Unconquered (58 page)

“I am not sure I will ever forgive myself,” he answered her. “We have a great deal to make up to each other, Miranda.”

She shook her head wearily. “It may not be possible, Jared.”

“Do you think you might now greet your son, m’lady? He has the attention span of a naughty flea at this stage in his life.” Indeed, the child was beginning to grow restless in his father’s arms. “Thomas, my son, this pretty lady is your mama come home to us. What do you say to her?”

Miranda looked into the little face with its bottle-green eyes, so like Jared’s, and held out her arms to him. The little boy grinned rakishly at her, holding his own arms out in response. Jared handed him to Miranda, and she cradled him close, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Mama cry?” said little Tom, puzzled, and then he hugged her. “Mama no cry!”

Miranda had to laugh. The imperious tone was so like Jared’s. She kissed the soft back of his neck, and then looked at his little face, also the image of his father’s. “Mama will not cry, Tom,” she said. She could barely stand to give him up, but she reluctantly handed him back to Jester. “Good night, my little love,” she said. “Mama will see you in the morning.” She looked at the nursemaid. “You have taken good care of him, Jester. Thank you.”

Jester beamed. “It’s so wonderful to have you back, m’lady,” she said, flushing, and then turned back upstairs with her little charge.

“I’ve arranged a wonderful welcome-home dinner, Miranda,” Amanda smiled.

Miranda turned slowly away from the stairs. “We cannot possibly sit down and eat a normal meal until I have answered all the questions I know you have. I would not speak of it to Jared until we were all together. I will tell my tale once, no more.”

“Jon and Anne are coming for dinner,” said Amanda.

“They have not gone back to Massachusetts?” Miranda queried.

“The war between England and America has been mostly a sea war,” Jared answered, “and travel has been next to impossible. They could not go safely.”

“Is it not over then?” she said, and for a moment he saw the angry mockery in her eyes.

“It will be soon, and we’ll all go home in the spring. They are negotiating a treaty now.”

“You are not involved?” Again that mockery.

“I have given up politics—all politics,” came the reply.

“What will you do then, m’lord?”

“I will take care of you and our son properly,” he answered her.

“It is too late,” she said, so softly that only Amanda heard her. Then, “Jon and Anne must hear, too. I trust there are no other guests?”

“No, dearest.”

“I will rest until dinner then,” Miranda said. “I assume we have the same rooms, twin.”

“Yes,” said Amanda, entirely subdued now.

Miranda disappeared up the staircase. Her younger sister said quietly, “She is so changed, Jared. What happened?”

“I do not know, kitten. It is as she said. She will tell the tale.”

“I am afraid, Jared.”

“So am I,” he replied.

Miranda lay down to rest until dinner. Waking two hours later, she chose a dinner gown of soft black silk with long fitted sleeves and a deep, low V neckline. The ankle-length hem was edged in black-dyed swansdown. Miranda’s stockings were ribbed black silk and her black point-toed heel-less shoes had star-shaped silver buckles. However had Jared gotten all these gowns before she arrived? As she sat debating her jewelry Jared stole up behind her and placed around her neck a long, thin gold chain at the end of which was a very large tear-shaped diamond. She stared at the stone, nestling sensuously between her breasts.

“Welcome back, Miranda,” he said quietly.

“Had we lived a normal married life these last few years,” she
quipped, “I believe I should have to ask you what sins you are expiating with this magnificent jewel.”

“You still have a sharp tongue,” he answered drily.

She chuckled softly. “Some things never change, m’lord.”

Downstairs they found Amanda, Adrian, Jon, and Anne waiting for them. Anne Dunham flew to embrace Miranda. “Mandy was right,” she wept. “Thank God! You are responsible for my happiness, and I am so happy you are back safe. You will be godmother to my next child! Promise me, Miranda!”

“Heavens, Anne! I am told you have just recovered from a birth. Surely you are not breeding again?”

“Not from lack of effort on my part, I assure you, Miranda! Welcome home, sister!”

She smiled. “Thank you, Jon.”

“Will everyone have sherry?” Amanda asked brightly.

Miranda laughed. “Little sister, you are ever the good and proper hostess.” She turned to Adrian. “Will you see we are not disturbed until I have finished talking to you all?”

“The servants have been told, and I’ve put the mastiffs outside the door so no one may listen.”

Miranda nodded. “I know that you are all curious as to what really happened to me, and I will tell you now. The story is a terrible one. Mandy, Anne, I know that you will be horrified by what I have to say, so decide now if you wish to hear it. Be warned that if you go, your husbands may repeat nothing of what I say. If you decide to stay, prepare to be shocked.”

“If it is so terrible, Miranda,” said Jonathan Dunham, “then why must you tell us at all?”

“For two reasons, Jon. I must answer all the questions I see in your eyes and in the eyes of my family. Then, too, because it is possible that when my tale is told my husband may wish to end our marriage, and I will not have Jared misunderstood. This story will hurt him. We women have our honor too, Jon.”

“Oh, Miranda, what have you done?” Amanda’s cornflower-blue eyes were wide with worry.

“Hush, Mandy,” scolded Anne gently. “Miranda has committed no sins. I suspect the sins have been committed against her.”

“Dear, wise Anne,” Miranda said quietly. “Sit down, everyone, please. I would like to begin.” She stood with the fireplace behind her and looked out over her audience. Her sister, her
sister-in-law, her two brothers-in-law, her husband. The gentlemen in their severe black and white evening dress. The sweet-faced Anne with her pretty copper-colored curls and serious gray eyes in a lime-green gown. Dear Amanda in lilac, her late pregnancy very visible, as visible as the concern in her eyes.

“You all know of the deception played by Lord Palmerston with Jared and Jonathan Dunham. Jared had been gone close to a full year, and Jon, having fallen in love with Anne, had secretly married her. I had borne my son alone. Oh, I know, Mandy, that you, Adrian, and Jon were with me, but I was still alone. I wanted Jared, and Palmerston simply refused to tell me anything. I was beginning to wonder if my husband was even alive. My nights were terrifying.

“I decided that I must go to St. Petersburg. Looking back, I realize how naive it all was, and yet at the time it seemed so simple. I was traveling on my own yacht with a trusted captain and crew. I would go to St. Petersburg, demand my husband’s whereabouts from the British Ambassador, and then Jared and I would return to England. Even I had figured out that if his mission hadn’t been successful by then—and it obviously hadn’t—it wasn’t likely ever to be.”

She explained about the brief time she had spent in St. Petersburg.

“Now I must digress from the story a moment to explain that the Cherkessky family’s wealth comes from a slave-breeding farm in the Crimea, or rather their wealth did come from those estates until Alexei Cherkessky’s Tatar cousin destroyed the farm. The Cherkessky farm raised white, blond slaves only. Blonds bring a fortune in the markets of the Mid and Near East, you see. The prince’s prize male stud, Lucas, had my coloring, silver-gilt hair with light eyes, and was known to breed mostly daughters. Females are a more valuable commodity than males when you are raising expensive slaves for harems, rather than slaves for work. When Sasha saw me he knew that I was exactly the woman the prince had been seeking for several years—a perfect mate for his Lucas.”

Amanda gave a little shriek of horror. “Miranda! What are you saying? People do not breed people, only animals.”

“No, Mandy. There are people in this world who breed other humans for profit. Do you remember, before Jared and I were
married, you were telling me the tale of a minister’s daughter who was transported to the West Indies to a slave-breeding farm? I remember I pooh-poohed that tale, but the breeding of people for profit is going on right now, and for most of the last year I have been an inmate of such a hell.”

Amanda’s eyes grew enormous, and she paled, but she would not allow herself to faint. Her twin had been through hell, and the least Amanda could do was to listen.

Miranda paused to sip at the pale sherry in her glass, sneaking a glance at her audience. The men, she realized, had begun to suspect the drift of her tale, and Jared was looking grim. Oh God, she thought, why have I the kind of nature that forces me to tell the truth?

“Continue, Miranda.” His voice startled her.

Their eyes met for a moment, and she was puzzled by what she saw there. She saw compassion. She saw tenderness and understanding. She saw love! Her voice caught in her throat and she could not speak. Crossing to her, he put a strong arm around her. “Go on, my love. Put it behind you.”

And so she filled in the details of her time in St. Petersburg. At one point, Jared interrupted.

“My God! If I ever get my hands on Gillian Abbott I shall kill her!” he said fiercely.

“She is already dead, Jared. Gillian was the body in the Neva. Her hair was blond then.”

She went on with the Crimean chapter of her story, her listeners becoming more spellbound with every revelation. She saw fear on their faces, and disgust, and outrage, and pity. She tried not to look too closely at any one of them, afraid that if she did, she would not be able to continue.

“I was a slave, you see, and my purpose was to breed with Lucas to produce daughters. I tried once to escape by sea, but was caught.

“Fortunately, Lucas was a kind man.” Here her voice began to quiver. “I … we were put together in the breeding hut.”

Jared drew a ragged breath, but his brother asked, “What the hell is a breeding hut, Miranda?”

“It is the place,” Miranda said slowly and deliberately, “where the slaves chosen to be mated are sent for that purpose. It is a
small, windowless building with a pallet bed. There are no amenities.”

“My God!” Jared’s voice was soft in her ear. Adrian and Jonathan had to look away, and Amanda and Anne were both openmouthed with shock. Miranda’s lashes lowered against her pale cheeks. She forced herself on.

“I fought against what they wanted. Sasha even beat me once, but in the end I was overcome. You must all understand that I have been dishonored, and no decent man can want me now.”

There was utter silence following her declaration. Weren’t any of the men going to respond? She began to panic, and then plunged ahead into the rest of her narrative. She explained about the raid and Sasha’s attempt to redeem himself by telling Prince Arik that she might be handsomely ransomed. Still, no one interrupted, and she finally finished. “Fortunately Kit Edmund was at the embassy that day, and his friend, Mirza Khan, ransomed me quite lavishly from the Tatars, and sent them on their way. You know the rest.”

The room throbbed with the heavy silence that followed. At last Anne Bowen Dunham said in her quiet voice, “It is indeed a horrifying story that you have told us. To think that one’s fellow man could act in such a cruel manner … But you are home, safe with us now. You must put it all behind you, dearest Miranda.”

“Did you not comprehend what I have said, Anne? I have been used physically by another man. Under church law that makes me an adultress! No better than the bits o’ muslin kept by so many fashionable gentlemen up in London. I am not fit,” and here her voice broke, “I am no longer fit to be a gentleman’s wife.”

“You were forced,” Anne cried. “The shame is not yours. Besides, no one knows what really happened to you but us, and we will never tell. It is ridiculous to call yourself an adultress.” This was as angry as anyone had ever seen Anne.

Adrian Swynford came forward and knelt before his distraught sister-in-law, taking her hands in his. “Miranda, I am ashamed that any man woud do to a woman what Prince Cherkessky did to you.”

Then Jonathan was there, too. “You are not less in our eyes for your terrible experiences, Miranda! Your great courage has only
increased your stature. It took great strength just to keep your sanity, let alone to return home to us. Why on earth would we reproach you, Miranda?”

“Oh dearest,” wept Amanda. “You have suffered so terribly, and been so very brave! We must put it all behind us, and we will! Oh Miranda, we will!”

“I do not think I can eat dinner now,” said Miranda, “please excuse me. I want to go to my room.” She fled.

Jonathan Dunham looked hard at his brother. “If you desert her now, I will kill you myself.”

Jared did not flinch from his gaze. “I am to blame, if the truth be known. I should never have left her.”

“No,” said Jonathan, “you shouldn’t have.” Let Jared suffer a little remorse. It would be good for him.

Jared looked to Amanda. “I would like to be with my wife,” he said. “You had best not hold dinner any longer.” He was quickly gone, taking the stairs two at a time, and hurrying down the hallway to their apartment. Bursting into the salon, he ordered Perky, “Out! You’re dismissed for the night. I’m sure that Martin will be as glad to see his wife as I am to see mine.”

“Yes, m’lord, and thank you.” Perkins bobbed a smart curtsey and hurried out.

Jared crossed the salon and strode into the bedchamber.

“What do you want?” Miranda’s face was streaked with tears.

“
You!
” he answered fiercely, and threw himself on the bed, pinning her beneath him. “I want you! want my wife back!”

“Where is your pride?” she cried to him. “Does it not matter to you that another man used me?”

“Do you love me?” he demanded.

“Yes, damn you! I love you!” she cried back.

“Did you enjoy it when he took you?” He was confident of her reply, and therefore somewhat shaken when she said to him, “You never told me that a body can respond to lust as well as love. The first time it happened, my body responded all by itself and the shame almost killed me then and there.”