CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Had you no luck?" The dowager duchess stood in the hallway, as if she were still the house's mistress and going about the unappetizing chore of questioning the help. Her spine was straight; there was not a wrinkle in her glossy black silk skirts. Her dark gray eyes bored deep, as if to delve the depths of Miranda's soul.
Despite the older woman's air of composure and command, Miranda had the odd impression the dowager had been standing there, unmoving, ever since Miranda had left the house.
"What did you say to him? He was not in the least unhappy until he spoke to you." The harsh words came unbidden. Though she was horror-struck at her own audacity, she was still reeling from Simon's painful rejection, unable to temper her words with the respect due the dowager's position.
Most frustrating of all, from her perspective, was the ambiguity of her mother-in-law's expression. The older woman's face was serene, as if she had asked after her son's choice of apparel for the day — as if Miranda's reply had been coolly civil and not flagrantly rude and angry.
Nothing in the woman's expression seemed concerned, yet there was an air of expectancy emanating from her as she said, "The question seems more to be — what did he say to you?"
Even though the dowager waited silently for her answer, Miranda could feel the other woman's eager impatience as if it were a force of its own. And yet her features were so composed that she gave the impression of a pond that had frozen over. Had this woman no heart? To distress her dying son in this manner and then act as if she were blameless?
Reining in her temper, she answered as politely as she could manage, "He will be in shortly."
"What a pity." Again, the dowager's face held no clue to her thoughts.
Miranda, her temper at the boiling point, had no notion of how to respond to such blatant incivility. She finally decided to do her best to match the dowager's sangfroid. "I feel certain you will excuse my wish to retire now."
The dowager smiled, a simple lift of her mouth. "I had held some hope that the young woman who persuaded Simon to marry her at this juncture of his life could persuade him to be civil to his mother."
Miranda stood rooted to the spot. For a moment she thought she had not heard correctly. Stiffly, she responded to the dowager's attack. "My concern at this point, as I'm sure you understand, is his health."
Though she had sworn to herself not to lose her temper again, she could not resist adding, "I don't pretend to understand what is behind his behavior toward you, Your Grace, but I cannot worry about that when he is dying."
"It is all that I can worry about." The deprecating smile was so fleeting that Miranda almost believed she had imagined the slight quirk of the dowager's mouth.
Her temper flared, and she was too exhausted to fight it anymore. "Do you not care about him?"
The anger that she was poised to vent disappeared in an instant, though, at the sadness that shadowed the dowager's features as she spoke. "I regret that our relationship must be unmended should I never see him again."
It seemed a cold way to discuss her son's death, as if he might simply be leaving for an extended trip. "That is between the two of you. For my part, I can only do what Simon will not."
"Indeed?" The dowager's brow rose. "And what is that?"
"He will not consider doctors, apparently they have failed him in the past. So I have found someone to minister to him."
The instant the words were out of her mouth, Miranda regretted them. She had not confided her actions to Simon, yet she had just told his mother, knowing the two of them could not bear to be in the same room with each other.
Though the dowager seemed not to move, her skirts rippled slightly, as if she had suppressed a start of surprise. "Simon has agreed to this?"
"He has been disappointed by doctors, he says. But a healer is a different cup of tea," Miranda sidestepped, not wanting to divulge any more to the woman Simon so obviously didn't trust.
As if sensing that Miranda did not want to lie, the dowager would not be put off. She leaned toward Miranda and fixed her with a stare. "Does he know?" her voice had the stern tone of Miranda's old nanny.
Responding to both the tone, and the need to explain what she intended for Simon, Miranda looked steadily at the silver locket that hung starkly against the dowager's black silk. "I hadn't intended to tell him the exact purpose this person will serve."
The dowager leaned back and sighed, almost as if she were a tutor who had been disappointed by an errant pupil. "Dishonesty so soon, my dear? Whatever will Simon say?"
Miranda felt as if she were five again, and being scolded for not confessing her part in a midnight raid on the biscuits in the kitchen. "My concern is Simon. I believe that he will resist the healing if he knows about it."
"Indeed?"
Miranda blushed lightly. It was embarrassing to speak to his mother, who had known him all his life, as if she knew Simon well.
But her feeling about this was strong, and soon, when Katherine arrived, there would be someone to agree with or dispute her deeply-held belief that Simon was preventing his own recovery. "I think he is not pursuing all the avenues available to him for a cure, for some reason. I cannot help but hope, like Briar Rose, a curse of death has been laid upon him and can be lifted."
Again, Miranda looked up to meet the dowager's intense gray eyes. The woman's words were softly spoken, yet there was a tension within her that Miranda could not fathom. "You are a very perceptive young woman. I wonder if Simon knows just how perceptive a young woman he so rashly married?"
Uncertain of the meaning of the dowager's words, Miranda answered lamely, "I have never considered Simon rash."
"And yet he chose one day, without warning, to cast his own mother out of his life."
Miranda had been taught to respect her elders, but caught between Simon and his mother, she knew she must defend her husband. "I cannot think the problem all rests with Simon," she addressed the dowager duchess warily. "In the short time I have known him, I have given him several reasons to hold me in contempt and he has always listened to my explanation and understood – as best he could – my reasoning, faulty thought he might think it."
"Indeed?" The dowager's right eyebrow lifted elegantly. "Certainly he has refused to listen to me. But then, I talk plainly, and not all people care to hear the truth."
Miranda bit back a harsh defense of Simon and said mildly, "Perhaps, but I have always found Simon to be above all interested in the truth."
As she stood in the doorway, with the cold night air encroaching from the hallway, she found herself no longer in such pain over Simon's rejection. This was a house of coldness that sprang from more than the night air. There was much more here than was fathomable in one night.
Whatever drove Simon to refuse a doctor's help with his illness had its root here in this house, and with his relationship with his mother. Miranda hoped she would be equal to the challenge of divining what ailed Simon's body – as well as his soul.
There was a flash of some emotion in the dowager's eyes that was quickly masked by her enigmatic expression. "Be cautious child, thinking you know any man. They are all capable of bending truth to the breaking point if it suits their needs."
"Not Simon," Miranda countered flatly.
The dowager smiled. "You are very young, my dear."
"Good night, Your Grace." With a weak smile and a nod of her head, she turned and fled up the stairs to her new room and her new bed. Somehow, the thought was not quite so appealing now that she knew Simon had been diverted from his initial intentions.
Hours later, as she sat listening, unable to relax, she heard muffled sounds from the room adjoining hers. Murmured voices — Simon and his valet. A thump as something hit the floor — a boot? Two? And then, presently, silence. She waited, but there was no indication that he even glanced at the door between them, never mind thought to come through it.
The Fairy Tale Bride Page 18