Unraveled (Turner #3)(73)

“You shouldn’t imagine this is anything other than temporary.”

Lady Turner’s eyes met hers. “Nonsense. Smite hasn’t been back to Shepton Mallet in twenty years. Mark goes to Bristol to see him because he won’t come here. Smite knows perfectly well that bringing you here is tantamount to a declaration.”

“No.” Miranda stared at the wallpaper. “He’s quite precise in everything he does. I have no doubt that he cares for me. He may even love me. But he sees what is between us as fleeting.”

“I’ve never known him to be fickle.”

Miranda shook her head. “It’s not that. I know when a man is saying good-bye.” She thought of the way he’d held her last night, and the dire look in his eyes in the phaeton this morning. “Even if he doesn’t say it directly, Smite is most assuredly telling me farewell.”

Lady Turner gave her a long, level look. “That, I can believe. He scarcely lets Mark close. I was so hoping…”

“What? That he’d fall in love and turn into an ordinary man?” Miranda choked on the words. “Anyone who loved him would never want that. It would be like loving the ocean, but wishing it would change into a glass of water.”

“No. I rather think it would be like loving the ocean and wishing it could feel a little sunlight.” Lady Turner adjusted a vase on a shelf. “When I first met Mark, he told me that I reminded him of his brother. At the time, I didn’t realize what a compliment he was paying me. He was saying I was difficult, but worth the trouble.”

It had never occurred to Miranda that Smite was on good terms with anyone in his family. He was so extraordinarily solitary, and he’d argued so ferociously with his brother, the duke. She’d supposed that his relationship with his siblings was as fraught as his time with his mother. But that wasn’t so. He was loved.

It made his solitary life seem all the starker.

“Come,” Lady Turner said. “They’ll be in the garden. Let’s go find them.” She led Miranda downstairs and out the front. But Smite and his brother were nowhere to be seen; Lady Turner frowned and then took Miranda along a path of slate stones along the side of the house. Miranda heard male voices before Smite came into view.

“Aren’t you going to lecture me?” Smite was saying.

“What about?”

“Chastity.” Leaves rustled. “Miss Darling. I know what you must be thinking.”

“I’m thinking that there’s no need for me to lecture you, as you appear to be lecturing yourself quite effectively.” Smite’s younger brother spoke with an easy air.

“Did you know she was a virgin when I met her?” Smite threw out. Miranda knew that tone of voice; he was daring his brother to quarrel with him.

“Tsk, tsk.” Sir Mark didn’t sound disappointed in the least. “You terrible man, seducing an innocent young lady. Is that what you want me to say?”

“Say something. Say anything. I can’t argue with you if you won’t even put up a good show.”

“I refuse to quarrel with someone who wins arguments by profession. It seems rather imprudent.”

“Ha,” Smite replied grimly. “It’s never stopped you before.”

There was a long pause. Then, in a low voice, Mark spoke again. “Is it so bad, then?”

Lady Turner rounded the corner just ahead of Miranda. At the rustling of the underbrush, the two men looked up. They were seated facing one another on a bench. Smite looked up at Miranda. His eyes caught hers, darted to Jessica, and then he looked back at Mark.

“No,” he said. “Which makes it utterly impossible.”

Sir Mark seemed to think that this answer made perfect sense. He rose from his seat and smiled cheerfully. When Miranda held back, he cocked his head at her. “Smite surely didn’t tell you that we’re sticklers for propriety. It’s rather misleading, that Ash ended up a duke. We’ve been anywhere and everywhere between. Ash says that the notion of social class is a delusion. At some point, someone will figure out that he really means that.”

She’d never thought about what it meant, that Parford had left home at fourteen, that Smite and this man had ended up on the streets of Bristol as children. She’d never thought about the bewildering change of events that had struck them. And Sir Mark had married a courtesan.

“What does it mean, then?”

“It means,” Sir Mark said, “that I’m quite pleased with you. I consider it my personal mission as younger brother to keep my elders out of sorts. You’ve been doing a beautiful job of it.”

“Nonsense.” Miranda drew herself up. “I do nothing of the kind. Smite keeps himself out of sorts all on his own.”

Sir Mark let out a sharp crack of laughter, and behind him, a rueful grin spread across Smite’s face.

“Tell me,” Miranda said, “how do you handle his sentimentality quota?”

“That?” An airy wave of Sir Mark’s hand. “I simply refuse to acknowledge its existence.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course I can. I’m his younger brother. I can do anything I wish.”

It had never occurred to Miranda that Smite was so well loved. He’d spoken to her of horrors in his past. He’d mentioned his brothers in warm tones once or twice. But she’d never believed that he might have this teasing friendship available to him—and that he might nonetheless turn away from it.