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Unease gnawed at her hard-won assurance as she considered parts of her past even she could not fully recall. Nobody but Nevin Braxton had known all the sordid details of their life together, and at least he was beyond telling anyone of them now. No, his lordship had better look elsewhere for his sport; she had no intention of escaping one petty tyrant to replace him with a worse one. Even the fact that he had provoked memories of that time in her life was quite sufficient to make her hate him, thank you very much!
‘That is sometimes a next-door-to-impossible task,’ she challenged his boast confidently enough.
‘I usually find a way,’ he told her, and it sounded halfway between a threat and a promise.
‘Then the moment I feel the need to have my prejudices confirmed, I shall come to you for advice, my lord. For now, though, the wind is getting up and we have had a long journey. I fear that Leah and I will catch an ague if we stand here for much longer like exhibits at a fair.’
‘How remiss of me, you must make allowances for my ignorance of polite society.’
‘To do that I would have to believe it ignorance and not disregard, my lord.’
‘Would you, Mrs Braxton? How singular of you,’ he parried swiftly, and if she had been in the slightest bit inclined to underestimate her foe she would have considered herself fairly warned by such an effortless counter-attack.
Trying to find a bright side to a very large thundercloud, she decided that, while she might deplore his manners and despise his prejudice, he would make a fierce protector to any lucky soul he considered worth protecting. Hopefully her little sisters would be among that number and nobody would ever have the chance to lure them into the sort of ridiculous follies she had so unthinkingly committed herself.
Something young and silly in her yearned to be one of the select band Lord Carnwood cared about, until she looked up and met his flinty scrutiny once more as he marched up the wide steps at her side. Trust him to manage to watch her every step into his lair without tripping over his own feet, she mused with savagely controlled composure. Stiffening her backbone, she forced herself to casually glance away as if his fierce gaze meant nothing to her.
Getting to the top of the steps without falling flat on her face would be defence enough for now and, once she had rested and washed off the travel stains, she would counter-attack so strongly he would leave her be for the rest of her stay. Well, she silently amended as they at last reached the wide front door, since she was to be a guest under his roof she could hope he could tell from her chilly manner that she was not interested in rogues of any variety. She had taken her fill of them at a very early age and, be they weak and bullying like Nevin, or strong and arrogant as the new Earl of Carnwood, she wanted no more of them.
‘Miranda! You have grown so thin and drawn I hardly recognised you.’ A light soprano voice cut through the tense silence between the master of the house and his reluctant guest. Miranda was shocked to find she was rather disappointed to have their hostile tête-à-tête cut short.
His lordship was even more dangerous than she had thought, she decided, and resolved to become as close to invisible as made no difference for the next few days. Fighting with him had made her feel more alive than she had been in five years, and some things were better left dormant. For now she dare not take her eyes off her old enemy to consider her new one, for she knew of old how sharp-eyed Mrs Cecilia Grant was. Her cousin even managed to add to the grace and elegance of Wychwood’s famous Marble Hall, making even the exquisite sculpture of the goddess Diana posed behind her look clumsy, but Miranda shivered at the coldness in her eyes.
Celia was six years older than her, of course, and might be considered almost at her last prayers by a blind idiot. No doubt it would take a duke, or some well-placed dynamite, to shift her from Wychwood now. Already there was a possessive glint in her grey eyes as they dwelt significantly on his lordship’s broad-shouldered figure and then swung back to Miranda. Point taken, Miranda privately conceded with a bland smile.
She knew perfectly well that any warmth in her cousin’s smile was there for the Earl’s benefit. She and Celia were hardly likely to pretend affection for each other at this late stage. Anyway, from what she had seen so far, Celia and the new master of Wychwood would suit each other very well indeed. At least if they were safely wed to each other they wouldn’t make two more deserving people miserable for the rest of their lives.
‘Good day, Cousin Cecilia,’ Miranda greeted her relative cautiously, wondering if Bonaparte himself might not receive a warmer welcome here than she had thus far.
‘Miranda,’ the lady replied coolly, as if they had seen each other but yesterday and not much enjoyed the experience.
‘How do you go on?’
‘Much as I ever did,’ Celia replied, looking pardonably pleased.
‘So I see,’ Miranda acknowledged, not at all surprised when the courtesy was not returned. ‘I trust my aunt enjoys her usual excellent health?’
‘Mama seems to have recovered from her loss at last, and the new earl has relieved us of a multitude of cares.’
She sent a melting look in his direction as Miranda watched cynically. Since Celia seemed to be looking for a second husband the wonder must be that she hadn’t yet found one, and the arrival of his lordship must have been a gift from the gods.
‘Managing the household alone has put great strain on us both,’ Celia went on in the die-away voice that had always made Miranda long to box her ears.
‘I’m quite sure it has,’ she replied blandly, impressed with her own restraint even if nobody else was.
She even managed not to smile when she heard Leah’s loudly expressive sniff at such a shameless lie. Anyone who knew them would realise Celia and her mother enjoyed holding sway at the Court, while doing very little actual work. Maybe something of her thoughts showed in her face despite such self-restraint, though, for Celia’s gaze grew even stonier as she let it dwell on Miranda’s apparently insignificant form. Luckily she was too ladylike to sniff and just let her expression tell Lord Carnwood of her gallantly suppressed outrage. No doubt he shared it and when they were alone they could commiserate with each other on having to own to such a disreputable connection.
‘Mama is taking tea in the state drawing room,’ Celia prompted, a steely glint in her grey eyes.
From her satisfied expression Celia knew she was calling up a formidable reserve force, and Miranda had to admit it was a masterstroke. A summons to Lady Clarissa’s favourite haunt had struck terror into her youthful heart once upon a time. Yet if Aunt Clarissa and Celia thought she was still the insecure girl who had left Wychwood five years ago they were in for a shock. She would not have survived marriage to Nevin Braxton with her sanity intact if she had remained so dependent on the approval of others for her peace of mind.
Miranda met her cousin’s cool gaze and gave her a slight nod of acknowledgement and, as Celia’s lips tightened as far as she ever allowed them to in mixed company, she knew her message had been received.
‘Some refreshment would be most welcome after such a protracted journey,’ she coolly informed the space between her reluctant reception committee.
‘How remiss of us not to offer it sooner,’ the Earl remarked with an irony that would have done Beau Brummell himself proud, then he stood aside to let the ladies precede him with all the tonnish elegance he had previously disclaimed.
She spared them an openly considering look as they closed ranks behind her, then swept across the expanse of polished marble with a deliberately exaggerated grace. She could almost feel his arrogant lordship’s gaze lingering on her swaying hips and the supple flow of her long legs. Let him think what he pleased. The rest of the world seemed determined to do so anyway, and she refused to allow him to be any different. To distract herself from those two sets of condemning eyes fixed on her unsatisfactory person, she let herself consider them as cousins and found them as dissimilar to each other as they were to her. Celia hated the fact that she had not inherited the famous dark blue Alstone eyes, but the new Earl didn’t have them either.
He took after the founders of the family fortune in looks and doubtless in ruthless ambition as well. Miranda recalled the legend that every time a dark-haired, dark-eyed Alstone became head of the family, he either brought disaster or extraordinary blessings to Wychwood in his wake. Whichever it was to be, nobody should expect a peaceful time of it, but, for the new earl’s advent to be a personal disaster, he would first have to acquire an importance in her life she refused to grant him.
‘I must bid my aunt a good day before I get rid of my dirt,’ she said cheerfully enough.
Celia looked as if she would have been quite happy to sacrifice her company and his lordship frowned and veered off towards the library, ordering Coppice the butler to deny him to callers, before he went into that vast room and closed the door emphatically behind him. Miranda somehow managed not to laugh at her cousin’s shocked expression. His blatant refusal of a tête-à-tête with Celia, while the inconvenient new arrival was shuffled off on to Lady Clarissa, almost put the two cousins on a level footing for once.
Chapter Two
‘Cousin Christopher is always busy when he’s been to London on business,’ Celia remarked distantly.
Where once the very mention of the word ‘business’ would have had Celia raising her aristocratic nose with distaste, it seemed that a belted earl and head of the Alstone clan could soil his hands with work and still gain her blessing.
‘How long are you intending to stay?’ Celia went on, getting down to business now there was no need to pretend even the slightest welcome.
‘Not long, springtime is busy in Snowdonia.’
‘I hope Lady Rhys doesn’t expect you to help her shepherds?’
Luckily Miranda had learnt the value of self-restraint, and knew nothing would infuriate Celia more than seeing her barbs go astray.
‘My godmother would have me be a lady of such leisure I would be bored to the edge of reason if I listened to her,’ she said with a fond smile.
‘Then she cannot know you.’
‘Five years is quite long enough a time to know a person when you live with them day after day,’ Miranda replied, hanging on to her temper with something of an effort.
‘Perhaps not long enough,’ Celia insisted maliciously.
‘We knew one another very well before I went to reside with her, thanks to my holidays at Nightingale House,’ Miranda argued serenely.
‘She always was foolishly indulgent with her charity cases,’ Celia said, hoping to spark Miranda’s temper as she had so skilfully in the old days.
Luckily, Miranda thought with a coolly ironic smile, she had learnt a great deal of self-control since then. ‘That’s why none of us takes advantage of her generosity, or likes to hear her traduced,’ she countered instead.
‘The opinion of jailbirds, street urchins and fallen women is unlikely to influence persons of quality. Nor is a shabby widow hidden away on a remote estate without the blessings of civilisation of much interest to her peers,’ Celia went on undaunted.
‘My godmama will doubtless be delighted to hear it,’ Miranda returned blandly and was delighted to see a flush of temper tint her cousin’s cheeks.
‘Of course, if you stay away from her isolated little valley for long, you will not remain similarly uninteresting,’ she snapped.
‘How unfortunate for me,’ Miranda replied smoothly, deciding not to tell Celia she intended returning to her new life as soon as possible just now.
‘Yes, it would be.’
‘That sounded almost like a threat, Cousin Cecilia, how very clumsy of you,’ she murmured as they entered the grand saloon together. ‘Ah, Aunt Clarissa, I can see that you are enjoying your usual good health.’
‘Niece,’ her least favourite relative greeted her with no obvious enthusiasm, as if she was acknowledging some unpleasant condition she was justly ashamed of. ‘You’re sadly worn looking and far too thin.’
‘Then I shall eat well and take more rest while I am here,’ she returned blandly, and welcomed the look of fury building in the stony gaze.
Fury was a far better reaction than the gloating look they had shared whenever they succeeded in pointing up her faults in the old days. Yet despite it, they managed to exchange a few stiff courtesies with their unwelcome visitor. Miranda knew it wasn’t fondness that had prompted their reluctant politeness, but the entrance of Coppice and his minions with the tea tray. Casting her old friend a grateful look for his strategy, Miranda left them to their tea with no regrets on either side. With that duty done, at least she could relax until dinner and her next skirmish with her less-than-loving relatives.
‘A word with you, if you please, Mrs Braxton,’ a deep voice demanded as she hurried toward the staircase.
Miranda bade a silent farewell to the interlude of peace and quiet she had been promising herself and spun on her heel with a social smile she hoped would confound him. It made no impression on him whatsoever. The Earl of Carnwood was already marching toward the library without even looking behind to see if she was following. Arrogant boor, she categorised crossly, even as she obediently trailed in his wake.
A warning shiver ran down her spine as soon as she found herself alone with the new earl for the first time. For some reason she felt as breathless and shaken as if she had suddenly run full tilt into a stone wall someone had thrown up without telling her, and it didn’t chime well with her picture of herself nowadays as self-contained and even a little cold. Trying to control her peculiar reaction to a stranger who seemed oddly familiar, she drew heavily on the lessons the last five years had taught her.
Maybe he was even more intimidating now than he had seemed outside, but hard looks and accusations could only hurt if she let them. Yet he managed to exude an air of power, just held in check by the demands of civilisation. It must prove an enormous asset to him in his business dealings she decided, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up in some sort of warning. But no, she was immune to adventurers, she reiterated fiercely to herself, and hoped her lips hadn’t moved in time with her thoughts.
A shudder shook her as she met his dark eyes again and decided a wise woman would walk away right now, before anything irrevocable could happen. Once upon a time she had run headlong towards damnation with a confident smile on her silly young face, but she had acquired a little wisdom from her youthful follies. In which case, why was she having such trouble controlling this urge to tremble at the very sight of the new Earl of Carnwood?
Somewhere in her most feverish dreams she had met the dark eyes of a fallen angel somewhat akin to him, and that was what was doing the damage to her defences now. Her dream hero had been all power and intensity too, but she had fantasised him as her other half. Unfortunately he had been an illusion, produced by a sick mind and suffering body at her darkest hour, and my Lord Carnwood was much too real for comfort.
Miranda watched warily as he let the silence stretch and her nerves along with it. He took her mind off his piratical looks when he seemed to consider what he had to say to her before turning about and shutting the door behind them.
Despite its lofty proportions, the new earl dominated the huge room effortlessly and she felt as if she had unwarily entered a trap. She stiffened her backbone and told herself he would not intimidate her so easily, but she wasn’t entirely convinced she was right. Reminding herself of her godmother’s motto that knowing your enemy took you halfway to taming them, she wondered if anyone could know this one. He let silence echo around the large room with the slow tick of the elaborate French clock on the mantelpiece and she made a cautious survey of him, looking for any weakness to exploit when battle finally commenced.
He had high cheekbones and a Roman nose, but a surprisingly sensitive mouth offset the haughty cast of his features, and surely it was made for better things than clamping into the hard line it took on now? She shivered and resisted the temptation to cross her arms over her body in self-defence. Her predominant sensation was one of cold isolation, as if he had deliberately excluded her from the generosity of that firm mouth and whatever gentleness he might be capable of.
‘We have not met before, have we?’ she asked, puzzled by a feeling of familiarity with this stranger.
‘I should recall it, even if you did not, ma’am,’ he replied with apparent uninterest. ‘Being admitted to the charmed circle of the Earl of Carnwood’s close family would have been memorable for such a rough creature as I was in my youth. Perhaps we should cite an elusive family resemblance in support of your obvious bewilderment?’
Despite the sickening lurch of her heartbeat when she recalled where certain gaps in her memory fitted, Miranda held his gaze and pretended her knees were not threatening to wobble like a jelly. No, she would not forget the new Earl of Carnwood. She doubted anyone could, however hard they tried.
‘You do look a little like Wicked Rupert Alstone,’ she agreed lightly.
‘Should I be flattered by the likeness?’
‘Not unless you have a taste for ruthless piracy and riotous living, in which case you would probably consider him a prince among men. If not, we must hope I’m mistaken. Sir Rupert was a very bad apple.’
‘I dare say you must be, then,’ he said with a cynical smile that told her he was unsure of her soundness. ‘But you must not keep my lord-ing me, Mrs Braxton. I would prefer being simply your Cousin Christopher, if you will be my Cousin Miranda in return?’
‘Then of course we must be cousins, my lord.’
She doubted he had ever been simply anything, but it sounded such a comfortable notion. Not kissing cousins, but distant ones in every way? Oh, yes, that would do very well.
‘That’s settled then, Cousin, and I bid you welcome to your old home and my new one,’ he said with an elegant bow.
‘Thank you, I look forward to reacquainting myself with it.’
‘I’m quite sure that you do,’ he replied and this time there was no mistaking the cynicism in his smile.
Did he think she was planning to run off with the family silver, for heaven’s sake? A picture of herself staggering out of the house weighed down with clanking booty at the end of her stay almost made her smile.
‘I do not intend to stay any longer than necessary,’ she sought to reassure him, but if his formidable frown was anything to go by, she didn’t succeed.
‘I believe my predecessor ordered that you remain a week,’ he argued.
‘I am of age and a widow, and thus in command of my own destiny.’
‘Yes, and just look what you have done with it,’ he snapped.
‘Which has nothing whatsoever to do with you,’ she said with apparent calmness; it was that or throw the nearest ledger at his ridiculously handsome head.
‘I am head of the family now.’
‘Congratulations, no doubt you will enjoy wielding your authority over them, but luckily you have none over me.’
‘Your annuity comes from the family trusts, I believe?’ he asked in a voice that was suddenly silky with unspoken threat.
‘And I hope you are not thinking of using that fact against me like the villain in a poorly contrived melodrama?’ she returned scornfully.
‘Anything to put a brake on your folly,’ he ground out as if tried to the very edge of his meagre stock of patience.
If Miranda had not known better, she might have considered him a man driven to extremis by some deeply hidden passion, but surely an hour’s acquaintance wasn’t enough to raise his hackles so thoroughly?
‘My conduct is none of your business, my lord,’ she objected and suddenly she wanted to commit every sin in the calendar just to spite him.
‘Of course it is,’ he replied, more formidable than ever as he stepped closer and seemed to tower over her like a Titan.
‘If I choose to dance naked on every gaming table in Mayfair, you could do nothing about it and you know it.’
‘Try it and you’ll very rapidly discover your mistake,’ he gritted through clenched teeth, and she actually heard herself squeak with surprise when he clipped her into his furious embrace, as she discovered too late that she had goaded the predator in him just a little too far.
Possession, fury and sheer need blazed back at her as she stared up at him in wonder, waiting for her own rage to catch up with shock. It was shock that held her immobile, of course it was. To be helpless in the arms of a man whose strength and power far outran her own was a nightmare. Or at least it would be as soon as her mind took over from her senses. Then she would turn stiff and outraged in his arms, instead of lying passive and even a little intrigued against his muscular torso like some swooning idiot.
‘I won’t allow it,’ he informed her tersely, just before he did just what her silly senses wanted and bowed his dark head to take her mouth with his.
And take he did. She stood bewildered in his arms and gave right back with a generosity part of her screamed was the biggest mistake of a long line of them. Nothing that had gone before had armoured her against this, she realised, even as her mouth softened and then yielded to his and she let her senses drown in him.
His kiss felt almost desperate; hungry with more than mere lust, as if he had been starving for this for a long time. Ignoring the cynical inner voice that whispered she was living in cloud cuckoo land, she felt his tongue circle her suddenly pouting lips and then effortlessly persuade them to part and let him inside. Right in the heart of her something softened and glowed into dangerous life. The essence of her femininity was still there after all, she discovered, unsure whether to be shocked or fascinated as her body revelled in his touch as it never had before.
Not even Nevin Braxton had managed to destroy her, she suddenly knew, as another man’s mouth melted the ice her husband had put about her deepest desires. Christopher Alstone groaned at her passionate response while she exulted in it; knowing he had freed something locked down and lost at the heart of her. Yet if she was not to regret it, the annoying voice of returning common sense informed her, she must stop him before this went much too far for both of them.
Then he plundered even deeper and his tongue danced with hers and her curiosity sparked dangerously to life as well. What would it be like to know the extremities of passion with such a man? Every instinct told her there would be nothing of compulsion or horror in such mutual need. From what seemed like a long distance she heard herself groan, not in disgust, but because she wanted more, closer, deeper. A hand she did not even know was free until then wandered round to the nape of his neck and rubbed at his silky curls, left just a little too long for the strict dictates of fashion. The scent of him, fresh air, good soap and aroused male, filled her lungs and she felt almost as if she was becoming part of him, as if fate had a hand in a joining far more intimate and just as inevitable.
‘No!’ she gasped as the prospect shook every resolution she had formed the day she finally got free of her husband.
