Truly a Wife (Free Fellows League 4)

She pursed her lips in thought. Whatever they held, the leather dispatch pouches were important and obviously on Daniel’s mind—so much so that he was dreaming about them, worrying about the completion of his mission and demanding Micah’s word of honor that he—that she—would see that the leather pouches made it safely into Shepherdston’s hands.

Miranda had gleaned enough information from Daniel’s feverish ranting to understand that he was engaged in a business venture with Jarrod Shepherdston. Griffin Abernathy and Colin McElreath were also engaged in business ventures with Jarrod Shepherdston. But Griffin, Colin, and Jarrod had been friends since childhood. Miranda didn’t find it odd that they should be involved in business together. But Daniel hadn’t been one of Abernathy’s, McElreath’s, or Shepherdston’s friends or associates growing up. He’d attended Eton instead of the Knightsguild School for Gentlemen, where the other three had received their schooling.

Now that she thought about it, Miranda remembered that Daniel hadn’t been close friends with the other three when he’d been halfheartedly pursuing Alyssa Carrollton three years ago, either. He’d been very much the outsider then. So much so that Griffin couldn’t remain in the same room with him for long. His close association with the other three men had come after Griffin returned home from the war in the Peninsula, after Daniel had lent his support and had had a hand in helping Colin’s new viscountess avoid a nasty scandal.

How was it that Daniel had formed so close an attachment to Griffin and Colin’s friend, the Marquess of Shepherdston, within three years that they would venture into business together? And what sort of business was it that would make a sitting duke like Daniel willingly defer to a marquess?

Was it possible that Griffin and Colin didn’t know about Daniel’s and Shepherdston’s joint venture?

Miranda nodded. It was possible. Anything was possible in the world of business, but it wasn’t very likely. Abernathy, McElreath, and Shepherdston were as close as brothers—closer than brothers. As far as Miranda knew, they didn’t keep secrets from one another. If Daniel was reporting to Shepherdston, it was very likely that the other two friends were not only aware of it but equal partners in the venture.

A venture in which Daniel had managed to get shot.

Miranda found the idea of a partnership among the four men as intriguing as it was unsettling. What venture could attract four of London’s most industrious peers of the realm? A great many ventures. But what sort of venture would get them shot?

Snatching Daniel’s trousers from the floor once again, she determined to find out. She unbuttoned the buttons, stepped into the superfine breeches, and drew his trousers over her hips once again. She stuffed the tails of her borrowed nightshirt inside the trousers, then grabbed Daniel’s cravat and threaded the linen through the top buttonholes, wrapped the length of cloth around her waist, cinched in the waistband, and secured it with a deftly crafted four-in-hand. Her feet were large for a woman’s, but Miranda knew they wouldn’t fill Daniel’s shoes. Retrieving her dancing slippers, Miranda shoved her bare feet into them, tied the ribbons, and shrugged into Daniel’s bloodied coat and waistcoat.

Glancing at her reflection in the mirror hanging over the massive chest of drawers, Miranda saw that she made a rather odd-looking gentleman wearing her father’s nightshirt and Daniel’s jacket, waistcoat, and trousers and using Daniel’s cravat as a belt to hold them up. She smiled, certain she’d be the only gentleman on Park Lane wearing a four-in-hand at her waist instead of at her neck and dancing slippers on her feet instead of black leather shoes. Reaching up, she removed the diamond clips from her hair, dropped them on the top of the chest of drawers, then twisted her hair into a tight knot, pinned it into place, and settled Daniel’s silk hat atop it.

Miranda took an experimental step and decided she could learn to enjoy not being encumbered by skirts. She could learn to enjoy wearing trousers. So much so that she was seriously considering having a pair tailored for her to wear in the privacy of her home. The servants would be scandalized, of course, and her mother might raise an eyebrow, but they would keep her secret. Trousers suited her. She was tall and long-legged and a marchioness in her own right, equal in rank to any marquess. It was a shame women weren’t allowed to wear trousers. What would Daniel think if he saw her dressed like this?

She glanced over her shoulder at the bed. Daniel was sleeping soundly once again, and while Miranda was glad that his tossing and turning had come to an end, she couldn’t help wishing she could see his reaction to her unconventional costume. It would prove that while she might not be a featherweight, she wasn’t in the Duchess of Devonshire’s league either.

The fact that she was taller than most men of her acquaintance might work in her favor during this, the most imprudent undertaking of her life. Miranda shook her head, dislodging Daniel’s silk hat in the process. It wasn’t enough that she had helped Daniel escape from his mother’s party, now she was about to walk through the streets of London at night on what was likely to be a wild goose chase in order to keep her word of honor to Daniel. And if she was lucky and no one looked too closely at her strange attire, she might make it as far as the Marquess of Shepherdston’s unscathed.

What would happen afterward was anyone’s guess. Because whatever the nature of the venture in which Daniel and Shepherdston were involved, Miranda knew it wasn’t for the purpose of increasing their wealth. Daniel, Griffin, and Jarrod had been born with more money than they would ever need, and Colin had fallen in love with and married an heiress, so their venture had to be something more important than the mere making of money.

Miranda knew that Griffin, Duke of Avon, had purchased the Knightsguild School for Gentlemen and was renovating the building and grounds in preparation for a new sort of college and training ground for officers and gentlemen. Griffin’s experiences fighting in the Peninsula Campaigns had taught him a great deal about the nature of war and the men who fought it. Bonaparte had not only changed the map of Europe, but he was rapidly changing the way wars were fought and won. There was nothing romantic, chivalrous, or gentlemanly about the Peninsula Campaigns.

War was dirty and brutal and deadly, and Griff was convinced that in order to defeat Bonaparte and the tyrants that would follow him, the British Army had to modernize not only its weaponry but its entire method of operation, and that meant educating its officers. He intended to use Knightsguild as a training center for British officers and their support staffs.

Miranda had heard Griff speak of his plans many times, but she’d never heard Daniel’s name mentioned in conjunction with the plans for Knightsguild. In all the time she’d spent with Griff and Alyssa, she’d never heard either one of them breathe a word about Daniel’s financial or physical participation in the venture.

And if it wasn’t making money or spending money on the renovations at Knightsguild, in what venture were Daniel, Griffin, Colin, and Jarrod engaged?

What sort of venture would attract those four extraordinary men?

Miranda grinned. Not venture, she decided, at last. Adventure. What adventure had attracted them? What adventure involved the delivery of cargo and leather dispatch pouches and included gunfire?

Miranda sucked in a breath at her incredible naïveté and at Daniel’s reckless, foolhardy, stupid, and endearingly romantic sense of adventure.

Great Mars and Jupiter! What was she waiting for? Her new husband was a smuggler—and she was about to join the adventure and become an accomplice in order to make certain that Daniel had completed his mission.

Chapter Nine

“The day shall not be up so soon as I,

To try the fair adventure of to-morrow.”

—William Shakespeare, 1564–1616

King John

She was a fool.

A fool married to a smuggler. A fool who’d forgotten about the rain when she’d hurried out of the house on Curzon Street and begun her mission. Now she was standing in the shadows beneath the eaves of Viscount Walcott’s town house, hidden against the branches of a massive early blooming lilac bush, staring across the street at the Marquess of Shepherdston’s house and shivering inside the shoulders of Daniel’s jacket. She’d forgotten about the rain when she’d slipped out of the Curzon Street house and made her way to Park Lane, and now she was wet, cold, and miserable. Daniel’s hat offered protection from a vertical downpour, but it provided no protection from the horizontal rain, or the wind that had been blowing rain in her face ever since she’d embarked on this foolhardy mission. Her borrowed costume was soaked, and for the first time in her life, Miranda could truly say she no longer had a thing to wear.

The brocade robe she’d found in the armoire in her father’s room was the only dry garment left at Curzon Street that would fit her or Daniel, and Miranda had been saving it for him. Now she was going to be reduced to donning her sheet toga and going barefooted until Ned returned with fre