Holding her breath, Miranda bent at the waist and bundled her clothes into a tight ball and left them on the floor. She straightened to her full height, crossed the room, and opened the door to the massive French armoire. She was delighted to discover it held an assortment of nightgowns and undergarments, until she realized that the woman who had left them behind was half her size. Miranda held up a delicate lawn nightgown. It was no bigger than a child’s nightdress and had probably been wore by a tiny, small-boned, delicate sort of creature who made Miranda look like the female version of Goliath.
Still, Miranda kept searching. It had been her father’s house. Surely, something of his had been left behind. But her search yielded nothing for her to wear.
Daniel’s jacket was the least bloody of all his garments, but the cut of his formal evening attire meant that his jacket wouldn’t cover any of the essentials. Neither would his waistcoat. His shirt would cover her, but having just shed her own soiled garments, Miranda was in no hurry to replace them with his bloody shirt. But his trousers were salvageable.
Since she needed something to put on to make her way downstairs, Miranda reached for them. She was only two or three inches shorter than Daniel, and because she, as he had phrased it so indelicately, “was no featherweight herself” there was a good chance that she matched him in size as well.
The thought was morbidly depressing, but she was desperate to get out of her dress, and Daniel’s trousers offered a solution to her dilemma.
Taking a deep breath, Miranda stepped into Daniel’s superfine evening trousers. “If they fit,” she vowed, “I’ll never eat another morsel as long as I live.”
They didn’t.
Miranda was torn between delight and consternation. Now she knew that although his trousers made him appear slimmer of hip, she was slimmer. The trousers that fit Daniel like a second skin gaped at her waist and refused to stay anchored around her hips. Turning toward the bed, Miranda gave in to a childish impulse and stuck her tongue out at Daniel. She might not be a featherweight, but she wasn’t a heavyweight either. There wasn’t an ounce of extra fat on her. She was exceptionally tall for a woman, and there was no denying that she possessed a generous bosom, but her stomach was flat and her hips, buttocks, and thighs were considerably slimmer than his.
And that left her with nothing to wear, unless … She snatched one of the two remaining sheets from the arm of the chair, wrapped it around her body, tied it into place with Daniel’s cravat, then draped the tail over her shoulder in toga fashion.
After securing her toga into place, Miranda gathered her clothes and carried them out of the master bedchamber, down the stairs to the scullery.
She left her ruined clothes in a wooden washtub she found in the scullery because there was nothing she could do to salvage them. Miranda possessed a number of domestic skills—more than most ladies of her station—and the fact that she had any domestic talents at all was almost entirely due to her mother and to Alyssa Abernathy. But as far as she knew, neither her mother’s nor Alyssa’s vast store of domestic knowledge extended as far as the washtub.
These last few hours spent taking care of Daniel had given Miranda a new appreciation for the labor her household servants performed each day in order to make her life more comfortable. She did what she could to make their lives more comfortable, too, but now Miranda realized that she hadn’t done enough to compensate her employees for their labor. But that would change as soon as she returned home and resumed her life as the Marchioness of St. Germaine.
If she returned home and resumed her life as the Marchioness of St. Germaine … Miranda looked down at her bare left hand. She had exchanged wedding vows with Daniel last night—or rather, early this morning—and become the Duchess of Sussex, but had nothing to show for it except a ruined ball gown and a sleepless night. Not that she’d expected Daniel to have a betrothal or wedding ring in his pocket. But it would be nice to know she had a ring, even if she couldn’t wear it …
Leaving the scullery, Miranda hurried back upstairs, stopping long enough to search the armoires in the other bedchambers for clothing. This time, her search yielded results. She discovered a man’s brocade robe and a cotton nightshirt embroidered with her father’s initials in the room with the dark, oversized, masculine furniture and the floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books. Her father’s room.
She closed the armoire door, dropped the sheet, and pulled the nightshirt over her head. She inhaled deeply, hoping the nightshirt would, by some miracle, retain her father’s scent, but the cotton smelled like the cedar wood used to line the armoire. Her father’s distinctive bergamot and pine fragrance was long gone—if it had ever been there at all. The nightshirt and the brocade robe looked new—as if they had been ordered from Weston but never worn. The armoires in the other bedrooms were empty of clothing. The only items left in them were spare pillows and quilts.
She glanced down. He might never have worn it, but the nightshirt had been made for her father. Miranda could tell because the hem of the garment reached her knees instead of her calves. During the last years of his life, her father seemed to have shrunk and Miranda seemed to have grown a head taller. She shrugged. Her lower legs were visible, but there was no one to see them except Daniel, and he was asleep.
And Ned.
And Rupert.
Miranda grimaced. She’d forgotten that her footman and driver would be returning in a few hours. She took a deep breath. No matter. Ned and Rupert were entirely loyal to her and would never let on that there was anything untoward in her manner of dress. And it wasn’t as if she had any choice. The women’s clothing was much too small and far more revealing than her father’s nightshirt. The nightshirt was short, but it managed to cover the essentials and was free of blood and gore—so long as she stayed away from the patient asleep in the master bedchamber.
Miranda smiled for the first time in hours. Who in the ton would ever suspect that the always elegantly dressed Duke of Sussex would prove to be such a hazard to her wardrobe? Without ever sharing her bed?
She pursed her lips in thought. Just because he had never shared her bed didn’t mean that she couldn’t share his. They were the only two people in the house. And they were legally wed. No harm would be done. Why shouldn’t she spend what remained of the night beside him in bed? Why shouldn’t she be selfish and snatch her chance to fulfill her heart’s desire? For a few hours. While he slept.
What was the harm of holding him in her arms, just once before he awoke and remembered he didn’t love her?
Chapter Eight
“Her gentle limbs did she undress,
And lay down in her loveliness.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772–1834
Her bridegroom talked in his sleep.
Miranda had dreamed of lying beside Daniel in a big comfortable bed for as long as she could remember. She’d dreamed of making love with him, of him holding her in his arms, whispering in the dark, talking to each other, sharing intimate secret
s …
Sharing a name.