Unraveled (23 page)

Dalrymple’s eyes widened further at the
Miss,
but he said nothing more.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Miranda said. “I’ll be even more pleased to sit in your box, as Mr. Turner here has got us cast out of our own seats.”

Dalrymple glanced again at Smite, an utterly befuddled look on his face. And when Smite did not bother to contradict this particular tale—it
was
true, after all, if not precisely the way she’d laid it out—Dalrymple shook his head. “Miss Darling,” he said slowly. “I fear that you are not a good influence on our upright friend. I’m not sure what to say.”

Miranda gave Dalrymple a beatific smile. “
I
know what you should say: ‘Thank you’ comes to mind.”

Dalrymple gave a surprised snort of laughter.

“You see?” Smite said. “That is precisely how we came to be arguing in the hall and not watching the play.”

“Well. Then. Turner, if you please? I can conduct Miss Darling up, if you’re worried about your upright reputation.” Dalrymple smiled slightly. “It would probably be as good for my reputation as it would be for yours, if you’re thinking about being observed.”

Before he could answer—before he could even think of how he
should
answer—Miranda stepped forward and threaded her arm through Dalrymple’s.

“We would love to,” she said.

Chapter Fourteen

M
IRANDA WAS BEGINNING TO
understand precisely who Richard Dalrymple was—or, rather, who he
wasn’t
—by the end of the play. She’d had few enough clues. Smite had maneuvered Miranda to sit between the two of them, effectively forestalling any opportunity for him to converse with the man. That knocked out the possibility that they’d had any pretension to friendliness.

But she didn’t think it was a case of simple indifference, either.

Dalrymple kept casting glances at Smite throughout the play. Smite, in turn, studiously avoided the other man’s gaze. When the curtain fell at the end, they all stood. Smite reached over and gave the man his fingers in the barest of handshakes. And Dalrymple looked…annoyed.

No, they were definitely not friends. But they weren’t quite enemies, either. Was Dalrymple some sort of hanger-on, then?

“Look, Turner,” she heard him murmur, “at least you could assuage my feelings by pretending to accept my apology.”

“I took notice of your apology on the previous occasion when it was offered,” Smite said. “I’m considering it.”

“I was wrong,” Dalrymple said. “But can’t you consider that maybe you were not entirely in the right, either?”

Smite’s jaw set. She didn’t know what had transpired between these two, but there was murder in his look.

“Ah.” Dalrymple turned away. “I forgot. How foolish of me. You’re never wrong.”

“On the contrary. I am daily reminded of my own fallibility. Having come to a decision, however, I choose not to doubt it.”

She’d heard that tone of finality from him before. He’d spoken so to Billy Croggins in his hearing room all those weeks ago, when he’d had him charged with arson. He’d used it on her not an hour in the past, when she’d suggested that they steal into this box unattended.

“Smite,” she ventured, “don’t you think you could hear him out?”

He cast one glance at her and then looked away. “No.”

“What could it hurt?”

“Nothing,” he said, “but—”

“Then I’ll hear you,” she said to Dalrymple directly. “Would you care to take brandy with us this evening?”

Beside her, Smite drew in breath. But he said nothing to her—at least not with words. His hand came around her wrist in a grip that was not hard, yet still disapproving.

Let him disapprove. She raised her chin.

“Please,” Miranda said.

Richard Dalrymple gave her a soft smile. “I’m too ill-bred to turn you down.”

Turner had nothing to say to that. He gave Miranda his arm as they descended the staircase. But beneath the wool of his coat, his muscles were tense. Dalrymple had his own carriage to contend with, and after tersely communicating the direction to his brother-in-law, Smite handed Miranda into the hired cab that he’d had waiting.

He sat on the squabs opposite her and folded his arms. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing?” he demanded the instant they were off.

“Isn’t that what a mistress
does?”
she shot back. “She holds salons. She entertains a man and his friends.”

“You’re too intelligent to imagine that Dalrymple is a friend of mine. It was perfectly clear that I had no desire for his company.”

“True. But I desired it, and you said I wasn’t to think of what you wanted. That I should act upon my preferences.”

His eyes blazed at that. “You prefer to infuriate me?”

“One day,” she snapped, “that is going to be me—the person who so offends you that you won’t even look in my direction. I know who I am, and
what
I am. Sneaking into empty boxes is the least of my sins. I hope to God that when I beg you to listen, as that man did just now, you’ll do so.”

He raised his eyes to hers. “Unlikely,” he said, and cut his gaze away.

That stung so hard it stole her breath.

He looked up at her gasp and frowned. “Unlikely, I mean, that you will offend me as Dalrymple has. Or that I would fail to hear you out. When have I ever done such a thing to you?”

“To me? Never. Yet.” She set her hand against her face, pressing her eyelids. “But… I tell myself that you are a good man. A kind man. Mostly, I have been proven right. But sometimes, there is a coldness in you. It scares me.” She pressed harder. “What do you think I did in the slums to survive as I did? I didn’t manage to keep my virginity intact because angels intervened at every turn.”

She was falling in love with a man, and she wasn’t certain who he was. He surely didn’t know her—not her history, nor the full truth of what she’d done in Temple Parish.

“It’s not coldness,” he said quietly. “It’s decisiveness. When I make up my mind, I don’t look to change it. It would be cruel to allow someone to believe otherwise.”

“But why don’t you consider changing your mind? You’re not one of those crabbed, angry fellows who abhors all alteration.”

“Because no good can come of it.” He looked away. “I deal in irrevocabilities, Miranda. If I issue a warrant for a man’s arrest, he may be swinging on the end of a noose two weeks later. If I fail to do it, he may murder a good man. If a baker makes an error, his bread fails to rise. If I do, men die.” He spread his hands. “Often there is no right answer. The law demands that a man must be sentenced to transportation—there is no room for mercy, no space for adjustment. And yet, if I act as the law demands, his children will be thrown on the parish, and into the workhouse.”

She leaned across the carriage to set her hand atop his. He turned his hand up and clasped her fingers. His grip was cold in hers.

“It is a responsibility that every magistrate shares. So far as I can tell, there are only three ways to shoulder that burden. My way is this: even though I may be in error, I never allow myself to doubt what I have done. That way lies endless recrimination.”

“What are the other two ways?”

“Pretend the people before you aren’t human,” he responded smoothly. “Then it doesn’t matter if you make a muck of things.”

“Or?”

“Or you can go stark raving mad. Neither of those last two options appeals to me.”

She drew breath. “But this is not part of your responsibility as magistrate, Turner. This is life, not duty.”

A longer pause, and the carriage came to a halt. “I see very little difference,” he finally said into the quiet. “My life
is
duty. Essentially.”

Miranda wasn’t certain if she hurt more for him or for herself. “What part of your duty am I?”

He squeezed her hand. “You’re the ray of sun at the center of the storm.”

It choked her up, that image. A shaft of sunlight would be welcome, true, but the storm would pass on. His life was duty; and he had as good as said she was no part of his life. She focused on the squabs in front of her and let out a long, slow breath, hoping the tightness in her chest would ease. It didn’t.

Instead, the hired cab drew to a halt outside her home. He jumped down, paid the driver, and helped her out. The night air was cold against her skin.

“Come,” he told her. “I’ve forgiven you for drawing Dalrymple in already. You could hardly do much worse.”

She drew a shaky breath. She’d
done
worse. The door opened; her home awaited, warm and inviting. She could put her past behind her.

Maybe Temple Parish was nothing but a memory to be left behind. What had happened there…it was a belated shiver running up her spine. She could pack those memories away and never speak of them again. She’d escaped it all.

She pulled her cloak around her and followed him to her door. On the threshold, she stopped, her gaze caught. There, next to the door, sat a small, smooth rock. She bent and picked it up. It was dark—almost black—and the underside was dribbled with red wax.

The Patron’s sigil. He wanted a meeting with her. She almost dropped it.

“What is that?” Smite asked.

No. There were some things he didn’t need to know about her past. Her hand clenched around the rock and she slipped it into her pocket.

“Nothing,” she said. And then, because that seemed too suspicious, she added, “Just a rock.”

He was too distracted to think more of it. Instead, he stepped inside. “Come. Let’s ready ourselves for your guest.”

M
IRANDA WAS CHANGING TOO
much about Smite’s life.

It wasn’t just the sweet cakes and brandy that she’d called for when they arrived at her home. It wasn’t simply the comforting smell of wax and lemon and polish that pervaded the atmosphere, or the soft cushions of the sofa where he sat. It wasn’t even the luxury of physical intimacy.

No. It was Richard Dalrymple leaning back against his chair, stiff and uncertain. It was Miranda’s smile as she settled on the cushion near Smite. She drew him in, reminding him of a time when he and Dalrymple had been friends. A time when he’d been lulled into complacency.

Miranda took up her own glass of brandy and took a sip.

“Do you enjoy the theater?” she asked. Her gestures were delicate, even if the spirits she imbibed were not.

Smite knew he was being rude, retreating from the conversation as he was. But he had little truck with easy conversation. Nothing about him was easy; why should he pretend otherwise?

Dalrymple waved his hand back and forth. “I take some pleasure in it.” He shrugged. “But I like boxing equally well. Fencing. Opera. My tastes are…”

“Unformed,” Smite supplied.

Miranda cast him a pointed, sidewise glance. “Broad,” she said instead. “What sort of opera do you like?”

Smite had lost the habit of conversing over polite nothings. Or maybe he’d neglected to learn it in the first place. Instead, he stared at the coals in the grate. The conversation flowed around him like the tide—always moving, never going anywhere.

“So what was it like being raised by actors?” Dalrymple was asking.

Smite looked up from the coals to see Miranda watching him. She’d spoken so freely with Dalrymple. They were on the verge of friendship, and once again, Smite felt that touch of uneasy jealousy. Miranda could make even Smite feel welcome; naturally, a charming fellow like Dalrymple would win her over.

He’d set the term of their liaison at one month. The time was supposed to be sufficiently short that she’d not grow disappointed with him.

Apparently, he’d misjudged. He could almost feel her approval of him fading. It made him feel utterly savage inside. Smite stood and walked away from their charming conversation. He turned to the fire, the better to stab it with a poker.

Miranda didn’t even track him with her gaze. Instead, she was still conversing with Richard.

“Nobody ever believes me,” she was saying, “but I had the most marvelous childhood. Jonas and Jasper took over the primary responsibility of looking after me.” She was looking off into the fire as she spoke, a soft smile on her face. “Jasper was sporting-mad. He took me to every prizefight, every horse race that occurred within any county where we traveled. He’d put me on his shoulders and explain how to place a bet. Jonas would come along and shake his head in horror. I always supposed that’s what fathers
did.”