Of course, he had to do so or he risked the crime of being impolite. She leaned back on the settee and closed her eyes as a heavy hint that he was expected to leave.
After a long moment, she heard him sigh as he rose to his feet. She dared a peek in time to see him bowing, concern in his eyes. “Might I fetch you a glass of water, Miranda?”
Considering she hadn’t actually agreed to him using her first name, this felt like a liberty, but she ignored it. Instead, she shook her head feebly. “Thank you, no, I have the tea tray. A short period of quiet repose will be best. I know this of yore. A little peace and quiet and I shall be quite restored to walk home with my daughter when she returns. You need not trouble yourself to wait on me.”
The sound of his heavy footsteps moving towards the door told her he was doing as he’d been asked, but probably with reluctance.
Thank goodness. But at least she’d won herself some sort of reprieve, even if she hadn’t managed to say no to him. If only her own mama hadn’t drummed into her how polite and acquiescing a young lady should be. Even though she now fought against it, and had indeed rather over-inculcated a desire to be independent in her daughters, she herself couldn’t overcome the habit drummed into her as a child. Politeness first, one’s own will last.
When the door closed, she opened her eyes again but remained leaning back in the chair in case he returned.
When he did not, she sat up and looked towards the tall windows. Yes, she would go and take a look.
Harry and Melissa were walking across the lawn, and Melissa was laughing. Miranda’s heart rose. This was going to work. How couldanyone be immune to her oldest daughter’s many charms? Impossible. Congratulating herself, she went and sat down again. Yes, she would indeed close her eyes for a short while, content in the belief that her plan was going to work. How could it not?
Sir Julian barkedan angry order at one of Madeley’s servants to go and fetch his horse and hurry up about it, and snatched his hat from another without a word of thanks. As he waited for the horse to be led around to the front of the house, he glared at the portrait of Sir Geoffrey, his erstwhile friend, where it hung above the staircase. How damned smug the man looked. Well, he was dead now and he, Sir Julian, would have his wife by hook or by crook.
A conviction that Sir Geoffrey had not deserved to have been married for nearly twenty years to the most beautiful girl in the county, no, in the country, swelled in his breast. It was not an unfamiliar sensation, as it had been one he’d nurtured throughout those entire twenty years and had been the reason he’d issued so many invitations to his friend to dine at Thornby. It had also been the reason his wife had been so bad tempered with him, as he wasn’t a man who found it easy to hide his feelings. A suspicion that Sir Geoffrey had guessed them, but had rejoiced in flaunting Miranda in front of him existed. Yes, the man had been infernally smug and that damned portrait painter had captured him all too well.
Madeley’s butler was lurking by the front door, no doubt waiting to see him on his way. Obsequious creature. He probably thought Miranda had given him, Sir Julian, the biggest catch in Northamptonshire, the cold shoulder. “Her ladyship is indisposed,” Sir Julian snapped, bristling with annoyance that a servant might be so ill-mannered as to laugh at him behind his back. “A megrim.” Probably the whole damn lot of them were laughing at him. Probably Sir Henry would laugh too. He looked the sort to poke fun at another fellow’s humiliation.
The butler, face expressionless, opened the front door at the sound of hoofbeats on gravel and Sir Julian stomped outside without even a nod of acknowledgement for the man. Without a word, he mounted his horse and turned it towards the gates. A sharp jab with his heels set the animal into a canter down the drive. He did not look back.
Once outside on the lane he slowed to a trot, and then, as he fell into rumination, down into a walk. He’d made a mistake. He’d overplayed his hand and shown it before he was sure it was a winner. And she’d rebuffed him.
He snorted so loudly his horse startled and he had to grab a handful of its mane to stay on. He was not a natural rider.
He’d been driven to the declaration. To proposing. That was what had happened. It hadn’t been his fault. He’d had to do it. He’d seen the way Sir Henry had looked at Miranda and it had jolted him out of his self-satisfied reverie in which he’d seen Miranda as an easily attainable goal. He’d been secretly glad when he’d discovered she’d been left penniless by her husband. That had made her, in his eyes, so much more vulnerable. She was a lady, and as such was used to a certain standard of living that surely some old farmhouse wouldn’t afford. And of course, he could offer her Thornby and all his wealth. He hadn’t meant to offer dowries for those annoyingly rude girls, who clearly hated him, but he’d done it, thinking that he needed to bring out the big guns. Make her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
But she had.
He frowned. Or had she? He couldn’t quite be sure. She’d mentioned waiting a year or two, but, he wasn’t afraid to admit, he didn’t want to wait that long. She was so damned beautiful. In his mind he saw her sweet smile, her wide blue eyes, her golden hair, her plump breasts… He had to straighten his breeches at that point as they’d become unaccountably uncomfortable. Yes, those breasts…
For a few minutes he allowed himself to picture what owning those breasts might be like. Seeing them every day in their fullsplendor, touching them and other parts he hardly dared think about. Oh dear. He really had to stop as riding in this condition was not comfortable.
But his lascivious dreams did more than arouse him. They brought about a determination to fulfil his wish to possess her. Of course she was being coy and demure with him, but what woman didn’t want to live a life of luxury and service the daily needs of an important gentleman like he was. He was a magistrate, for crying out loud. Nightly needs, in fact. She was just playing a game with him, with her misguided wish to extend the mourning for her husband to a ridiculous length.
No, she hadn’t meant her rebuttal at all. She’d smiled at him so sweetly that what she’d really meant was that she needed a man to sweep her off her feet and carry her away and marry her and…he must not allow his thoughts to continue or he’d have to dismount and sort himself out.
Yes. That was it. He needed to make a grand romantic gesture. That was what ladies liked, with their strange female brains that held so little intelligence and their foolish desire for more than just passion. And he could make that gesture. All he needed was some organization and she would be his. Once he had her, she’d change her mind about waiting. She’d recognize his ardor. She’d see the advantages he could bring her.
But what about those pesky daughters of hers? Boarding schools, perhaps? In the vague attempt to make ladies out of them. Good idea.
Feeling much better, Sir Julian urged his horse into a canter, in a hurry to arrive home and set in motion his plan to sweep Miranda off her feet.
