The Decadent Countess Read online

  Short and plump, Mrs Fitzgibbon was the antithesis of her son, the only feature they shared being the same pale fair hair. And yet there was something comforting about Mrs Fitzgibbon, a motherly air which further alleviated Miranda’s fears.

  Everything, she decided with relief, would be fine after all!

  Miranda smiled her wide, brilliant smile. Julian’s mother’s response was to purse her lips and wrinkle her brow, her eyes like grey icicles. It was only then, at long last, that Miranda became aware of the definite chill in the air.

  ‘The Duke of Belford is the head of our family,’ Mrs Fitzgibbon said, giving the impression of having uttered a non sequitur. ‘You must address yourself to him. Indeed, I am still far too overcome with grief to speak with you at all, Countess.’

  ‘I am not—’ Miranda began, confused. She wanted to say she was not Countess Ridgeway, she was not Adela. However, before she could do so, she was interrupted by the deep and confident tones of the head of the Fitzgibbon family. She turned to face the Duke, bewildered, the anxiety she had a moment ago relinquished returning in full force.

  ‘I fear, Countess, you have travelled far for very little purpose. My cousin, Julian, though rich with charm and sweetness of character, was not rich in any other form. But you must have realised that already. There is The Grange, of course, but it is unbelievably drafty, falling down in fact. No sensible woman would marry for The Grange!’

  ‘Falling down?’ she managed. It’s old and rickety, but I love it, Julian had said. Surely he would not have bequeathed her a derelict building?

  ‘Well, not quite falling down, Countess, and there is the legend—’

  Mrs Fitzgibbon stopped abruptly and Miranda caught the edge of the sharp glance Belford sent to his aunt. She knew then that the Fitzgibbon family were rallying against her, drawing up their battle lines in some mistaken belief that she was the Countess Ridgeway.

  That she was the enemy.

  Leo hid his annoyance with difficulty. With luck the Countess would not have heard of the legend his aunt was alluding to. That The Grange was the Fitzgibbon talisman, that if ever the old house left the hands of the Fitzgibbon family the Fitzgibbons would be finished. He didn’t believe it himself, but he certainly did not wish to supply the Countess with fresh ammunition.

  ‘Perhaps you married Julian for love alone?’ Leo asked now with deceptive gentleness. ‘In which case no one would be better pleased than I. Did you marry him for love alone?’

  A flash of memory obscured the elegant drawing room and Miranda’s growing fears that she was being outmanoeuvred. Julian with his lean, almost gangly figure and wan good looks, sheltering on the terrace from the hot Italian sun. ‘I’m awfully concerned about you, Miranda,’ his dark blue eyes growing even darker with emotion, until they were the colour of the Mediterranean on a sunny day. ‘You know I’m dying, don’t you? Of course you do! Everyone does. I’ve made no secret of it. I’m here because my family insisted—they believed the climate would do me good—and I didn’t want to disappoint them. But I fear no amount of Italian sun or Italian wine will cure me now.’

  In the year Miranda knew him, Julian had always been very matter of fact when it came to his illness. He hadn’t allowed anyone to feel sorry for him. Or sad. He had lived his life, he said, and had no complaint. There had been only one more thing he wished to do before he passed on, and that was to marry Miranda and, as Julian had half-jokingly avowed, rescue her from her wicked stepmama.

  ‘I am a respectable gentleman and I come from a good family,’ he had declared. ‘The Fitzgibbons go back for centuries, you know, and every one of them was determined to have his way. And they usually did. So you see, Miranda, it’s no use refusing me. I mean to help you, and help you I will!’

  Miranda blinked and Julian was gone. She was back in the house in Berkeley Square, back in the nightmare. The Duke of Belford was watching her. ‘Countess?’ he murmured, waiting for the answer to his question. And then suddenly, startlingly, he smiled. It was a revelation. If he had reached out and brushed his fingers over her face, Miranda could not have been more affected.

  ‘Countess?’ he repeated. Now a frown creased that broad, strong forehead and drew down the well-shaped brows. Suspicion narrowed his remarkable eyes.

  Miranda stared back at him and wondered if she had by some mischance wandered into the wrong house. That the Duke and Julian’s mother had mistaken her identity was obvious. Equally obvious was the fact she must set them right. She opened her mouth to do so, at the same time reaching into her reticule for Julian’s letter, but she was again interrupted by Belford.

  ‘So, it was not love after all? A pity. Well, let us be frank, Countess. I believe you are a woman who likes to be…frank.’

  He made the word sound almost obscene. Adela, the real countess, would have laughed and made some ribald reply. Miranda was so startled the words of explanation dried up in her throat. Meanwhile, Belford continued matter-of-factly, as if he were saying something quite unremarkable.

  Miranda could not know that, beneath his civilised exterior, Belford was just as bewildered as she.

  And the lack of his usual equilibrium was making him angry.

  ‘I will pay you ten thousand pounds, the amount to be placed in a bank in Italy for you to draw on as required. I will also pay your passage back to Italy, which is now and must ever remain your home. It goes without saying that The Grange will revert to the Fitzgibbon family.’ Again he smiled, that devastating stretch of the lips, but now it had lost its magic for Miranda.

  He was a devil, and she was beginning to hate him.

  Leo saw the glitter in those magnificent eyes. Ah, that had caught her attention! She wasn’t happy to be rumbled so soon into her nasty game. Well, she’d be even less happy when he was finished with her!

  Leo took a step closer, trying to intimidate her with his superior height and size. The Countess, however, was tall enough not to be intimidated, and she straightened her back and glared up at him. Leo could not help but be impressed. She had courage, he’d give her that! It was a pity she was totally without scruples, or morals…

  Startled at the direction his thoughts were taking, Leo mentally ordered himself back to the point. His voice grew quiet but deadly. ‘You may believe that in marrying Julian you have found the goose that lays golden eggs. Be quite certain, madam, that this is the only golden egg you will ever receive. If you come back for more I will not be so generous. I consider it bad form to hoodwink innocent men into marriage.’

  His eyes dropped downwards. ‘What is that?’

  Miranda blinked. His ultimatum—for that was clearly what it was—had frozen her to the spot. Now she followed the direction of his gaze and realised she had taken Julian’s letter from her reticule, meaning perhaps to show it to him, to explain his mistake.

  There was a moment when she might still have spoken the truth. Cleared up this awful misunderstanding. Like a spluttering candle the moment flickered and died. There was another flame growing inside her. Anger. It burned brighter and brighter, until it was too great to be doused. The heat of it flooded through Miranda until every ounce of her usual common sense had melted.

  How dare he…they…he speak to her in this fashion! How dare he…they…he make threats to her when she had come here hoping for the consideration due to Julian’s wife!

  She would make them…him sorry!

  Miranda crushed the letter in her fist. ‘This?’ she repeated in a loud and brittle voice. ‘Why, this, sir, is a list of my expenses!’

  Her eyes lifted to his and flashed fury.

  Leo, momentarily taken aback by those glittering eyes, drew a quick breath. By God, she was a beauty! A pity she was such a hardened harridan. Once again, he saw how easily a susceptible man could be drawn into her clutches. That flawless skin, the wide mouth and proud chin, that slim, straight body…

  A jarring thought occurred to him.

  Leo frowned. Surely this woman was too young to be the
Decadent Countess? When she had entered the room, he had vaguely noticed that she was somewhat drawn and tired from the long journey. Now she seemed to have thrown off her weariness and fairly burned with vitality. And youth. Leo’s eyes narrowed.

  Could it be that Italians had aids to beauty yet unheard of in England?

  Once one anomaly had entered his mind, Leo found others. When she had arrived she had seemed unsure of herself, lacking the assurance of a woman of the world. Almost an innocent. Not at all as Leo had expected her to be after his aunt’s damning description. Was that part of her duplicity or…what?

  Leo’s frown deepened, and he stepped yet closer. He was not quite sure what he meant to do or say, only that it was imperative he question her further.

  ‘What do you mean by expenses, Countess?’

  Miranda bared her teeth at him in a patently false smile.

  ‘My charges are a little high, I am told, but well worth the paying.’

  ‘Charges!’ Mrs Fitzgibbon gasped, reeling back, her hand clutched to her bosom. ‘My poor, poor boy—’

  All of Leo’s burgeoning doubts vanished. Only a harpy could speak so boldly. However sweet and innocent the Decadent Countess might have looked upon her arrival, he now knew that Julian’s wife was even blacker than she had been painted. He would rid his family of her if it was the last thing he did! However, when he spoke, his moderate tones betrayed nothing of the intensity of his true feelings. And only someone who knew him very well would have noticed the splash of colour high on his cheek bones or the deepening of the blue of his eyes, both indicating his extreme anger.

  ‘I am sure, Aunt Ellen, the Countess is a sensible woman. She will accept my offer.’

  Miranda laughed. Her own anger made her reckless. She wanted to grab this man by his immaculate coat and shake him. Hard. She did the next best thing, and shook him with her words, which she spoke in a brilliant portrayal of Adela’s offhand manner. So they thought her vulgar and unworthy to bear the Fitzgibbon name? Then let her show them how vulgar she could be!

  ‘I suppose I will consider it. That is all I can say for now. I have come to London to enjoy myself, and that is what I intend to do. Tell me, your Grace, where are the best shops and the best houses? I hope I can obtain tickets for Almack’s. And what is a gaming hell? Oh, I mean to sample everything!’

  Mrs Fitzgibbon blanched and gasped. ‘But…a woman unaccompanied! You cannot mean to—’

  ‘Oh, I am sure there can be no harm in Mrs Julian Fitzgibbon going about on her own. The name is so respectable, is it not?’ The look she gave them was arch in the extreme. ‘In Italy, I do very much as I please, but of course you have heard that.’

  There was a meaningful silence.

  ‘Where do you stay while you are in London?’ Leo enquired softly. ‘The docks?’

  Miranda did not know the docks were notorious for seedy taverns, but she guessed it from the savage gleam in his eyes. Devil! Her heart beat harder and her fingers turned white as they gripped the strings of her reticule. If only it was his throat she held between her hands, she thought with uncharacteristic venom, if only she could squeeze and squeeze until his bullying look turned to contrition.

  ‘I thought I would stay here,’ she announced, idly glancing about her at the elegant room, pretending to find fault with the tasteful decor. ‘But, no, it will not do. I am used to more colourful surroundings. Italy is so vivid. Who would have thought a duke’s house would be so dull? No, I will put up at a modish hotel. Can you suggest one?’

  He stared back at her as if he’d like to throttle her. It was Julian’s mother who spoke, her words breathless and stumbling. ‘I—I believe Armstrong’s Hotel is very good, C-Countess.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am!’ Miranda curtsied prettily. ‘I will go to Armstrong’s then, and send you the bill, your Grace.’

  Leo bowed low, insultingly low.

  Miranda turned and swept from the room.

  Mrs Fitzgibbon turned and stared at her nephew. Her mouth was ajar, her eyes as large as duck eggs. ‘You said you’d deal with it,’ she managed in a shaking voice. ‘Leo, you have made it worse!’

  Leo turned his back on his aunt and went to stand at the window. He was very shaken. Some deep turbulence was at work inside his usually unflappable interior and his head felt quite light. This was so uncharacteristic of him, he wondered if he were coming down with a cold. That would also explain his unusually clumsy handling of what should have been a simple matter.

  The truth was Leo had grown too used to getting his own way, to ordering things very much as he wanted them. His life had been in his control, and now quite suddenly the reins had been snatched from his hands.

  At that moment a slim figure appeared on the street below him.

  The Countess straightened her hat and then stared down at her hand. Leo watched her hesitate and then slip her crumpled list of expenses back into her reticule, before marching to her waiting hackney. The vehicle pulled away from Fitzgibbon House and joined the sedate traffic. It left the Duke of Belford, normally so imperturbable, a deeply troubled man.

  Chapter Two

  Armstrong’s Hotel was large and comfortable and definitely modish.

  Unfortunately Julian, as Miranda had been reminded by his odious cousin, had not been wealthy, and Armstrong’s was clearly for those who were. But Miranda didn’t presently care about such minor details. Still riding high on the crest of the anger that had carried her from Berkeley Square, she ordered a room, was granted it, and ascended the staircase with her boxes and trunks carried behind her.

  She had had the foresight, before she left Italy, of obtaining a letter from her father’s bank. Her father’s credit had never been good, but the bank was too polite to say that. The main purpose of the letter was to confirm Miranda’s identity, and, equally importantly, her relationship-by-marriage to the Duke of Belford.

  Armstrong’s couldn’t do enough for her.

  When the door had closed and silence filled the room, Miranda sank down on a comfortable brocade-covered chair and considered her options.

  They were few enough.

  Belford—Trust Leo, Miranda!—had failed her and, by association, Julian. She would never now be welcomed into the Fitzgibbon family; indeed, she would be lucky if they ever spoke to her again. Not that she cared! Oh, no! As far as she was concerned, they could think her Adela, the Decadent Countess, forever.

  If it were not so infuriating, the mistake would be laughable. Despite her excellent state of preservation, Adela was at least forty. Still attractive, though increasingly reliant upon cosmetics, she was not at all like Miranda. Adela was petite with dark hair and a small, pixie face… Miranda reminded herself that the Fitzgibbons had obviously never met Adela.

  But people met strangers every day and did not accuse them of being who they were not!

  The Decadent Countess!

  Miranda had overheard the sobriquet at school in Hampshire and had never forgotten it. She could not say that the scandalous nickname exactly suited Adela, but she could see how it came about. Adela had a wicked smile and an equally wicked gleam in her eye. Even before Adela had married Papa, she had been a trifle rackety; now that she was widowed, she declared herself beyond caring when it came to social strictures and niceties. She therefore gave herself permission to do exactly as she pleased.

  When Miranda arrived in Italy she had tried to dislike Adela. Adela was so very different from her own gentle and diffident mama. Adela was lazy and careless and lacking what Miranda had always believed to be quite a few of the more important morals. But she was also great fun, had a ready and infectious laugh, and a genuinely kind and generous heart. Adela was the sort of woman who could never resist a sad story or a charity, and subsequently her house was always full of those deserving—and not so deserving—of her generosity.

  Miranda had tried many times to persuade Adela to rein in her kind heart, as well as her purse strings, but restraint was not her strong suit. And so, even
before her husband died, Adela had presided over a villa filled with the odd, the pitiable, the genuinely desperate, and sometimes, the unsavory.

  When her father died over a year before, Miranda had not deserted her rackety stepmama—indeed, where would she go? Besides, despite her shortcomings, or maybe because of them, Miranda had grown very fond of Adela.

  Even Julian had been fond of her, disapprove of her as he might. Certainly he had been appalled by Miranda’s domestic situation. Upon arriving in Italy, Miranda had lived a hand-to-mouth existence with her father and stepmama. She had felt safe enough while her papa was alive; he had looked after her in his own careless way. Unfortunately, her papa had caught a fever and died, and then it had been just Miranda and Adela in the increasingly dilapidated Villa Ridgeway with Adela’s increasingly disreputable guests.

  That was when Julian had begun to grow seriously worried.

  ‘Don’t misunderstand me.’ Julian had smiled his amiable smile. ‘I think your stepmama is great fun. One could never be bored at her soirees. But, Miranda, you have to admit, it isn’t quite the thing. Not for a girl like you. Only think what might have happened last week if I had not come along when I did?’

  Miranda had thought, and shuddered. She had been followed on to the terrace and kissed wetly by one of Adela’s many so-called admirers, although this ‘gentleman’ appeared more smitten with Miranda than her stepmama. Until that moment Miranda really had thought herself safe.

  She preferred a quiet and unassuming existence, or at least that was what she had always told herself. ‘Dear Miranda takes after her mother,’ the Count had often said, sometimes with disappointment, sometimes—if Adela had been particularly exhausting—with relief. Miranda was a subdued and practical girl, who liked to paint—not very well—and take long walks. Hers was a calm beauty, all the more so when set against Adela’s vivaciousness.