This Rake of Mine (17 page)

Tally and Pippin gazed up at the man who'd spent his life waiting for the bride who would never come, and then at the lady herself, sighing in unison. Even the ever-practical Felicity turned away, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

But it was Miss Porter whose reaction surprised him. She backed away from them and stared up at the portrait with shock in her eyes. "What a terrible waste of a life."

Jack felt only the condemnation in her words, as if they'd come from his brother or some other illustrious and opinionated Tremont. "You think he should have given up on his true love?"

Her brow furrowed as she gazed up at Lord Albin. "He gave up when he built that folly, climbed up inside it and turned his eyes away from the possibility of love."

There was an unmistakable bitterness and anger in her words, which tugged at Jack all the way down to the bottom of his boots. Is that what she thought of
him?
That he'd retreated to Thistleton Park in defeat and despair and was hiding here from life?

And he'd thought her disdain for him had been born out of his disreputable past, but there it was; her true scorn lay in the fact that he had seemingly wasted his life since leaving London.

Perhaps that had been true at first, but he'd found a purpose here at Thistleton Park that few people could ever imagine—even him. One, he supposed as he glanced over at the tall clock that stood in the corner, he needed to get back to as soon as he could. No matter how the consequences weighed on him, no matter that the fear of failure tore at his soul. But he could hardly tell Miss Porter any of that. That he was in no way like his distant cousin on the wall.

But she was right about one thing—he had turned his heart against love. He'd seen firsthand the power of it, how it changed a man, leaving him helpless to the whims and charms of a woman.

Look at how it had changed his old friend Alexander Denford, with his beloved Emmaline, who'd rearranged the stodgy baron's life quite literally. And how about Templeton, his old partner in revelry and charm? He'd gone agog for Lady Diana and chased her all the way to Scotland, against every rhyme and reason.

And then Jack looked at Miss Porter, really looked at her, and felt another kind of tug. One that perhaps made him understand his old friends a little better. The kind that made him want to show her what kind of man he was, give her a glimpse into the character and traits she thought him so lacking.

But why her? Why Miss Porter?
he asked himself.
And why now?

"What a sad, terrible waste," she was saying.

Then he spied something different in her grief-stricken gaze. A sense of regret that he understood only too well.

She wasn't talking about him or Albin. How he knew it, he didn't know, but he knew it with a certainty that she was talking about herself.

About that demmed button.

So why was it that his veins coursed with jealousy suddenly? That a single ornament could taunt him so thoroughly? That the very notion of another man holding her heart hostage infuriated him?

"I believe, Miss Porter," Jack said before he could stop himself, with the same foolish, headlong passion that had driven Albin to build his tower, "that we all have our follies in which we hide. Albin just built his for all to see." He paused and glanced once more at his lovelorn relation before he looked back at Miss Porter, at those devilish red tresses of hers, at her eyes that spoke of a life of regrets. "However, if there was ever a woman who could have tempted my poor besotted relation out of his prison, you might have been the one to do it." He nodded at the miniature beside Albin's portrait. "You see, he had a fondness for redheads, as well."

And with that, Jack bowed to the ladies and marched from the hall.

Fled was more like it.

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M
iranda continued to stare after Jack long after he'd gone striding out of the Great Hall, her heart hammering in her chest. The windows in the long hall rattled as the wind outside picked up again, heralding a new storm.

Not unlike the tempest of emotions raging inside her.

"Whatever was that about?" Felicity asked.

"I don't know," Miranda lied, cursing herself for taking such a chance. For listening to Nanny Rana's advice. Lights, indeed! It had nearly upended her life.

Somehow, in the course of her grand experiment, something, so very subtle and dangerous, had happened between them. In just a moment in his arms, they'd made that strange, tangible connection once again.

She shivered and wondered what would have happened if he had kissed her. Would he have truly remembered her kiss, as he claimed?

As she remembered his?

"I think it is time to go upstairs and finish our packing," she told them, taking one last glance at the portrait of Lord Albin.

What if she and Jack were indeed cursed? Marked together for the rest of their lives?

Albin's sad, haunting eyes seemed to follow her out of the room, as if mocking her from his prison of wood and oil.

We all have our follies in which we hide.

Miranda hurried out of the room. Really, she wasn't hiding in the least.

Well, perhaps a little. Her change of name had been to secure her place at Miss Emery's. A small bit of dissembling to gain employment and retain her respectability was hardly hiding.

She trailed after the girls as they went up the stairs.

Besides, instead of being in a loveless match, she was free to pursue her own dreams. Now that she'd come of age and gained her inheritance, she could do whatever she wanted.

Really, what did Jack know of her life? Hiding indeed! She was entirely free of the confines that most women had binding their lives.

Yet a small voice inside her teased the issue.
Free to do what?

She was on her way to Kent to spend the rest of her days as a spinster… a recluse. She might as well take her father's fortune and build her own tower, as Albin had.

Oh, yes, if she was free, then Jack was as rich as Midas.

They arrived in their rooms and Miranda set the girls to packing, then escaped to her own small chamber, closing the door between them. Her meager belongings took no time to arrange in her old, plain valise.

Really, she mused, as she sat down on her bed and stared up at the unsmiling woman in the portrait over the mantel, there was nothing wrong with hiding.

Hadn't her attempt to let her "light" shine, per Nanny Rana's advice, been a near disaster? Why, the girls had gaped at her as if she'd gone mad.

And if she was honest, she had gone a little mad. Certainly it was understandable, when one finds out that the world thinks them dead.

Set free by her own demise: it was a laughable notion. What wasn't so worthy of mirth was what her father's lie had cost Jack. He'd been ruined by it, scorned by Society, by his family and finally banished here to Thistleton Park.

Tell him who you are
, a strange little voice whispered.
Tell him and set him free
.

She glanced up at the lady inside the frame and said, "Whatever would the truth serve?"

To tell him that she lived? That her father had lied to him, to her?

He'd be furious, and rightly so. And then what? Have him scorn her once again?

Not that he had scorned her the first time around; she had merely thought he had. Yet even that mistaken assumption had hurt her deeply.

No, she couldn't tell Jack the truth. And yet, wasn't the worse crime not to tell him? To let him go on being censured by his friends and family? Perhaps with his name cleared, with his reputation returned, he could find a life beyond the dreary confines of this house and the dark past that seemed to whisper from the very walls.

She stole a glance up at the dour woman above the mantel. Gads, the first thing she'd do if she were mistress of this house would be to remove all these awful reminders of the past and pack them off to Jack's brother. Let the duke be the caretaker of his mad relations.

If you were mistress of this house
… that odd little voice taunted.
Now isn't that a fine notion?

Miranda shook her head. No wonder everyone averred this house to be haunted and cursed. She considered herself a modern lady of reason and science, but truly there was something uncomfortably gothic about this ancient pile of stones.

"I wouldn't accept even if he offered," she told the lady, guessing by her cold, narrow gaze that she must have lived here—and for a good reason. "It isn't as if I expect him to make an offer for me after all these years." Dear God, what was becoming of her? She was talking to portraits! She got up and crossed the room, deliberately putting her back to the fireplace.

But she found she couldn't escape this temporary madness so easily.

I remember her kiss…

Jack's confession echoed through her tangled thoughts like a medley of trumpets.

Her kiss! Miranda pressed her lips together, then glanced over her shoulder at the portrait.

Was it her imagination, or was the woman mocking her with that slight tip to her lips?

"Yes, I know," she told her. He'd probably been telling the girls a Banbury tale, for if he had truly been marked by Miss Mabberly's kiss, then why had he been about to kiss her in the foyer?

Because you are one and the same. And while he might not know it, there are some things you can't hide from Fate.

Fate! Miranda scoffed at such a notion.

Then what are you doing here?

Before she could continue this ridiculous argument, the door opened and Felicity burst into her room.

"My
Chronicles!
" she exclaimed. "I've forgotten them. I know you said we are to stay in our room, but Miss Porter, I left them downstairs—"

Miranda glanced heavenward. There was Fate, and then there was Felicity.

"I doubt anyone will bother them," she told her, as she guided the girl back to her room.

"I'm not worried about anyone taking them, Miss Porter. I'm afraid of someone reading them."

Miranda paused.
Reading them?

The calamity in Felicity's confession now struck terror in Miranda's heart.

Oh, dear God, what if Jack read what was written on those pages?

…
Miss Porter would be the prefect bride for a former rake of limited means like Lord John
.

What if he thought she'd had something to do with their arrival at Thistleton Park? Or worse, if he thought Felicity's nonsense wasn't such a bad notion? As much as Jack could still leave her trembling, marriage to such a man was inconceivable. She might be a bit distracted by the madness of this house, but she wasn't about to lower her standards as to the perfect mate.

A gentleman in all things. An honorable man always. A man of nobility and integrity.

A man whose kiss…

Never mind his kiss
, she told herself. That was exactly the point of why she needed to get out of this house. Escape this insanity before Felicity or Fate had their way.

Miranda turned to the girl. "Exactly where did you leave it?"

"On the hall table, near the library."

Miranda nodded and threw her shawl over her shoulders. There was nothing to be done but to go fetch it.

Before it was too late.

"Do not leave this room," she admonished the girls before she closed the door behind her and made her way downstairs, quickly and quietly.

"Felicity, do you really think this will work?" Pippin whispered after Miss Porter's steps retreated down the hallway.

Her cousin nodded. "Of course. Did you see them tonight? Jack kept staring at her, and when they ran into each other at the foot of the stairs… it was ever so romantic. I would bet my next quarter's allowance that with a bit more time together they end up wed."

Tally sat up in bed. "That might be true, but there was more at work tonight than just your matchmaking, Felicity. I think they could fall in love if it weren't for… for…"

"Weren't for what?" Pippin asked.

"I don't know," Tally admitted. "But there was something else going on tonight, something I think we are missing."

"The only thing we are missing is more time," Felicity said, frowning at the door. "Miss Porter is so determined to leave. There has got to be a way to prevent us from leaving tomorrow."

Tally chewed at her bottom lip and thought about it for a few moments. Then suddenly her fair features brightened. "Duchess, do you remember when we had to leave Vienna and Nanny Birgit was in such a state of it?"

"Uh-huh," Felicity said distractedly as she paced about, trying to come up with a new plan of attack.

Tally continued, "And she bribed the stableman to make the horse appear lame so we wouldn't be able to leave for a few more days?"

Felicity stopped midstride, then spun around and looked at her sister, an excited light in her eyes. "I remember. She had that lad do something to the horse's shoe." She turned to her horse-mad cousin. "Pippin, you could do it."

"Do what?" she asked.

"Make one of the horses go lame."

At this, Pippin scrambled out of bed. "I will not harm one of Papa's dear horses."

Felicity shook her head. "You aren't going to hurt the poor beast, just keep it from pulling that carriage Mr. Stillings found." She towed her cousin over to a settee and settled her down on it. "Think. What could you do—" For her cousin's benefit she added, "—that wouldn't harm the horse."

Pippin looked from one sister to another. She wasn't so convinced about all this matchmaking business, but it was so very important to Felicity and Tally. And Miss Porter had seemed different tonight, and Jack… She sighed. Jack might be a bit old, but he was rather charming. "I suppose—" she began, the two other girls leaning closer to listen. "If we snuck out to the stables and—"

Just down the stairs and toward the library
, Miranda told herself. She'd fetch Felicity's
Chronicles
and be back upstairs before…

Before she ran into Jack.