Peter turned from the window in the elegantly furnished drawing room, having waited nearly half an hour for Miranda to appear.
“I was beginning to think you were going to stand me up.” He all but drank her in with his gaze. The wait had been well worth it. Auburn curls peeked out from beneath a jaunty hat that was more decorative than functional. And today she wore a periwinkle muslin gown, decorated with emerald embroidered stitches that, although tiny, managed to complement her eyes.
Some of the darkness he’d felt from her was absent today. She appeared fresh, lovely, and innocent-looking.
“I considered it.” She licked her lips. “I can’t think your mother is going to approve.”
“Well, you are wrong on that count. Incidentally, she wants to take tea with you sometime in the near future.” He didn’t need to add after he was gone. “She’ll send a missive over to arrange it. My mother likes you, you know.”
“She’s in the minority then.” But he could tell that she believed him, and that knowing such a small thing gave her pleasure. “Should I bring a wrap?”
“Only if you wish to show it off. You’ll be plenty warm without one.” He found it difficult to grasp the fact that he had been inside this pristine-looking lady not quite twenty-four hours ago. He knew her intimately and yet he didn’t know her at all.
“Very well.” Her cheeks were flushed from his mention of his mother, and her lace gloves had her almost looking like a debutante.
“You look stunning,” he told her because it was true. Because she deserved to know he appreciated the efforts she’d taken.
“Thank you.” She lowered her gaze to the floor. “Shall we go then?”
Peter took one of her hands in his. He doubted his presence was the reason for her nervousness. It likely had something to do with his family. Her affair with Chaswick had been public knowledge, but Chase had been a known rake, a rogue. Carrying on like that had practically been expected of him.
Peter… was none of those things.
And as much as he’d like to deny it, his family’s influence in London had grown to almost epic proportions. His drive with the infamous Lady Starling in the park would indubitably be mentioned in the Gazette. But most Mayfair residents would learn of it first from their neighbors.
If his vehicle was seen parked outside of her townhouse, he’d never hear the end of it. He simply wanted to be alone with her. He wanted to know her.
“It’s fantastic!” She stared up at his curricle and then sent him a dazzling smile. He’d not seen her smile like that before, and the effect nearly had him stumbling backward. “Do you race it?”
“I used to.” He assisted her up before walking around and climbing aboard from the opposite side. Rather than have Michaels, his groom, ride on the back, Peter had instructed him to meet him at Mivart’s. That way, he wouldn’t need to park it in their mews. Peter trusted Michaels implicitly. Their privacy would be assured.
“You will drive at a snail’s pace in your journey down, then?” she teased, even as she gripped the edges of the seat.
“Six years ago,” he began, carefully steering off of South Audley and into traffic. “I had just achieved my majority and was racing against my brother, Stone.”
Although the race had initially been exhilarating, the memory was not a pleasant one. “Idiots. We were both idiots. He went to pass, and I edged into the center of the road. Unfortunately, neither of us saw the farmer’s cart approaching us from the opposite direction. I rolled to the right, into a harmless field, Stone veered to the left. If he’d rolled a few feet more, he would have fallen off a small cliff. Luckily for him, he only broke his arm, and I walked away with just a few scratches.”
“But it was enough to deter you from doing it again?”
“Along with knowing he could have been killed, seeing my brother unable to perform the simplest of tasks for nearly six months was an effective warning. I realized how much damage an injury like that could do to my playing. Of course, my brothers teased me to no end, but I didn’t care. As exciting as a race can be, acting so recklessly isn’t worth the risk.” But he didn’t want to talk about himself. He wanted to know more about her. She was watching the horses and the road in front of them. “Would you like to drive?”
“I don’t know how.”
“Now is as good a time as any to learn… if you want to.”
He sensed her ennui waging with her curiosity. It pleased him when her curiosity won.
“I do.”
Peter placed the reins in her hands but didn’t release them. Over the next few minutes, he explained how to stop and how to turn. After they turned onto one of the less-popular roads in the park, he took back the leather straps to demonstrate his techniques and then handed them back so she could practice them herself.
“You have the makings of an excellent driver.” Better than that, she was laughing. It was an self-conscious sounding laugh, but it was also pleasing. He wondered how often she’d laughed since her husband’s death.
When they approached the fashionable driving route, she relinquished the straps again and he felt, as well as heard, her sigh. This time, it was only two-thirds of an octave, sweet, though, starting at a high C.
“We can drive somewhere else,” he suggested.
She hesitated. “You wouldn’t mind?”
In answer to her question, he jerked the reins to the left and turned the horses in a full circle, heading them back toward the opposite end of the park. He’d rather talk with her than make nice for the ton any day of the week.
Rather than make directly for the hotel, as Miranda had half expected, Mr. Spencer instead turned into a section of the park that she hadn’t realized existed. The road was barely wide enough for one vehicle, and it twisted between so many trees that she could almost imagine she was in the country, far away from the bustle of London.
“Tell me about your marriage.” He made his request casually, as if he wasn’t intent upon peering into wounds she was waiting to scar over.
“What do you mean?”
“Most of what I know of you is hearsay. I’d rather know you from… you.” He grimaced.
She blinked at that. Because of course, she knew the rumors. They ranged from lurid tales of depravity to some so horrid as to suggest that she’d murdered Baldwin.
“I cared for my husband very much,” she answered truthfully.
“Did you love him?”
“I’m not sure what love feels like. I do know that he made me very happy. He cared about me and, in turn, I did my best to keep him happy as well.”
“Love is a bit of a mystery,” he answered from beside her, paying particular attention to steer the pair of bays around a sharp corner. “I’ve yet to experience romantic love myself although my parents and three of my siblings seem to have discovered it. And I doubt they would feign it. I certainly love all of them.”
“I did not love my father.” The words escaped before she could stop them.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think much is required of a person for his children to love him. If you hated him, Miranda, he must have been a horrid creature.”