Regret tinged his voice, almost as though he felt guilty for the admission he’d almost made.
“Only?” Miranda asked, aware that he’d tensed beneath her hand. “You don’t have to answer, if you don’t wish to.” Did this have something to do with his upcoming apprenticeship?
“At times, it’s as though the music owns me, as though it’s taken over…” He shook his head dismissively. “It’s nothing.”
And yet she didn’t think it was nothing. Was it possible that his love for playing controlled him in the same way her physical needs had controlled her?
“Like a compulsion. Something out of your control.” She blinked, barely aware she had uttered the words until she felt him glancing at her, nodding.
“At what point will it cease to dictate my life?” he mused aloud.
Which had her asking herself the same thing. Was it even possible? “When the compulsion begins to harm the person. At that point, the person must reclaim his or herself.”
“Unless he or she endures the pain for too long,” he added. “And they are already too weak to resist it.”
They were talking about two very different things, and yet the moment was an extremely intimate one.
Had Miranda endured the pain of her exploits too long? Confusing thoughts raced through her mind. When Baldwin died, she’d endured an isolated mourning period as society dictated. After the year was up, she’d felt ravenous, empty, but with a craving she hadn’t quite understood.
Without her husband, there was no single person to show her affection in any way—no one to assure her that she mattered. He’d cared for her for over a decade and had become her entire world.
His death left her existing in a giant void.
She’d taken her first lover by accident, when she’d finally accepted an invitation to a house party at the year’s end. She’d been shaken afterward, however, when she realized the affair had been nothing more to him than a means to physical fulfillment.
She’d only had to learn that lesson once—the lesson that she could replace the loss of physical connection with a string of anonymous lovers. In accomplishing that, she could rationalize that emotional connections didn’t matter. They hadn’t mattered before her marriage; why should they matter after?
Even her own father had not considered her feelings, her need for affection, important enough to address. Nor had her governess or any of her father’s servants.
Had the pain numbed her ability to absorb anything more?
She swallowed hard, shaken by her thoughts. “Are you having second thoughts about accepting the apprenticeship?” She doubted anyone else would ever ask him this.
“Not at all.” His answer came quickly. Perhaps too quickly?
They both fell silent again when a small group of cocksure gentlemen emerged from the building just ahead.
“Gentleman Jackson’s.” Peter gestured toward the boxing club.
Miranda braced herself when she realized Peter was acquainted with the men. The more fashionable amongst them she knew to be the Marquess of Greystone, the handsome large man with the scar was Viscount Manningham-Tissinton, and the third—a lofty gentleman who’d been conspicuously absent for much of the season—the Duke of Blackheart. All of these gentlemen were well acquainted, she knew, with Baron Chaswick, who was one of her recent lovers. Did they know?
Of course, they knew.
“I see you’ve decided to make the most of your last days in London, Spencer.” Lord Greystone addressed them first. “You won’t find anyone as beautiful as Lady Starling down in Brighton.”
Miranda didn’t miss the question the marquess shot toward Peter, but when she went to take a step backward, he prevented her from doing so.
* * *
“Indeed.”Peter squeezed her hand just enough so that she couldn’t flee.
Perhaps it would have been better if he’d steered them in another direction, but such an evasive tactic simply wasn’t his way. “Mantis, Blackheart, may I present you to Lady Starling.”
She shot him a reproving glance, obviously aware that one did not present a duke to a countess. He purposefully had not followed protocol. The trouble was, all three of these men were well aware of the not-so-secretive affair Miranda had embarked upon with Chaswick earlier that spring. Peter felt the need to elevate her standing despite it.
To make this formal introduction, he was establishing that she’d moved on. He was insisting she be addressed with the respect any lady deserved.
“My Lady.” The Duke of Blackheart bowed over her hand, and upon rising, glanced at Peter and dipped his chin in an approving nod.
