“I shall visit with your brother tomorrow at the Custom House, to see how quickly my brandy will be arriving, yes?”
“What?” Perrin asked, then his eyes focused, realizing Philip was no longer of interest to him. He had a marquess’s son on the hook. “Yes, yes. Tomorrow. My brother will handle everything.”
After Philip stepped outside, he made his hands into fists and punched the air.By God, he was not ruined!His brandy would start to flow across the Channel and the Mercer estate would be saved.
And all because his talented wife wrote a book.
“YOU WERE RIGHT,” HE called out as soon as he walked through his own front doorway.Where was his minx?
“Cherville, where is my lady wife?”
“Not at home, my lord. She hadimportant businessto which she had to attend.”
Philip handed him his hat and gloves.
“Do tell.”
“That is an exact quotation from earlier, when she left with Jane as her companion. I know nothing more, my lord.”
Philip wanted to see her immediately. It was most inconvenient for her to be out. He had the urge to wrap his arms around her and kiss her senseless. He was well aware he hadn’t kissed her in a donkey’s age, ever since the anger at her betrayal had caught him in its grasp. They’d swived like eager rabbits on more than one occasion, but the intimacy of a kiss had been beyond him.
He’d imagined it would be a Judas kiss. But no longer!
Now he knew it all to be nonsense. While she’d done nothing purposefully to harm anyone, those around her including Lady Harriet and Lord Perrin, used their positions to control and injure as they saw fit. What he’d seen as betrayal was blind ignorance of the group of vipers to which he’d introduced her.
“Brandy, Cherville.” Then he thought better of it.What would Miranda like?“It’s too early for that. Tea in the upstairs salon, and send Lady Mercer to me directly she returns.”
As the hours passed, however, and the day went from tea time to actual brandy time, Philip became increasingly alarmed. The infernal woman would be made to leave her itinerary next time she went out. After all, she could be anywhere and with anyone! Few knew of their marriage yet, leaving her relatively defenseless except for the protection afforded her as a magistrate’s daughter.
The growling sound he heard was his own impatience emanating involuntarily from deep within. What’s more, he had started to pace.Did she realize how greatly he cared for her? Dammit all!Much more than that. At least to himself he could admit he loved the chit. Elsewise, he never would have married her, not even to save her from ruin. And now she’d vanished.
As his imagination began to go wild with thoughts of every dreadful accident befalling her and in ways he’d never worried over a woman before, he heard her voice.
“In the salon? Yes, Cherville. I shall go at once.”
Hastily, Philip sat down and picked up the first thing to occupy his hands from the sofa cushion, hoping to appear as if he’d been entirely relaxed and not going out of his mind for the woman he loved.
Miranda came in looking dazzlingly beautiful in a lavender and cream dress.
“I have returned,” she announced. “Did you miss me?”
“Were you gone?” Philip asked, rising slowly to his feet.
She laughed, the warm and lusty sound of her happiness setting his loins to aching for her.
“What is so funny?” he asked.
“You are holdingmyneedlepoint.”
He looked down at what he was fiddling with.The devil!
“I was examining the skill of your handiwork.” He held it before his eyes and peered at the stretched canvas interwoven with many colors of thread. It seemed she was creating a cat or a lion. Perhaps it was a bear. Whatever it was, it was dreadful.
“Satisfactory,” he proclaimed it and tossed it onto the sofa while she laughed again. “Very well. Tell me where you were these past many hours.”
“I had an important visit to make, which I shall tell you all about in a minute. But afterward, I went home. With Eliza — you recall my father’s housemaid — and with Jane’s help, I packed up all my worldly goods and brought them here.”
“This is yourhome,” he reminded her. And now it would be forever, since he would not have to sell.
