Miracle (48 page)

"If this is how my life as duchess is to be led," she declared to his back, "being told how to speak, to act, and even to dress, not to mention being spoken to so callously by one who's professed to love me, then perhaps I would be happier a dried-up spinster living in a gloomy old haunt."

Poised in the doorway, his back still to her, he said, "Suit yourself,
Meri
Mine. It is your decision to make."

Clayton quit the room. He encountered Ellie at the top of the stairs.

"Must you speak to her so cruelly?" she demanded, following him down the stairs. "Surely you understand how radically different this lifestyle is to her, Clayton. You have taken a child of the earth—of spirit and freedom— and locked her in a cage. You're attempting to alter the very essence of what she is."

"If I wanted your opinion, I would ask for it," he snapped and stalked into the parlor.

Stopping short at the entry, Ellie fixed him with a telling look. "I never thought I would say it, my lord, but you're acting more like His Grace every day. Perhaps you've played the role too long, and much too convincingly. You are starting to believe it yourself."

He poured himself a drink.

"I won't let these obnoxious, pretentious sons of bitches destroy her," he declared in a surly, self-deprecating tone.

"So you'll do it yourself?"

He quaffed the brandy and poured another, his mouth pressed in a tight line, his jaw working. "I won't let Trey bury her. I won't let him breed her like a fucking horse, then put her out to pasture the moment she drops a son in his lap. He can't hide her now, Ellie, while he goes about his
flagitous
existence."

"Has it occurred to you that she might be much happier 'put out to pasture'?" Ellie crossed the room and removed the drink from his hand. "Confess this entire farce to her, Clay. Take her to Basingstoke. Marry her yourself. We both know it's what you want. The idea of her marrying your brother, of her having his children, is clawing at your insides. Why must you continue to be so stubborn?"

Turning away, Clayton stared at a
Roubillac
bust on a pedestal, his hands clenched at his sides.

Cautiously, Ellie moved up behind him. "There's still time," she said softly. "Before His Grace returns from York. Before the duchess dowager learns of the betrothal."

"Miracle would never forgive
us . . .
me. And Trey—"

"Will forgive you in time."

He laughed mirthlessly. "I don't think you comprehend just what sort of wealth
Meri
is worth to our impoverished duke. My God, Ellie, you have .no idea the sort of finagling I was forced to do just to convince Trey's clothiers to advance him more credit. She represents financial security and freedom from his indebtedness. She also represents the
naïveté
that will allow him to continue with the lifestyle to which he's grown accustomed—that being debauchery, of course."

"What makes you think the duchess will approve of Trey's marrying the girl?"

"She won't have any choice, if he's already married her."

Ellie frowned and shook her head. "I would never have believed you to stoop to Trey's level of deceit. You're right, you know. Miracle probably wouldn't forgive you. I know I wouldn't, no matter how deeply I loved you."

Clayton retrieved his drink, glanced at the clock on the mantel, listened to it tick away the seconds. "This could all be moot, of course. The way she's been behaving lately, the decision could very well be already made, in her own mind. She's obviously been preoccupied; she's sleeping little. She's unhappy, Ellie."

" '
Tis
hard to say, my lord. While her sleeping seems erratic, when I've managed to rouse her from the bed during the day there's been a certain vibrancy to her. Almost every evening before nightfall, we take a long walk in the park. She seems fascinated by a certain stretch of Rotten Row. Three days ago I found her sketching the path, every curve, bump, and stone."

"Do you think she's met someone?" he asked softly. "Another man?"

Miracle moved to the door in that moment, a vision in her white gauze and silk high-
waisted
gown, the cut of which emphasized the roundness of her breasts. As custom dictated, Ethel had dampened the chemise beneath so that the undergarment clung to her figure, leaving the dress itself free, as if clothing a sculptured form. And what a perfect form it was, Clayton acknowledged, each delicate curve reminding him how good her body had felt wrapped around his—once.

A cashmere shawl
swagged
off her shoulders. Its rich royal color and finely woven fringed border showed to great effect against the whiteness of her dress. A light veil covered her braided and coiled hair, and she wore long buff gloves that reached all the way up her arms, nearly to her short sleeves.

She stared at him a long intense moment, her big eyes full of green fire, her red mouth a soft pout. Then she curtsied. "I'm ready, Your Grace," was all she said.

Love was to his impassioned soul, not a mere part of

its existence, but the whole, the very life-breath of

his heart.

MOORE

Chapter Nineteen

Earl
Fanshawe's
house in the
Tottenham
district was a study of the arts and blatant
ostentatiousness
. The walls were cluttered with paintings by Hogarth, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Romney, and
Zoffany
.
Cosway
miniatures clustered the Adam brothers' finely crafted tables, and candlelight reflected handsomely from the glassware and silver plate scattered throughout the room.

The men clustered on one side of the parlor, each imbibing their after dinner cordials. The ladies grouped on the other, each perched on the edge of her chair like a colorful bird. Indeed, they resembled a lot of plumage fowls, what with ostrich feathers sprouting from the little hats they wore fixed at an angle to their heads so as not to hide their intricate coiffures—most being wigs, of course, which were currently the rage in Paris. Clayton noted that the countess
Fanshawe's
hairpiece had begun to slide precariously onto her brow. Another half hour and it would tumble right into her ample lap.

Miracle had said little throughout dinner. She had smiled, of course. Nodded. Gracefully accepted the overly eager guests' congratulations and good wishes. Cleverly, she managed to evade the questions that seemed too personal, occasionally glancing toward Ellie, who remained in the background chatting quietly with other 'companions.'

Now, as Miracle sat amid the circle of chattering women, she appeared . . . meditative, not in the least cognitive of the buzz of conversation going on around her.

Her eyes looked distant, her beautiful, youthful face a curious blank.

He could not take his eyes from her now any more than he could cease watching her at dinner. This dreadful en-
trancement
sickened him and weakened him. Frustration pounded at his temples. He wanted to toss her to the floor right here, in front of these simple-minded, soft-bodied fools and introduce them to passion—real passion. Unfettered desire.

"Lady Cavendish," the countess addressed Miracle, forcing her attention back to her present company. Smiling hugely, Lady
Fanshawe
said, "Lady Stanhope and I were just sharing our opinions regarding the ancient Greek way of styling hair. It seems to be all the rage this season. What are your thoughts on the matter?"

"On hair?" she replied absently, and tilted her head slightly in apparent concentration, exposing the soft, perfumed curve of her nape.

The half dozen women surrounding her nodded and leaned slightly toward her. Clayton glanced at Ellie, who had apparently been listening more closely to her "student's" conversation than he thought. He hoped to blazes that the woman had, at some point during their etiquette tutoring, informed the future duchess that whatever opinion she publicly declared regarding fashion would, by the time the sun rose in the morning over the palace, become
de rigueur
across the city. If the future duchess proclaimed that women's hair should be purple and adorned with birds' nests—and most importantly, that
she
planned to coif her own hair in such a way—every fashionable female from London to Paris would be gliding along the streets with baby birds cheeping on their purple heads . . . all within a fortnight.

Her back very straight, her gloved hands folded in her lap, Miracle sat quietly for a long moment, lost in contemplation. Then she raised up her eyes and stared fixedly from beneath her long black lashes directly at Clayton. A look of mischief momentarily lit the stormy green depths of her eyes; soft color kissed her cheeks.

I dare you,
his raised eyebrow challenged her.

I should because I'm angry with you. What better way to declare exactly how I feel about your pompous hierarchy and your earlier brutal disregard for my feelings?
her narrowed eyes replied.

She took a breath.

He held his.

"A woman should be free to wear her hair in any manner that enables her to feel good about herself . . . to wear it in the way that most suits her individuality," she finally stated.

The women stared at her blankly, then sat back in their chairs, obviously disappointed in her neutrality. Again, they lapsed into idle chatter, and Miracle's attention appeared to dwindle.

Where is she? Clayton wondered. Back at Cavisbrooke, riding her precious Napitov through the dawn fog? Sitting by Ismail's campfire and listening to him play his flute? Perched upon that precarious little balcony outside the lighthouse, staring out to sea and dreaming of flying?

He had not witnessed that look of sublime contentment in her eyes since bringing her to London.

"Earth child, " Ellie had called her. "You are draining away the very spirit that makes her who and what she is, " Ellie had declared.

"When will you cease this martyrdom toward your brother? '
Tis
the man she loves, not the title. "

"Your Grace?"

Frowning, Clayton turned to his host.

"I say, Your Grace, would you care for a port?"

"Brandy," he replied without thinking, and offered up his empty glass to a hovering servant.