Firelight
Page 17

“Of whom?” she asked in a low voice. The stillness in him made her wary, as if she ought to whisper.
His lips curled in a sad smile. “One of my sisters. I had four of them. Beautiful girls with shining black hair, soft gray eyes. Claire was the baby, nearly ten, then Karina, who was eighteen and preparing to come out to society, Rachel, who had her first season the year before and was a beautiful nineteen-year-old fighting off ardent suitors at every turn.” He smiled thinly. “I had a devil of a time with her. She liked attention and received more than her share.
“I loved them all. I was twenty-six when my father died. The running of the family fell to me. I took to the task without resentment. It was the role I had been born to play. Until that spring.
“There was a duel, fought in Rachel’s honor. A young fortune hunter had thought to ruin her reputation by stealing a kiss during a spring fete. I did not kill him, but my mother thought it best I stay out of town for a bit. She sent me to Italy.” He sighed lightly. “Mother always knows best, hmm? I loved it there. I might have stayed indefinitely.”
He blinked up at the ceiling. “Three years later, influenza hit London. Mama, the girls, they fell ill.” The thick column of his throat worked. “I came as soon as I heard. It was too late for Mama, Claire… They were gone and buried by the time I arrived. Rachel soon after.”
Only the flutter of his lashes betrayed any movement. Miranda felt his pain in her own heart. A thought occurred to her. “You said you had four sisters, save you named only three…” She trailed off as his eyes lifted, and the anguish in them drove the breath from her body.
“Elizabeth…” It was a dry husk of an answer. “My twin.” Archer closed his eyes. “Her mind was my mind. We never needed to use words between us. I knew her thoughts as my own. Mother said we used to turn at the precise moment when sleeping in our cots, though we did not share one. She was… I could not…” He broke off with a choked sound and then stared listlessly into the distance.
“She died in my arms. At times, I feel as though I am missing a limb… something…” A shimmer of tears pooled over his eyes before he blinked them away. “Her loss was a pain not easily endured,” he said softly. “After that, the thought of death terrorized me. I dreamed of being trapped in moldering tombs with only her body to keep me company.” He glanced down at his stitched side. “I am shamed at what I’ve become. That she should have to see this horror…” He snapped his mouth shut with a wince.
Miranda moved without thinking and knelt before him to clutch his dry ungloved hand. “Don’t keep this burden to yourself. Take off the mask and let me see what troubles you so.”
He looked at her, his great body stiff. “I don’t want your pity.”
“Do you believe that is why I ask?” she whispered.
A sad smile ghosted over his lips. “No,” he said after a moment. “But I cannot. Not even for you, Miranda Fair.” The tired resolve in his voice made her heart ache.
“But why?”
His long fingers curled over her. “You look at me. Me.”
She knew now what that meant to him. No one looked at Archer. They saw only the mask. To the world, he was an effigy, not a man.
The gray depths of his eyes reflected the painful truth as he spoke with weary regret. “That would not continue should I indulge you.”
“Do you think so little of me?”
The fire snapped and crackled behind the grate. Orange light flickered over his golden skin, highlighting the fine grains of black stubble that covered his jaw and the red gash upon his lip. “It is not you who falls short of the mark; it is me. I am a coward,” he whispered thickly, then looked away, his chin set and stubborn.
“You are no coward. You are so very brave—”
“Everyone promises to stand by me—” His jaw clenched, pain flashing in his eyes. “Always in the beginning. But none of them do.” He swallowed hard, arranging his expression into dispassion with force of will. “I cannot risk it with you. Not you. None of the pretty words your sweet mouth weaves will change that so please don’t try.”
Chastised, she drew back. Though she understood him, his refusal did not hurt less. Archer lay prone, his skin gray and sweating, and she found herself wanting to fuss over him, wipe his brow, tuck him into bed. But he would not allow those things, she knew. She settled for covering him fully with the rug and adjusting the pillow under his head. He watched her sleepily through the thick fan of his black lashes. The boyish vulnerability in his unguarded look made her want to curl up alongside him.
“I should not have manhandled you the way I did.” His lashes fluttered and then lifted. “It was uncalled for.”
She sat back on her heels by the couch. The memory of his big hands upon her returned and with it a heated ache. How shocked he would be to know how close she had come to turning around and begging him to push up her skirts, to push into her. It shocked her more than she cared to admit. She tried to find her voice.
“It was not an assault, Archer.” She flushed but forced herself to look at him. “We both know that.”
His gaze warmed. “I meant before,” he said thickly. “Shoving you against the wall…”
“You were angry.”
His smile was lopsided. “I was angry,” he repeated, mocking himself. “I was terrified. And it is no excuse.” A soft gaze traveled over her hair. “You saved my life.”
Her smile was tremulous. “You saved mine first.”
He made a noise of derision but an answering smile played at his lips. The smile faded as he caught sight of his bound wound. A grave stillness settled over him. One that grew as his eyes lifted to hers. They were frozen, flat. Winter lakes that chilled her to the bone.
“I’ve been a fool,” he said in the same frozen tone.
“What do you mean?” Dread crept along her spine.
His expressive mouth flattened as if tasting bitters. “For tonight. For bringing you into this life.” His chest lifted on a breath. “Miranda…” Weakly, he tried to touch her hand. She drew away. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Miranda straightened, ignoring the painful rhythm of her heart, and the way her hands shook. “Yes, of course. You should sleep.”
But Archer would not be so easily evaded. Pain and wariness bracketed his mouth as he spoke. “You shouldn’t be with me,” he corrected softly. “I—annulments are easy enough gained. Considering we have never…” He bit down on his lip hard enough to whiten it. “Well… as is the case, it can be done. Pick a house, wherever you want, in another country if it pleases you, and I shall set it up.”
A small chuff of air left her as she fell back on her rump. “Why?” she asked. “Why offer for me?” Her strength returned on the waves of anger. “Why bring me here, make me care, if you didn’t want me?”
“Not want you?” He lifted his head off the pillow. “Not want you?” His eyes flared in the firelight. “Christ, Miri, murder and knife-wielding assassins aside, you are the greatest adventure of my life.”
Archer’s words raced like wine through her veins, leaving her flushed and just a bit dizzy. As are you.
He leaned forward, wincing as he bent. “If ever a man wanted… I’m trying to keep you safe. Being my wife is not safe. And I was a fool to think it ever would be.”
They stared at each other in the resounding silence, then his head fell weakly back on the pillow. Frowning, he blinked up at the ceiling as if it contained some great secret.
“As for why,” he said slowly, “I was lonely.” His deep voice fell to something above a whisper. “I saw you in that alley, facing down two thugs with nothing save those little fists, and I thought, here is a girl who fears nothing.”
His eyes flicked to hers, and Miranda’s heart flipped over. “How I admired that,” he said. “So much so I did not want to leave. Later, when the loneliness got so great”—he sighed—“I thought of you again. Thought, this is a woman who won’t fear me.” He flicked a piece of lint off of the rug. “Who won’t run away.”
Miranda’s throat worked as she fought to speak. “How perfectly ironic,” she managed at last.
Archer’s eyes shot to hers, a frown pulling his lips.
“I was engaged to be married,” she said. “A little over a year ago. Did you know?” Of course he would not know; why would he?
He stayed silent, waiting. But something in his eyes flickered with unease.
Idly, she toyed with the fringe of the rug that covered him. “His name was Martin Evans.”
“The boy with whom you sparred that night.”
“Yes. Not that it matters, really.” Martin had long since stopped being that boy. She licked her dry lips quickly. “He left me. In the vestry of my family church on the day of our marriage. He said he’d rather live alone than pretend to live a life in love with me.” One hot tear ran over the bridge of her nose before she blinked the rest furiously away. She would not cry for Martin again.
She felt Archer move and turned enough to see his black fingers curling into the rug. “Any man who would leave you is an idiot,” he said.
Miranda gave him an admonishing look, and he had the grace to grimace.
“Was,” she corrected, after a moment. “Despite our dissolution, Father gave him command of a small ship for which he managed to find backers. They were to go to America to purchase tobacco. It was our family’s last chance at fortune. The ship never made land.”
Archer made a vague noise of condolence, but it did not sound like sorrow.
Her lips curled a bit. “I suppose fate knew better. He wasn’t meant for me.”
“No,” Archer agreed with conviction. They both looked away and were silent.
“In the vestry,” he repeated as though thinking back on her words. “Where we were married.”
She glanced up and found him studying her. “Yes,” she said.
He sighed. “And so you married me.”
She took a shallow breath. “You see, when I met you in the vestry that day, I too thought this is a man who is fearless. Who won’t run away from things…” She bit her lip.
“Who won’t leave you,” he finished for her.
Stiffly, she nodded, unable to look him in the eye for fear that she would fall upon him and tell him how very much he was coming to mean to her. Her emotions felt too raw, and her pride too tender, for such needy protestations.
For a moment, he seemed almost afraid, then his body steeled as if in defiance, toward her or someone else, she couldn’t know. His eyes burned into her. “Then I will not.”
Chapter Sixteen
Oh! Isn’t it simply darling?”
Poppy’s eyes narrowed over the elaborate lime silk hat poised in Daisy’s hand. “Rather, the most hideous thing in creation.”
Daisy set the hat down with a little sniff. “What you know of fashion, I could fit in a snuff box. Is that a snood you’re wearing in your hair?” Daisy glanced at Miranda with blue eyes that twinkled. “Good lord, I haven’t worn one of those since we were in pinafores.”
“And what you know about the rest of the world, Dandelion,” Poppy cut in sharply, “could fit in my—”
Miranda lifted a bolt of India silk high for inspection, cutting off her line of fire. “Look at this cloth,” she said brightly. “Didn’t Mama have a dress made from this exact pattern when we were girls?”
Daisy ran a gloved finger down the shimmering saffron length. “I do believe she did.” She shrugged. “I suppose old is new again.”
Poppy muttered something about how Daisy ought to know as much firsthand. At the time, Miranda thought it a good idea to take her sisters shopping, believing an outing with Daisy and Poppy might be a fine distraction to the dilemma of Archer.
For days now, the man moved through the house like twilight shadows, there yet shifting away from her should she come too near. Though if she were absolutely truthful with herself, they had been avoiding each other, neither of them feeling so inclined as to discuss what had occurred that night. What did one say? You have touched me, brought me indescribable pleasure. I want more. I want you. Miranda fought off a blush.
No, she would not be the first to succumb. It was too humiliating. She sighed as she opened her mouth to break up yet another squabble when a familiar face flashed among the throngs of shoppers who milled about Liberty & Co.: the slanting gray eyes and dark curling hair of Victoria.
“Do you know her?”
Daisy’s idle question made Miranda jump within her skin.
Miranda smoothed a hand over the silk, feeling the cool through her glove. “Only by introduction.” She glanced sharply at Daisy. “Do you?” She had quite forgotten that Daisy was a veritable walking Debrett’s Peerage.
“Of course.” She tilted her head as Poppy drew near to listen. “Victoria Allernon.”
“Allernon?” It was a jolt to Miranda’s middle. “She told me her name was Archer.”
“As in your husband, Archer?” Poppy’s fine nostrils flared as if catching wind of the hunt.
“She claims to be a cousin to Archer,” Miranda said in a low voice, the three of them tracking Victoria with their eyes while trying, somewhat badly, to look absorbed in the cloth before them.
“A fine thing to say,” said Daisy. “And hardly likely. Though she does know Archer.” Her golden curls swung low as she leaned farther in, the gleam of gossip animating her eyes. “Eight years back, she was heavily involved with a young Lord Marvel…”