“There’s no need—” she began.
“Please,” Daniel urged, “accept it as a token of my thanks and my esteem.”
“Thank you, sir.” She bobbed a curtsey.
“And you, Beekins,” Daniel said. “Is there anything you would like? Anything I can do? Anything I can bring you from London?” Although Daniel had paid the crew a princely sum before the mission, he wanted to do more, for Billy Beekins had proven himself more than trustworthy and capable; he had proven himself a true friend and ally.
Beekins grinned. “There is one thing, sir.”
“Anything,” Daniel replied.
“Call it curiosity.” Beekins looked down at the tops of his shoes, then back at the duke. “But I’m itching to know what sort of social engagement is so important you’re willing to risk your life in order to attend. Will you be meeting the Prime Minister or dining with the Prince Regent?”
“No.” Daniel shook his head, then immediately regretted it. “Someone far more important and far less forgiving. The Duchess of Sussex is hosting her annual gala this evening.” And the Marchioness of St. Germaine would be there waiting for him.
Beekins frowned. “But, sir, that’s your mother.”
“Indeed, she is,” Daniel admitted. “And she would never forgive my absence, or rest until she uncovered the reason for it.” And neither would Miranda. He met Beekins’s gaze. “So word of my midnight activities must never reach her ears …”
Chapter Two
“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure,
till you know there is no hook beneath it.”
—Thomas Jefferson, 1743–1826
LATER THAT EVENING
Sussex House, London
“Good evening, Miranda.” Daniel pushed away from the marble column he’d been leaning against and gave the Marchioness of St. Germaine an awkward little bow as she left the dance floor, then spared a nod for Lord Hollister, her dancing partner and escort. “Hollister. Fancy meeting you here.”
“Your Grace,” Lord Hollister acknowledged, as the last strains of music died away.
“May I?” Daniel reached for the dance card dangling from Miranda’s wrist, opened it, and lifted it high enough for him to read without bending. “I believe this was my dance …” He did his best to keep from sounding disappointed. Miranda always granted him the first and last dances at the duchess’s annual gala.
“You were late,” Miranda told him. “And Lord Hollister kindly took your place.”
Daniel watched as Miranda smiled at the recently widowed viscount.
His gut knotted at the sight.
The pain had nothing to do with his wound and everything to do with the way Miranda was looking at Patrick Hollister. And the way Hollister was looking at her.
Turning slightly, Daniel brushed his lips against Miranda’s gloved hand. He’d seen Miranda smile at other men. He’d admired her as she danced with other men on countless occasions. But this was different. Miranda stood three or four inches taller than Hollister and hadn’t appeared bothered by it in the least. Nor had she seemed bothered by his own tardy arrival, despite the fact that until tonight she had never danced the first dance with anyone but him. Holding her hand a fraction longer than was necessary, Daniel stared over the top of it and met Hollister’s gaze. “Then I’m indebted to you, my lord, for standing in my stead and accompanying Lady Miranda onto the dance floor.”
There was no mistaking the ducal dismissal, but Lord Hollister refused to go silently. “Not at all, Your Grace,” he murmured. “I didn’t consider that I was standing in your stead. For, if truth be known, I took advantage of your absence to dance with the lady of my choice.” Hollister gave Miranda a smile. “And I was honored by her acceptance.”
The knot in Daniel’s stomach grew tighter. He met Hollister’s gaze as he pressed his lips against Miranda’s hand once again, then stepped closer and tucked it into the crook of his arm. “Then I’m certain you won’t object if she honors me with the next dance.”
“No,” Lord Hollister agreed, glancing from Miranda to Daniel and back again. “I don’t suppose I will. Thank you for the dance, Lady Miranda.”
“Thank you, Lord Hollister,” she answered. “For coming to my rescue.”
Hollister bowed to her, then slowly stepped away, leaving her in the Duke of Sussex’s care.
“Your rescue?” Daniel arched an elegant brow at her.
“What would you call it?” she demanded, glaring at him when Lord Hollister moved out of earshot. “Your mother was very surprised and none too pleased to see me.”
He grinned.
“This isn’t funny, Daniel.” She jerked her hand out of the crook of his arm. “The duchess made it quite clear that my name was not on the guest list.”
“Not on her guest list,” Sussex corrected.
“Your mother’s guest list is the only one that matters,” Miranda snapped at him.
“Not to me,” he countered, lowering his voice as he stared into her eyes. “And I invited you.”
“Then you should have had the decency to inform your mother, because hers is the guest list they use at the front door.”
He winced.
Miranda frowned. “You do this to me every year, Daniel, and you know she doesn’t like me crashing her party.”
It was true. His mother had never liked or approved of Miranda. There was, the duchess always said, something unsettling about a girl Miranda’s age inheriting her late father’s title and becoming a peeress in her own right. There was, she said, something shocking about a young woman who considered herself the equal to male peers. Daniel suspected his mother might be more jealous than disapproving, for the duchess had been born an honorable miss and had gained her lofty title by marrying a duke, while Miranda had rightfully inherited hers. So Daniel invited Miranda to the annual gala every year knowing his mother had deliberately omitted her name from the guest list.
It began as a way to right his mother’s injustice, but Daniel had continued to invite Miranda year after year because he enjoyed her company. He had wanted to see her again, to hear her voice and resume the verbal sparring they’d enjoyed during their brief courtship—a courtship that had come to a rather abrupt end when he’d been a few months shy of his majority and certain his dream of becoming a member of the Free Fellows League was within his grasp. Miranda had just inherited her title, and his attraction to her had scared him.
He’d been looking for companionship and a light flirtation.
But Miranda deserved so much more than he could offer her. She had the air of permanence about her. He’d wanted her, but she was a lady and he couldn’t, in good conscience, take what he wanted from her without offering her a wedding ring in return. Nor could he find it in his heart to ask her to wait for him or settle for anything less. He told himself he was doing what was best for both of them, told himself that he had to stop calling on her before he fell madly in love with her, before he went so far as to propose matrimony when he was not ready to settle down, do his duty, and be the sort of husband Miranda deserved.
And when Daniel stopped calling, he and Miranda had gone from would-be lovers to complete adversaries almost overnight.
He should have let her go completely and done everything in his power to forget her. He should have ignored his mother’s pettiness and let Miranda handle the duchess in her own way. But he’d seized the opportunity to intervene instead. Every year he invited her to his mother’s society gala, and every year Miranda responded to his invitation. And Daniel was convinced it wasn’t just to avoid the humiliation of having everyone else in the ton know that hers was the only prominent name that didn’t appear on the duchess’s guest list. She looked forward to seeing him, being with him, verbally sparring with him, every bit as much as he did.
“Yet, you came,” he mused.
“I must be as daft to accept as you are to invite me,” Miranda admitted. “And I promise you it won’t happen again, because this year, Her Grace i
ssued an edict against me and anyone wearing St. Germaine livery.” She looked up at him. “If Lord Hollister hadn’t graciously offered to escort me inside, your mother would have had her footmen escort me back to my carriage.”
“Then I’m doubly indebted to Hollister,” he murmured. “For if she had, it would have marked the end of my mother’s gala evening and her role as hostess here at Sussex House.”
Miranda glanced up at him. A thin line of perspiration beaded his upper lip, and the look in his eyes was hard and implacable. “Daniel, you can’t mean that.”
Daniel softened his gaze as he looked at her. “Oh, but I can,” he said. “After all, this is my house. And as long as I am the duke, you will always be welcomed in it.”
Miranda felt her heart flutter in her chest as she recognized the sincerity in his voice. “It may be your house,” Miranda reminded him, suddenly prepared to be high-minded. “But your mother has had it longer. And she is the duchess.”
“Dowager duchess,” he corrected.
“A duchess all the same.” Miranda sighed. “I grant that your mother dislikes me, but she is your mother and I really don’t enjoy coming here uninvited.”
“You didn’t.”
“How many other guests did you invite?”
“None,” he answered truthfully. “Only you.”
“Why am I the only recipient of the Duke of Sussex’s largesse?”
Daniel smiled at her. “You’re an intelligent woman, Miranda. Surely that shouldn’t be difficult for you to discern …”
He slurred the last word ever so slightly, but Miranda’s heart was thundering so loudly at the look in his eyes and the husky note in his voice that she barely detected it. She giggled softly. “Because everyone else received an invitation from the duchess and you didn’t want to suffer alone?”
The sound of Miranda’s uncertain laugh enchanted him. It was so thoroughly out of the realm of his experience with her. Miranda was never nervous around him. She was never girlish or coy. He knew she expected him to argue, but Daniel leaned closer, suddenly wanting … needing … more from her. “Let’s not argue anymore, Miranda.”
“We always argue,” she told him.
“Not tonight.”
Miranda chuckled again, a wonderful, throaty sound that filled his head with images of her naked and smiling up at him.
She shrugged, thrown off guard and more than a bit captivated by Daniel’s astonishing change from the maddening antagonist with whom she’d clashed during the past few years to the devastatingly attractive gentleman with whom she’d once fallen hopelessly in love. “I’m not quite sure where that leaves us.” She looked up at him. “What shall we do instead?”
“I’m here,” he said, reaching for her hand. “You’re here. And the orchestra’s here. Why not do me the honor of a dance?” He nudged her onto the edge of the dance floor.
Miranda blinked up at him, not certain she’d heard him correctly. “You’re asking me to dance?”
“I am.” Lifting the dance card and tiny pencil dangling from her wrist, he penciled in his name for the current dance and all the others that followed, blithely crossing out the names already listed and adding his own. Although Lord Hollister’s name was written on the first line, his name had been written beside the last dance of the evening. He looked up at her. She hadn’t given up on him entirely. “And it seems I’ve done so in the nick of time, before your card was completely full.”
“You want to dance to this?” She frowned. The orchestra was playing a quadrille, and in all the years she had known him, Miranda had never seen Daniel Sussex partner anyone in a quadrille.
“You know better than that.” He gave her his most devastating smile. Turning in the direction of the orchestra, Daniel held up three fingers, then four, designating the three-quarter time of the waltz.
“Daniel, you can’t!” Miranda protested as soon as she realized his intention. “You know your mother doesn’t allow waltzing at her galas.”
“She’ll allow it at this one,” Daniel replied, signaling for the waltz once again. The orchestra leader glanced at the dowager duchess before giving Daniel an emphatic shake of his head.
Miranda turned to Daniel with a smug, I-told-you-so expression on her face.
But the Duke of Sussex was undaunted. “I’ve no intention of admiring you from a distance as we step our way through an interminable number of old-fashioned squares. Tonight, I’m going to put my hand upon your waist and feel the warmth of your body as we dance.”
Her smug expression died a swift death as he gave voice to his intentions. Her breathing quickened and her heart began a rapid tattoo when Daniel lifted his right hand high into the air, indicated the signet ring bearing the ducal crest, and signaled once again for a waltz in three-quarter time. He kept his hand aloft until the orchestra leader nodded his acquiescence, then slowly lowered his arm, wincing as he did so. “There. See, Miranda?” He turned to her and smiled a wicked smile that sent anticipatory shivers up and down her spine. “With the right incentives, one can accomplish the impossible.”
“I hope so,” she murmured, “because as soon as she hears the music, your mother is sure to put an end to it.”
“Then it’s our only chance.”
“Chance for what?”
“To escape.”
“Escape?” Miranda frowned.
“Into each other’s arms,” he added, leaning close enough for his breath to feather the tendrils of hair at her temple.
She sighed, fighting the almost overwhelming urge to do as he suggested and melt into his embrace. The thought of being held in his arms while they circled the room at a romantically breathtaking pace thrilled her. Daniel was wickedly handsome, and Miranda knew he could be quite charming when he wanted to be. And she knew he had a healthy sense of humor—she’d seen and heard him poke fun at himself and his lofty position in society on a number of occasions. But this was something new. In all the years she’d known him, Daniel had always been in complete control, had always behaved as a consummate gentleman.
She’d never seen his dangerous side before, or experienced this blatantly naughty flirtation. And heaven help her if he decided to put her attraction to the test. Miranda was intrigued and more than a bit excited. She was drawn to him like a moth to a flame, more than willing to singe her wings … until she caught a whiff of his breath. “Daniel, you’re foxed!”
“I am,” he confirmed, swaying on his feet, admiring the depth of her décolletage even as he fought to keep his balance.
“But why?”
“Because I’ve been drinking.”
“Yes, you have.” Miranda struggled to keep from smiling but lost the battle. “My guess is whisky. Quite a bit of it.”
“Quite.” Daniel nodded, swaying on his feet once again. “Lucky for me, I’ve always been able to hold my liquor.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Miranda put out a hand to steady him and felt dampness against his waistcoat. He groaned in obvious pain. “Daniel?”
Daniel glanced down. “Bloody hell.” He reached inside his waistcoat and cursed beneath his breath. “Mistress Beekins won’t be pleased. She told me not to lift my arm.”
Miranda’s ears pricked up at the sound of an unfamiliar female name. “Who is Mistress Beekins?”
“The lady who sewed me up,” Daniel replied matter-of-factly.
“Sewed you up?” Miranda wrinkled her brow in confusion.
Daniel nodded. “In nice, neat stitches.” He frowned. “But it appears to be for naught, because I seem to be bleeding again.” He fought to keep his feet, leaning heavily on Miranda for balance. “There’s the end of the quadrille. Come, Miranda, I want to waltz with you. Now.”
“Have you lost your senses?” she demanded, digging in her heels as he attempted to steer her onto the dance floor. “You’ve been hurt badly enough that someone had to sew you up, and you want to waltz?”
“Sssh!” Daniel warned. “Someone might overhear you.”
She glanced around to make sure no one had overheard her, then lowered her voice. “You said you’re bleeding again. What happened? How badly are you wounded? What sort of trouble are you in?”
“None that I can’t handle,” he replied. “So long as I manage to leave this ballroom without anyone else finding out.”
“Without anyone else finding out that you’re foxed? Or that you’re bleeding and in obvious pain?” Miranda whispered fiercely.
“Yes,” he managed, through tightly clenched teeth, as he offered her his elbow. “Shall we join the others on the dance floor?”
“Good heavens, Daniel!” She looked closely and saw the sheen of perspiration on his face. “You’re in no condition to waltz.”
“Don’t you want to dance with me?” he cajoled.
“Of course I do,” she answered.
“Because I want to dance with you …”
“That’s not the point,” Miranda said. “You shouldn’t be here.”
He looked as if she’d hurt his feelings. “Of course I should be here. What sort of gentleman would I be if I invited you into the lioness’s den, then left you alone to become dinner?”
“Oh, Daniel …”
He stared down at her exposed bosom. “Though I’m sure you’d be a very tasty dinner.”
Miranda gasped, aware that his words had another meaning. She forgot what she intended to say, then remembered. “You ought to be in bed.”
Daniel grinned wickedly. “I’m doing my damnedest to get there.”
“I’m serious,” Miranda replied, her tone laced with concern and the tiniest hint of disapproval.
“So am I,” he replied. “I’m willing to go to bed—just as soon as you waltz me out of here and into the carriage I hope to God you left waiting.” He looked her in the eye. “Tell me, sweet Miranda, will you take me to bed?”
Miranda blushed. How he managed to make his words sound so suggestive when he was barely able to keep his feet was beyond her. “Your bed is upstairs, Your Grace.”
“Up sixty-eight stairs I can’t negotiate,” he admitted. “And even if I could get to my bed without anyone down here noticing, how long do you think it would be before word got around upstairs that I was in my bed instead of at the party? How long before she discovered the reason for my absence?” He leered at her. “Unless you’re willing to join me upstairs and give me a better reason for abandoning the party …”