“My lord,” she said.
He brought his attention back to the present. The music had just ended. He bowed and she curtsied, and Philip led her from the floor. Another man was ready to be her partner, yet he had the strangest sensation of not wishing to release her.
Shaking his head at his own ridiculous flight of fancy, he watched Lord Stadden, a man he knew from his club, take her in his arms for the next dance. There would be waltzes for the following forty minutes before they dined. Philip snagged another partner and whisked her into the thick of things, both in order to perform his duty as a single guest and also to keep an eye on Miss Bright.
In truth, it was hard to look away. Yet he couldn’t fathom why he found her the most alluring female in the entire room, nor could he deny it was so.
MIRANDA SET HER QUILL in the ink stand upon her writing desk and wiggled her cramping fingers. After she’d finally arisen from her bed at half past eleven and had a cup of tea and a buttered bun with jam, she’d gotten directly to work. Having filled both sides of a piece of stationery in her tiny, meticulous scrawl, she was considering writing in the other direction on the same page.
“We’re not paupers,” she reminded herself, reaching for a fresh sheet of paper. It would be a kindness not to make her cousins have to turn the paper this way and that to read her spicy tale.
After the very late supper, the gathering ended. By then, it was four in the morning. I am not exaggerating, dearest Helen and Peter, too, if you’re listening to your sister’s reading of this letter.
The Prince Regent departed with Lady Ingram-Seymour-Conway, Marchioness of Hertford. I cannot but confess a public affair seems odd to me. Everyone knows she is the wife of the Marquess of Hertford who was, until very recently, the king’s Lord Chamberlain of the Household, and yet no one raises an eyebrow when the Prince Regent and his lady behave as a married couple all evening.
How can a man let another, even a future king, go about Town with his wife? Moreover, how do the Hertfords stay married when the marquess knows he is being cuckolded weekly? I vow I would not be able to bear such humiliation.
Miranda had already written about the lovely house on the edge of Hyde Park. And she’d been unable to contain her excitement regarding her first-ever waltz. Wrestling with herself over how deeply to describe the sensations of having the baron’s hands upon her, she settled for saying that dancing with a man in such close fashion was a stimulating experience.
No need to mention how her other partners after him for the rest of the waltzes hadn’t made her body pulse with longing as he had.
Lord Mercer also claimed her for the final waltz before they went downstairs to eat, escorting her to the table and drawing out her chair.
At that point, her aunt was in a different room entirely, but no one could think anyone might be up to mischief while eating. The baron had been correct about the food. Although it wasn’t as many courses as at a dinner party — in fact, only white soup, fresh bread and butter, and roasted pork in cream sauce with peas — still, it was a world away from the thinly sliced dry bread she’d eaten at Almack’s.
All this she told Helen, eventually even disclosing how she felt warmer than normal in Lord Mercer’s presence, and as if her skin had suddenly become too tight. It was hard to explain how it was a pleasant sensation, but it was. She would rely upon her cousin’s discretion not to read those words to Peter.
After making a small but detailed sketch of her ballgown for Helen’s amusement, she set the sheets of paper aside. That evening, after dinner, she would tell her what the music had been, at least what she could name, and then tomorrow, Miranda would send off her long letter.
Her cousins were stuck in the countryside of Northampton, with little amusement. Peter, who was the elder of the two by just a year, had survived a terrible riding accident and spent most of his time restricted to the family’s parlor or his first-floor bedroom, or occasionally he went out in a pushchair. And Helen was devoted to her brother, keeping him company as much as either could bear.
Whatever Miranda could do to amuse them both, she would happily do.
However, it occurred to her as she rose and stretched that her cousins might become envious if she only went on concerning her own exciting experiences. She vowed to write more about the nobility she met and especially of Lord Mercer’s interesting behavior should he ever exhibit the raffish conduct for which he was infamous.
In the garden the night before, she’d hoped for a kiss such as her father had interrupted, but the baron had been on frustratingly good behavior.
After changing into something suitable, a soft cotton dress with a solid green bodice and a subtle green-and-cream stripe skirt that gathered directly under her bosom, Miranda went downstairs to their modest parlor and waited. Lord Mercer had explained how a number of the gentlemen with whom she’d danced the night before would pay her a visit that day. Since the assembly had continued as late as could possibly be, their social calls would also be later than usual, sometime around three o’clock instead of between eleven and one.
To make things as respectable as possible, she had their maid-of-all-work, Eliza, on notice to come and sit with her when the first caller arrived.
After an hour, feeling famished, Miranda hoped she wouldn’t be caught by her callers in the middle of eating a serving of their cook’s chicken pie, and hastily tucked into a plateful alone at the dining room table.
Before she was halfway finished, she heard an arrival in the front hall. Jumping to her feet, she dashed through the adjoining door to the parlor, clasped her hands in front of her, and waited. Eliza appeared first and then ... Lord Major Mercer!
Chapter Six
Her emotions went from confusion to happiness to disappointment and back to excitement.
“Lord Mercer, miss,” said their maid handing her his calling card.
“Yes, I can see him.” She didn’t mean to sound snappy, but she was aware how in the upper-class homes, a butler would have collected the calling card and brought it to her to decide whether she was “at home.”
Softening her tone, she said, “Thank you, Eliza,” before turning to the impossibly handsome man in the parlor. If anything, he looked even more dashing by daylight than he had the night before.
In fact, he seemed to be growing ever more of a rum cove each time she saw him.
He bowed shallowly. “Good day, Miss Bright. I hope you are well.”
