Keepsake (The Distinguished Rogues Book 5) (3 page)

“What is there to regret?” Fighting back tears, she managed to choke out, “Do excuse me. There is somewhere else I need to be.”

Miranda fled before her heart smashed to pieces as her world had surely already done tonight.

CHAPTER ONE

The Season, June 1814

When a man settles on a new course for his life, it’s necessary to relinquish the old and learn from his mistakes. When a marquess, disappointed, requires a replacement bride, it becomes absolutely certain that his next choice will live up to his expectations. Kit Reed, Marquess of Taverham, might not understand why his first wife had disappeared without so much as leaving a note, but that departure hadn’t been anything to do with his behavior.

He focused on the stage of the Theatre Royal, but his mind was distracted by what he needed to do tomorrow. He had to convince those who mattered that his marriage should be set aside and soon.

He had last seen
The Beggar’s Opera
with Miranda, his first and fleeting bride, a few months before their marriage. He thought it fitting to see it one last time before he took the first steps on the path to have her declared legally dead after a ten-year inexplicable absence.

He drew in a deep breath. There was no possibility she was coming back. He’d searched and hoped for so long after he could have had her declared legally dead that his friends were looking upon him with pity. He was done with the past.

He might not have loved Miranda, but she was his wife and he owed her for the dowry she’d brought to him through their marriage. A fortune that had saved him and their home from the tumbledown ruin it had been.

She should have stayed to see the good their marriage had brought to those connected to the estate. Because of her, every situation had improved greatly over the years.

His gaze flickered across the theatre briefly to where his married friends sat in their own box. Lovers surely, their hands linked, their eyes meeting and soft smiles twisting their lips. He looked down at his clenched fist and forced himself to relax. Miranda would have loved to see the performance again. There was nothing Miranda had liked better than theatricals, even badly performed ones that made her laugh uproariously and earned her so many disapproving looks. Miranda had been so different in her manner than anyone he knew that he could only conclude he’d been so blinded by her zest for life that he’d proposed before he’d thought the matter through properly. He knew better now.

He turned to Lady Brighthurst to whisper, “How goes plans for this year’s hunt?”

A longtime friend and confidant, the recently widowed Emily knew only a portion of his reasons for attending this play. Emily wasn’t as enthusiastic about the opera as Miranda had been, but since she’d come up to town for the season to discuss their arrangement and had no other engagements tonight, she’d humored him by accepting an invitation so he wouldn’t have to sit alone.

“It is well in hand, although”—she eased closer—“we have a great many more acceptances than usual this year. I cannot account for the increase in numbers.”

Kit smiled, noticing a few familiar faces watching them closely rather than the performance on stage. When he frowned, they quickly turned their attention elsewhere. To Emily he said, “They come this year for the pleasure of your company and because of your renown for designing the most elaborate feasts. Acton’s warm and gracious hospitality has always drawn the most avid hunters north, but you are the icing on the cake.”

Her brow creased into deeper concern. “I fear the number of guests this time around may be even too great for us to host.”

Kit patted her hand soothingly. “Nonsense, the more the merrier is Acton’s motto, and I’m sure with the continued help of staff and funds from Twilit Hill the event will be a merry one. Acton would sulk if I offered my estate as an alternative location for the hunt.”

“Acton loves you as a brother,” Emily continued with considerable feeling. “He would give way should you ask and particularly if doing so made me happy, too.”

Kit shook his head. “But I will not ask. I will continue to support the event in my own quiet way. It’s worked this way since I inherited the title and there’s no need to change anything about our arrangement in the foreseeable future.”

Emily laughed softly. “If only you let others see your generous heart more often, they would know how truly worthy a gentleman and dear friend you are.”

“Thank you,” he murmured while thinking he’d been a failure as a husband. Miranda had not thought him worthy in the end.

“I believe you are seated in my place.”

Kit closed his eyes and willed the voice of his wife to leave him in peace.
Miranda’s place
at his side had been empty for so long. He had at last reconciled to never seeing her or hearing her voice again.
It’s too late now.

Emily jostled against his sleeve. “I don’t agree.”

Had he spoken out loud? He’d been a poor escort so far, burdened by a heavy heart in the face of his decision. “Forgive me, my dear,” he murmured. “My mind wandered for a moment and I spoke out of turn.”

Emily turned fully to look behind him. “Madam, you are simply in the wrong box.”

Oh.
There was always someone blundering into a box in search of friends and vacant seats. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d leave Emily to shoo them away.

Emily had been a great comfort to him. She alone out of all his friends had counseled patience when taking his next step to secure a wife and heir, especially since his first attempt had been thwarted by Miranda’s sudden and shocking disappearance. She’d understood and accepted his hesitation. He could have taken steps to have Miranda declared dead three years ago. No one had heard news of her, but with no body found there still seemed a chance she lived, so he’d continued to delay. The problem now was that Kit was having trouble letting her memory go. She had made a lasting impression on him, despite their short time together.

Married a day. Not even the wedding night spent together.

It was the two dozen nights spent in her bed before the wedding that made Miranda impossible to forget.

“Unfortunately not.” A feminine sigh sounded behind him, one edged with sadness and regret. “I’ll allow you to lay claim to the chair in Taverham’s box for the night, but the man you cling to so firmly is certainly taken.”

The hair on the back of Kit’s neck prickled with awareness, but he dared not turn around. It was only a waking dream of Miranda. He had chased after shadows for a very long time. He was done with hoping that she would be found or return to him of her own accord.

Emily’s fingers tightened over his sleeve in a startlingly strong grip. She gasped suddenly. “Why have you returned to haunt us?”

“Haunt you?” the voice taunted. “I’m not a shade of times past. I merely intend to make sure you understand that he cannot offer for you, even if he wished to.”

Kit’s heart raced. He
did
recognize that voice, even after so long apart. Miranda’s voice had never failed to send shivers down his spine with just a few words.

The comedic actress on stage faltered and fell silent, her gaze turning to his box. She lifted one arm to point and then used the other to cover her mouth as if she were stunned. With the performance so suddenly halted, the audience followed the actress’s direction to stare at his box too. By his estimation, several thousand sets of eyes turned to discover the source of her distress. It was not a pleasant feeling by any stretch of the imagination to be the focus of such widespread scrutiny.

Lady Brighthurst stroked his arm. “I’m not in receipt of an offer of marriage, but I can assure you I am wanted here tonight.”

“Tonight perhaps, but come morning the whole of London shall know your efforts to win yourself a marquess will amount to exactly nothing,” Miranda’s voice said mockingly. “Enjoy the theater, my dear. I am sorry the dowager marchioness has led your hopes on a fool’s errand. Everyone is usually so blunt about the practicalities of marriage to Taverham. I remember his guardians left me with no illusions of marital felicity thanks to your existence.”

Unable to remain seated, Kit stood and spun around. His breath ceased in his lungs and he took an involuntary step forward when he saw the woman standing behind him. Miranda! This could not be real. Not now. How could his wife come back to him when he’d just made the decision to bury her memory?

Even though shadows cloaked her features, he recognized her. “Miranda?”

The lady had the audacity to dip him a low curtsy and flutter her fan as if she were overcome. A curtsy of all things! She stepped farther into the light and the crowd in the theater gasped loudly, the theatergoers beginning to mutter to each other.

The last time he’d seen Miranda, she’d just spoken her vows after a long night of making love to him. That had been ten years ago. Since then, little had changed of her looks except she had become even more beautiful. She was still as elegant as his memory remembered, still as desirable as his fantasies supplied. His eyes lowered slightly from her startlingly direct gaze, skimming along her flawless skin and dipping into the cleavage her scandalously low-cut gown revealed.

He still wanted everything he saw.

“Darling,” she replied in a clear, strong voice that must have carried far in the unusually hushed theatre as she rose. Her gaze raked him from the top of his head to the tips of his boots with a bold, proprietary eye. “You’re looking well. The new fashions agree with you. You look very fine in blue, but I don’t suppose I’m the first to flatter you with that fact tonight, am I? Your good friend there was just complimenting you on your boundless generosity.”

He stared at the woman he’d married a decade before. Same dark hair curling around her ears and nape, same almond-shaped gray eyes that he could lose himself in. Her cheeks were flushed with hot color and her breath was quick, forcing her breasts to rise and fall seductively. However, her smile wasn’t the one he remembered from before their marriage, though that might stem from finding him attending the theatre with a pretty widow on his arm and secret plans in his mind to marry again.

Yet the fact that he was in such a position was entirely her doing. He was not in the wrong. He had finally convinced himself that Miranda must be dead and had made new plans for his life beginning tonight. He folded his arms across his chest and refused to feel guilty. “Where the devil have you been?”

Emily stood too and laid a restraining hand on his arm. “Is this the best place for this discussion, Kit?”

He nodded decisively. Miranda might still hold a certain power over his body, but he wanted everyone to know that it was not
he
who had driven her away. He had chosen his wife poorly ten years ago, and he would not be that unguarded, reckless man ever again. He’d paid a high price for her abandonment. Some whispered he’d murdered her for her dowry, though he’d never been outright accused of any crime.

He stared Miranda down. He would not say another word until she answered him.

“Where I was wanted.” Miranda’s eyebrow quirked upward innocently, and when she glanced at his companion, her smile was full of pity. “I am sure you are overjoyed to be witness to our happy reunion after so many years apart. I regret spoiling your first season out of mourning with my return, Lady Brighthurst, but you still cannot have him.”

As the crowd’s mutterings rose higher, Emily stepped around him to advance on Miranda. “You turned your back on a great man.”

“I’m sure you’ve been a sincere comfort to him over the years.” Miranda smirked as she drew back. “And if he’s as attached to you as clearly as you are to him, then you may continue in that vein and skulk about together in private as much as you like. But remember, you’ll never be his marchioness now unless he divorces me or kills me.”

Kit scowled at Miranda’s flippant remarks. Divorce was abhorrent to him, and while her disappearance might have angered him, even worried him, he’d never once wished her dead. He’d had enough subtle accusations of that nature to find no amusement in it.

He slipped around Emily to grasp Miranda’s arm, more to prove her not a figment of his imagination than to pull her close. One touch, however, and that same reckless attraction stirred his heart as it had when he’d first met her, as if her disappearance from his life and their estrangement had never happened. He had the unfathomable urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her right there and then before everyone. He glanced around to clear his head.

Emily was right that their conversation needed a more private location if his thoughts already ran to the precursors of intimacy.

Around them, the theatre patrons craned their necks to watch his marriage resume with a gasping splutter. Tomorrow, society would talk of nothing else but his wife’s very public return, and it would hardly be favorable speculation as to where she’d been all these years. “Perhaps we should move our conversation elsewhere. We are drawing attention.”

“That was precisely my intention.” Miranda did not fight to loosen his hold but stared at him cynically. “I chose the venue for my return well. I wanted everyone to see that I was alive just in case an accident suddenly befell me.”

“And I must say that the sight of you fills my heart with boundless joy, Lady Taverham.” Lord Louth, a friend of Kit’s, stepped into the box behind Miranda, a wide grin upon his face. “I am delighted to see you returned to society at last, fair lady.”