Chapter 16 #3
“You can still spend the next month ravishing me,” she pointed out. “Only, we shall be in London.”
“Where you will be working yourself ragged until God knows what hour every day,” he grumbled.
“There will be time for us,” she promised. “I’ll make it so.”
She only hoped she could manage the subterfuge that would be required to keep anyone else from discovering their secret. Because she truly could not afford to allow any further damage to come to her reputation. Her future and her school’s success depended on it.
“Of course you will.” He sighed heavily. “Listen to me, prattling on like an arse. I’m sorry, love. I’m in a rare mood. Don’t take anything I say to heart.”
“You’re worried about your friend. I understand. I haven’t many good friends any longer after the scandal of the divorce, but I treasure those who have remained steadfastly loyal.”
The number of ladies she’d believed were her friends, who had faded in the wake of the wretched gossip surrounding her, had been shocking. There had been so many, when she had been Countess of Ammondale, who had avowed their friendships were lifelong. Only to disappear in her time of need.
“Bloody hell.” He frowned. “Anyone who didn’t remain loyal to you wasn’t worthy of your friendship.”
“I expected some of it, of course,” she said, confiding in him about what had been a staggering loss at first, but had grown easier with time.
“I knew that there were some ladies who would not wish to be associated with a divorced woman. It was a risk I gladly took so that I could be free. But there were others whose defections hurt more. It was quite sobering to realize suddenly that someone who professed she considered me a sister had only sought my friendship for her own selfish gains and not because she was truly my friend.”
Lady Clarissa Leland had befriended Miranda for her familial connections, and she had promptly set her cap at Miranda’s brother.
In the end, it wasn’t George whom Clarissa had married, but George’s friend, the Earl of Hayward.
Miranda still recalled her shock upon paying a call to Clarissa and being told by a frosty butler that her ladyship was not at home.
The shock had turned to sadness upon her receipt of a letter from Clarissa which had laid bare her true feelings.
The bonds of sisterhood had not just been thoroughly broken—they had never existed from the start.
“I’m sorry,” Rhys said, cutting through bitter memories. “I cannot begin to imagine how difficult the divorce and ensuing gossip has been for you.”
Like her marriage to Ammondale, her divorce was not a subject Miranda preferred to dwell upon. Nor was the sad way that seeking her own happiness had led most of the people in her circle to sever ties with her.
“It was difficult,” she agreed, thinking of the countless days she had spent agonizing over those who had betrayed her, who had claimed to love her and then proven the opposite.
“But I will forever believe that it made me stronger. And I need to be strong, if I am going to succeed with my school and other endeavors.”
“Your quiet strength is one of many traits of yours that I admire.”
What an enigma this man was. Sometimes, he surprised her by offering words of such deep reflection, words that held profound meaning and were precisely what she needed to hear in the moment he uttered them.
And other times, he made her laugh with outrageous statements, sweeping hyperbole, and silly quips.
This was part of why she loved him so. She made an alarming sound, quite unintentionally, in her throat as she choked back a sob and a laugh all at once, tears pricking her eyes.
“Oh dear. You’re not weeping, are you?” he asked, leaning across the carriage to peer at her with comical effect.
She sniffed, blinking furiously. “No, of course not.”
He reached for her, taking her chin in a gentle hold. “I didn’t intend to make you sad.”
“You didn’t,” she hastened to reassure him. “You don’t. You make me happy.” Frighteningly so.
And she knew she must not grow too accustomed to it, for one day too soon, this little understanding of theirs would come to an end as well.
“Good, because when you get tears in your eyes, it makes me want to set fire to the very world and watch it burn to ash.”
She smiled. “That is very bloodthirsty of you.”
“I’m a bloodthirsty chap, I find, when it comes to you.” He swiped his thumb along her lower lip, his stormy gaze dipping there as well. “I am sorry about all the suffering you’ve endured, but I am selfishly glad that you divorced that bloody arse Ammondale. Because now I can have you to myself.”
“Marriage was not what I had imagined it would be.”
“Oh?” His thumb traced the upper bow of her lip now, the touch light and delicate. “What did you imagine it to be?”
“Happy,” she blurted. “I thought that my husband would fall in love with me and that I would do the same with him in time. That we would laugh together and talk together, that we would attend balls and the theater, and that one day our children would fill the nursery and our hearts.”
She stopped herself before she revealed more or said something she would regret.
He cupped her cheek, his warmth and tenderness comforting her, his touch making desire burn to life too. “What was it instead?”
Miranda found that she wanted to unburden herself to him.
“He was cold and resentful toward me. I later discovered that he had wanted to marry his mistress, and his father, the duke, had forbade the match. He never forgave me. Nothing I ever did was good enough. Nothing I said pleased him. He spent most of his time out of the house, which was a blessing at first, until I realized that his mistress was with child and that all the time he had spent away had been with her instead.”
The betrayal she had felt at the knowledge had not entirely faded.
How she had wanted a family of her own. And then to discover that her husband had begun one with the woman he truly loved instead…
The duplicity had nearly broken her. In the end, it had been what had driven her out of the marriage.
There was only so much unhappiness she had been willing to bear.
“My God, Miranda. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not. I’m contented now. My school gives me a sense of purpose I was missing before.” She stopped herself before she said more.
And being with you makes me happier than I ever imagined it was possible to be.
It had been there, almost falling from her wayward tongue. She bit her lip to keep the truth from spilling forth.
“I understand the need to have something purely for yourself,” he told her softly, stroking her cheek.
“To find your own contentedness apart from what is expected of you. That was what the Wicked Dukes Society was for me when it began. And now, over the years, it’s taken the place in my life that I imagine a wife would have.
My obligations and responsibilities are to the club, my mother, and my sister alone. ”
“Did you never wish to marry or have a family?” she blurted.
It was reckless, that question. Miranda had no right to ask it, and she very much feared the answer.
“I prefer my life this way.” He gave her a rueful grin, tucking a tendril of hair behind her ear.
“Like you, I’ve no wish to be tied down in a marriage that will inevitably be a misery.
My parents’ marriage was bloody wretched.
By the end, they hated each other. I have no desire to repeat their misfortune.
I decided long ago never to visit that kind of agony upon myself or another. ”
Miranda tamped down the inane disappointment within her at his response. What had she expected? There was no future for them. Nor had there ever been one. She was a divorcée tainted by scandal, a woman who earned her bread. He was a voluptuary who lived his life one pleasure at a time.
One month.
That was all they had. All they could ever have. And she needed to be satisfied with it.
“You’re wise to feel that way,” she forced out, along with what she hoped served as a carefree smile. “My own experience with matrimony persuades me that it isn’t worth attempting ever again.”
The reminder was for herself. Her marriage with Ammondale had been terrible. She had vowed never to marry again, and nothing had changed just because she had taken a lover.
“Why are you on the opposite side of this damned carriage?” Rhys asked, his voice low and soft, velvet on silk.
“Because there is more room if I sit here,” she pointed out primly, turning her head to press a kiss to his palm.
He winked. “There is room aplenty for you on my lap.”
She laughed, grateful for the return to lightheartedness. “I’m not sitting in your lap the whole way back to London, you rogue.”
A mischievous grin curved his lips. “Who said you would merely be sitting?”
There was no misunderstanding the sensual intent in his voice and eyes.
Her levity faded, overtaken by desire. “In a carriage?”
He gave her that wicked sinner’s rakish grin that never failed to cue an answering rush of need within her. “Oh yes, kitten. Most definitely in a carriage.”
He held his hand out to her, and she settled her palm in it without hesitation.