Sacrifice (Fashionably Impure Book 3) by Natasha Blackthorne

Author:Natasha Blackthorne [Blackthorne, Natasha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hearts Aflame Press
Published: 2016-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Adrian turned from Miranda, unable to keep staring at her white, stricken face. He focused on setting out his shaving materials but he was so angry with her that his hands shook slightly. He couldn’t possibly shave himself without nicking his face. He cursed having decided not to bring his valet and he debated whether or not to ask to borrow Drake’s valet.

No. He would ask for nothing, ever again, from Drake.

He would send Miranda to stay at Jon’s cottage in Devon, Jon wouldn’t mind. Jon would keep her safe.

A flash of white in the washstand mirror caught Adrian’s attention.

Miranda straightening the bed.

Miranda so gloriously, unselfconsciously naked.

I love her. God, how I love her.

That love made what she had done all the harder to bear. The actual fact of what she did, that wasn’t so bad. But it was the greater knowing that she still clung to the reasoning and habits of her previous life. The life that Cassandra Jones had taught her.

It wasn’t Miranda’s fault that she’d been forced into a courtesan’s life. It also wasn’t her fault that he happened to despise a courtesan’s licentious, mercenary ways.

“You had secrets too, my lord.”

He turned and found her sitting on the bed, wrapped now in a bright green woolen shawl. “Aye, I did, my lady.”

“Your secrets had the power to destroy us.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s no way to rationalize this away, Miranda.”

She hugged her shoulders. Her hurt, lost expression seared him to the bone. He might never be alone with her like this again. He was letting his hurt and disappointment spoil their last moments of intimacy.

He couldn’t help it.

She deserved to know why he reacted so harshly. He had withheld so much from her. He went and sat on the bed, again. But he made no move to sit close to her or to touch her.

She drew her legs up and hugged them, as though protecting herself against him. She rested her chin on her knees. “What now, my lord?”

“I told you that Cassandra Jones was my father’s long-term mistress and, unfortunately, his love.”

Miranda bobbed her chin against her knees.

“I’ve told you of her mercenary greed, how she drained him, both financially and emotionally, and drove him to drink and to an early grave.”

“Yes.”

“I told you all of that but I never told you the real reason that I despise her so much.” He paused. How would she take what he was about to reveal to her? Would she think less of him? Perhaps. He needed to take that risk. Because despite his great anger and disappointment with her, he loved her. He didn’t know, right at this moment, how he would possibly reconcile his love with his newfound realization about Miranda’s character.

But he owed her a full explanation.

He forced himself to continue. “The day I turned eighteen I drank a little too freely. I made advances to a housemaid who was, understandably enough, repulsed when I cast up my accounts in the gardens before I could consummate our new friendship.

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