The Wicked Marquess Read Free

result that everyone around her developed good health in self-defense. “It’s nothing – merely a touch of indigestion – don’t concern yourself! Sir Kenrick is waiting to speak with you as soon as you are dressed.” Nonie folded up her embroidery, and fled.
    Miranda was accustomed to this reaction. People frequently didn’t know what was best for them, most especially those same people who were so convinced that they knew what was best for her. She, too, surveyed the medicine chest. Her supplies were running low. Powdered pearl was available in London, but not dried mummy or dried mole, powdered human skull, stag’s heart.
    She rang for her maidservant. Miranda had a very good idea why her uncle had summoned her. Perhaps she should dose herself with verbena in preparation for the approaching audience.
    Carrot-headed Mary skittered through the doorway, dropped an awkward curtsey, barely managed to avoid getting tangled up in her own feet. “Good morning, miss. The master requires your presence in his study. Before he gets much older, please, he says.”
    “In a taking, is he?”
    “Mad as hornets, miss.”
    Misunderstood, mistrusted, and soon to be mistreated. A Christian martyr en route to face the lions must have experienced some emotion akin to Miranda’s feelings now.
    No Christian martyr had Miranda’s many resources, however, or her resolve to steer the ship of her own fate. Morning dresses, round gowns, walking dresses; muslin, cambric and calico – by the time Miranda decided she was satisfied with her appearance the bedchamber was in a shambles, and Mary’s nerves were in an equally sorry state, and the tall cheval glass reflected a demure young woman wearing a pale cambric frock buttoned down the back, its neckline filled in with a modest fichu. Miranda tucked a final pin into her tawny curls, which were drawn back with graceful tendrils left free to fall around her face. One last inspection assured her she so looked so prim and proper that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She abandoned the mirror and approached her bedroom door.
    The hallway stretched before her. Miranda spared an ungrateful thought for the green-eyed scoundrel who had so muddled up her plans that she was left no choice but to make her way back to Portman Square and account for her mare’s absence by unlocking the stable door, her ingenuity having proved unequal to the challenge of leaving London without a horse.
    Kenrick would blame her for Molly being loose. And maybe it was a little bit her fault, but Miranda would allow herself to be nibbled to death by rabid rodents before she admitted such a thing to him. Kenrick was not without his own fair share of blame. He was the one who had insisted on dragging her to Town.
    She had arrived outside her uncle’s study. A footman sprang forward to open the door. Miranda took a deep breath and entered the room.
    The study was elegantly appointed, as were the other chambers in this townhouse. Miranda gazed at oak paneled walls decorated with moulded plaster, heavy rosewood furniture, an Axminster carpet in shades of gold and blue, and saw a different study in her mind.
    That other room had lacked the added feature of her uncle pacing. Kenrick was dressed for riding in top boots and breeches, olive green coat, and a horizontally striped waistcoat. His expression was reminiscent of a storm cloud about to pelt down hail.
    “You must stop ripping up at Nonie,” Miranda said, before her uncle could speak. “She is doing her best to make me into a proper young lady, as you asked her to, and it is not kind of you to scold.”
    Sir Kenrick did not leave off scowling. A man in his mid-forties, he bore a marked resemblance to his young niece, though his hair was a darker shade than hers, his eyes not violet but a more ordinary dark blue. Despite the ravages of time and the inevitable consequences of a fondness for food and drink, he was still widely held by the ladies to be a most handsome