That Kind of Woman (3 page)

Standing so close to her, Andrew could see that her skin was truly flawless. She didn’t use a trace of cosmetics to create the becoming tint in her cheeks. Her eyes were the color of strongly brewed tea and fringed by thick lashes. The scent of roses that filled his nostrils came as much from her skin as from the flowers in the garden.

She hadn’t mentioned love, but he could well imagine it must have been George’s motive in this match. From all evidence, Miranda appeared an engagingly honest, intelligent, and breathtaking young woman. Although George had been a confirmed bachelor of forty-six, he must have been completely swept away.

Which was a tremendous relief, because he had begun to wonder whether George might not be immune to every woman alive.

“Do you care for him?” he asked.

Miranda didn’t hesitate in her reply. “Very much. He is a very kind man, your brother. One of the kindest I have ever met, but I don’t suppose I need to tell you.”

Before Andrew could reply, George came through the doors with two servants in tow, one with a breakfast tray, the other with tea. A third and fourth followed quickly behind to set up two chairs and a small table, covering it with a white cloth.

“There should have been tables already set up out here,” George said. “Lettie should be more exacting with the help.” He turned to one of the butlers. “Bring out another chair and something for Major Carrington to eat.”

“I shouldn’t stay. I’m here on military business…”

“And it can wait while you celebrate with your brother. Sit. Eat.” George held out a chair for Miranda and offered his brother his own. “Take my breakfast, too. I’ll eat whatever Lettie’s man brings out. How are you?”

Andrew had to admire George’s selflessness. He looked genuinely concerned about Andrew, virtually ignoring his new wife, while Andrew himself seemed to be having the hardest time keeping his eyes off her. If it were his wedding day, and he had found such a beautiful bride, he would have been creating a thousand excuses to touch her, look at her.

Well, that was George. As the oldest, he had always looked after Andrew. Later, he had done the same for Henry, before their father died and Lettie moved to London with her son.

And George’s innocent question,
How are you?
, had become such a difficult one. “Fine” was a bald-faced lie and a gross injustice to the men he had lost, but anything else was inappropriate on his brother’s wedding day.

“Fine. Fine. Even better to come home to this. Congratulations again.”

George rested his fingers lightly on Miranda’s hand. She slid it out from under them to pick up her fork. “Look, George, another chair and plate.”

As the servants settled George with his food, and Andrew explained that he was home to review and brief a new squadron that would ship out soon, Miranda stared at her plate and pushed her food around with her fork.

The touch of her husband’s hand had been a powerful reminder. Granted, it was only two in the afternoon, but Miranda seemed to be burning through the hours. The conversation between the two brothers became a drone to her. It was silly, really, to be so nervous. She wasn’t some ignorant girl facing a wedding night shrouded in mystery. She had known the facts of life from an early age.

In all honesty, she knew far more than those basic facts. Well Miranda remembered the conversation she had instigated with her mother the day after she and George had become engaged.

“I know how things are between you and my father,” she had told Barbara. “I know that he and the duchess prefer to live their separate lives and that you and Montheath truly love each other. I have never judged you.”

And Mother had given her that slow, knowing smile. “But…”

“But I will not share my husband.”

“No, darling, you will most certainly not. I may share Monty’s time with his wife, but it has been a very long time since I shared his body. That has been mine alone since the birth of his last son. We agreed that three sons from the duchess were plenty to ensure a legitimate heir, whatever cards fate might deal.”

They had sent a servant for a bottle of wine, and Barbara Henley had laid out in cold, candid detail everything a man might desire from his lover. No mistress would be able to give Miranda’s husband anything she herself could not supply.

Miranda was not delicate or sheltered or easily shocked. This fact and a liberal dose of alcohol had given her the ability to talk to her mother without a qualm. But now, she looked across the table at George and realized that, while it was one thing to sit with him in the garden and discuss literature and the arts, it was altogether something different to contemplate doing the things her mother had told her about. After all, they had only known each other a few short weeks, and they had spent almost no time alone together. The first time he had ever kissed her had been that morning, in front of a priest.

She turned to study Major Carrington, who talked intently to George in between hearty bites of breakfast. Had George’s brother waited so long to kiss his late wife when they were engaged? Somehow, he didn’t strike her as the patient type.

“She’ll come ‘round, won’t she, Randa?”

“What?” Miranda snapped her attention back to George at the sound of his voice.

“Emma. I was telling Andy that I think it is only a stage.”

“I’m so sorry. I was lost in thought about something else completely.” She glanced again at Major Carrington, feeling somehow certain he might have guessed the path of her thoughts, but he gave her only a mild, quizzical look.

“He’s worried that he’ll never find a governess who can take her in hand, and of course, Lettie allows her and Henry to run roughshod over her. Emma actually walked all the way to Lord Houghton’s house without a chaperone the other morning to visit his daughter. Instead of punishing her, Lettie took her to tea at Lady Billing’s that very afternoon. Of course, it only makes sense that girls might be rebellious at times. No reason they should be different from boys in that regard.”

“I can’t truly say.” She had been so eager to please, so desperate to earn a bit of her parents’ time and attention in the social whirlwind of their lives on the Continent. She looked at Major Carrington. “But at least it’s proof she has a mind of her own. If she were your son, you would be proud of that.”

Andrew frowned. “If she were my son I would expect the same thing. Respect, discipline, some sense of duty. All qualities Henry sorely lacks. He needs a man’s guidance.”

George held out his hands. “Not my fault. I’ve had the boy out to stay, but he doesn’t like the country.”

With a sigh of exasperation, Andrew said, “It is not for him to like it or not like it, just as it is not for Emma to decide whether she likes a particular governess.”

George laughed. “That isn’t the problem. It is that the governesses don’t like her.” At his brother’s look of supreme impatience, George said, “I’m sure Randa will be an excellent influence.”

Miranda looked toward the French doors. “If your stepmother will allow me. I like Emma, Major Carrington. Besides, with her looks, if she were a complacent, biddable girl, she would be in serious peril of becoming a prized debutante.”

Andrew threw his head back and laughed. “George, this one was worth the wait.”

George set down the forkful of kidney pie that was halfway to his mouth. “Indeed,” he said. “I hear music. Shall we go in and dance?”

Miranda nodded and rose, bringing both men to their feet.

“Go along without me,” Andrew said. He didn’t want to dance. As much as he had always hoped George would find the right woman, one who would appreciate his kindness and gentle manner, and as much as he believed Miranda was precisely what he would have wanted for George, Andrew suddenly felt very, very empty. A loneliness unlike anything he had felt since he had lost his wife and newborn son settled on his shoulders.

He left through the garden gate to report to General Lawton. War was hell, but among other soldiers, he was never alone.

*

That night, Miranda sat at the dressing table in her chamber in the townhouse. The room belonged to Lettie, who had given it up for as long as George would be staying in the master bedroom with its adjoining door. Barbara Henley brushed her daughter’s hair with one hand and tugged on the neck of her night-rail with the other.

“Loosen the ribbon, dear, and let the neckline fall over your shoulder. I thought this garment was ridiculously modest, but now that I look at it on you, it’s perfect.” She set the brush down and untied the ribbon, arranging the neckline herself so that a shoulder and a good bit of breast were exposed on one side. “There. Very virginal with just the right hint of whore.”

Miranda tugged the night-rail back up. “The more I’ve come to know him, Mother, the more I think I won’t have to worry so much about George.”

“Hmm,” Barbara answered, pulling it down again.

Miranda slipped it back into place and retied the ribbon. “What does that mean? He lives alone in the country. He isn’t one of the
ton
who comes to Town every year and indulges in one affair after another.”

“Which leads one to wonder who it is that keeps him so satisfied in the country.” She reached for the tie again, and Miranda rose, brushing her mother’s fingers away.

“You have said yourself, Mother, not all men’s appetites are the same.”

Barbara sighed. “No indeed. I do hope Monty hasn’t made a mistake, matching the two of you. I admit, I wanted this very much. My daughter, a countess. But I want you to be happy, too, Miranda.”

“I will be,” Miranda said. She untied the ribbon herself and pulled the night-rail back down, baring her shoulder. “I’m just nervous, that’s all.”

“Understandable, dear, but I’ve taught you everything I know. You’ll be fine. Of course, there’s no need to pull every trick out of the bag tonight. Just relax and let Danford take the lead. What I can only tell you about, he can show you. Remember that your bodies are made to pleasure each other in many different ways. Shame and convention are wastes of a precious gift.”

A soft knock sounded upon the door connecting Miranda’s and George’s rooms, and Barbara gave her daughter’s cheek an affectionate pat. “See you in the morning,” she said as she walked out the hall door and closed it behind her.

“Come in,” Miranda said, then she bit her lip. Should she have gotten into bed first?

When George came in wearing his nightshirt buttoned all the way to the top and his dressing gown wrapped securely around it, Miranda suddenly felt indecent with her rail falling off her shoulder. She yanked it back up and retied it.

“It has been a long day,” George said, standing in the doorway.

“It has.” She didn’t move from the dressing table and kept her eyes carefully away from the damask-covered bed.

“Very long.” He didn’t look at the bed either.

“Yes.” She waited, but he didn’t seem inclined to venture any farther into the room. “Shall I send the maid for wine?” she asked.

George expelled a forceful breath. “Yes! Wine! Perfect!”

Miranda rang for a maid and sent her to fetch the libation. When the servant scurried off, Miranda turned back around to discover that George had taken only two more steps into the room.

“Would you rather I joined you in your chamber?” she asked.

“No! I mean—you shouldn’t be the one who must rise and return to bed. You’ll want to sleep, I’m sure.”

Miranda shrugged. Her parents slept together all night. Nude. “Whatever you prefer.”

The maid returned with the bottle and two glasses, and Miranda took them from her at the door and sent her away. She set the glasses on her dressing table and filled them with burgundy. Handing one to George, she said, “You needn’t worry about me. My mother has been most thorough in explaining my duty to me.”

Drat!
The first thing her mother had told her was never to refer to intercourse as a duty. She took a generous swallow of wine. “That is, I know about lovemaking. I’m not afraid. A little nervous perhaps, but not afraid.”

George followed suit, downing half his glass, then laughed uncomfortably. “Then you are well ahead of me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Scared witless.”

“No, truly, not at all.”

“Not you, Randa. I.”

“You? You’re—?” It seemed absurd to suggest he was afraid. Surely she had misunderstood.

He finished the glass and walked past her to pour another. “I’ve never done this before.”

She had to make a conscious effort to close her mouth. George took another drink, never looking at her, and after a long and awkward silence, she asked, “Never done this? You mean…”

“I’ve never been with a woman. I don’t treat intimacy lightly, Miranda. I have always felt love was a vital component.”

Love? He loved her? They had never talked about love, but he must have known that if he married her, this would be part of the arrangement. He knew he would mate with her, so if love was important to him, then he must love her. Speechless, she set her glass down.

“I’m sorry. I know that most men bring some experience to the marriage bed. I’m not entirely without experience, I just haven’t ever…” The sentence drifted away.

“Made love,” she supplied.

He topped off his glass.

“Well,” she said, “I have always thought it was unfair, the way everyone seems to expect men to sow their oats while women must remain pure and chaste, waiting for men to finish so they are ready to settle down. And of course, for all that everyone speaks of a lifetime of fidelity, it seldom happens.”

George looked at her, his green eyes intense, but not with lust. It looked more like resolve. “I will be faithful to you, Randa. I swear, for both of us, I will be faithful.”

She stepped close to him and took his glass, setting it on the table. “As will I. We are not like those others, George. We meant what we said. For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, we will care for and keep each other. We will forsake all others, for we will need no one else.”

“Yes. Yes, we will forsake all others,” he said.