Carola Dunn (25 page)

Did King Arthur’s wandering knights ever settle down with their rescued damsels and raise a family?

“Does that seem reasonable, Miranda?”

“I beg your pardon, Lady Wiston?” She was sitting on the terrace, breathing the fragrance of the summer’s last flourish of roses, without any notion of how she had come there. “I fear I was wool-gathering.”

Mr. Bradshaw looked flabbergasted. “Can I believe my ears, Miss Carmichael?” he said severely. “We were discussing her ladyship’s provision for you.”

“For me! But I have no claim on Lady Wiston whatsoever.”

“Not of blood, dear, but of affection. I have failed to... Well, never mind that. It is just as well, as it turns out. But I have strong feelings about little grey mice.” Lady Wiston cocked a mischievous eye at the lawyer’s bewildered expression. “Though I hope you will choose to stay with me, I wish you to have the choice, and more particularly not to be forced to seek other employment when I am gone.”

“Pray don’t talk of it, ma’am!” Miranda cried.

“Oh, I expect to be around for a long time yet, provided I keep practising yoga, but I should not wish to live forever. Only think how horridly crowded the world would be if everyone lived forever! Mr. Bradshaw, explain what we have arranged, if you please.”

As long as Lady Wiston lived, Miranda was to have an income sufficient to live in modest comfort. When her ladyship died, the income from one third of the residuary estate—after servants’ pensions and charitable bequests—would be Miranda’s.

Lady Wiston cut through the legal complexities. “On terms just like Sir Bernard’s for me,” she said. “So that if you should happen to marry a husband who makes a habit of outrunning the constable, you will never find yourself at Point Non-Plus. Does that seem reasonable?”

Overwhelmed, tears in her eyes, Miranda could only stammer, “Oh, ma’am, it is too much!”

“Fiddlesticks, my dear.” Lady Wiston leaned over and patted her hand. “Peter will get two thirds, and that is plenty for any man, I assure you. But I wish you will not tell him about it, neither his share nor yours.”

“Mr. Daviot is not mercenary!” Miranda flared up.

Lady Wiston’s bright eyes gleamed with what might be amusement, though her round face otherwise remained serious. “I know, dear. He has, perhaps, too little regard for money, an endearing trait if not quite practical!”

“Thoroughly impractical,” said Mr. Bradshaw austerely, “not to say imprudent. Well, ma’am, if that is all, I shall have your new will properly written up and bring it tomorrow to be signed and witnessed. Good day to you, my lady. Good day, Miss Carmichael.” He bowed and took himself off.

“Heavens,” said Lady Wiston, “I find the legal mind quite exhausting. No, dear, I don’t wish to hear any thanks. I believe I shall take a nap, but I cannot bear to go into the house. Will you ask Twitchell to have the chaise-longue carried out?”

“At once, ma’am.” Rising, Miranda stooped to drop a kiss on her ladyship’s soft pink cheek. “I shall walk Mudge in the park.”

“Be sure to take your parasol, and do not walk so fast as to grow overheated.”

Miranda laughed. “I doubt Mudge will be willing to go faster than a snail’s pace—unless, of course, he sees a cat.”

Going into the house, she pondered: if Mudge had not chased that cat, if she had not fallen over Peter Daviot’s feet, if he had not then kissed her, would he have ventured to kiss her again in the carriage? And if he had not, would she ever have realized she had fallen hopelessly in love?

* * * *

Peter left his horse in the mews and walked up through the garden to the house. The fragrance of the roses, distilled by the hot sun, was unbearably romantic, the last thing he needed in his present frame of mind.

On the shaded terrace, his aunt lay asleep. Dropping his hat and gloves on the table, he stood looking down at her. What a small creature she was to be so indomitable! Small, and plump, and innocently rosy-cheeked, yet—for all her grateful thanks to him, to Miranda, to Danny—she had rescued herself. Had Sir Bernard properly appreciated the jewel he had won?

Bright eyes opened. “Peter, did you have a pleasant ride? Miranda has taken Mudge to the park. With luck he will expire of an apoplexy.”

“What of her?” he demanded indignantly.

“She is not old and stout, and she has her parasol. Don’t glare at me so ferociously, dear boy, I did not send her. It was entirely her own notion. I daresay she felt the need of a breath of air.”

“Yes, no doubt.” He dropped onto one of the dining-room chairs. “I must talk to you, Aunt Artemis. Have you finished your forty winks?”

“Thirty-nine, and I shall do very well without the last. What is troubling you?”

“Miranda,” Peter said bluntly. “Or at least, I feel something is troubling her. For the most part she seems just the same as ever, but now and then... I’m afraid she feels our long journey together in some way compromised her. Ought I to ask her to be my wife?”

“I do not consider her compromised. I have told her Danny and Mudge were perfectly adequate chaperons.”

“That’s a great relief.” His enthusiasm rang hollow in his own ears. Miranda had no need of him even to save her reputation.

“Are you so averse to marrying her?” asked his aunt.

“Averse! Good gad, no. On the contrary, I should be glad to. But you were right,” he went on sombrely, “she deserves someone better than a penniless rapscallion. She’d have been better off with Snell than with me.”

“Over my dead body!”

“No, of course, now she would not touch dear Godfrey with a pair of tongs.”

“And you actually want to marry her?” Aunt Artemis persisted. “Why?”

“Well, you have no other nephews left to rescue her.”

His aunt gave a snort of disgust. “I do not regard that as a good reason. Nor would she.”

Backed into a corner, Peter felt his face turn a fiery red. “As a matter of fact, I love her. That only makes it more impossible to ask her to hitch herself to a sponger with no means to support himself, still less a wife and family.”

“But you will soon make your fortune with your book.”

“That seems to be a common delusion. I have been talking to some fellows at the club, and one or two booksellers. The odds on making more than a meagre sum are vanishingly small.”

“Then you mean to give up?” his aunt demanded disapprovingly.

“I don’t want to. I enjoy writing, and Miranda says it’s good. In fact I had even thought of going on to write novels of adventure—but I cannot ask her to marry me and starve. Aunt Artemis, do you think she would wait for me if I went to India to make my fortune?”

“Do you want to go?”

Peter sighed. “Not really. Roaming the world is all very well in its way, when one is young and fancy-free, but adventures on paper would more than satisfy me now. All I really care for is to settle down with Miranda and raise a family.”

Aunt Artemis beamed. “I cannot imagine anything more delightful. If you are willing, Peter, this is what we shall do.”

* * * *

Miranda stopped in the hall to take off her bonnet. Setting it on the half-moon table, she asked Charlie, “Is Lady Wiston still on the terrace?” In the mirror on the wall above the table, she saw that her face was scarlet from the heat, despite the parasol. Thank heaven the air was cooling now that the sun was on its way down.

“Yes, miss,” said her ladyship’s bodyguard. “Miss, you knows my lady’s going to fig me out all in proper liv’ry? Well, Mr. Twitchell, he says he’ll teach me how to go on like a real footman, so’s no one won’t know the diff’rence.”

“Splendid. So long as you remember not to go running errands. Your place is near her ladyship whether she is at home or out.” Miranda tried to tidy her hair, but it clung lankly in dark, damp wisps to her forehead. She gave up. What did it matter if she looked a perfect fright?

 “I knows that, miss. There’s lemonade out there, miss,” Charlie added consolingly. “You’ll feel better after a nice glass o’ lemonade.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you. Come along, Mudge.”

The pug plodded after her to the back of the house. As she paused on the threshold of the terrace door, he brushed past her. Too exhausted even to approach Lady Wiston to beg for a comfit, he slumped panting on a cool flagstone.

Miranda hesitated. Mr. Daviot was on the terrace, too. Did it matter that she looked a perfect fright?

Too late to escape. Hearing Mudge’s claws click on the stone, Mr. Daviot and Lady Wiston both glanced round.

“Miranda, my love, you are woefully overheated. Do come and sit down and drink some lemonade. It is very pleasant out here now.”

“The park was pleasant, but the streets are still quite hot.” As she descended the steps, Mr. Daviot jumped up to fill a glass from the glistening pitcher.

At the same time, Lady Wiston rose from the chaise-longue. “Sit here, dear, at your ease. I believe it is cool enough at last for my exercises.” She trotted up the steps and disappeared into the house.

Miranda would much rather not have been left alone with Mr. Daviot, not without his manuscript between them as a subject for conversation. But he was holding out her glass of lemonade. It would be shockingly rude to turn tail and run.

Relieving him of the glass, she sat down. “I fear I have accomplished very little work today on straightening out your magnum opus,” she said lightly, and took a long draught of lemonade.

“It has been much too hot even to think about it. Will you marry me, Miss Carmichael?”

Miranda choked. As she coughed and spluttered, Mr. Daviot removed the glass from her hand, set it down, and thumped her between the shoulderblades.

Then she was in his arms. The kiss she had dreamt of became an earthshaking reality. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

“Oh, Peter!”

“You will marry me, Miranda?”

“Not because I was compromised?”

“Aunt Artemis assures me Mudge was all the chaperon we needed.” He cast a nervous glance at the pug, but Mudge’s eyes were closed. “No, because I adore you.”

“Oh, Peter!” Some minutes passed before she was able to say, “And you will not vanish one day in search of adventure?”

“Not I. This rolling stone intends to become a supporting rock. I have taken a position, rather menial but it pays extremely well.”

“What position? Will you have time for your book?”

“Bother the book!” He kissed her again.

After a while, Miranda surfaced sufficiently to protest, “You must finish the book. It is good, and after all the work I have put into it—”

“I shall have plenty of time to write, but I cannot do it without your help. So you see, the world will lose a great masterpiece unless you marry me.”

“Oh, Peter, I want nothing more, but I cannot simply desert Lady Wiston. What position have you taken? Will she be able to go with us?”

He grinned. “Don’t fret, my darling. Aunt Artemis shall not be abandoned. You know she has hired Charlie as a permanent bodyguard.”

“And Danny to come in on Charlie’s time off. But they are no companionship for her, and besides, they are not clever enough to keep her safe against Lord Snell’s wicked wiles.”

“Precisely, my love, which is why Aunt Artemis has hired me as Overseer of Bodyguards!”

“Overseer of Bodyguards?” Miranda laughed. “Is she not wonderful? How can I possibly resist becoming the Wife of the Overseer of Bodyguards? Particularly as I love him with all my heart.”

“Dearest Miranda!”

Mudge suddenly awoke to the disgraceful behaviour taking place not three yards from his nose. He danced around the pair in a paroxysm of rage, shrilly berating them.

Peter and Miranda did not even hear.

Historical note:

 The Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate was not founded till 1817 though Elizabeth Fry was already working to that end in 1815. The York Retreat was founded in 1796. Its humane methods gradually had a wide influence on the accepted standards for treatment of the mentally ill.

Copyright © 1997 by Carola Dunn

Originally published by Zebra (0821757660)

Electronically published in 2007 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.