Page 75 of So Wild A Heart

“That you are,” he agreed and kissed her again, more lingeringly this time.

Hunger stirred in him again, not with the razor-edge sharpness he had known the past few weeks, but deep and urgent. He enjoyed the feeling, knowing that it would be satisfied now. This morning, the fiercest urges satisfied, he could spend his time, could explore and learn her feminine secrets, teach her the wealth of delight that lay within her.

He could feel her smile beneath his lips as she curved her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the pleasure. They moved at a leisurely pace this morning, giving and receiving, enjoying every nuance of their passion. And when they reached their peak of desire, the explosion that rocked them was both familiar and new, as powerful as what they had experienced the night before.

It was, Miranda thought afterward, quite a lovely way to start off the day.

They lay together talking desultorily for some time after that. They talked about little of consequence, but it was sweet to lie in such a way, going over the intertwined bits and pieces of their lives. They talked about his painting of the abbey ruins and the shortcomings of Strong, the estate manager. Miranda pointed out that there were many things she still needed to see, such as the part of the estate that lay in the Roaches and some of the estate farms, not to mention parts of the ruined west wing and the house cellars.

“The cellars?” Devin repeated with a chuckle. “Why would you want to see those?”

“I want to see everything,” Miranda replied simply. “Every part of the house.”

“They are huge. They stretch under most of the central portion of Darkwater. And they’re old. I’m not entirely sure they are safe.”

“Are there dungeons?”

He laughed again. “There’s your father’s daughter speaking. As far as I know, they were used only for storing things—huge amounts of things. There are some small locked rooms, however….”

“Really?” Miranda turned on her side to look at him, intrigued.

“Yes, really. More storage rooms, where they locked munitions and valuables, I’m afraid.”

Miranda grimaced. “You have no sense of romance.”

“And here I thought I was terribly romantic.” He smiled lazily, trailing his finger down her neck and onto her chest.

A little quiver darted through Miranda. “Well, in some respects you are….”

He kissed her, effectively ending the conversation.

It was some time later when they made their way down to breakfast. Everyone else in the family had already eaten and gone on their way, so the two of them were alone. It was not until they were almost through with the meal that Miranda guiltily remembered that her stepmother was ill and she had not even checked on her this morning.

As soon as Devin left for the abbey ruins, she trotted up the stairs to Elizabeth’s room. The maid was dutifully sitting with her stepmother, just as Miranda had left her the night before. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was awake at last, sitting up in bed with a number of pillows propped behind her. She looked far better than she had the day before, though her skin was still pasty, her lips dried and cracked, and her eyes had large dark circles under them that were at odds with the long hours of sleep she had gotten the day before.

“How are you, Elizabeth?” Miranda asked, coming forward and nodding at the maid that she could leave.

“Miranda. My love. I am improved, I think.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Still a little fuzzy, though. It is the oddest thing. I don’t think I have ever felt quite this way before. I kept waking up last night and falling back asleep. I couldn’t keep my eyes open for any length of time. My stomach hurts…and my head.” She sighed.

“Well, thank heaven it seems to be over and you are on the mend,” Miranda said encouragingly.

Elizabeth reached out and patted Miranda’s hand. “Nan was just telling me how you sat with me all yesterday. Didn’t even go down to eat. You are such a sweet girl.”

“I was concerned about you,” Miranda replied honestly. “You slept so much.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Yes. I did. It’s odd.”

Miranda stayed for a few minutes longer, talking, but she could see that she was wearing Elizabeth out, so she left her to go back to sleep once again and Miranda went down to the library to work.

She found it hard going keeping her mind on the books and Mr. Strong’s less than lucid explanations of the estate’s workings. So that afternoon she went to the stables and had a horse saddled for her, and she rode out to the abbey ruins. She and Devin had ridden to the abbey before; it was one of her favorite places on the estate. But today it had an additional appeal.

Devin was there, painting, but he readily stopped when he saw Miranda. She had brought a small picnic lunch that Cook had made up for them, and they ate it, sitting in the shadow of one of the still-standing walls.

The abbey was an eerie place, stark and ruined, half-crumbled walls and flagstone floors overgrown with grasses and weeds. Many of the stones in the building’s walls had been taken down and carted over to Darkwater to build the Aincourt mansion. Two walls of the central cathedral—one with a beautifully designed window, empty of glass—stood intact, large and imposing, with the customary medieval arches, but the other two walls had been reduced to rubble. Parts of the abbey were identifiable only by a line of stones half-buried in the ground, marking the shapes of rooms. In other places there were staircases leading upward to nowhere or empty gaping holes in the ground where the floors had fallen through into the cellars below.

Yet it had a unique beauty, too, Miranda thought, at once harsh and peaceful, defeated but at the same time unconquerable. After all this time and all that had been done to it, the abbey was still here, long after the men who had set out to destroy it were gone. When she looked at Devin’s painting of the abbey, she saw that he had managed to convey the timelessness of the place, its haunting grandeur. She slipped her hand into his and squeezed it, smiling up at him.

At that moment, she did not think there was a happier woman on earth.