Unraveled (Turner, #3)

“Miranda Darling,” he repeated without clarification, “I wish I could tell you otherwise. But I am not a warm person. I’m not the sort who dithers.”


“If it were me, wouldn’t you dither just a little bit?”

He didn’t even have to think. “No.” But then he laid his hand on her cheek. “I don’t dither for myself, if it makes you feel any better.”

“Not even for Richard Dalrymple?”

He gave her a grim smile. “You may not believe this, but we were once good friends. I met him when I first came to Eton, which was not the easiest time in my life.”

“Jonas didn’t much like Eton, either,” Miranda offered.

Smite paused. “Actually,” he continued in more normal tones, “that was precisely the problem. Eton was the easiest time in my life. I had survived my mother’s madness. From there, I’d run to the streets of Bristol. Then my eldest brother came home, fabulously wealthy, and all at once, instead of scraping for bread and fighting for my younger brother’s virtue, my challenges were reduced to the conjugation of verbs. I had been too busy surviving to actually take notice of how horrid things were. At Eton, it all caught up with me. I...” He took a deep breath, looked away from Miranda. “I had nightmares. Horrible nightmares. And inexplicable fits of weeping. It was awful.”

“It couldn’t have been as bad as all that.”

He exhaled. “It was,” he said bluntly. “Nobody needed me for anything any longer, and so I fell apart. That’s when I met Dalrymple. He had just discovered that he was...different. He needed someone to lean on. So I came up with a sentimentality quota. There isn’t any need for doubt. There isn’t any room for dithering. I don’t like this fussing about.”

She could think of a hundred responses to that. But he was arguing with himself more effectively than she ever could.

“For one second, tonight,” he said, “I saw how things must have seemed to him. He wasn’t right. He was completely wrong. There was no excuse for the things he did…” Smite sighed, staring off into the distance. “No. Enough with this dithering. I’m not doubting; I’m being too kind to myself. He would not have done those things if I’d had an ounce of compassion for his situation.” He grimaced. “I knew he thought I’d tell. I didn’t bother to correct him.”

“Are you sorry I asked him back here?” Miranda asked.

He didn’t answer that. He simply turned from the window to look at her. “Miranda Darling,” he said. And then he crossed the room and sat beside her.

There had been a comma-like pause between Miranda and Darling—the closest he ever came to an endearment. She wasn’t sure why a hint of bittersweet invaded his voice at that, why his breath grew just a little ragged. She only knew that he pulled her close, that she felt the whisper of warm air against her forehead.

He held her for a few moments longer, his arms tight bands around her. And then he disengaged, turning from her.

She didn’t know what men typically did with their mistresses, but she wanted to hold him longer. To feel the warmth of him next to her throughout the night. She didn’t want him going home alone to a cold bed.

But he never stayed.

“Smite,” she said softly. She reached for his hand. The grip of her fingers about his was all the entreaty she dared to make.

His other hand found hers. He squeezed her fingers—not hard, but just enough to communicate. When he let go and moved away, it was all the answer she needed.

No.

Miranda wasn’t foolish. She had more of him than any woman had in the past. Quite possibly more than any woman ever would. He gave a part of himself over to her that he didn’t show to anyone else, and she treasured it. Nonetheless, it hurt to have so little. A few hours every day; not even a night’s worth. It was foolish to want more when he’d told her that was all he could give.

He’d also told her he would have her for a month. The days were slipping past too quickly. What would happen when he came to the end of her? Perhaps that month he’d allotted had not been some initial period to determine if they’d suit. Maybe he’d simply given himself a Miranda quota. When he came to the end of those days, would he cut her off as ruthlessly as he cut off all other sentiment?

No use getting exercised over something that hadn’t yet happened. She stared at his silhouette.

No, she vowed. He wouldn’t set her aside so easily. She wouldn’t let him.





Chapter Fifteen




THERE WAS NO ROOM for doubt in Smite’s duties. But his arrangement with Miranda had infected him with uncertainty. Last night’s questions had followed him into today’s hearing room. He sat, arrayed in black under an itchy wig, and stared in front of him in dismay.