Forever My Love (Berkeley-Faulkner #2)(100)

“Good. You do that. I’m heading back to Staffordshire.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight.” Alec raised his voice a few degrees and called to his valet. “Do you hear that, Walter? Pry your ear away from the keyhole and start packing.”

“Yes, my lord,” came a muffled voice from behind the door.

For other men, love was a gift, a blessing, a source of joy, a miracle. For Alec it was a calamity. He knew that Mira was only a few miles away in Warwick, a distance that he could have traversed quickly and easily. But he remained at the Falkner estate, searching for the right words to say to her, knowing that they would be the most important words he would ever speak. Perhaps it would have been easier had he been a man who possessed more humility… yet humility did not sit well on his shoulders. He was not accustomed to asking for something that had always been granted to him automatically, and so a woman’s favor had never held much value for him until it had been withheld. Alternately he cursed Mira and wanted Mira, damned her in waking moments and held her in his dreams. His torment would not last forever, yet it was bound to last a good deal longer, and would have if not for the intervention of Juliana.

She ventured downstairs late one night, still fully dressed, her slate-gray hair neatly pinned in a coronet. Juliana’s face changed from its usual grim self-assurance to a softer, kinder expression as she looked at her son,who had fallen asleep on a sofa with a bottle of brandy clutched to his midriff. His dark features, stamped for the past few days with frustration and obstinacy, were relaxed in sleep. His broad mouth, customarily quirked with skeptical smiles, was touched with a vulnerability that he would never have revealed voluntarily.

“My boy,” Juliana murmured, looking down at the handsome stranger who was her son, “much easier for you, had you been more like your father. But you resemble me far too well, which is your downfall, and your strength, and the reason why you’re presently too intoxicated to hear me.”

She knew him more than anyone, and less than anyone. Reaching for the bottle clasped between his large hands, Juliana pulled it away from him. Alec stirred, a sleepy sound escaping his lips.

“Mira…” Slowly his eyes flickered open, drowsy and silver. He focused on Juliana, and blinked, and sat up without a sound, still looking at her.

“We have some things to discuss, Alec,” she said briskly in a voice that would brook no refusal. “I will not require you to tell me everything. I do not wish to know more about you than is necessary. But I will insist on having the answers to a few questions.”

“Mireille…” Rosalie appeared at the doorway of Mira’s bedchamber, fidgeting in a manner that was completely unlike her. “A visitor is waiting for you downstairs.”

Mira looked up from the book she had been reading, her fingers crinkling the pages as she gripped the edges. Ordinarily one of the maids would have been sent with the message. The fact that Rosalie had brought it to her indicated the importance of the caller. “Who?”

“Lady Falkner. She never pays calls on anyone, never, and she is downstairs in my home demanding to see you.““Don’t panic. I’ll just need a moment to compose myself—”

“Hurry. Please. I have always been considered a skillful hostess, but she defies my every attempt to make idle conversation. No, don’t do your hair over, just comb the sides… hurry!” Disappearing around the corner, Rosalie fled back to the stairs and descended with light, pattering feet. Mir a inspected her appearance in the mirror, mentally blessing the fact that this morning she had chosen to wear a prim, conventional gown of pale yellow. Jerking the puffed sleeves firmly over each shoulder, she stared at her reflection in attentive panic. His mother, she thought, her fingertips flying to her mouth in a flustered gesture, and then she forced herself to relax. I liked her well enough before I found out that she was his mother, she reminded herself. Her dark, finely winged brows rose a quarter of an inch as a sudden thought struck her. Without hesitation, Mira went to the armoire and pulled out a soft cloth bag; taking it with her as she left to greet her caller.

Mira was met with two smiles as she entered the rose-colored salon: one from Rosalie, which could only be described as relieved; and one from Juliana… a vaguely calculating smile. Mira recalled having seen it on Alec’s face once or twice.

“Lady Falkner, what a delightful surprise this is.”

“You and I seem to have made a habit of surprising each other,” the matriarch replied, settling back into the corner of the sleekly upholstered sofa and pointing to a chair nearby. “1 came here to discuss the fact that we have been the victims of a rather interesting coincidence.” She pinned Rosalie with a commanding stare. “Child, I came here without my companion because I wish for this conversation to be private. Would you—?”

“Certainly,” Rosalie said equably, and sent Mira an encouraging glance before leaving the salon and closing the door quietly.”Lady Falkner, may I ask if your son knows that you are here?” Mira inquired, seating herself with straight-backed grace and settling the cloth bag in her lap.

“He does not. At the moment I imagine that he is still abed, having last night drunk himself into the happy oblivion commonly experienced by mudlarks after a fresh rain.” Mira frowned, both at the knowledge that Alec had been drinking and at the critical note in Lady Falkner’s voice as she spoke of her son. Was there no one to offer him sympathy or comfort? Why did everyone, including his mother, seem to persist in regarding him as self-sufficient and amoral? “You needn’t rise to his defense, child… I am here on his behalf,” Juliana pointed out, and Mira lifted her chin slightly.