Glimmer of Hope (17 page)

She sipped a bit before sinking back against her pillows.

Miranda slipped her hand out from under the blankets, laying it on top of his on the bed beside her. “It was a wonderful morning, Carter.”

“Even though you’re ill tonight?”

She nodded her head slowly. Carter sat beside her for several quiet moments, holding her hand in one of his, stroking her hair with the other.

“Tell me about where you live now,” Miranda said quietly.

“What would you like to know?” She had always been an easy person to talk to before his pride had gotten in the way.

“Do you spend most of your time in London?”

“While Parliament is in session, I do. The rest of the year I spend in Leicestershire at the family seat.”

She coughed again. He rubbed her arm, feeling helpless to do anything for her. After a moment, her lungs settled and she lay back once more. Her posture, filled with exhaustion a moment before, spoke of bone-deep weakness.

“Do you ever go back to Wiltshire?” she asked.

Wiltshire. Where they’d once lived. “No, Miranda,” Carter answered truthfully. “I haven’t been back there in a very long time.”
It was too painful
, he added silently. He shifted his hand from her hair to her cheek. Miranda closed her eyes. She was far too pale.

“Do you miss it? The house and land?” She didn’t open her eyes as she spoke, and Carter recognized the slurring effect of approaching sleep. “It seemed very important to you then.”

“Honestly, Miranda, the only thing I have missed about the Wiltshire property is you.”

He wondered if she was asleep already. There was no immediate reply. He listened to her slow, slightly wheezy breaths.

He hated seeing her ill. Perhaps he should send for the local physician or apothecary. There had to be something that could ease her discomfort.

“Why didn’t you come for me?” Miranda’s whispered question came suddenly, taking him entirely by surprise.

Why hadn’t he come once he knew where she was? Perhaps because she didn’t want him to. Or perhaps he’d told himself that since she had left, she ought to be the one to return. Perhaps he’d been too hurt.

“I should have,” Carter admitted, his voice not much louder than hers. He ought to have gone to Devon himself the moment he’d heard she was there. He hadn’t been willing to risk the rejection. “I should have.”

She didn’t reply, didn’t move. He listened to her slightly deeper breathing for a moment longer and guessed she slept.

Feeling somehow safer knowing she was oblivious to his words, Carter found a measure of courage he’d been lacking for too long.

“I love you, Miranda,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss her cheek. She didn’t answer. Listening, Carter was certain she was asleep then.

Carter adjusted her blanket, tucking it tighter around her shoulders. He snuffed the candles at her bedside, then the one near the door, and walked away, smiling at the prospect of a Season in London with Miranda at his side.

* * *

Carter was grateful not to see Miranda at breakfast the next morning. He missed her company but felt certain she needed to rest. His room was very near hers, and he thought he heard her coughing in the night.

He saw Perce and his wife off late that morning.

Later, Adèle pulled him aside for a brief moment. “It seems you and Miranda have found some common ground once more,” she said.

Carter smiled, as much to himself as to her. “Yes. Things are looking much better these last few days. Not perfect, but better.”

“I am so pleased. I do like her a great deal. And you know perfectly well that I am fond of you as well. I would so dearly love to see the two of you reconciled.”

“I am working on it,” he assured her. “We haven’t yet reached a place where we can talk about everything that has happened between us, but we’re moving forward.”

“Good.” Adèle nodded firmly. “Just so long as you haven’t given up. There’ll be time for difficult conversations when you have learned to trust each other again.”

“That is exactly what I am counting on,” he said.

In a flurry of activity, the duke and duchess settled their young family into the elegant traveling carriage and disappeared down the lane.

Carter made his way to the sitting room to gather some papers he’d left there.

Miranda’s grandfather came in. He had aged in the past three years, but until that minute, Carter hadn’t realized how much. The gentleman looked frail.

“Devereaux.”

“Mr. Benton.”

“I’ll not wander around my purpose,” Mr. Benton said. “I need to discuss something with you, and though I am not relishing this conversation, there are a few things that simply need to be said.”

Here it comes
, Carter thought. He’d wondered from the day he’d arrived at Clifton Manor just when Mr. Benton planned to ring a peal over his head for what he must have considered to be severe neglect on Carter’s part over the past three years. While Carter knew he ought to be absolved of some of the blame, he had come to accept that a great deal of the difficulty could be laid at his feet. He ought to have tried harder to find Miranda, to see her before three years stretched out between them. Even though she had indicated she did not wish to see him, he should have gone to Devon in person to find out why and try to change her mind.

Carter motioned that they should sit near the fire. Mr. Benton lowered himself into the armchair and waited for Carter to do the same.

“You are taking Miranda to London,” Mr. Benton said.

“I am. Do you disapprove?”

“No.” He hesitated. “But I do worry.”

“What is it that worries you?” Hadn’t he just had this conversation with his mother? He was certain, though, Mr. Benton’s worries were
for
Miranda, not
about
her.

Mr. Benton sat silently. Carter could see in his expression that a war of sorts was being waged in the gentleman’s mind, perhaps in his conscience. He waited, wondering.

“I will not be there to look after her, and I worry that she will not take proper care of herself,” Mr. Benton said awkwardly, giving the very real impression there was more he wasn’t saying.

“She will not be alone, sir. The staff will see to her every comfort. She can, of course, bring her maid. And
I
will be there.”

Mr. Benton didn’t look satisfied. “Even here, where the staff knows and cares for her, she often neglects herself.” His snowy white eyebrows pulled together. His mouth turned down. “These past two weeks, I fear she has worn herself to shreds.”

Carter thought of how Miranda had looked the night before: exhausted, pale. She had seemed to grow frailer since his arrival. Perhaps she
was
pushing herself too hard. But, Carter told himself, Miranda would not be the hostess of a house party in London.

“The pace outlined last evening for her trip to Town concerns me greatly,” Mr. Benton said.

“Most people find the pace of London a bit of a shock at first, but Miranda will have time to accustom herself to it.”

Mr. Benton shook his head. “She doesn’t need to adjust. She needs to . . . to be cared for. And . . . and she needs to have rest and quiet and . . .”

“I realize you are solicitous of your granddaughter’s well-being,” Carter replied, excusing Mr. Benton’s worries as a product of so many years spent as her sole caregiver. Mr. Benton had raised Miranda from the time her parents had died when she was still very young. “I share your desire to see her happy.”

“It is more than her happiness, Devereaux.”

“Her well-being, then,” Carter amended. “I will never require her to exert herself beyond her strength.”

“But that is precisely what has been required of her during the course of this infernal house party.” Mr. Benton’s brows pulled downward, his mouth tightening into a tense line.

What had brought on this sudden attack? He hadn’t been taxing Miranda. The past week or more he’d been courting her. “I have asked very little of her in regards to the party. My mother has taken the entire thing in hand and—”

“She has demanded much of Miranda and offered her insults at every turn!” Mr. Benton’s eyes snapped. “And you have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to it all.”

“So,” Carter replied, his cold civility marred by sarcasm, “not only do you feel I intend to ignore all of my wife’s needs, but I also apparently plan to give my mother leave to walk rough-shod over Miranda’s sensibilities? I truly appreciate the vote of confidence.”

His response failed to quail Mr. Benton. The tension in the other gentleman’s jaw visibly increased, and his eyes sharpened, narrowing on Carter. “And what, Devereaux, have you done in the last three years to earn my confidence?”

It was such a palpable hit that Mr. Benton would have been justified in gloating. In fact, Carter rather expected him to. Instead, the older gentleman seemed to crumple as if weighted down by his own thoughts.

“Miranda watched for you.” Mr. Benton sighed forlornly. “She attempted to hide it, but I saw her lingering at windows, staring down at the empty lane leading to the house. I had to endure the sight of her disappointment—at times to the point of tears—when the post inevitably contained not a word from you. Only after a full year did she stop looking hopeful when presented with the day’s post. After two years, she stopped gazing out of windows. So, no. You have not earned my vote of confidence.”

Carter doubted he could have been humbled more quickly than he was by those words. She had watched for him, expected him to arrive. More than ever, he wished he’d made that trip to Devon years earlier.

She had refused to write to him, even declared her desire not to see him, apparently needing him to bridge that gap. In the face of such unequivocal rejection, he
had
stopped writing. If it had been a test of his devotion, as unfair as such a thing was, Carter had failed completely.

“You have broken her, young man. You have broken her.” The pain in Mr. Benton’s face and voice was almost unbearable.

The weight of three desolate years settled firmly on Carter’s shoulders. But with it came unshakable determination. He would not fail her again.

“Mr. Benton,” he said into the anguished silence, “I cannot begin to tell you how completely I regret these past three years, how greatly I wish I could wipe away the pain Miranda and I have endured. For, I assure you, I did not escape this separation unscathed.”

Mr. Benton nodded ever so slightly, a gesture of minimal acknowledgment. Carter bit back his frustration—why couldn’t Mr. Benton so much as acknowledge that Miranda’s desertion and subsequent coldness had hurt him?

“I am attempting to pick up the pieces of both of our lives, sir,” Carter continued, reminding himself of Mr. Benton’s concern for his granddaughter. Love for Miranda was the one thing they would always have in common. “By taking Miranda to London, I am hoping to earn back her affection and her trust so I can finally fix what broke between us three years ago.”

“Her affection will be easily obtained.” A ghost of a smile flitted across Mr. Benton’s face. “She is already making sheep’s eyes at you.”

Carter felt an answering smile on his own face. “I am infinitely grateful to hear that, Mr. Benton.”

“Her trust will come eventually, provided you live up to it.”

Carter felt confident in that. “I will, I promise you.”

“It is her well-being I am not sure you can secure,” Mr. Benton said.

“What do I need to do to convince you?” Carter knew he could never fully mend the rift between himself and Miranda if Mr. Benton couldn’t entrust her to Carter’s care. “You have mentioned setting a slower pace in Town. What else?”

Mr. Benton eyed him closely as if trying to determine Carter’s sincerity.

“Miranda needs you to stand up for her, to put her first.”

“I intend to.” Carter emphasized each word, hoping to convince Mr. Benton.

“She has been denied the things she needs during this house party. Mostly by your mother.”

Carter rose to his feet, pacing to the mantel. Mother had been hard on Miranda. Though he wanted to believe it was all in the name of helping her be a success as a hostess, he couldn’t entirely believe that.

“Miranda has been prevented from taking her walks,” Mr. Benton said. “She has not been allowed to have her nap, which she was used to doing every afternoon.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “And the Dowager Lady Devereaux has threatened the staff if they brew her the lily-of-the-valley tea she ought to be drinking twice a day. She decreed shortly after arriving that hawthorn berries were not to be served any longer.”

Miranda had told him when he first arrived that she liked hawthorn berries. He couldn’t understand why Mother had objected so vehemently. Hawthorn berries and lily-of-the-valley tea were, perhaps, an odd thing to serve regularly, but if Miranda liked them, she shouldn’t be denied such simple things.

“She will be permitted to eat anything she chooses in London,” Carter said.

“Unless your mother determines otherwise.”

There was no good response to that. Carter would like to think Mother was not so heavy-handed. But the conversation he’d had with her the night before left him in doubt.

“You have to promise me, Carter.” Hearing Mr. Benton call him by his given name for the first time since shortly after he and Miranda were married immediately grabbed Carter’s attention. “I am not asking you to indulge an old man. I am not trying to pry or interfere. I am trying to give my girl the only thing she has ever asked me for.”

Carter watched as concern and desperation replaced the anger he’d seen in Mr. Benton’s face moments before. “What is it she has asked you for?”

“Time,” Mr. Benton said, staring out the window. “She asked for time. There is so little I can do to give it to her.”

Mr. Benton’s tone was so desolate, so desperate Carter found himself growing more concerned by the moment. What did he mean by “time”? Time for what?

Mr. Benton didn’t speak for a long moment. Carter listened to him breathe deeply, heard him swallow with difficulty.

Then he whispered three horrifying words. “Miranda is dying.”