Page 18 of Refining the Debutante
“Yes, I do five in the time you can do one,” Sarah said with a sharp laugh.
Miranda stuck out her tongue.
Sarah threw the rag back. “I thought you were a fine lady.”
Miranda snagged the rag and shoved it into the bucket. Her back ached, but she bent forward and began scrubbing again. “The past and present are having a bit of a tug-of-war. I think the present is winning.” She motioned to her bucket. “Come now, don’t just stand there.”
“Please?” Sarah prompted.
“Please, Your Highness,” Miranda said with a large flourish of her arm.
“Yes, Your Lowliness,” Sarah responded.
Miranda laughed. It felt like years since she had heard the sound come from her mouth. Sarah seemed oblivious of Miranda’s triumph and joined the mopping.
“Do you ever dream of a different life?” Miranda asked after a few minutes.
Sarah didn’t lift her eyes from her task. “My sister has a half dozen babies and is always fretting about one thing or another. But still, I like the idea of someday marrying and having a brood of children.”
Miranda smiled at the image Sarah conjured. “I’ve never thought much about children.”
“Well?” Sarah asked. “What do you think of them now?”
“I think they would make a great deal of messes, and I would be stuck cleaning up after them.”
Sarah stared at her with disappointment.
Miranda snorted when her laugh came out. “Your face!”
“My face?” Sarah exclaimed. “Your snort!”
Miranda nodded. “I know! It happens once in a while, to my dying shame.”
Sarah shook her head and went back to scrubbing. “Tell me what you really think about children.”
“Well, I want to start with getting married first,” Miranda said, “but then I would like to have children.”
“So it doesn’t bother you at all about your own mother dying with a babe?”
Miranda would be lying if she said otherwise. “I don’t know the first thing about motherhood. That is what scares me. Still, sometimes I think I imagine an adorable little girl with dark hair just like—” Miranda had to stop herself.
Sarah grinned. “Like who? Mr. Roderick?”
“You remember him?” Miranda asked as an image of his dark brows and Roman nose came to her mind.
“You floated around the house after he called on you and made me retwist your hair over and over again on nights you were to see him. I’d say you were quite enamored.”
Miranda bit back her own grin. “I was, wasn’t I? To my disappointment, he saw right through to the real me.”
“You weren’t so very bad,” Sarah said, then stopped herself. “Never mind. You were horrible.”
Miranda glared at Sarah but knew she was right. “Well, it was enough to scare off Mr. Roderick for good. Right from the start, I knew he was different from the others. It was the way he looked at me, as if he saw only my eyes and nothing else.”
“He respected you,” Sarah clarified.
“Yes,” Miranda said sadly. “And I ruined everything. The more we were together, the more ridiculous I acted. I wanted to keep his attention. I wanted to show him I was better than all the others. I wanted to impress him.”
She stood to mop the bottom of the staircase but tripped on the hem of her dress and heard a rip. “Blast!” She had lost too much weight since arriving at Gray House, and her gowns hung looser than she was used to.
