And Then Comes Marriage (15 page)

Before she was kissed by Cas.

Yet he was surprised and gratified when she trustingly tucked her hand into his arm and turned to walk him back to her parlor.

Back to tea and conversation.

Poll truly enjoyed Miranda’s company, and his admiration for her mind grew by the day, and he certainly found it refreshing that she required him to do more than simply rely upon his charm—but today he’d made other arrangements.

“Miranda,” he laughed. “Wait, wait!” He took her hand and led her back down the steps. “Come with me. I’m taking you somewhere special!”

By the way her eyes lighted, he knew he’d been right to draw her out of her safe surroundings at last.

He waited with an expectant smile while she donned her spencer and gathered her gloves and reticule. Tildy was ready with everything, which to Miranda meant that her maid knew more about this afternoon’s surprise than she did. This was irritating, yet intriguing.

A hack waited in front of the house. It occurred to Miranda that, aside from her opera-and-fountain adventure of the previous evening, she had left the house very little in the past week. Resolved not to allow herself to continue to wait around for her handsome callers, she laughingly took Mr. Worthington’s proffered hand and stepped into the weathered hack.

Poll murmured some complicated directions to the driver, then settled back on the cushions next to her. “As the day is so fine, I told him we’d take the long way round. After so much rain, I thought it would be lovely to take a drive in the air.”

Miranda leaned back in the velvet-tufted seat with him, realizing that the world was indeed summer fresh and gleaming.

They drove through Mayfair at a sedate pace until they turned down a lovely small street lined with gracious old houses set impressively far from the street, though a few had gone a bit shabby with neglect. The hack rolled to a stop before one of them.

Miranda peered out curiously. “Who lives here?”

Mr. Worthington smiled. “I haven’t the foggiest.”

Miranda frowned at him, then squinted at the distant door. “I believe … oh, dear. I do not think they are at home.”

Mr. Worthington vaulted lightly to the street and helped her out until she stood beside him, her brow still wrinkled in confusion.

“I don’t understand. We are not making calls?”

Mr. Worthington reached behind the seat and tugged free a well-loved woven wicker picnic basket, latched shut.

Then he bowed, gesturing her up the walk of the deserted house.

“Come this way,” he whispered, taking her hand and pulling her aside as she automatically made for the front steps. Hand in hand, they crept around the side of the house. Miranda felt like a naughty child, back when a simple scolding was the worst thing she had to worry about.

When they reached the back garden of the place, Miranda sighed in delight. The place was magical, a garden returned to the ownership of the fairies. Flowers bloomed riotously, weeds and exotic blossoms alike. Rampant ivy transformed a pretentious little copy of a Roman ruin into something quite charming. A cherub fountain sat askew, the sculpture looking down as if in contemplation of the green weedy liquid beneath, dotted with water lilies and Miranda would bet not a few frogs!

“Oh, this is wonderful! What an ideal picnic destination.” She could not help but notice the privacy as well. Daring Poll!

He kept going through the garden, just when she would have stopped to spread the picnic on a patch of golden sunlit grass gone to hay.

“Oh no,” he said, grabbing for her hand and tugging her onward. We aren’t there yet.”

Mystified and, yes, a little disappointed, Miranda let the wild garden go with one last longing glance and followed him back, back past the neglected kitchen vegetable beds with their tangle of onions gone mad, past the ivy-covered mews, long since cleared of the scent of horse. There was a wall and a gate, which led to the alley, a sort of private drive for the houses on this row, where the driver would exit with the horses and carriage to pull around front for the inhabitants of the house.

Beyond the gate, which Mr. Worthington nonchalantly forced open with a grunt, there was the aforementioned graveled alley and across the drive was a high wall, also green with ivy so old the vines were branches and the branches like great tree trunks. Mr. Worthington grinned at Miranda, his eyes alight with mischief—

And tossed the picnic basket over the wall.

Miranda drew back. “Mr. Worthington, what is on the other side of that wall?”

“A very nice place. You’ll adore it.”

She examined the wall doubtfully. It had to be more than nine feet high. “The person who built that wall doesn’t seem to me to be a person who would be casual about trespassers.”

He grinned and lifted one foot to place it on a low, horizontal vine. “It’s an easy climb. You can do it, even in skirts.”

She took a step back. “I like the garden. Let us have our picnic there.”

“What?” He scoffed. “That weedy pit? Wait until you see. I know you love gardens. That’s why I thought of this.”

“But, Mr. Worthington—” She tilted her head at him, perplexed. “Why do you want to climb someone else’s wall?”

He eyed the wall for a moment, then gave a careless shrug. “To me, a wall such as that is like a dare.” He turned to bestow a beautiful smile upon her that she could only interpret as having criminal intent. “I dare you, Miranda,” he sang teasingly. “Climb the wall. Just to take a peek.”

She folded her arms. Despite herself, she was beginning to be curious about the other side of that wall. What if it were no more than another, larger deserted garden, where they might safely while the afternoon away? Or it could be a busy street with shops and she could stroll on his arm for all the world to see.

Or it could be something altogether new and wondrous and she would wonder for the rest of her life if she’d missed something new and wondrous because she wouldn’t step up on an ivy vine.

Shooting Mr. Worthington a filthy glare, she dumped her reticule and gloves into his care and took hold of a vine just above her head. She put her foot on the first vine he’d indicated and climbed a foot.

It was all that easy, really. She had to reach down and toss a portion of her skirt over her arm, but as there wasn’t a soul in sight, it didn’t seem so scandalous at the time.

Soon, vine after vine, step after step, for it was rather like a bushy sort of ladder, her head rose high enough over the top of the wall to see what lay past.

“Oh my stars.”

Mr. Worthington was right. The garden behind her was a weedy pit. This—this acreage of flowers and sculpture and emerald lawn and cunning plantings—this was a
garden
!

He popped up next to her on his own vine-ladder and folded his arms across the top of the wall in satisfaction. “Like it?”

“I—” She couldn’t help herself. She clambered up another vine-step, and then another, until she could sit atop the wall with her legs still dangling demurely on the proper side. She absently released her skirt from its tucked captivity and let it fall, forgetting it immediately in her awe. “I don’t understand—how could this be in the middle of London and I not know about it?”

Mr. Worthington climbed up to sit atop the wall, dangling his legs on the decidedly illegal side of the wall. “Oh, it’s a private garden. The owner doesn’t want a lot of people stomping through it.”

“But … but it’s so lovely! The layout, the graceful proportions … those marble statues look as if they came from the Parthenon itself!”

Mr. Worthington pursed his lips. “Umm…”

Miranda leaned forward, holding on to a thick strand of ivy for balance. “I’m so glad you showed me this, and I do appreciate the sentiment, Mr. Worthington, but this is too grand! I wouldn’t dream of violating someone’s privacy this way.” She caught sight of the picnic basket, lying on its side, still firmly latched, tumbled down the slight hill sloping down from the wall. “Oh dear, your basket! Perhaps if we went to the door of the house and explained, a servant could fetch it for—”

She slipped.

Chapter Thirteen

Clutching at the ropes of ivy did Miranda no good at all, unless it was what gave Mr. Worthington time to grab her wrist. One moment, she was sitting demurely on the wall; the next she was swinging from one wrist in midair, her skirts and her hair and her hat snagging in the bushy ivy that threatened to tear her apart.

“Hold on, Miranda!”

She looked up, struggling to see past her askew bonnet and her snagged hair. Mr. Worthington sat straddling the wall now, holding tight to a thick ivy branch with one hand and holding her by the wrist with the other.

“Find a branch with your feet,” he told her. “You’re fine, everything is fine. Just feel around for a good thick one.”

His soothing, coaxing voice melted the panic from her spine, soothing the air back into her lungs. “Yes, of course, the vines.”

A few moments later, she stood quite firmly on a hefty vine and had a good grip on another with her free hand. The only problem was, she couldn’t climb up. Her skirts were twisted so tight about her, snagged firmly by the ivy branches all around her, that she couldn’t hike them up to step upward.

She could only climb down.

She couldn’t help sending Mr. Worthington a foul look. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you’d planned this.”

He grinned down at her. “You credit me with far more evil genius than I deserve. This is just random good luck as far as I can tell.”

Good luck, my shoe!
Muttering imprecations all the way down, Miranda descended her vine-ladder until she stood precariously on the small ledge of earth before the slope angled down from the bottom of the wall. “I’ve made it! You can let go—”

Mr. Worthington released her and jumped down. Of course, he immediately lost his balance on the brief ledge of damp ground, which gave beneath them both.

Miranda might have caught herself if not for her skirts, still twisted about her like stripes on a candy-cane. Mr. Worthington laughed uproariously as he rolled all the way down the hill. Miranda covered her head with her arms and held her breath—and yes, secretly giggled her way down the slope, feeling like a child.

They sprawled simultaneously at the bottom, flung out on the soft, green grass like discarded dolls. Mr. Worthington landed on his back, arms out flung, still laughing. Miranda rolled half across him, lying over his lap.

“A dream come true,” Mr. Worthington commented with a breathless chuckle. “This must be heaven.”

She slapped at his helpful hands and somehow unwound herself from her ruined, smashed bonnet, her crumpled, muddy, grass-stained skirts, and her tumbled hair, snagged and tangled with torn ivy. Despite the fact that she had never been a more ridiculous mess—no, not even when facedown in a fountain!—she managed to stand with some shred of dignity. Using that smidgen of poise, she gazed contemptuously down at her villainous tormenter.

“This—” She spread her hands grandly. “Is. All. Your. Fault.”

It was a priceless moment. He actually started to look a little ashamed of himself.

It was too bad she laughed.

*   *   *

Having now broken the law most thoroughly, Miranda gave into Poll’s reasoning that enjoying their picnic anyway couldn’t possibly get them into any more trouble. Besides, he pointed out, no servants raced toward them with pitchforks, ready to drive them away. No one seemed to realize they were there at all.

Miranda began to let Poll’s charm, lemonade, and cheese and pickle sandwiches ease her fears. It did stand to reason, he reminded her coaxingly, that being caught red-handed picnicking would seem to convince the mysterious owner that they’d not meant any harm by their rude invasion.

The old, clean horse blanket was a welcome shield between them and the damp grass. The sunlight, so missed for the last few days, glowed warm and soothing down on their bumps and bruises. She relaxed enough to lie with her head upon Poll’s folded surcoat while he fed her raspberries.

The basket was almost empty of food, for Miranda had rediscovered her appetite recently, which Poll encouraged her to indulge. “You are too thin.” He tickled her elbow with a long blade of grass. “Pointy Miranda. Have another Tildy-seedcake, Pointy Miranda.”

She did, rebelliously licking her fingers clean of the sweet icing, then relaxing back upon her pillow with a sigh of replete pleasure. Their little glade was tucked between two great evergreens, with the high wall behind them. Before them was visible the uppermost windows ranging the back of a great house, but it was quite far away and Poll managed to quench her fear that anyone could see them from such a distance.

Forgetting about that danger, she tilted her head back and peered up through half-closed eyes at the blue, blue sky of summer, listening to the distant cries of the peacocks strutting about the great lawn.

“Miranda?”

“Hmm?” She rolled her head to regard her companion sleepily. His expression had gone quite serious, his green eyes as dark as the evergreens behind him.

“I wish to address something between us. I feel quite slighted.”

Oh. He wanted to “talk”! Miranda blinked herself awake and sat up, curling her feet beneath her skirts and assuming a listening posture.