This Rake of Mine (14 page)

And by the time she recovered, they were well down the hall and almost out of earshot. Marching after the tour party with a determined step, she could just imagine what sort of alcoves and deserted corners this house sported.

No gentleman
. This time Sir Norris's proclamation rang in her ears like a battle cry. Over her dead body would she let Mad Jack Tremont lead one of these girls astray.

"Have you met the Duke of Lynton's heir?" Felicity was asking.

"Oh, no, no, no!" Jack was saying. "Not Sedborough! He will never do for you, Duchess."

This stopped Miranda dead in her tracks. Marital advice from Mad Jack Tremont? She glanced at the ceiling. Was there no end to the man's nerve?

"Felicity," he continued, "my money is on the Duke of Hollindrake's heir. Set your cap for him. I think you would make him an admirable duchess."

"The Duke of Hollindrake," Felicity repeated, as if she was making a mental note of this recommendation.

"How is that you never married?" Pippin asked him.

Jack flinched, and Miranda paused to enjoy seeing him being skewered with the subject he seemed so willing to offer advice upon but so very unwilling to partake in.

"I don't think I need to repeat that old gossip," he demurred.

And why not, Jack?
Miranda wanted to ask.
Because you don't want to tell these girls the truth—that you were a bounder and wretch? That you ruined an innocent young girl and refused to do the honorable thing?

"Gossip is hardly the best source," Felicity pointed out.

"Oh, yes, do tell, Jack," Tally urged him.

If he didn't, Miranda was of half a mind to give them a good accounting of their hero's conduct.

Why, to look at him, one might think
he'd
been the victim in all this. He stood leaning against the post at the end of the stairwell, looking unabashedly woeful—a pose that might have worked if it hadn't been for the twinkle in his eyes. "It all started when I kissed the wrong lady."

"How does one kiss the wrong lady?" Felicity asked, her suspicious tone a credit to Miss Emery's.

Jack scratched his chin. "Earlier in the evening I'd partaken in a little too much brandy."

You were utterly foxed
. Miranda silently clarified.

"And I was late meeting a friend at the opera."

Given your state of intoxication, I'm surprised you could even find the Opera House.

"There I was in crowded hallways, and down the way I thought I spied a lady of my acquaintance."

You thought you saw your mistress loitering in an empty alcove and wanted to take advantage of this momentary boon.

"So I went over and kissed her," he told them.

"You kissed a lady who was merely an acquaintance?" Pippin asked. "That sounds rather forward."

Good for you, Pippin
. Once again, Miss Emery's fine standards of education shone through.

Though not for long.

"Cousin," Felicity whispered over at her, "Father was forever kissing our nannies. A man can kiss a good friend of the family or a dear employee and it is of no consequence."

Miranda closed her eyes. That confirmed her suspicions about Lord Langley and his bevy of inappropriate governesses. She made a note to add a much-needed lesson on whom one kisses, or rather does not, on the way to Lady Caldecott's.

"So you kissed this lady you thought you knew," Tally said, steering the story back on course. "And then what?"

"It wasn't the lady I thought it was, but another man's betrothed."

"Miss Mabberly," Felicity whispered.

"Yes, Miss Mabberly," Jack admitted.

Well, finally a bit of truth in this ridiculous fiction
. Miranda mused.

"Then what happened?" Tally persisted.

"Well, once I realized my mistake, I apologized immediately and profusely."

Miranda didn't even dignify this bouncer with another thought.

"Then I went to the Earl of Oxley, the lady's fiancé, and tried to make amends."

Buy him off so you didn't have to offer for me, or end your days with grass for breakfast.

"When the earl proved hard-hearted to the situation—"

Most likely because you didn't offer
enough
money
.

"—I went and made an honorable request for Miss Mabberly's hand in marriage."

Miranda shook her head, for in truth she couldn't believe her ears.
An honorable request?
Why the lying,
dis
honorable…

"So why didn't you marry her?" Pippin asked.

Possibly because he never proposed
, she thought indignantly.

"Tragically, by the time I came around—"

Sobered up
—

"—Miss Mabberly had taken ill," he was saying.

"From the scandal, no doubt," Felicity said with all the sage wisdom of an eighty-year-old.

"I don't know how she contracted her illness," Jack said, "but by the end of the week, Miss Mabberly had… had…" He took a deep breath and shook his head, as if he was unable to finish.

Left Town!
Miranda wanted to shout.
Been packed into a carriage by her irate parents and sent to Northumberland to live with distant relations
.

"She'd what?" Tally pleaded, her eyes wide and looking misty.

They all held their breath as Jack composed himself. Even Miranda was leaning forward to see how he'd finish this corker of a story.

He put his hand on Tally's shoulder, bracing her for the truth. "Miss Mabberly perished from her fever before I could declare myself."

"Perished?" Miranda blurted out, without realizing it. Almost immediately, she clapped her hand over her open mouth.

"Yes, Miss Porter," he replied, his quiet words carrying down the hall and washing over her. "She passed away."

"She died?" whispered a wide-eyed Pippin.

He nodded, as if saying it thrice in one night was too much to bear.

"A decline," Tally whispered. "Just as I always said."

She'd died? What utter nonsense!
Miranda marched down the hall, insensible to what her words could do. She stopped before him, tapping her finger to her chin, and said, "Let me get this straight, Lord John."

The four of them looked up at her in shock, as if they couldn't understand why she too wasn't taking a moment of silence for the soul of the dear and departed Miss Mabberly. Only Brutus seemed to understand what she was about, and he very uncharacteristically left Tally's side to sit beside her, as if adding his considerable opinion to hers.

He glanced up at her with his little monkey face and let out a small "woof."

And with his encouragement, Miranda continued. "You kissed another man's betrothed at the opera—"

"By accident," he clarified.

"Yes, by accident," she said, offering him that much. "And then once you reached an impasse with the Earl of Oxley over repairing this mistake, it was your intention to marry Miss Mabberly yourself to save the lady's tarnished reputation?"

"Of course," he said, straightening and looking her in the eye. Suddenly, he was no longer Mad Jack Tremont, willing to lie and jest his way out of any bit of trouble. The man before her was eight and thirty, his face lined with lessons hard learned—but it was his eyes that shook her right down to her proper and upright boots. Eyes as steady as the marble beneath her feet.

The steady, honorable gaze of a gentleman.

"Miss Porter, whatever you may think of me," he said in a voice cut with steel, "consider this: while I regret kissing the young lady and causing so much scandal, what I am ashamed of more is that she went to her death without having her good name restored. I paid my respects at her funeral—"

Funeral? How could that be?

"—and though her parents were insensible to my condolences, my old friend Lord Sedgwick stood with me, for his wife, Emmaline, was quite fond of Miss Mabberly…"

Lord and Lady Sedgwick? Her parents?

Then from some long-closed memory, her mother and father's voices echoed forth… They'd been arguing the night she'd been sent from London, their heated words ricocheting through the house, impossible to avoid.

I would rather see her dead than have a penny of my money go to that no-account wastrel.

But Cyrus, if she doesn't marry him, she'll never marry.

Good! Then I won't have to see the fruits of my labors cast into the Thames. Because that is what I'll do before I'll give one farthing to Mad Jack Tremont.

Dead?
The truth of it crashed down on her.
Father, Mother, what did you do?

They'd told one and all that she'd died!

And everyone had believed them. Including Jack.

This was why her father had never allowed her to return to London. Why her inheritance from him had come to "Miss Jane Porter" and not her given name.

Because everyone else thought her dead.

Miranda tried to draw a calming breath, but instead the foyer spun around her.

Jack stepped back from her and folded his arms across his chest. "After that, everyone blamed me for her demise, and rightly so. If I hadn't kissed her, she would be the Countess of Oxley now, and I… well, let's hope I wouldn't have blundered elsewhere and have had to endure the cold shoulder of Society for so many years."

"Why, it is as if you both died," Tally said in a dramatic, mournful voice.

Miranda felt a chill ripple through her veins, as if she really had perished that day. Her knees wavered beneath her as she tried to focus on something steady, something solid.

And her gaze fled of its own volition to Jack.

All these years, all this time, she'd thought no one had sought her out because of him, and now she realized it was because everyone had thought her dead. Because of her father's lie, his insensible anger at her ruination.

"Was she pretty, Jack?" Pippin asked.

"Miss Mabberly?" He laughed a little. "I think so."

"You think so?" Felicity made a "
tsk-tsk"
sound under her breath. "Either she was or she wasn't."

His jaw worked back and forth. "I don't really remember her face… the hallway wasn't very well lit, and I must confess, I was a bit in my cups, but I do remember her hair.
'T'was a red like one would never forget, full of fire and passion."

"Like Miss Porter's?" Tally asked.

He glanced over at Miranda. "Yes, very similar."

His confession pulled her out of her trance. What had he said?
Full of fire and passion
.

Her?

"And you don't remember anything else about her?" Pippin asked, sounding all too disappointed.

He laughed. "Yes, Pippin, I do remember one other thing about her. I remember her kiss." And there was a wistful note to his confession that brought a sigh from the girls.

Miranda thought her knees were going to buckle.
Her kiss?

"Come now," Jack said. "That is enough melancholy talk for one night. I promised you a tour, and a tour we shall have." And then he led them down the hall.

Miranda stood rooted to the floor. She was still trying to comprehend all that had been said. Little, steadfast Brutus sat at her feet, a sentinel in the battle of emotions going on within her.

"Miss Porter, are you coming with us?" Felicity called to her.

"Um, uh, yes," Miranda told her. "In a moment."

Jack cocked his head and eyed her. "Are you well, Miss Porter?"

She straightened and did her best to breathe. "Yes. I'll be right there."

He frowned and looked ready to say more, but the girls pushed him along, their excitement to see his cursed house a tide he couldn't turn.

Even as they rounded the corner and left her sight, she collapsed to the steps, her hand clinging to the post. Brutus lay down at her feet, looking up into her eyes and offering whatever solace he could.

She'd never done it before, but she reached out now and scratched his little head. "What if what Lord John said was true?" she whispered to the dog. "That he intended to marry me?"

Brutus made no reply but tipped his head so she could continue to scratch him, this time on the side she'd missed.

"Oh, Papa, why would you do such a thing?" she said softly, the breadth of her father's deception fanning out before her.

It was as if the ledger of her life had been turned upside down, the orderly columns and tightly held opinions that had been her foundation, now merely a jumbled, indecipherable mess at her feet.

She closed her eyes and recalled what he'd said.

What I am ashamed of more is that she went to her death without having her good name restored.

And more so, he'd said he remembered her kiss.

Her fingers went to her lips, and she regretted every time she'd tried so very hard to forget his.

Miranda slowly rose to her feet. Down the hall she could hear Jack's deep-timbred voice.

Whatever should she do now? Tell him the truth?

No, never!
cried that very ingrained spinster inside her.
Don't say a word to the man
.

Really, what was there to be gained from telling him that she lived?

Then even as she asked herself the question, her gaze met the mirror across the hall, and this time when she looked at herself she saw what everyone else saw—the woman she'd become.

With her too-tight chignon, her dull gray dress, and her brows forever pinched together.

Gads, she
was
as ancient as the girls politely refrained from telling her. And they were right, there wasn't a hint of light, not a spark of fire anywhere to be seen about her.

Even worse, she hadn't the vaguest notion how one went about igniting such a light.

She looked again at her chignon, and, biting her lip, reached back and pulled a pin free. Then another. Then another. Until her hair came loose.

Well, it's a start
, she thought, looking at herself. And if she needed some more help, a wild notion came whispering in her ear, offering just the answer.

Mad Jack Tremont knows how…

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