Rebel Baron (38 page)

      
“And you're afraid I'd be one of those overbearing men who insist a mere woman can't run the very businesses she built with her own hard work.” He was puzzled, hurt and struggling desperately to understand.

      
“No, I suspect you would not,” she replied quietly.

      
“Then what? Are you afraid I'd leave you for a younger woman?”

      
The question struck closer to the truth than she could bear to admit. She dared not let him know how very insecure she was. The dream was impossible. The scandal unthinkable. “No, but as I said, there would be gossip.”

      
“Why would a woman as strong as you be afraid of a little gossip, Miranda?”

      
“It would not be me but Lori who'd pay the price. I cannot have that. Surely you can understand,” she said beseechingly.

      
She had never intended to let this happen. All she'd asked for was one night.
But will one night be enough?
an insidious voice deep inside asked. Miranda rubbed her aching temples, and her hair fell in tangled waves over her shoulders, offering further proof of her wanton desires.

      
“No, I don't understand,” he said. “You're wrong about Lorilee. Your daughter is stronger than you give her credit for being. She's right about us. We do belong together.” He damned himself for a fool, but he wouldn't give up. He touched her shoulder ever so softly. “I'll give you time to think about it, Miranda.”

      
“There's nothing to think about,” she said with weary resignation. She could hardly bear to look at his splendid body, the lean muscles, the golden hair covering his chest. Now she knew the feel of him, the taste of him, the most intimate things...beyond anything she'd ever been able to imagine. She had hurt him. But he was young and titled and wildly attractive. The Rebel Baron would have no shortage of women in his life. She was doing him a favor, actually.

      
At least that was what she tried to tell herself as she watched him slide from the bed and begin gathering up his scattered clothes, then donning them with inbred grace in spite of his anger. He was just tucking his shirt into his britches when she broke the silence. “Now that you and Lori won't be marrying, you'll have need of funds for restoring Rushcroft Hall. It's an excellent investment, and my bank—”

      
He whirled on her with fire in his eyes, the scar on his cheek white with fury. “So that's it! You think I'm still trying to marry for money. Why marry the daughter and settle for a portion of the prize when I can marry the mother and have it all!”

      
“No, Brandon, I didn't mean—”

      
“Yes, I believe you did. That's what this is really about—not gossip, not Lori—just all that cold, hard cash you worked so hard to amass. You know, I was wrong,” he snarled as he scooped up his jacket and swung it over his shoulder. “You and Reba have a great deal in common. You measure every man you meet in pounds and pence.”

      
Miranda blinked, utterly speechless as he stormed out of the room. She sat frozen in the bed, listening to the echo of his footsteps down the stairs until the outside door slammed in grim finality.

      
Brandon Caruthers was gone for good. She had accomplished what she'd set out to do...or had she?

* * * *

      
Since her clothing lay strewn from the side entry stairs all the way up to her bedroom, Miranda donned a night rail and robe, then gathered up the incriminating evidence. It took longer than she imagined, for not only were her garments there, but so were her hairpins, scattered in a trail down the hall. Worst of all, the baron's shirt studs had flown across her bedroom when she'd ripped the shirt from his body! Retrieving them all required a most diligent search. What gossip would follow if one of the upstairs maids found a man's jewelry lying beneath her bed?

      
When Tilda and Lori returned later that night, Miranda feigned sleep and neither tried to awaken her, although she heard the soft murmuring of their conversation in the next room. No doubt speculating about whether or not the baron had whiled away a few hours with her before departing.

      
No one must ever know.
She repeated that over and over as she lay in her lonely bed staring up at the ceiling in the darkness. How could she have made such a terrible mistake? Opened such a Pandora's box of hurt...and need? Before, she had only guessed about what she'd missed, but now she knew. And with the knowing came the wanting. Small wonder the Church and Her Majesty both exhorted women of good morals to abstain from sex whenever possible.

      
It was as addictive as opium!

      
She tossed and turned all night, exhausted but unable to sleep, for every time she drifted off, she dreamed of the major and how he'd made love to her. And awakened, aching for him to carry her to that far place of wonder again and again.

      
In the morning, Tilda entered her bedroom with coffee and an inquisitive expression on her face. To head off her questions, Miranda said, “Please have a bath drawn, good and hot.”

      
“Feeling a bit achy, are we?” Tilda asked with a hint of a smile.

      
“No, ‘we’ are not. I did not sleep well last night—”

      
“I can imagine you didn't,” came the impertinent reply as Tilda turned and yanked on the bell pull, summoning an upstairs maid to set up the bath.

      
Miranda could’ve bitten her tongue for giving the clever Tilda such an opening. She counterattacked, asking, “How did your evening with Mr. St. John go? You came in quite late.”

      
“You would know, since you didn't sleep a wink last night.” Now Tilda smirked.

      
“What do you expect? To find the baron hiding beneath my bed?” Miranda seethed with indignation.

      
“Oh, I don't think his lordship spent any time
under
the bed,” she replied.

      
Her mistress was spared thinking of a retort when the upstairs maid entered and Tilda instructed the girl to fetch fresh towels, then draw a bath in the chamber adjacent to the bedroom.

      
Dismissing them both, Miranda lay back in the large claw-foot tub and let the perfumed heat soothe her, for she did indeed ache in places unused for many a year...and in places never used at all before last night. Her attempts to relax were rudely interrupted when Tilda returned bearing a letter.

      
“It's from him,” she said, laying it on the marble-top table beside the tub.

      
As if “him” were self-explanatory. Miranda dismissed Tilda more sharply than she should have but made no effort to open the letter. It leaned between two bottles of bath scents, a heavy velum envelope bearing the Rushcroft seal. Taunting her.

      
Finally the bathwater grew cold and she could not bear sitting in it or looking at the unopened letter a moment longer. Without ringing for help, she stepped out of the tub and rubbed herself dry, not bothering to use lotion, but quickly pulling on a robe and belting it before she tore open the envelope.

      
She should have taken a seat before reading the terse words he wrote, for they made her whole body quake.

My dear Mrs. Auburn,

Because of last night, there is one matter of exceeding urgency upon which we must confer. After that is resolved, I shall not trouble you further. I shall call upon you at ten. Do not think to turn me away.

B

      
What could he possibly want? It was quite obvious that he was still killingly angry with her. Had he reconsidered her offer of a loan? No. She had grievously offended his prickly pride by offering it. What had made her do such a foolish thing? A man such as Brandon Caruthers truly could not be bought. He did not want her money. But neither did the note sound as if he intended to plead his case for continuing their impossible relationship.

      
Mystified, she selected a dress and readied herself without summoning Tilda, who would insist she wear something fetching and want to fix her hair in a flattering style. She donned one of her gray business suits and braided her hair, putting it up in a tight coil at the back of her head. When she turned to look at herself in the mirror, her face crumpled.

      
She was old. Dark smudges beneath her eyes accented her awful pallor, and with her hair parted down the center and pulled back tightly, every tiny line in her face was magnified.
Well, best that he see me as I really am—and as I will all-too-quickly become in a few brief years, while he is still young and virile, with every woman in London ready to fall at his feet.

      
She splashed her face with cold water to wipe away the traces of crying. He must never know that she hurt even worse than he did. He would recover. Somehow, Miranda did not believe she ever would.

* * * *

      
It was difficult to face him in the harsh reality of daylight, but she was not a coward, she told herself as her hand froze on the doorknob. Yes, she was a coward. Wasn't that the greatest part of the reason she'd sent him away in the first place? Miranda refused to pursue that line of thought. She had to get this over with immediately.

      
When she opened the door, the major was pacing like a caged tiger in the front parlor where the butler had asked him to wait. He turned and stared at her as she closed the door securely behind her. It would not do to have servants overhearing whatever it was he had to say.

      
As if reading her mind—a disconcerting trait of his—he smiled bitterly and asked, “Afraid someone might eavesdrop?”

      
“It would serve neither of us well if someone did,” she snapped. “What is it that is so urgent?”

      
“I know what a busy woman you are, so I'll try not to detain you.” His voice was heavy with irony.

      
His knuckles whitened as he clenched his fists at his sides. As usual, he'd shed his gloves somewhere along the way. She could not bear to look at how splendidly handsome he was in a dark gray frock coat. One lock of sun-bleached hair fell across his brow, and he combed it impatiently away as he resumed pacing.

      
“Pray continue,” she prompted when he seemed unable to frame the words for what he intended to say.

      
“There could be a child. I'll not abandon my own flesh and blood.”

      
She sank onto a chair, too stunned to speak for a moment. “A child?” she echoed dumbly. “No, that's not possible—I mean, that is, it took nearly a year before I became p-pregnant,” she stumbled over the horribly indelicate word never uttered in mixed company. “With Lori,” she finished in a hushed voice.

      
His eyes pinned her to the chair. “I'm not a seventy-year-old man, Miranda. And you're scarcely the ancient crone you're trying to be.” He looked from her hair to her dress and back with disgust. “It isn't likely after just one night, but it could’ve happened, and if so, I mean to be a father in that child's life.”

      
“Do you expect me to marry you on the chance that I might be carrying your child? Or to have—”

      
“Don't even think it!” he snapped, so furious he wanted to stride across the room and choke her. But the stricken look on her face made him realize that she would never visit an abortionist, no matter how much scandal ensued.

      
“I apologize, Miranda. I had no right to accuse you of such a thing.”

      
“As I had no right to assume you wanted to many me. So we are at an impasse.”

      
He smiled sadly. “No, not yet. You have to let me know when your next courses come. Then everything will be over between us.”

      
The look he gave her indicated he did not believe that any more than she did. Her face must look a perfect fright. Bright scarlet did so clash with dark red hair. “Very well. I shall do so. Thank you for your concern, Major,” she added softly as she rose on shaky legs and moved toward the door.

      
“I still insist on guards to watch over you until we find out who's trying to kill you. Sin and I will continue to investigate. In the meanwhile, don't leave this house without carrying the Adams revolver I gave you. Sin says you know the basics of how to fire it now. I'm sending over two guards—”

      
“You need not concern yourself—”

      
“Yes, I do. Nothing will change that. The men are professionals and they know how to protect you. Do you think whoever’s tried unsuccessfully four times will just give up?”