by Julia Quinn
And then, just when she was convinced that life was as perfect as it could possibly be, he dumped her unceremoniously on the sofa.
“What was that for?” she asked, scrambling to sit up straight.
“What are you doing here?”
“What areyou doing here?”
He sat down across from her on a low table. “I asked you first.”
“We sound like a pair of children, she said, tucking her legs beneath her. But she answered him, nonetheless. It seemed silly to argue over such a thing. “I couldn’t sleep. I thought a glass of sherry might do the trick.”
“Because you’ve reached the ripe old age of twenty,” he said mockingly.
But she would not take his bait. She just tilted her head in gracious acknowledgment that said—Exactly.
He chuckled at that. “Then, by all means, allow me to assist in your downfall.” He stood and walked to a nearby cabinet. “But if you are going to drink, then by God, do it properly. Brandy is what you need, preferably the sort smuggled from France.”
Miranda watched as he plucked two snifters from a shelf and set them down on the table. His hands were steady and—could hands be beautiful?—as he poured two liberal doses. “My mother occasionally gave me brandy when I was small. When I got caught in the rain,” she explained. “Just a sip to warm me up.”
He turned and looked at her, his eyes piercing even in the dark. “Are you cold now?”
“No. Why?”
“You’re shivering.”
Miranda looked down at her traitorous arms. Shewas shivering, but it wasn’t the cold that had caused it. She hugged her arms to her body, hoping he would not pursue the subject further.
He walked back across the room and handed her the brandy, his body infused with lean, masculine grace. “Don’t drink it all at once.”
She shot him an extremely irritated expression at his condescending tone before taking a sip. “Whyare you here?” she asked.
He sat down across from her and lazily propped one ankle on the opposite knee. “I had to discuss some estate matters with my father, so he invited me to share a drink with him after our meal. I never left.”
“And you’ve been sitting here in the dark all by yourself?”
“I like the dark.”
“No one likes the dark.”
He laughed aloud, and she felt terribly green and young.
“Ah, Miranda,” he said, still chuckling. “Thank you for that.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How much have you had to drink?”
“An impertinent question.”
“Aha, so you have had too much.”
He leaned forward. “Do I look drunk to you?”
She drew back involuntarily, unprepared for the unwavering intensity of his gaze. “No,” she said slowly. “But you’re far more experienced than I am, and I would imagine that you know how to handle your liquor. You probably could drink eight times as much as I do and not show it at all.”
Turner laughed harshly. “All true, every bit of it. And you, dear girl, should learn to stay away from men who are ‘far more experienced’ than you.”
Miranda took another sip of her drink, just barely resisting the urge to toss it back in one gulp. But it would burn, and she would choke, and then he would laugh.
And she would want to die of the embarrassment.
He’d been in a foul mood all evening. Cutting and mocking when they were alone, and silent and surly when they were not. She cursed her traitorous heart for loving him so; it would have been far easier to adore Winston, whose smile was sunny and open, who had doted upon her the entire evening.
But no, she wanted him. Turner, whose quicksilver moods meant that he was laughing and joking with her one moment, and treating her like an antidote the next.
Love was for idiots. Fools. And she was the biggest fool of them all.
“What are you thinking about?” he demanded.
She said, “Your brother.” Just to be perverse. It was a little bit true, anyway.
“Ah,” he said, adding more brandy to his glass. “Winston. Nice fellow.”
“Yes,” she said. Almost defiantly.
“Jolly.”
“Lovely.”
“Young.”
She shrugged. “So am I. Perhaps we are well matched.”
He said nothing. She finished her drink.
“Don’t you agree?” she asked.
Still, he did not speak.
“About Winston,” she pushed. “He’s your brother. You want him to be happy, don’t you? Do you think I’d be good for him? Do you think I’d make him happy?”
“Why are you asking me this?” he asked, his voice low and almost disembodied in the night.
She shrugged, then slipped her finger into her glass to dab up the last drops. After licking her skin, she looked up.
“At your service,” he murmured, and splashed two more fingers of brandy into the snifter.
Miranda nodded her thanks and then answered his question. “I want to know,” she said simply, “and I don’t know who else to ask. Olivia is so eager to see me married off to Winston, she’d say whatever she thought would bring me to the altar quickest.”
She waited, counting the seconds until he spoke. One, two, three…and then he took a ragged breath.
It was almost like a surrender.
“I don’t know, Miranda.” He sounded tired, weary. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t make him happy. You’d make anyone happy.”
Even you?Miranda ached to say the words, but instead she asked, “Do you think he’d make me happy?”
It took him longer to answer this question. And then finally, in slow, measured tones: “I’m not sure.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing is wrong with him. I’m just not certain he’d make you happy.”
“But why?” She was being impertinent, she knew, but if she could just get Turner to tell her why Winston wouldn’t make her happy, maybe he’d realize whyhe would.
“I don’t know, Miranda.” He raked his hand through his hair until the gold strands stood at an awkward angle. “Must we have this conversation?”
“Yes,” she said intently. “Yes.”
“Very well.” He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as if to prepare her for unpleasant news. “You lack the current societal standards of beauty, you’re too sarcastic by half, and you don’t particularly like to make polite conversation. Frankly, Miranda, I really cannot see you wanting a typical society marriage.”
She swallowed. “And?”
He looked away from her for a long minute before finally turning back. “And most men will not appreciate you. If your husband tries to mold you into something you’re not, you will be spectacularly unhappy.”
There was something electric in the air, and Miranda was quite unable to take her eyes off him. “And do you think there is anyone out there who will appreciate me?” she whispered.
The question hung heavily in the air, mesmerizing them both until Turner finally answered, “Yes.”
But his eyes fell to his glass, and then he drained the last of the brandy, and his sigh was that of a man satisfied by drink, not one pondering love and romance.
She looked away. The moment—if there had been one, if it hadn’t been just a figment of her imagination—was gone, and the silence that remained was not one of comfort. It was awkward and ungainly, andshe felt awkward and ungainly, and so, eager to fill the space between them, she blurted the first completely unimportant thing she could think of.
“Do you plan to attend the Worthington ball next week?”
He turned, one of his brows lifting in query over her unexpected question. “I might.”
“I wish you would. You’re always so kind to dance with me twice. Otherwise I should be sadly lacking in partners.” She was babbling, but she wasn’t sure she cared. In any case, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “If Winston could attend, I wouldn’t need you, but I u
nderstand he has to return to Oxford in the morning.”
Turner flashed her a strange look. It wasn’t quite a smile, and it wasn’t quite mocking, and it wasn’t even quite ironic. Miranda hated that he was so inscrutable; it gave her absolutely no indication how to proceed. But she plowed on, anyway. At this point, what had she to lose?
“Will you go?” she asked. “I would so appreciate it.”
He regarded her for a moment, then said, “I will be there.”
“Thank you. I’m quite grateful.”
“I’m delighted to be of use,” he said dryly.
She nodded, her movements spurred more by nervous energy than anything else. “You need only dance with me once, if that is all you can manage. But if you might do it at the outset, I would appreciate it. Other men do seem to follow your lead.”
“Strange as it may seem,” he murmured.
“It’s not so strange,” she said, offering him a one-shouldered shrug. She was beginning to feel the effects of the liquor. She was not yet impaired, but she felt rather warm, perhaps a little daring. “You’re quite handsome.”
He seemed not to know how to reply. Miranda congratulated herself. It was so rarely that she managed to disconcert him.
The feeling was heady, and so she took another gulp of her brandy, careful this time to let it slide down her throat more smoothly, and said, “You’re rather like Winston.”
“I beg your pardon.”
His voice was sharp, and she probably should have taken it as a warning, but she could not seem to step out of the ditch she was rapidly digging ’round herself. “Well, you both have blue eyes and blond hair, although I suppose his is a bit lighter. And you stand in a similar manner, although—”
“That’s enough, Miranda.”
“Oh, but—”
“I said, that’senough .”
She silenced at his caustic tone, then muttered, “There is no need to take offense.”
“You’ve had too much to drink.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m not the least bit drunk. I’m sure you’ve drunk ten times as much as I have.”
He regarded her with a deceptively lazy stare. “That’s not quite true, but as you said earlier, I have a great deal more experience than you do.”
“I did say that, didn’t I? I think I was right. I don’t think you’re the least bit drunk.”
He inclined his head and said softly, “Not drunk. Just a trifle reckless.”
“Reckless, are you?” she murmured, testing the word on her tongue. “What an interesting description. I think I am reckless, too.”
“You certainly must be, or you would have gone right back upstairs when you saw me.”
“And I wouldn’t have compared you to Winston.”
His eyes glinted steely blue. “You certainly would not have done that.”
“You don’tmind , do you?”
There was a long, dead silence, and for a moment Miranda thought she’d gone too far. How could she have been so foolish, so conceited to think that he might want her? Why on earth would he care if she compared him to his younger brother? She was nothing more than a child to him, the homely little girl he’d befriended because he’d felt sorry for her. She should never have dreamed that he might one day come to care for her.
“Forgive me,” she muttered, jerking to her feet. “I over-step.” And then, because it was still there, she drained the rest of her brandy and rushed toward the door.
“Aaaah!”
“What the devil?” Turner shot to his feet.
“I forgot about the glass,” she whimpered. “The broken glass.”
“Oh, Christ, Miranda, don’t cry.” He walked swiftly across the room and for the second time that evening scooped her into his arms.
“I’m so stupid. So bloody stupid,” she said with a sniffle. The tears were more for her lost dignity than for pain, and for that reason they were harder to stop.
“Don’t curse. I’ve never heard you curse before. I’ll have to wash your mouth out with soap,” he teased, carrying her back to the sofa.
His gentle tone affected her more than stern words ever could, and she took a few great gulps of air, trying to control the sobs that were hovering somewhere at the back of her throat.
He set her gently back down on the sofa. “Let me see that foot now, all right?”
She shook her head. “I can take care of it.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re shaking like a leaf.” He walked over to the liquor cabinet and picked up the candle she’d left there earlier.
She watched him as he crossed back to her and set the candle down on an end table. “Here now, we’ve got a bit of light. Let me see your foot.”
Reluctantly, she let him pick up her foot and place it in his lap. “I’m so stupid.”
“Will you stop saying that? You’re the least stupid female I know.”
“Thank you. I—Ouch!”
“Sit still and stop twisting around.”
“I want to see what you’re doing.”
“Well, unless you’re a contortionist, you can’t, so you’ll have to trust me.”
“Are you almost done?”
“Almost.” He pinched his finger around another shard of glass and pulled.
She stiffened in pain.
“I’ve only one or two left.”
“What if you don’t get them all out?”
“I will.”
“What if you don’t?”
“Good God, woman, have I ever told you that you’re persistent?”
She almost smiled. “Yes.”
And he almost smiled back. “If I miss one, it’ll probably just work its way out in a few days. Splinters usually do.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if life were as simple as a splinter?” she said sadly.
He looked up. “Working its way out in a few days?”
She nodded.
He held her gaze for another moment, and then turned back to his work, plucking one last shard of glass from her skin. “There you are. You’ll be as good as new in no time.”
But he made no move to take her foot off his lap.
“I’m sorry I was so clumsy.”
“Don’t be. It was an accident.”
Was it her imagination or was he whispering? And his eyes looked so tender. Miranda twisted herself around so that she was sitting up next to him. “Turner?”
“Don’t say anything,” he said hoarsely.
“But I—”
“Please!”
Miranda didn’t understand the urgency in his voice, didn’t recognize the desire lacing his words. She only knew that he was close, and she could feel him, and she could smell him…and she wanted to taste him. “Turner, I—”
“No more,” he said raggedly, and he pulled her up next to him, her breasts flattening against his firmly muscled chest. His eyes were gleaming fiercely, and she suddenly realized—suddenlyknew —that nothing was going to stop the slow descent of his lips onto hers.
And then he was kissing her, his lips hot and hungry against her mouth. His desire was fierce, raw, and consuming. He wanted her. She could not believe it, could barely even summon the presence of mind tothink it, but she knew it.
He wanted her.
It made her bold. It made her womanly. It brought forth some kind of secret knowledge that had been buried within her, since before she was born perhaps, and she kissed him back, her lips moving with artless wonder, her tongue darting out to taste the hot salt of his skin.
Turner’s hands pressed into her back, imprisoning her against him, and then they could no longer remain upright, and they sank into the cushions, Turner covering Miranda’s body with his own.
He was wild. He was mad. That could be the only explanation, but he could not seem to get enough of her. His hands roamed everywhere, testing, touching, squeezing, and all he could think—when he could think at all—was that he wanted her. He wanted her in every possible way. He wanted to devour her. He wanted to worshi
p her.
He wanted to lose himself within her.
He whispered her name, moaned it against her skin. And when she whispered his in return, he felt his hands move to the tiny buttons at the neck of her nightgown. Each fastening seemed to melt away beneath his fingertips until she was undone, and all that was left was for him to slide the fabric along her skin. He could feel the swell of her breasts beneath the gown, but he wanted more. He wanted the heat of her, the smell, the taste.