“One of whom?”
“One of your lovers.”
A sharp pulse of fear plummeted into her belly, one even more profound than when Lord Dartford had first delivered his news. “Yes. How did you guess?”
“That smile that you exchanged at the front door.” His expression was guarded. “The one full of regret and dashed dreams. I trust it's not a smile that you'll ever bestow on me.”
“I've married you,” she said. “We've exchanged vows. I'll never give you that smile, unless you ask for it.”
“Did Dartford ask for it?”
“Don't do this, Ryder!”
“I'm only grateful that your past lover still holds enough affection for you that he came here to warn us.”
“It's also fortunate that you decided not to run him through as soon as you guessed.”
“I'm not a particularly brilliant swordsman.” His laugh barely concealed his distress. “Though I'm pretty damn good with pistols.”
“I will tell you only this: I don't love him. He doesn't love me. We parted amicably.”
Ryder stared at the door. “And my right arm would get pretty damned tired, if I were to call out every man you've ever known?”
“More than tired. You'd be wrong. Lord Dartford's a good man.”
The trace of bitterness dissolved as he smiled at her with genuine amusement. “When he's gambling like a fiend, but sober, or when he's more honorably employed, but foxed? Don't worry! I like him.”
“Though right now you'd like that coffee and toast a great deal better.”
“And I'd like it best,” he said, “if we were already at Wyldshay.”
“AH, yes,” the duchess said as Miracle curtsied. “Exquisite, indeed!” Her velvet voice cloaked a core of pure steel. “Of course, I am not surprised. Pray, come in and sit down.”
“Your Grace is most kind.”
Miracle walked across the thick carpet and took the indicated chair. She was alone with the Duchess of Blackdown in an elegant withdrawing room, high in an ancient round tower at Wyldshay. An arrow-slit opening had been enlarged long ago to create a more modern window, but the stone heart of the medieval keep still beat steadily in the ancient beams and in the worn carvings over the fireplace.
“We are presently in the oldest part of the castle,” the duchess said. “The Fortune Tower was built by Ambrose de Verrant in 1104 to replace the wooden keep that his grandfather erected after the Conquest. This island has been a fortress for over seven hundred and fifty years.”
“I understand that it still is,” Miracle said dryly.
The duchess smiled, with a certain appreciation, but without real humor. Precise and dangerous, she glanced up at a portrait over the mantel: a young man wearing the fur-trimmed robe and jeweled cap of the Tudors. He held a rose in one hand and a sword hilt in the other.
“Do you, indeed? Should I also point out that Ambrose and his grandfather were little more than bandits? Or that the handsome young earl in this portrait made his fortune by supporting Henry the Eighth in the dissolution of the monasteries? The St. Georges have been ruthless for many centuries.”
Miracle took a deep breath. She had expected a duel of sorts, but this was an already unsheathed blade.
“Your Grace doesn't need to remind me,” she replied. “The power of the Blackdowns stands in stunning contrast to my own birth and background, and I couldn't be more aware of it.”
“I do not assume that you are stupid.” Ryder's mother glanced at her with the considered green gaze of a pagan goddess. “Far from it! It took a very clever woman to ensnare my son. Yet this imprudent marriage cannot be allowed to stand. You must realize that it is within my power to have it dissolved?”
A knot tightened in Miracle's stomach. “I've assumed all along that would be Your Grace's intention. I shan't stand in your way.”
“Then you do
not
intend to fight me in this?” The duchess raised one elegant brow. “How much money do you want?”
Miracle swallowed a sudden passionate rage, before she lifted her chin and replied with deliberate coolness. “I have very little in this life, Your Grace, but I assure you that I will not take your money, nor your son's. I shall free Ryder for his sake, not yours. And since I am neither your servant nor your dependantâ”
“Your temerity astounds me, madam!”
It was a tone designed to strike to the heart. Miracle felt its impact, but she stood up and faced the duchess with rigid dignity.
“I may have been born in a cottage, but I learned long ago that it's up to me to maintain my own integrity, since no one else will do it for me. I've done my very best to convince your son of the foolishness of our marriage, andâif it can be done without further damage to himâI would welcome Your Grace's help to free him.”
The duchess stalked to the window. Trembling ribbons from her tiny lace cap trailed over her back. “Why should I believe that?”
“I know the world that we live in.”
“No doubt! So why did you agree to the marriage?”
“Your son can be very stubborn.”
“A family trait,” the duchess said with a hint of wry humor. “Unfortunately, Ryder thinks that he loves you. He doesn't want to believe that his love cannot possibly survive the reality of your past.”
Miracle closed her eyes for a moment to blot out the pain. “Did he also tell you that I'm barren? I cannot give him sons. He claims not to mind, but he would only care more passionately with each passing yearâ”
“Yes, I am afraid of that, too.” The duchess turned. Her wheat-and-gold hair glimmered as if the sun flamed behind a cloud. “Yet even if his love were able to withstand all of this, would yours?”
Grief burned like a hot iron, but Miracle masked it and stood her ground.
“The state of my heart is irrelevant, Your Grace. Isn't that what this discussion is all about? It's obviously to everyone's benefit to maintain the social order. My father was a laborer who sold me into servitude. I've worked on the stage. I've traded my favors for protection. This marriage is best set aside, before it does Ryder real harm.”
“I am so glad that you understand.”
“I've always understood,” Miracle said. “Only one class of men is born, raised, and educated to govern. The stability of England depends on the wise choices of men like your son.”
“Wise choices that include marrying a lady of his own rank.” The duchess walked forward. Light from the window glimmered behind her. “So you are not a revolutionary, Lady Ryderbourne?”
The Tudor earl gazed down with disdain, his lips curved in a slight sneer. Miracle's pain began to dissolve. The duchess was only stating the truth, after all. Perhaps if they joined forces, Ryder could also be brought to agree?
“I'm more of a pragmatist, I think. Society weddings help preserve the great estates, which support half the population. Who else but a hereditary aristocracy would cherish their fields with such care, or plant trees that won't mature until generations later? It's a patronizing system, but that's the reality we face. Whether it's right or not, it's not within my power to change.”
The duchess's green gaze seemed to encompass the world. “Even though a certain number of puffed-up fools sit in the House of Lords and the Commons?”
“Yes, I know,” Miracle said with a wry smile. “I've slept with one or two of them.”
Ryder's mother laughed. “So what would you change, if you could?”
Miracle had begun to feel a little surreal. Whatever she had expected from the duchess, it was not a discussion of politics. Though class differences lay at the heart of their impasse, didn't they? Duke's sons did not marry the daughters of laborers, and they never married courtesans. Yet there was nothing to lose by answering honestly.
“I'd like to see a world with more justice and less indifference to human suffering. On the other hand, I've no desire to see England at the mercy of the mob, which I also know, since I was born amongst them.”
Ryder's mother gazed thoughtfully up at the portrait. “Even though at present many intelligent, resourceful men born to the wrong class see their leadership talents go to waste?”
“Half of the population of every class goes to waste, Your Grace,” Miracle said. “I've read Mary Wollstonecraft, but I don't expect to see women gain their rights in my lifetime. Only men have real power in England. All of the rest is just talk.”
The duchess glanced at her with something of real interest, even compassion. “Now, that is arrant nonsense, and youâof all femalesâmust know it. We claim that men are strong, but ladies are the strong sex. No man ever achieved his full potential without the right woman at his side.”
“And in Ryder's case, the right woman must be a lady and a virgin. I understand.”
“Yes, indeed! After all, what would happen to England if the social rules were broken with impunity and peers chose their life partners for love?”
“I don't know,” Miracle said. “But perhaps there'd be more tenderness toward children and more kindness toward the less fortunate.”
The duchess stalked back to the window. “You think that I do not love my children? Sit down and answer me honestly, please.”
Miracle dropped back to her chair. “It doesn't matter what I think, but Ryder's convinced that you've always loved his brother better.”
“All parents label their children,” the duchess said. “Ryderbourne was the strong one. He is pure gold at the core. His future was not only secure, but predestined. I knew from the day he was born that he would make a splendid duke. Yet nothing was certain for Lord Jonathan, five years younger. He had the fragility of genius and a dark shadow lurked in his soul. I was terrified for him. Perhaps in my anxiety for my younger son, I sometimes neglected my elder. Do you think so?”
Miracle clenched her hands as if she had been cast adrift in dangerous waters. “You must ask him.”
“Was Lord Jonathan once your lover, also?”
Shock stabbed like a knife. Miracle felt almost faint, before a renewed surge of anger forced her back to her feet. She did her best to keep her voice level, though the hurt burned.
“I've tried to be honest with you, Your Grace. You've responded by setting me a trap. The gentlemen I've entertained in the past are none of Your Grace's business and you know it. Yet I cannot refuse to answer, because then you'll assume that it's trueâand if you tell Ryder that his brother once loved and left me, you'll sign the death warrant for his soul.”
“That will be my decision, not yours,” Ryder's mother said in a voice like steel. “But I will know the answer.”
“Then the answer is no, Your Grace.” Miracle stalked to the door, her heart filled with scorn. “Though I met him many years ago, Lord Jonathan never shared my bed. What do you really think I am? I've been a courtesan since I was sixteen, but in my entire professional career I've known only six men.
Six!
There are many society ladies who've been far more promiscuous than that.”
“No doubt.” The duchess was a sword blade, the embodiment of power.
“Yet because I was born to life in a mill, because my contracts with those gentlemen were not blessed by the church, because money changed hands directly, instead of through dowries and settlements, I am forever proscribed. I accept it. I've done my best not to hurt Ryder, nor break his heart. I did not wantânor scheme forâthis marriage. But I neither will, nor can, control him. Because he is, as you say, pure gold at the core, he wished to save my wretched life. Or perhaps he didn't tell you that I'm not only a harlot but a murderer?”
The duchess turned from the window and smiled, with a strangely sardonic glint in her pagan green eyes.
“Good Heavens! Murder is not hard for society to forgive. Nor is promiscuity, as long as it is cloaked by marriage vows. No, it is the very honesty of your past relationships that is the problem.”
“There will be no problem,” Miracle said. Prickles of outrage still danced along her spine. “To save Ryder from any more pain, I'm prepared to leave England tomorrow.”
“Leave England? Why?” The duchess stepped forward. “You do not believe that it is also within my power to save this marriage, now that I have decided to do so?”
The latch burned beneath her suddenly cold fingers. “Save it?”
“My dear child, I am not your enemy,” the duchess said gently. “After all, we love the same man.”
The room began to spin in lazy arcs, as if the planet had lost its bearings and swung off into space. Miracle fought for balance as she turned from the door.
“You're trying to tell me that you will give this mad marriage your blessing?”
“That is exactly what I am telling you.” The duchess walked steadily across the carpet. Her eyes seemed only wise and tolerant. “You will forgive me, I trust, if I felt that I had to test you a little first?”
“But I thought the nation would fall apart if future dukes married their mistresses?”
“Nonsense! I will not break my son's heart for the last century's values, when his life may last almost to the end of this one. Winds of change are already blowing through England. We shall see franchise reform within five years, and eventually the power of families like mine will wane. However, if this marriage is to stand in the meantime, we have a great deal of work to do.”
“But I'll never be accepted in society!”
Ryder's mother laughed with genuine mirth. “My dear child, I saw you play Portia once. You are a brilliant actress, which is really all that it takes to be a duchess.”