“And bind myself to you on a whim?” She pretended an outrage she didn’t feel. “For better or worse as long as we both shall live?” She looked him in the eye and said what he wanted to hear, said what he expected her to say. “You must be joking.”
Daniel exhaled. “Then it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d secured a special license?”
The look on his face spoke volumes. Miranda wondered how she was going to bear the pain of knowing he found the idea of marrying her so repugnant. “You did secure one.”
“I don’t believe it.” Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose. “I purchased a special license and took you to St. Michael’s Square?”
Miranda took a deep breath and willed herself not to cry as she met Daniel’s gaze. “That’s right, Your Grace,” she answered softly.
“I don’t remember any of it.”
Miranda looked him in the eye, read the expression on his face, and determined to salvage what she could of her pride by setting his mind to rest. “It happened, Your Grace, but you fell asleep in the carriage before you could repeat your vows, thereby narrowly escaping a leg-shackling to me.”
Daniel’s body sagged with relief. “That explains why I’ve no memory of a wedding ceremony, how I came to be here, or how we came to be sharing a bed.”
The amount of whisky he’d consumed explained why he had no memory of repeating marriage vows or of being carried to this room, but Miranda refrained from pointing it out. He wouldn’t believe it anyway. Because he didn’t want to believe it.
“How did I get here?”
“Ned and I brought you …”
“Ned?”
“My footman,” she reminded him. “You were bleeding quite badly, and I didn’t know where else to take you.” Miranda reached for the brocade robe lying at the foot of the bed, slipped it on over her sheet, then rolled gracefully off the mattress and onto the floor. She had to get away before she made a complete fool of herself.
“Where are you going?”
“Nature calls, Your Grace.” Miranda smiled brightly. Too brightly. And ruthlessly held back the tears threatening to overtake her, but her voice barely wavered. “For me and no doubt for you as well.” Walking around to the foot of the bed, Miranda bent over and pulled the chamber pot from beneath the bed, then handed it to Daniel.
Daniel blinked in surprise. “I may require assistance,” he told her. “Will you send a footman in to help me?”
“Would that I could, Your Grace, but I’m afraid you’ll have to make do without one—or wait until I return to help you.”
“What?” He was truly astonished.
“There’s no one here but us, Your Grace.”
“Ned?” Daniel glanced down at the pink sheet. He was as naked beneath it as she had been.
Surely, Miranda hadn’t …
“Ned carried you up here, put you on the bed, and helped me remove your coat and boots before I sent him home.” She answered his unspoken query. “Under the circumstances, I thought the fewer people who knew the nature and the gravity of your wound, the better.”
Daniel turned his attention to the fresh bandage covering the wound in his side, then back to Miranda. The bleeding had stopped, and although the wound ached like the devil and his head felt as if it would explode, he didn’t feel feverish. “Who tended it?”
“I did.” Miranda shrugged her shoulders. “My needlework isn’t as neat as your Mistress Beekins’s, but I managed to stop the bleeding and disinfect the wound.”
“You sewed me up again?”
“Yes. But I’ve never stitched a person before, so you’ll most likely carry a scar to remind you of your narrow escape from—” She looked at him. “You told me you’d been shot, but you didn’t tell me how it came about.”
“It came about when the man on the other end of the pistol pulled the trigger.”
Miranda felt her heart skip a beat. “Would that man happen to be a certain Mistress Beekins’s husband?”
“Mistress Beekins’s …” Daniel frowned.
“You talk in your sleep, Your Grace.”