Her father’s wife stood, her silver hair swept back so elegantly it classified as a crowning glory, a crumpled handkerchief in her hand. Her father remained a half-step behind his wife. He dressed more as an old Puritan than a man of society, his only idea of ornamentation the huge signet ring he wore. His hair had thinned and the lines on his face doubled since she had seen him last.
Her stepmother wore a gown with oversized sleeves and extra rows of flounces at the skirt, but she had managed to pull it all together into something fashionable.
Tears were in her eyes, but that didn’t surprise Miranda. Her stepmother cried at every meeting, every stumble, every chance. She cried when happy, when sad and when she wanted to make sure her tears hadn’t deserted her. And, if attention strayed too far from her, Priscilla’s tears could almost work in the same manner as a bark in a church.
Priscilla rushed to grasp Miranda’s hands. ‘Are you...all right?’
‘I’m well.’ Miranda gave a smile and let herself be pulled into her stepmother’s arms. A fragrance of perfumes and medicinals washed over Miranda and she clamped her teeth together behind her upturned lips. Her stepmother had never hugged her before.
‘I’m so glad you’re safe.’ The woman pulled back a little. ‘I cannot think how this could have happened in this day and age. We should never have let you work. Never. I feel we must shoulder the blame, but you insisted and how could we stop you?’
Miranda removed herself from the suffocating grasp. Her stepmother would have made a deal with the devil, or with Miranda’s grandmother, to get her daughters abducted and put into a room with Chalgrove.
Her father, hands clasped behind his back, had bowed his head. When he lifted it, she noticed a wetness in his eyes.
‘Father?’ she asked, surprised at the emotion.
He walked around his wife and took Miranda’s arm. ‘I’m pleased you weren’t injured and you’re back,’ he said.
Miranda saw the tense glance his wife gave him.
‘Thank you,’ she said, shocked to see that he did care for her.
He pursed his lips, gave her weak smile, and blinked the tears away. ‘You may come home to recover if you wish.’
His wife gasped and Miranda felt her stepmother’s nails clench into her skin and tighten now on Miranda’s arm.
‘I believe you’ve met the Duke—’ Miranda pulled herself away from the talons ‘—and he was instrumental in our escape.’
Her father nodded. ‘Chalgrove and I have met.’
Chalgrove waved a hand for them to sit, and the ladies eased themselves on to the hardback chairs. Her father took the overstuffed chair, back straight. Lips firm.
Chalgrove moved to the desk, purposeful. Behind the welcome on his face, she saw a tightness in his shoulders and his hand tensed on the surface of the wood.
‘I didn’t realise you knew the Duke,’ Priscilla spoke to her husband.
‘We’ve talked horses together. Bought myself a fine gelding on his suggestion.’
‘Well, we must express our gratitude for him saving your ward.’ Priscilla gripped the handkerchief. ‘You must let us know everything that happened. Everything.’
‘Miss Manwaring has been pivotal,’ Chalgrove spoke. ‘Without her I would not have found the road to London after we escaped.’
‘Yes. She’s sturdy,’ her stepmother analysed her.
‘I fear this ordeal may have taken a toll on her,’ Chalgrove said, his words calm and soothing. ‘I also am afraid the criminals may wish to harm her to prevent the possibility of her aiding in their trial when they are captured. I’d hoped your family might stay here a few days while we search for the criminals.’
For the only time in their acquaintance, Miranda saw Priscilla drop the handkerchief.
‘Of-course-we’d-be-delighted.’ Priscilla spoke as if it were one word, before her husband could more than open his mouth.
‘I’d hoped for your consent,’ Chalgrove said. In those words, Miranda knew he’d had no expectation of any other response. ‘My mother will be pleased to have visitors as she enjoys company so much.’
‘Well, I don’t know...’ Her father hesitated. ‘I’d planned to leave tomorrow to attend business at one of my estates. Apparently, a tree fell on a carriage house—of all things. And the man there thinks he’s in need of an army to do the repairs.’
‘All the more reason for the ladies to stay here,’ Chalgrove responded. ‘I have already alerted the most trusted servants to be on their guard because of how Miss Manwaring has been threatened recently. That is enough for them to know. No one will be able to get in or out of this house without my knowledge. Your daughter will be safe.’
‘Awfully sporting of you to protect my family like this.’ Her father’s lips thinned and he seemed to want to say more before averting his eyes.
Miranda thought he might need the handkerchief.
‘Of course, I could do nothing less.’
Chalgrove might have had the intensity of a hawk in his gaze, but the mouse’s squeak came from Priscilla as she jumped to her feet. ‘Oh, Your Lordship, your graciousness is beyond compare. I so appreciate your deep kindness to our daughter.’ Affection glittered in her eyes. But behind the affection, Miranda saw smug calculation.
Priscilla bent and gave a quick squeeze to Miranda, who pulled away. Her arm still burned from the last touch Priscilla had given her.
Priscilla recognised the reticence and a puff of air blew out her cheeks. Miranda felt the blade of an invisible knife sliding down her spine.
‘Now we’re reassured she’s in good company, I suppose I should get on my way.’ Her father stood.
When their eyes met, she felt he looked at her as a daughter—something she’d never expected in her lifetime.
‘I’m pleased you made the trip,’ she told him.
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. ‘You’re safe now. All’s well.’ He held out his hand to his wife, to assist her to her feet.
Priscilla grabbed her husband’s arm and spoke to Chalgrove. ‘I hope you’ll excuse us. I must send a few notes to my household and I know my husband must get to his business now.’
She left, a blur of overstuffed skirts and lace.
Left alone, Chalgrove stood and approached Miranda, bathing her in the scent of freshly laundered clothes dried in sunshine, starch and a hint of dried rose petals.
He took her clasped hand and pulled her to her feet. He dropped a kiss lightly above the knuckles and moved to the door.
With his hand on the frame, he lowered his voice. ‘For your safety, if you leave, I have men who’ll accompany you. The constable recommended it.’
He waited, no longer watching her, but staring as if he tried to see inside himself. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you and not just about what you’re hiding. You’ve lodged in my mind and I feel that ending this will also destroy the connection I have with you.’
‘You would have never noticed me except for the ordeal.’
‘It could be,’ he mused. ‘Which could have been the biggest mistake of my life, yet I would never have known it. Who knows?
‘But I have an appreciation for someone tossed aside and determined to make the best of it,’ he continued. ‘Alone. I admire you, Miss Manwaring, for making your own way. And, yes, for the oddest and most dangerous thing of all—for not telling me your secret.’
‘I had little choice in the matter of making my way alone.’ She didn’t want him misled by Priscilla. She wasn’t the loving stepmother, but always grasping for more. Priscilla only breathed to suit herself. Her children next. Anything which might take even a glance which she felt should go to her daughters would be crumpled and tossed away if possible. And in no way did Priscilla feel Miranda was her daughter. Priscilla had considered her an obstacle to be removed.
‘You could have married.’ His voice rumbled and his eyes assessed her with no modesty, no prurient nature, but showed an acknowledgement of her femininity. ‘Married well.’
‘My stepmother didn’t wish for me to be introduced to society, and I didn’t wish to be introduced.’
‘Yet you would have been safer, I would think. As a wife.’
‘You worry more than the constable.’ She stood and moved to the door, planning to leave.
He stopped at the door before he opened it for her. ‘Just because I admire you for keeping your privacy...don’t be surprised when I find things out.’
The subtle movement of his jaw betrayed an intensity inside him. He touched her chin. His hair fell across his forehead, in touchable strands. But still, he was of the world of her stepmother—the society which had ignored her and she’d been grateful.
‘Miranda, you slept in the bed beside me. I listened to you breathe as I lay awake. We’ve shared too much intimacy for false pleasantries and sidestepping. Besides, when you mean to mislead, you pause before you begin to speak. You must learn to curtail that if you are to deceive.’
‘You imagine that. I merely think before I talk. But why would you tell me such a thing when my ignorance of it is to have me at a disadvantage? Secrets are never to be shared.’
‘I don’t know. I shared my secret of Susanna with you and I don’t feel a lesser person because of it. I feel stronger because you listened and didn’t condemn. Perhaps it isn’t what is in your private life that I want to know, but only that you’re willing to trust me with your confidences as I trusted you.’
‘I can’t. Unless you promise to forget all about the kidnapping.’
‘The magistrate is involved.’
‘But you pay for the constables from your own purse.’
With one arm folded behind his back, he gave her a brief bow, acknowledging her words. She bit the inside of her lip, but stepped away with shoulders high. Inside, she crumpled.
When she walked with the others to the table for dinner, the flickering light from the candelabrum cast shadows which shaded everyone’s face into a forbidding severity, but then she realised the candles had nothing to do with the bleakness.
Everyone sat exactly as she expected. Chalgrove’s mother on his right. Her stepmother on his left and Miranda again next to her stepmother.
She checked the candlelight again and knew enough candles flickered in the sconces.
The talk was minimal as the meal began, but her stepmother picked up every thread of conversation and embellished it. The older woman did all but purr as she feasted on the pheasant. She put another bite in her mouth, savouring the flavour.
The Duchess acted as if the food were of no importance at all compared to the people around her, but Miranda felt the Duchess was hiding her intentions as much as anyone else.
Chalgrove ate with little appetite and she wagered he observed them individually, gauging their interactions.
The Duchess tapped a napkin at her face and spoke to Miranda. ‘Have you discovered if your job is still available?’
‘She chooses to work,’ her stepmother answered for her. ‘Because she loves babies so much. Children. Families. She is so intent on being dutiful.’
Miranda glanced across the table, taking in the silver wisps of hair around her stepmother’s face, but the hair didn’t soften the countenance. Her stepmother had never praised her before. She glanced around the table, but no one seemed overly aware of her stepmother.
‘You’re a wonder with children. I’ve never seen anyone so suitable to motherhood,’ Mrs Manwaring cooed.
Chalgrove’s mother swirled the wine in her glass, not sipping.
‘I am so fortunate to have been able to take care of the children.’ Miranda’s fork rapped against the plate when she released it. ‘They are as close as I ever expect to having my own.’
Her stepmother’s glass thumped on to the table, sloshing.
‘Why, of course you’ll have your own children.’ The voice could have soothed little snakes.
‘Thank you,’ Miranda said, keeping her voice regretful for lost years. ‘But I am fortunate to be a spinster. Otherwise, I might never have been blessed to know Willie and Dolly.’ She paused.
‘Dear, you’re merely twenty-three,’ her stepmother called out. ‘That’s a young spinster.’
‘Twenty-five, I think. No one knows my true age.’
Her stepmother frowned. ‘Well, then, dear, you get to choose. Choose the youngest age.’
Chalgrove’s mother gave Miranda an encouraging smile. ‘I can hardly remember twenty-five, Miss Manwaring. But...’ candlelight from the wall sconces flickered across her face ‘...if I guess correctly, I already had a five-year-old son, Chalgrove, when I was your age. You are indeed fortunate to have the children to care for.’
‘Yes. I am.’
‘Of course she is.’ Her stepmother’s words came out with the same emphasis of a sigh. She brushed her thumb over the ornate ring on her left hand. Her gaze narrowed. ‘But others’ children are not quite the same as one’s own. I’m fortunate that my elder daughter has a gentle suitor and my younger daughter will soon be off the shelf. I would like to see Miranda married, as she would make such a good wife in the higher reaches of society.’
Miranda cringed. Every person in the room knew who her stepmother would like to see Miranda married to.
And everyone studied her.