And yet he refused to leave her alone her as she’d requested, and he wished to take her driving through the park. She ought to insist upon walking to the front of the manor on her own. She had done it before. It wasn’t as though she was one of those Mayfair maidens he’d dismissed earlier.
Like the gentleman that he was, he escorted her from the shelter to the main walkway, almost as though the two of them were innocently strolling through the garden.
Almost as though he respected her.
When they reached the path that circled to the front, burning torches at the entrance came into view.
“Excellent. Herman is already waiting for me.” Miranda broke the odd silence that had fallen between them.
“Not the ubiquitous Coachman John?”
“Baldwin hired Herman shortly after we married. He is my driver, my assistant, sometimes my protector…” Miranda shrugged.
Mr. Spencer didn’t respond, but she might have felt him nod, as though he approved.
Once they emerged from the canopy provided by the trees, she felt momentarily exposed until Herman opened the door, providing eminent escape. Was her hair in disarray? Her gown wrinkled? Did she appear unnaturally flushed?
Without acknowledging her companion, she ducked her head and stepped up to climb into the carriage.
“Miranda.” Mr. Spencer’s voice halted her. But she did not look back. Perhaps he’d forget all about his invitation to take her driving. He’d think better of it and send his excuses. Or perhaps he wouldn’t bother with even that. He would simply not present himself when five o’clock came.
“Yes?”
“I shall count the minutes until our drive.” He was teasing, of course.
But perhaps he would not forget.
Unbalanced by the emotions resulting from his insistence, she nodded and climbed inside, grateful when Herman closed the door behind her. She had not told him that she’d changed her mind. She hadn’t told him not to come.
He was taking her for a drive. A simple drive. And then another sexual encounter, this time, in a hotel.
She shivered. He would leave London in a few days’ time.
And after that, she’d find someone else.
Driving
“Was that Lady Starling I saw you with before supper? You didn’t eat. And Hawthorne said you didn’t make an appearance in the cardroom. Where did you escape to?” Peter’s mother asked before biting daintily into her buttered toast. Although a fashionable countess—and not at all like most society grande dames—she was a mother,hismother, nonetheless, and would provide all due smothering accordingly.
“Lady Starling requested an escort to her carriage. I accompanied her around front to await her driver.” After one of the most memorable occasions of his life thus far. And it wasn’t simply because he’d gone two years without a woman.
It was because of the woman herself. It was oddly ironic in that other ladies teased him with their bodies while offering everything else, and Miranda did quite the opposite.
“Poor dear.” His mother’s response ought not to have surprised him. Although she was one of theton’smost powerful ladies as the Countess of Ravensdale, she’d been born into the lower classes, which gave her an insight into people that others lacked.
“Why would you say that?” Miranda was vulnerable but not powerless. Imagining her lying beside him on that damned uncomfortable table, the odd sense that she was simply a little out of tune niggled at him.
“Lord Pratt, her father, was an emotionless tyrant.” She frowned. “My understanding is that he all but sold her to Lord Starling. Lucky for her, Starling was a decent man. I believe he might even have loved her.”
“Where is her father now?” She’d admitted that she hadn’t any siblings, nor her mother.
“Died shortly after she married. Hand me the tea, will you, dear?”
Before Peter could reach it, one of the footmen stepped forward and poured it into his mother’s cup. Peter bit back other questions, curious to know more about Miranda but wanting to learn such things from the lady herself.
“Has Stone already left for Jackson’s?” When not in London, his brother spent most of his time overseeing their father’s estates, along with the oldest of his brothers, Roman, his father’s heir. But whenever Stone was in London, if not carousing with other like gentlemen, he could be found sparring at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Salon.
“Oh, good lord. You don’t know? He’s gone in search of Lady Tabetha on behalf of Westerley. It’s possible that she’s run off with the Duke of Culpepper to Gretna Green. That girl! I’ve never met one who is more title hungry. All hush-hush, though. Of course.”
