Page 55 of So Wild A Heart

Easy, too, to lose the one thing she ultimately wanted.

“No.” She made her voice firm, and she pulled away from him, turning to face him. “No. This is not part of our bargain.”

His eyes were dark with passion, his face stamped with hunger. “Forget our bargain. We don’t have to follow it. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. It was the whole point of our getting married. To remain uninvolved…to be free to pursue our own—”

He cut off her words by pulling her into his arms and kissing her deeply. Miranda sagged against him, desire washing through her.

He broke off the kiss and began to trail his mouth down her neck, planting slow, heated kisses on the sensitive skin. “There is nothing wrong with having passion in marriage, as well,” he murmured persuasively, his fingertips lightly brushing up her arms and back down. “Let me show you how good it can be. Let me….”

The very persuasiveness of his words and caresses suddenly struck Miranda, and she pulled back, her spine stiffening. “No, my lord, I think not. You are a practiced seducer, that is clear. But I am not so easily persuaded. I am not interested in a marriage of both intimacy and outside affairs. It would never work, at least not for me. I think it is better to keep the two things separate. Our marriage is a business arrangement, and we shall seek our pleasure elsewhere.”

His face darkened. “Dammit! There is no reason—”

“There is every reason,” Miranda responded crisply. “Your very reaction is reason enough. Already emotion has entered into it, and our marriage is not one of emotion.”

“Not all of us are as cold and rational as you!”

“No, I fear not,” Miranda replied, as if he had given her a compliment. “But I am sure that after you calm down and think about it, you will realize that I am right. With passion comes feeling, and with feeling come all sorts of entangling emotions—jealousy, hurt, anger. Well, it obviously would never do. It is much preferable to have that with a lover than with a husband.”

A flame sparked to life in his eyes, and Devin clenched his fists. For a moment Miranda thought he was going to fly into a fury. But then he stepped back, his jaw clenched, and said, “Of course. If that is what you wish. I can see how you would prefer not to feel any emotion for your husband. It would be harder to make everyone dance to your bidding then, wouldn’t it? Indeed, it is preferable to keep everything on a business basis. Employees cannot afford to complain too much.”

“That isn’t it at all!” Miranda cried.

“No?”

“Of course not. This is the marriage you wanted, too.”

“It was you who—”

“I agreed to the kind of marriage you offered. You wanted to keep a mistress. You wanted to go your own way. You wanted not to be tied to a wife. Or has that all changed suddenly?”

“No, of course not.”

“Well, that is what I want, too,” Miranda countered. “I am simply talking about sticking to the arrangement we agreed upon—a marriage in name only.”

“That does not mean we could not enjoy…certain aspects of marriage at the same time,” Devin pointed out. “A marriage can provide pleasure and still remain a loose bond.”

Miranda looked at him evenly. “Not for me. Marriage is either real or a sham. Ours belongs to the latter category. If you bring passion into it, it changes everything. I can no longer be objective. I am no longer beyond the realm of jealousy and pain. If I care, I care deeply. And I have no intention of spending my life wondering where you are and who you are with, while I sit at home bleeding from wounds only I can see. So you see, the only solution is not to care for you.”

Devin stood looking at her for a long moment. Then he nodded once, briefly. “Good night, Miranda.”

He turned and walked out the door.

Miranda spent a long, lonely night. More than once, she wished she had not turned Devin down; at one point she even considered getting up and going to the connecting door to tell him that she had made a mistake. But she managed to keep her resolve. What she had said to Devin was the truth—except that she had not revealed how much she already cared for him. There was more than strategy in her pledge not to consummate their marriage. She knew that to do so would tie her heart to him so irrevocably that she could not have a life without him.

When she awoke the next morning, her usual confidence and optimism had returned, and she went downstairs, ready to plunge into her plans. The landscape architect was due to arrive that afternoon, and the architect was coming the next day, so she decided to press ahead with working on the estate. She sent a note around to Mr. Strong, asking him to meet her in the library, where she had decided to set up office. Her father was there, and she invited Devin’s uncle, as well, more out of courtesy than anything else. Devin was fond of his uncle, but given the condition of the Ravenscar estate, Miranda could not help but feel that neither Strong nor Uncle Rupert had been very skillful at management.

Somewhat to her surprise, Devin strolled in as the group was settling around the library table and took a seat beside her.

He saw her look of surprise and smiled a little. “I was bored,” he explained in an aside as he sat down. “It was either this or needlepoint with Mother and Rachel in the sitting room.”

“I’m glad to see you here,” Miranda replied. “It is your estate, after all.”

“Good day, my boy,” Uncle Rupert said genially. “First time I’ve seen you volunteer to look at your finances.” He winked. “Must be the lure of a female present.”

“Makes it more pleasant than looking at you and Strong,” Devin agreed placidly. “Now tell us, Miranda, what you plan to do.”