She’d been circumspect with her bonnets since the incident, when before she’d indulged in the most outrageous confections. This was much more to her style than the subdued hats she’d grown accustomed to, and she set it atop her head with real pleasure.
Which was nothing compared to what she felt when she stepped out onto the front portico and looked around her.
The air was warm, too warm for the pelisse, and she unfastened it, draping it over her arm. The ground was still wet beneath her feet, but as she walked past the tangled growth that surrounded the old house and got her first glimpse of blue, blue sky she suddenly felt as if she could breathe again.
There was a broad expanse of overgrown lawn in front of the house, with the driveway twining around it and beyond, to her astonishment, was the vast stillness of a lake, quiet and empty, with mountains looming behind it. She shouldn’t be surprised. After all, it was the Lake District, was it not? But Lucien seemed to have his own private body of water. Of course he would—he had more money than God, he’d told her, blasphemous as always. The field leading down to it was a mass of yellow, thousands upon thousands of daffodils, their familiar scent a perfume in the air. Everything sparkled from the brightness of the sun, and when she looked back at Pawlfrey House she realized it was even larger than she’d thought. She was pleased to see the roof looked in decent shape, as did the windows, and as for the wretched condition of the front of the house, it was nothing a small army of gardeners couldn’t whip into shape in no time.
Mrs. Humber would scream, she thought placidly. She’d fought hiring the maids, insisting there was no one available, until she discovered that Miranda planned to make her do the hard work alone. Eleven strong and healthy young women were immediately produced.
She looked at the house. Her house. She could be happy here, which would drive Lucien mad. She would be happy if he were there, to joust with, to sleep with. At the oddest moments she would remember those moments in her bed, and her body would react in the strangest ways, tightening, blossoming.
If he stayed away it would be even better. Sleeping with him upset her. It threw her mind into disarray, it made her want to laugh and cry and dance and scream. It was disturbing, and she preferred calm. She didn’t want to long for his kiss, his touch, his mouth on her body. The very thought made her start to tremble again, and she pushed it out of her mind. There must be a rose garden somewhere. She could put some of her energies into that.
She walked down to the lake, an easy hike with the overhead sun bright above her. The water was clear and cold to the touch, and there was an old dock leading far out into the lake.
She dropped her pelisse onto a large stone and headed for it. She could hear the cry of the birds overhead, wheatear and mountain blackbirds and ravens as they wheeled and darted, and she smiled up at them, before she began to climb up onto the dock.
It was slippery from being in the water so long, and there was no railing, but she couldn’t see the contours of the lake from the shore, and from her vantage point there wasn’t even a farm in sight. She wanted to see how far the lake extended, and whether there were any neighbors. Just in case she had the need for a midnight escape.
She started down the wooden dock, showing a reasonable amount of care, when the voice she dreaded most, longed for most, broke her concentration.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” he shouted, startling her so that she whipped around, and promptly slipped on the slimy wood decking.
She went down on one knee, catching herself before she tumbled into the icy cold waters, and then she brought her other knee down, staying there, motionless, trying to regain her breath.
Her pounding heart was beyond her control. The combination of the fright he’d given her and her inevitable reaction to his return made calm just about impossible.
She looked up at him, and froze.
She’d never seen him in sunlight before. He was dressed in black, as always, his black hair tied back, and she could see the scarring quite clearly. He had his cane with him, but apart from that his body was tall, lean, and yes, she must admit it, beautiful. She found everything about him beautiful, even more so in the bright sunlight, with him glowering at her.
“You nearly scared me to death!” she called back. “Must you sneak up on one?”
“Must you risk your life on a slimy, rotting piece of dock? Come back here at once. No, on second thought, don’t move. I’ll have someone bring a boat out to get you.”
“I fancy the water is only waist deep if I happened to take a tumble, and while I wouldn’t like it I doubt I’d be in much danger.”
“It’s well over your head. Don’t look!” he added impatiently. “You might fall.”
“I’m not that poor a creature,” she replied, leaning over the dock to peer into the clear water. And pulled back, immediately, feeling dizzy. “You’re right, it’s very deep.”
“Of course I’m right!” he said crossly. “Why would I lie about it?”
“You have a habit of lying to me, and you’re very good at it. I have every reason to doubt your veracity.” Bloody hell, she suddenly thought. She wasn’t going to show her annoyance. She let out a trill of laughter. “Ah, but listen to me! How silly I’m being. Welcome home, my most adored…what shall I call you? My lover? Future husband? If I’m a kept woman does that make you my keeper? Like something in a zoo?”
His expression was sardonic. “That sounds accurate.”
“You’re very droll.” She rose to her feet and started toward him.
“Stay right there!” he said again.
“I know it would devastate you if I happened to fall and drown myself, but I’m hardly going to wait here until you fetch someone with a boat. I dispensed with my pelisse and the wind is cool off the water. I’m ready to come in and welcome my darling…keeper properly.”
“I’m coming out to get you.”
She arched her brow. “Why? Won’t two be more dangerous than one on this wretched thing?”
“I’m more afraid of you slipping on the rotten decking.” He mounted the steps, his cane clicking on the wood.
“But if you tried to catch me we’d both fall in,” she pointed out.
“Do you swim?”
“No.”
“I do. If we both fall in I should probably manage to save us both. While the water is very deep you’re not far from shore, and even when it’s this cold I should still manage to suffice.”
“And if I’m too much for you?”
“Then I’ll save myself and let you drown,” he said with callous good humor. He was moving down the walkway with slow, measured steps, barely limping.
“You’re already dressed in mourning. That should make things easier. Though perhaps I’ll push you aside and watch you drown.”
“Not if you can’t swim.”
“Something that needs to be remedied this summer when the water gets warmer,” she said firmly, moving toward him.
She must have hit a plank that she’d missed before. The ominous crack was the first warning, and then it splintered beneath her foot, and this time she was falling, falling toward the icy depths, when he was there, catching her, yanking her across the space and pulling her against him. His other arm came round her and his cane clattered to the dock and over into the water as he held her.
She looked up at him, breathless again. “Thank you,” she said, unable to find her saucy voice. “I don’t think I would have liked a ducking.”
He didn’t move; he just held her, his pale eyes watching her, an odd expression in them. And then he released her, looking around him. “Damn, I’ve lost my best cane.”
It was floating out of reach, an ebony stick with polished gold top. “We could get one of the servants to go after it.”
He grimaced. “They can try. In the meantime that presents us with another problem. I came down on my bad leg when I was trying to rescue you from the results of your folly. I doubt I can make it back to the house on my own.” He looked at her. “I’m afraid I’ll have need of your assistance.”
It was an odd moment, she thought, surrounded by sparkling water that nonetheless held danger and death. Facing a man who was everything she hated and everything she longed for. And then she moved. “Of course,” she said finally. “Put your arm around my shoulder and we should do quite well.”
“We’ll make our way off the dock first. I won’t risk having you drown because of me.”
She gave him her sauciest smile. “You won’t? Pray, why not? Have you fallen madly in love with me and forgotten all about your precious revenge?”
“I never forget about revenge,” he said in a cool voice.
“Of course you don’t.” She took his arm and placed it around her shoulders, and when he tried to remove it she jabbed her elbow into his stomach. Gently. “Behave yourself or we’ll both go over. Slowly now.”
He couldn’t very well fight her. He let her help him down the rest of the dock, managing to climb down the stairs with his usual grace. The walk up to the house was more difficult, and she realized he’d been withholding his weight on her while they were still in danger. It gave her something to concentrate on, rather than how big he was, how warm he was, pressed up against her body.
She could feel his heart beating. She glanced up at him, but his face was averted. She was on the side that was less grievously scarred, and for a moment she faltered in astonishment.
He stumbled, glaring down at her. “What’s the problem?”
“You’re quite beautiful,” she said ingenuously. And then realized what she had said. “But la, of course a fiancée, if that is what I am, would think so. I’m sorry you’re in such a foul mood, my love. Did you have a bad time in the city?”
“My leg hurts like the very devil,” he said. And then he must have realized he was admitting a weakness to her, even worse than accepting her help. His sardonic smile reappeared. “But my time in the city was well-spent, so I am hardly likely to complain. We’ll be leaving for my friend’s house party tomorrow. His estate is just outside of Morecambe, and it shouldn’t take us more than a few hours to get there. We’ll formalize our wedding vows there, and I promise you an absolute orgy of delight.”
“It sounds delightful.” Bloody hell. Lucien didn’t use words without great thought, and “orgy” was not a good one. “I’ll look forward to meeting your friends.”
“I’m sure they’ll find you…delicious, just as I do.”
“Just as you do, Lucien?”
His cool smile was his only reply.
By that time the servants had seen them coming, and they were surrounded, with Bridget clucking over the stains on her dress where she’d fallen and Lucien borne off in another direction. She continued on into the house with Bridget, trying to shake off the uncomfortable sense of foreboding.
Mrs. Humber met her in the hall. “He’s back, you know.”
“Yes, I noticed,” Miranda said briefly “He joined me down at the lake.” If it wasn’t quite the joyous reunion she wasn’t about to clarify it. “Do you think he’d be happy with your manner of addressing me?”
Bridget made a muffled choking sound, but fortunately for her Mrs. Humber was too infuriated to notice. Miranda watched as a panoply of emotions swept over her, but the woman managed to get herself under control. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, my lady,” she said in a tight voice.
“Better,” Miranda murmured. “Come along, Bridget.”
His room felt stuffy, dank. He’d told them to let no one, including his curious fiancée, into his study, though he’d left the library unlocked. He wasn’t ready for her to go mad from boredom, not yet. He had another act for this drama yet to be played.
If he’d been close enough he would have smashed a window with his cane in order to let in some fresh air. He hated his leg, hated the weakness. The scars he bore with a perverse pride, but when his leg, his body betrayed him he became infuriated. Miranda was lucky he hadn’t drowned her simply out of bad temper.
And then he laughed at his own absurdity. He was like a little boy having a tantrum, and he’d best get over it, quickly. He hated showing weakness, particularly in front of her, and anger was weakness.
Damned foolish woman! What the hell did she mean by wandering out on that slippery, rotting dock all by herself? She could have gone in, been rapidly taken by the freezing water and no one would have ever known what had happened to her.
The very idea made his temper rise again, and he made an effort to control it. It wasn’t as if he actually cared about her, he told himself. But if she died in an accidental drowning it would blunt the pain of her family’s suffering. They would mourn her and move on with their lives, knowing she was at peace.
He had gone to a great deal of trouble for just the right revenge—he didn’t want to have it foreshortened. He wanted them to suffer, knowing she was trapped up here, subject to his every whim, and he wanted them knowing just how twisted his whims could be. He wanted them to spend years worrying about her, wondering about her, and have no recourse.
That, and only that, would equal the pain of Genevieve’s death, the death that Rohan’s carelessness had caused. It mattered not that a grievous instability had run through Genevieve and her mother. She had been all that he had, and she had died because of Benedick Rohan.
No revenge was too cruel for that family, even if his young wife had to be the instrument of it. Once he was satisfied he would leave Miranda in peace, to live out her days in this gloomy old place.
Except that it didn’t feel as gloomy. He hadn’t paid much attention as he limped into the great hall, but there was a sense of…lightness, that hadn’t been there before. Damn her, what had she done? Next thing he knew he’d find flowers all over the place. He shuddered at the thought.
He stayed in his study all afternoon, barking at anyone who knocked at his door or tried to speak with him, including his valet. While Pawlfrey House had little business to cover, having no tenant farmers or discernible income, there were still servants to be paid, and that number seemed to have suddenly swollen in size, as well as the concomitant costs of food, housing, uniforms and cleaning supplies, and his factor brought everything before him, which was tedious in the extreme. It wasn’t that the money was a problem—he’d told Miranda the truth. He had more money than God, and not enough things to spend it on. He just begrudged spending it on something he didn’t particularly want, and the dark, gloomy confines of Pawlfrey House suited his dark, gloomy soul. It had been less than a week—she could hardly have made much of an inroad against years of neglect.
He looked around him suspiciously. He did typically allow Essie Humber in to dust and clean, but the room looked brighter, as well. It could be simply because the sun was shining, but as he glanced past the heavy curtains to the small amount of glass showing he realized that the window was now very clean.
He’d told Miranda she could do anything she wanted on the house except touch his study, but he’d assumed she’d be too traumatized to do more than lie in bed and weep. Clearly he’d underestimated her. It was a good thing he hadn’t left her alone much longer. She’d probably attack the overgrown gardens next, and the tangled jungle suited him.
He worked steadily, refusing to think about the ceremony set two days from now at midnight. He’d allowed others to plan it, saying he had no particular interest in what form his bride’s humiliation would take, just that it would torment the Rohans once they heard of it. By the time he rose to dress for dinner his knee was better. He could manage to move around the place with the help of his cane, and his insipid fiancée need never realize what kind of pain he’d been in. Well, not insipid, no matter how hard she was trying to convince him otherwise. His life would be a great deal simpler if she were.
His leg wasn’t paining him too badly by the time he reached the first floor and the wing that held his rooms, at a goodly distance from his future wife’s. He wasn’t sure in retrospect how wise an idea that was, but he could always move her closer if he felt like enjoying her on a more consistent basis for a while. He could also have her moved to an attic if she annoyed him.
His valet was coming down the hall when he approached the door to his rooms, and he looked up, his face pale. “Your lordship,” he said in his habitually nervous tone of voice. “I wanted to inform you—”
“It can wait,” he said brusquely, pushing past him. “I trust you’ve got a bath awaiting me?”
“I…I wasn’t certain…”
“Wasn’t certain I would want a bath? How long have you served me? I always want a bath after a day of traveling. See to it immediately.”
“Indeed, sir. There will be but the slightest delay, my lord, and…”
Lucien stopped, his hand on the doorknob. “And why should there be a delay at all?” he asked in the voice meant to strike terror into whoever heard it. “I’m unused to my orders being ignored, as I’m certain you recall.”
If his valet was pale before, now he looked positively deathly. “Her ladyship has ordered a bath, and the servants are bringing her water.”
“Indeed?” He could afford to be generous, he thought. Knowing he was waiting, the servants would make all haste to finish filling Miranda’s bath, and the delay would be minimal. “Tell them to hurry.”
And he pushed open his door and walked in.