The Decadent Countess Page 23
The interlude which followed was very satisfactory to them both. When at last they broke apart, Miranda was flushed and breathless, but perfectly happy. He watched her a moment, smiling in the smug, self-satisfied manner she used to loath but which now, she told herself, she perfectly understood. A man who could kiss as well as Leo kissed had a right to be smug.
‘Will you marry me, Miranda?’
Her eyes searched his, while her mind sought and rejected various replies. It was a serious moment, and yet she felt sure enough of Leo to opt for a frivolous answer. Leo saw the teasing smile begin to curve her wide mouth. ‘And are you prepared to devote yourself entirely to me?’ she murmured, her voice soft and husky.
Leo’s arms tightened about her and he felt a strong need to kiss her again. He restrained himself.
‘Entirely, my love.’
‘You know what Pendle will think of this, Leo. He may very well leave you entirely.’
‘If that is the case, then I will bear it as best I can, but I fear he will not leave either of us, my love.’
‘Then, yes, I will marry you, Leo.’
There followed another interlude, but this time when Leo lifted his head it was to find that Miranda’s eyes had lost their dreamy look. She moved a little away from him, straightening her back slightly, and bracing herself in the way Leo had learned meant his love was about to broach some serious matter.
‘Leo, I want to talk to you about Julian.’
Leo forestalled her. ‘I know we must talk of Julian. I know you were very…fond of him. Miranda, I do not expect you to feel for me what you felt for him. Not at first. I know you must grieve for him. Julian was my favourite cousin, and I miss him, too. You came to The Grange because it was his gift to you. I saw that from the first. I understand.’
He was smiling at her, a warm, hopeful smile.
‘But, Leo, you don’t understand,’ she said, tears shining in her eyes. ‘He did leave me The Grange, and I felt it my—my duty to visit it. I didn’t expect to love it so. I have always wanted a normal home and a normal life. I thought I could find those things here.’
‘Miranda—’
‘No, wait.’ She gathered herself again. ‘By the time I married Julian he was very ill. He…we…’ She sighed. ‘I know he was devoted to me, but we did not kiss very much, and certainly we did not know a proper married life. I was very fond of him, he was a dear man, and he came to my aid when I most needed him, but I did not love him. Not as I love you.’
Leo was astonished. He remembered his wild jealousy whenever he imagined Julian and Miranda together, and the childish fears that had consumed him whenever she mentioned Julian’s name. He had been a fool, he thought in disgust, and nearly laughed aloud. He stopped himself in time. Miranda was watching him with such an anxious expression; laughter was probably not the best option.
‘Dearest Miranda,’ he said, and first kissed her brow, then the tip of her nose, and then her lips. ‘I confess, with some shame, that I have been very envious of my cousin’s good fortune, but now I think that I must thank him.’
‘Thank him?’ she whispered.
‘For sending you to me.’
Her gaze slid over his face, searching for the truth in what he was saying, and accepting it.
‘Do you think he knew…?’
Leo grinned, he was finding it difficult to keep a smile off his face. ‘Probably. Julian understood more about the human heart than we will ever know. Maybe he realised that what I needed was a saucy, hot-headed girl with whom I could share my vast knowledge of the pleasures of the flesh—’
‘And what I needed was a bossy, arrogant man who thought he knew what was best for me,’ Miranda retorted, trying not to blush.
He held her slightly away from him. ‘Am I bossy?’ he asked in surprise.
Miranda didn’t reply, but the lift of her brows was answer enough.
He frowned, and spoke defensively. ‘If I am a little…autocratic, then it is because I have need to be. I am the head of the Fitzgibbon family, Miranda. It is expected that I run matters. I do not always enjoy what I do, in fact, before I met you, I had begun to find it extremely tiresome, but I am a man who is used to leading. It is natural for me to take charge.’
He stopped, and now it was his cheeks which were stained with colour. ‘You find this amusing, Miranda?’
‘No, of course not. I’m sorry to smile, Leo. I just can’t help but be a little amused when you sound so humble and you are so obviously not.’
‘Miranda,’ he said softly, ‘until you came into my life it was very bleak. I did not even realise that was the case, although I knew I was lonely. Not the loneliness of one who is without friends, but an emptiness of the spirit.’
Miranda had lost all desire to laugh. She touched his arm gently. ‘Leo, I have felt that too. Perhaps our meeting was destined after all.’
‘A duke has a certain position to uphold, I cannot hide from that. But if I could have you as my duchess, Miranda, I would be the happiest duke in England.’
Tears sparkled in her dark eyes and the words burst out of her. ‘Leo, I love you and I want to marry you, but what of my stepmama? She is not exactly good ton, and although that distresses me for your sake, I could never abandon her. She has been kind to me, and I love her. Do not ask me to give her up. Do not ask me to choose!’
Miranda’s dark eyes gazed into his, her soft mouth trembling with emotion. Very briefly, Leo wondered if his consequence was such that it would allow him to rise above the scandal a relationship-by-marriage to the infamous Decadent Countess would bring down upon his name and that of his family.
Almost at once, he decided he honestly didn’t care.
He wanted Miranda—he had wanted her even when he thought her the Decadent Countess. How could he allow himself to blight his own happiness by forcing such a choice upon the woman he loved? And he knew enough about Miranda by now to realise she was loyal to a fault. She would never agree to abandon her infamous stepmama, even if her action meant blighting her own happiness.
‘If it would make you happy, my love, I would send to Italy for your stepmama right now and throw open my home to her and all her disreputable friends.’
‘Leo,’ she whispered, teetering on the verge of hope, ‘my stepmama is not in Italy. She is in Somerset. She arrived this afternoon.’
Leo froze for only a second before rising manfully to the occasion. ‘All the better, my love!’
Miranda stared at him as if she were not certain she had heard him correctly, and then she gave him a smile that made every word worthwhile. Her heart was in that smile, as well as admiration and relief and sheer love.
‘Oh, Leo, I would never ask you to do that, but that you should offer to do so… You must truly love me!’
‘Of course I do, Miranda.’
She went into his arms, enjoying every blissful moment. Her journey had come to end. She had found Leo, and now all would be well.
She was hardly aware of Jack’s crowing voice, drifting across from the other side of the room. ‘See, Sophie! I told you it was a case between ’em!’
ISBN: 978-1-4592-3172-6
THE DECADENT COUNTESS
First North American Publication 2005
Copyright © 2003 by Deborah Miles
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