gaze on her, she turned and shot him a fierce look of either suspicion or condemnation, and suddenly he felt very tempted to live down to her expectations. Good behaviour or bad seemed to cut no ice with the haughty dragon. Next time he was in the position to do so, he might just snatch a kiss to see if her lips were as cold as her eyes, which were once again glinting so disapprovingly at him that she didn’t even need those wretched eyeglasses to emphasise her aloof dislike.
Thank goodness Miranda had never provoked him to turn her upside down and shake her to see if there was a real warm and breathing woman under all the hairpins, caps and spectacles Miss Wells came armoured in. It was perfectly obvious from looking at his friend’s beautiful wife that she was all of those things, and a few more into the bargain. As he didn’t have the least wish to meet his best friend early one morning on Paddington Green for a very unfriendly encounter, it was very lucky Ben needed no proof of the Countess of Carnwood’s humanity.
‘Why are you flying in the face of experience and worrying about your husband, my lady?’ he turned and asked Miranda in an attempt to get at the truth, and distract himself from the remarkably sweet notion of finding out if Miss Wells’s rather lush mouth would yield under his and give the lie to her fearsome appearance.
If anything it was even more disapproving now, as if she could somehow read his errant thoughts. Anyway, how did she think they could soothe Miranda’s fears when they had no idea what they were? He sent her a fiercely repressive glance and then regarded his friend’s wife with gentle enquiry, having no idea that the contrast in his gaze when resting on the two women in front of him could have hurt the formidable governess.
‘Because I hate being apart from him, I suppose,’ Miranda admitted slowly, then seemed to come to a decision to confide more deeply. ‘And I have received a letter from Cousin Celia,’ she finally added.
Now he would happily have taken a joint share in Miss Wells’s most icy look of disdain if the wretched Celia were actually here to receive the full benefit of it. No wonder the poor girl was fretting herself into a headache if that murderous bitch had been stirring up the Alstone pond once more.
‘Not at all the sort of letter I would expect of her,’ Miranda added hastily as she observed his thunderous frown. ‘Indeed, I suspect that Celia has discovered actually living with Nevin is even more of a punishment than we all intended. Maybe she’s trying to soften Kit’s heart by warning me, in the hope he’ll allow her return to England without her husband.’
‘She has mistaken her man then. Kester will never forgive her for what she did to you, both before and after you met him. Even if he didn’t love you quite ridiculously, how could he forget her wanton cruelty to a vulnerable young girl who happened to be her own cousin into the bargain? But besides bringing up that mare’s nest again and upsetting you, what does the vixen have to say? If you’re able to tell me the details, of course,’ he said with a cautionary glance at Miss Wells.
‘Oh, there’s no need to hide any of it from Charlotte,’ Miranda said blithely, ‘she knows all about my past. Kit and I decided it was necessary that we told her, in order to make sure neither Nevin nor Celia could approach the girls in our absence.’
And it had been an understandable relief to unburden herself to a sympathetic female, Ben concluded, rather surprised at his sudden conviction that the suffocatingly correct Miss Wells would make a stalwart and very partisan ally.
‘I wonder she dared set pen to paper after she had done her best to ruin your life by urging her secret husband to elope with a seventeen-year-old girl, then bigamously wed you, as well as the pair of them doing their best to kill you when you returned to Wychwood and threatened her supremacy. So what on earth has the repulsive female got to say?’ he asked impatiently, trying to ignore the fleeting thought that he would quite like to meet a friendly dragon, rather than the condemning one he knew all too well.
‘That we’re in danger,’ Miranda finally admitted. ‘She says the crime you and Kit have been investigating for so long is about to be exposed, along with a good many others, and someone very rich and powerful is furious about the threat to his income and position.’
‘The devil he is!’ he exclaimed and began pacing up and down the fine Aubusson carpet as he considered the implications of such an attack. ‘How much does she know?’ he rapped out.
‘I would remind you that you are inhabiting a lady’s drawing room and not a board meeting in the City, Mr Shaw,’ Miss Wells rebuked him, ‘and, come to think of it, you must speak a little more politely to those gentlemen if you wish to retain their good will.’
‘Much you know about it,’ he told her with an unrepentant grin, even as he was secretly grateful to her for checking the temper his anxiety threatened to spark into formidable life.
He might as well store that up for the enemy who had stolen one of their ships and murdered far too many good men for him to think about too deeply and stay sane. She was quite right, though; he needed a cool head if he wasn’t to let the villain behind it all slip through his fingers once again.
‘I beg your pardon, Lady Carnwood,’ he said with a nicely judged bow and exquisite irony, ‘would you inform me of any further details you might have gathered from this missive? Just so we might guard ourselves against any harm, you understand?’
‘Of course I do, but my cousin was very vague. The one thing I can tell is that she’s terrified of the man. Too terrified to give me more than the most obscure clues as to his identity, I’m afraid.’
‘Which probably explains why Mrs Braxton sent her warning in the first place—so that you and his lordship would defeat him for her, Mr Shaw,’ Miss Wells put in shrewdly.
Ben was impressed by her acute grasp of the situation. There was no false optimism, no impulse to think the best of a woman who so far as he could tell had neither heart nor soul under all that chilly blonde beauty. Which, he decided, argued that Miss Wells had been forged in a very fiery furnace indeed, and he was astonished by the powerful wave of protectiveness that suddenly swept over him at the thought of her so vulnerable that she had been forced to armour herself against the world so sternly.
‘Very likely you’re right,’ he agreed absently.
‘How astonishing of me,’ she replied sweetly.
‘If I ever feel myself growing self-satisfied, I’ll rely on you to depress my pretensions, Miss Wells,’ he parried with a rueful smile.
‘Then it will be my pleasure to oblige you, Mr Shaw,’ she replied pertly and he was once more overtaken by a strange compulsion to kiss her soundly, if only to stop her wicked tongue for a few moments.
He turned and caught Miranda’s thoughtful gaze on them both and cursed himself for a fool. His friend’s wife was loyal to a fault and capable of going to the most ridiculous lengths to secure the happiness of those she loved. The last thing he needed was the Countess of Carnwood matchmaking between him and the governess. So respectable a bride might increase his standing with the more cautious of his investors, but it would do very little for his personal comfort, he suspected. Having his fiercest critic on hand on such a permanent basis might even sap his adamantine will.
‘To get back to our sheep, exactly when’s his lordship due home?’ he asked, partly because he wanted to know and partly to divert Miranda’s attention from his determination never to wed anyone, let alone Miss Wells.
‘Last night,’ Miranda said mournfully and he could have kicked himself for reminding her, then his friend for giving her so precise a date for his return.
