“Dinner will be served shortly, my lady,” Mr. Cherville said. “His lordship asked me to bring you to the dining room.”
While still marveling over being transformed into “a lady” by a hammer being struck upon an anvil, Miranda followed him.
Unfortunately, the meal was another silent affair as it had been at the inn the night before. Recalling how pleasantly they’d spent the hours afterward, her husband probably expected her to offer herself in his chamber at bedtime.
Instead, she retired to her new room by herself. True to his word, one of the maids arrived to assist their new baroness.
“I hardly need help to undress,” she protested after the young woman introduced herself as Jane.
“Perhaps I can brush out your hair, my lady.”
“Honestly,” Miranda was about to send her away when she realized the maid’s face was growing red, and she appeared ready to cry.
“Are you well?”
“It’s a plum position is all, my lady. I would much prefer it to being a maid-of-all-work. I vow I will make you a good personal maid.”
Doubtless, it paid better, too. But Miranda was well aware they would have to cut the fat as Philip’s accounts dwindled further, and any of the household positions would be at risk except the butler’s, the cook’s, and the housekeeper’s.
“I am sure you will do fine,” Miranda said. “I simply don’t know what to have you do. It’s rather new to me, I’m afraid.”
Not that she hadn’t had Eliza’s help in the past, but never a maid devoted entirely to her person.
“Let’s start with taking down your hair. I’ll be able to do a fancier coiffure if you wish next time you go out with his lordship.”
Hardly necessary when Philip said he would have to give up his family’s box both at the rebuilt Theatre Royal and at the Lyceum. If he was correct, they would be shunned and left to become dried-up hermits in some hovel in Chipping-Norton or the outskirts of Bath.
“Thank you.” Miranda sat on the ottoman by the dresser and let Jane begin. Soon, the young woman started to chat.
“And if you have any secrets, my lady, I shall keep them in my bosom. I know sometimes one needs to tell somebody. Or if you wish to gossip, I know a great deal as we talk downstairs about everything we hear.”
Miranda hid a smile at the contradictory statements, reminding herself never to tell Jane anything of a private nature. It would seem a word to her maid in the evening would be warmed over by the Cook at breakfast.
“I also can deliver abillet-doux,” the maid added. “Not that I expect you’ll be writing those, given how bonny the master is.”
Miranda no longer felt like smiling. She was married to the most dash-fire man, but he didn’t love her and had even stopped kissing her. But she let Jane continue brushing her hair for it felt delightfully relaxing, somewhat easing her tension.
“Hoping to cause no offense, but Lord Mercer was expected to marry Miss Waltham, my lady. Since you snagged him instead, I can’t imagine you would—”
“Jane,” Miranda exclaimed, standing so quickly the brush got wrenched from the maid’s hand and entangled in her hair.
While working to free it, Miranda said, “I do have something to send to a man. And it must be done this very evening. Will you help me?”
PHILIP WAITED ON THE other side of his closed door. Feeling incredibly foolish, he leaned his back against it.
Would Miranda come to him?
Should he go to her?
He finally had a legal right to a legitimate wife who bore his name, and yet he was uncertain whether she welcomed his advances.
Without the enforced closeness of a crowded inn, they had nothing to drive them together, except passion. And such had been sorely lacking during the daytime hours. He blamed himself, always reminding her of the blasted book and being in a tweague over his financial situation.
If he hadn’t behaved like a rake in truth, then Miranda wouldn’t have had much to write about. From the kiss with Miss Waltham, which he hadn’t even done out of desire but from his own stupid self-indulgence, all the way to the incident at Northumberland’s gracious Syon House, which he definitely had done out of desperate desire for Miranda, Philip had provided her all the ammunition she’d needed.
Lady Harriet had merely lined up the soldiers and taken him down.
But he could not say he minded being married to the magistrate’s daughter. He could think of many worse females, and try as he might, he could think of none better among those of his acquaintance, none he preferred to his beautiful, fun, untitled wife.
