The Last Time We Met - By Lily Lang Page 0,5

as you can no doubt imagine. I taught her to ride and fish. She taught me to read and write. She even used to bring me books she had stolen from her father’s library.”

He broke off, trying not to remember, even as a thousand images from the past flickered through his mind, each one like the face of an upturned card in a falling deck. Miranda as a child, standing in her mother’s garden, her arms full of roses she had picked to brighten his tiny attic bedchamber. Miranda, thirteen years old, helping him and the gruff old Scottish coachman deliver a breech foal in the dead of winter. Miranda, holding out to him in her slender cupped hands the first wild strawberries of spring each year.

And then, unbidden, a final memory, one he had tried arduously to forget, and which now rose with perfect clarity in his mind—that still, solemn, golden afternoon ten years ago, when he had kissed her for the first time, in her mother’s rose garden beneath the effervescent light of a late summer sun.

“It was perhaps inevitable that as you grew older you should fall in love with her,” said Oliver quietly. “She is certainly a very beautiful woman, and if you had shared an emotional attachment since childhood—”

“It was not simply a childhood attachment, Olly,” Jason said. “It was an unbreakable bond, an indestructible connection, a linking of our very souls. Or so I believed. It all sounds very melodramatic now, doesn’t it? But I was twenty-one—and I was mad with love for her.” He gave a short, bitter laugh.

“It is not always wise to mock our younger selves, Jason,” said Oliver gently.

“We made plans together,” he said, hardly hearing what his friend had said. “We were going to elope to America. But at the last moment she suddenly realized what it would mean to be my wife. I suppose she’d never really stopped to consider the advantages her station in life gave her, and only as she was about to lose her wealth and her jewels and her fine gowns did she realize she could not live on love alone. But instead of informing me of her change of heart—I would have gone away, if she had asked, God knows I would have done anything for her—she confessed everything to her father.”

“Lord Thornwood was no doubt furious,” said Oliver thoughtfully. “Especially as his wife had run off with a footman.”

“He had me horsewhipped,” said Jason. “Then he informed the local magistrate I had stolen some silver from Thornwood. I hadn’t, of course, but the magistrate sentenced me to the hulks for ten years.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “The rest of the story you know.”

They were silent for a long moment. Finally, Oliver said, “She was very young, Jason—you were both very young—and she was no doubt terrified of leaving the only home and life she had ever known. Perhaps it is time to forgive her.”

Jason made no answer.

Miranda emerged from her bath wrapped in a Turkish towel to find a maid spreading a blue satin gown across the bedspread. In the flickering light of the beeswax candles, the material shone like water.

With a deep sense of foreboding, Miranda looked around for her own clothes and shoes.

“Where are my things?” she asked after the maid indicated her name was Harriet.

“I’m sorry, miss,” said Harriet, flushing as she hurried forward, “but Mr. Blakewell ordered me to burn it all. He didn’t think anything would be worth saving.”

Miranda closed her eyes. “And where did this dress come from?”

“He sent me to Madame Beaumont’s to fetch a gown for you,” said the maid. “This was the only one Madame had finished tonight, though there wasn’t time to alter it. The lady it was meant for won’t like it, but Mr. Blakewell gave Madame fifty extra pounds for it. Shall I help you dress, miss?”

Miranda had grown accustomed to dressing herself, ever since her aunt had dismissed her maid nearly a year ago, but she nodded mutely and allowed the girl to help her towel dry and pull the gown over her head.

“It’s a mite too big,” said Harriet, looking doubtful. “But the sash should hold everything in.”

Miranda studied her reflection in the tall cheval glass. Harriet was right. The woman for whom Madame Beaumont had made the gown was tall and generously endowed, but Miranda was not, and the front of the dress dipped scandalously low while the sleeves made every attempt