born male and a marquess. She had been born female and a countess. He’d inherited a dukedom. She’d inherited a marquessate. And none of that made any difference to her.
Miranda St. Germaine was one of a handful of people he knew who wasn’t intimidated or impressed by his title or his wealth. She didn’t defer to him simply because he outranked her. She looked him in the eye and spoke her mind, acting as if they were equals. Daniel had forgotten how much he liked that about her, forgotten that while her green eyes, auburn hair, and long legs had been the first thing he’d noticed about her, he’d been enchanted by the person inside the beautiful exterior. He kept forgetting that Miranda rarely made idle threats. “Ah, Miranda, have a heart …” His stomac
h rumbled, protesting its emptiness.
She arched an eyebrow at him. “I had one once,” she reminded him. “I gave it to you. You broke it.”
“I was young and foolish,” he said. “I’m older now.”
“Are you suggesting I give you another chance, Your Grace?”
“The compliment I gave you was genuine.”
She grinned, showing her perfect white teeth. “Yes, I believe it was. And since I’ve heard it said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, you would do well to remember that so long as you are dependent upon me for care and sustenance, the way to this marchioness’s heart is through genuine adoration.”
Daniel thought for a moment. “How long do you intend to keep me dependent upon you for care and sustenance?”
Miranda shrugged her shoulders. “That depends upon how rapidly you mend, Your Grace.”
“In that event …” Daniel’s blue eyes sparkled with mirth despite his fever. “Do you prefer verbal or physical genuine adoration?”
For once, Miranda’s quick wit failed her.
Daniel pressed his advantage. “Or a combination of both?”
“Why don’t I go collect our breakfast so you can find out?” Miranda asked suggestively.
Chapter Fourteen
“A man says what he knows,
A woman says what will please.”
—Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1712–1778
Miranda was as good as her word.
She made her way down the stairs to the front steps, where she collected the basket with the fruit pies and the coffee and carried them inside the house to the kitchen. Miranda set the basket on a worktable, walked over to the butler’s pantry, and gathered everything she needed for a breakfast tray—a large tray, napkins, serviceable china and flatware, and a small china pot for the coffee—then returned to the kitchen table.
She emptied the basket, took the two plates she’d brought from the butler’s pantry, and placed an apple and a cherry pie on each one. She poured coffee from the pieman’s metal pot into a small china one, added two cups and two saucers, two spoons and two forks, and two linen napkins, then set everything on the tray. She poured a dollop of cream into one cup, added a lump of sugar from the two lumps the pieman had sold them, then carefully arranged everything on the tray and covered it with a clean linen cloth.
With the breakfast tray arranged to her satisfaction, Miranda carried it up to the stairs to Daniel.
“I expected to dine out of a vendor’s basket and pewter mugs.” Daniel rubbed his hands together in anticipation and looked up at her as Miranda set the tray across his lap and lifted the cloth.
“There were no pewter mugs in the pieman’s basket,” Miranda informed him. “Only cheap tin ones.”
“These are much nicer,” Daniel agreed, waving his hand through the air above the tray, indicating the table set with linen napkins and china, before reaching for the small pot of coffee.
“Allow me.” Miranda bent over the tray. “I cannot brew it, but I excel at pouring it from pot to cup.”
“Be my guest.”
She did just that, filling his cup to the rim with the steaming brew without clinking the spout against the rim of the cup or spilling a drop of the precious liquid.
“You’re a very talented pourer, milady,” Daniel said, lifting his cup from its saucer and taking his first sip of coffee.
“That’s just one of my many talents,” Miranda replied, placing the small coffee pot back on the tray before sliding a plate of fruit pies close enough for Daniel to reach. “Wait until you see the others.”
“I like what I see already,” he admitted.
“Then I’m sure you’ll be most impressed with my needlework.” She grinned at him. “I’ll need to check your wound after we break our fast.”
Daniel groaned.
“Eat,” she advised, when she realized he was politely waiting for her to pull up a chair and join him. “I know you’re hungry. You needn’t wait for me.”
He didn’t.
He devoured two pies—an apple and a cherry—and drank his first cup of coffee in the time it took her to pull up a chair, sit down, and spread her napkin on her lap.
Daniel was eyeing a third pie when Miranda reached for her cup of coffee and the apple pie. “Help yourself to the cherry one,” she offered.
“I bought it for you.”
“One pie is more than enough for me.” She looked up at him. “I generally make do with tea and toast in the morning,” she said, savoring the last bite of apple pie. “And I’m not overly fond of cherries. I prefer apple. Besides, I had a light repast before I left for the party last night. You apparently did not.”
Daniel frowned as his stomach rumbled once again. “My last meal was Tuesday evening.”
Miranda took another swallow of coffee, then set her cup down on its saucer. She lifted the remaining cherry pie and offered it to Daniel. “Take it. Please.”
“Cherry is my favorite.” Daniel didn’t hesitate a second time. He lifted the cherry pie from the plate, swallowed it in three bites, and licked the cherry filling from his fingers.
She stared at his mouth, mesmerized by the sight. Miranda couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen an adult enjoy a fruit pie more. He reminded her of a child tasting a sweet for the first time.
Suddenly self-conscious, Daniel met Miranda’s intense stare. “Has my nose doubled in length? Or have I suddenly sprouted horns?”
She shook her head. “You’ve cherry filling on your face.”
“Where?”
“There.” She gestured toward the left side of his mouth.
He swiped at it just as Miranda reached over and captured a bit of the filling caught in the corner of his mouth on the tip of her finger and offered it to him. “You missed this,” she told him.
“Thanks.”
When Daniel licked the cherry filling off her finger, Miranda shivered from her head to her toes, warmth suffusing her body. She marveled at the effect. If the mere swipe of his tongue against her finger could produce such a reaction, imagine what his kiss could do to her. Miranda shivered again in anticipation. She reached for her coffee and rattled the cup in its saucer.
Daniel looked over and gave her a knowing smile. “You taste as good as you look, Miranda.”
She blushed, glanced down at the brocade robe she was wearing, then automatically reached up to push her hair off her face and smooth it back into place. “I’m a mess.”
Daniel finished his cup of coffee and placed his empty dishes on the tray. “I rather like you looking a bit mussed in the morning,” he told her.
“That’s nice to know,” she said. “Because until Ned returns, this is all I have to wear.”
“The robe is most becoming, and seeing you this way is not nearly as daunting as having you perfectly turned out and so sharp-tongued all the time.”
His comment gave her pause, and Miranda frowned. “Is that how you regard me? Daunting and sharp-tongued?”
“I regard you as perfect and sharp-tongued,” he replied. “Whenever we’re together.”
Miranda sought refuge in her coffee. It was cold. But she lifted the cup and drank it anyway. “I don’t mean to be sharp-tongued or perfect.” She looked at him over the silver rim of the cup. “I try not to be—especially when I’m around you—but we seem to bring out the worst in each another.”
The look Daniel gave her was tender and knowing. “Is that what you think it is?”
Miranda set her cup down once again and nodded. “We simply rub each other the wrong way no matter how hard we try not to or how much we wish it were otherwise.”
“I think our problem is just the opposite, Miranda,” Daniel said.
“I don’t understand.” She studied the expression on his face, searching for the meaning behind his words. The opposite of rubbing each other the wrong way was rubbing each other the right way, and she and Daniel had never been in harmony …
“We didn’t r
ub each other the wrong way when I first paid a call upon you,” he said. “Nor on the other times we spent together during our courtship.”
“No,” she agreed, “I don’t suppose we did. But our courtship only lasted a few weeks …”
“What about the weeks we spent at Abernathy Manor keeping Alyssa company while Griff was away at war?” he asked. “We got along famously then.”
They had. And it had given Miranda hope for the future, but Daniel had withdrawn once again, and they had gradually resumed their old adversarial relationship.
“We got along beautifully,” Miranda replied. “But we couldn’t sustain it. One day everything was wonderful and the next day, you were gone. That was three years ago, Daniel, and except for the disaster that is your mother’s annual gala, we’ve hardly spoken.”
“We could have sustained it,” he disagreed. “If we had wanted to. If I had wanted to. Why do you think I left Abernathy Manor?”
Miranda shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve been asking myself that question for three years.”
“Then it’s time you had your answer,” Daniel replied.
“Which is?”
“I left because you and I were getting along too well,” Daniel admitted. “Because I was afraid I might come to enjoy your company too much.”
“You left because you enjoy my company?” Miranda was having a difficult time comprehending the fact that Daniel had sacrificed her companionship because he liked her.
Daniel nodded. “I left because the fact is that we don’t rub each other the wrong way. Quite the contrary. We rub each other the right way. We don’t scratch and claw because we dislike one another, we do it because we like each other too much. It’s called sexual attraction, and it’s a prelude to mating. We’re fighting our attraction to one another.”
“The question is why?” Miranda asked.
“I think you’re fighting it because I hurt you once and you’re afraid I’ll do it again.”
Miranda blinked.
“I’m fighting it because I don’t want to be encumbered with the responsibility of a wife in addition to everything else for which I’m responsible,” Daniel paused. “And more than that, I fight my attraction to you because I don’t want to hurt you again.”