Glimmer of Hope

by Sarah M. Eden

  “I am having a hard time feeling impressed by Miranda’s running,” Mr. Benton said. “It didn’t do her a lot of good.”

  “Aye. But it didn’t kill her either.”

  “She’s alive?” Carter knew he sounded desperate. He had seen her breathing but somehow needed to hear it from someone with expertise.

  “Lady Devereaux isn’t so easily brought down,” MacPherson replied. “A wicht, she is.”

  “Did you just call my wife a witch?”

  MacPherson didn’t even look up at him. He fumbled through his bag as he spoke. “A wicht. Means she’s small but strong.”

  Carter looked down at Miranda. He reached out and touched her face. Her eyes were unopened, and he didn’t think she’d moved at all. Small? Decidedly. She looked tiny and frail lying there so still. “Small but strong.” Carter nodded at the ring of truth in those words. “Her coloring is still not better.”

  “Her heart’s not acting right,” MacPherson replied. “Of course her coloring is not good.”

  “But will she recover?” Carter was growing heartily tired of the gruff surgeon and his refusal to answer a direct question.

  “Now ye want to know?” MacPherson actually looked angry.

  “Of course I want to know,” Carter snapped back. “Miranda is my wife. I am worried about her.”

  “Aye. ’Tis harder to ignore pain when ye’re looking at it.” There was a level of reprimand in MacPherson’s tone that took Carter entirely by surprise. “Perhaps ye ought to go back to London where ye will not have to think about your wife.”

  “You expect me to go to London with Miranda laid low? To forget that she is ill, dying?”

  “Well, how’s that for a sudden change?” MacPherson ignored Carter and turned toward Mr. Benton. “First we cannot get him to come. Now we cannot get him to leave.”

  “MacPherson.” Carter bit off the words, rising from the bed and crossing the room toward the man who stood several inches taller than he did and weighed several stones more. At the moment, he was too aggravated with the man to care. “I do not like your tone.”

  “I would not expect ye to.” MacPherson obviously didn’t care that a man of rank and position was giving him a set-down. “I couldn’t care a docken if ye like my tone or not. Any man who would leave his wife to suffer like Lady Devereaux has these three years deserves none of my good opinion.”

  “I did not leave her.” The words jerked from him.

  “And ye didn’t come neither.”

  “I didn’t know she was ill.”

  “Blaflum! Unless the post has quit delivering to London, ye’ve known well enough.” MacPherson shot Carter a look of stark disapproval. “Run off, Lord Devereaux. Go bide in London. We’ll write to ye so your conscience will not have to bother ye. And ye can ignore the letters like ye’ve always done.”

  Carter froze on the spot. Letters? What letters did MacPherson think he’d been ignoring? He’d never received a single letter from anyone regarding Miranda—only the reports Father had received from his man-of-business and the ones that had come to Carter since Father’s death.

  MacPherson turned to Hannah. “Two more sips of the foxglove tisane in two hours. Lily-o’-the-valley tea and some thin gruel if ye can get her to take it. She’ll need sustenance.”

  Hannah nodded. MacPherson pulled a glass vial, stoppered, from his bag and handed it to Hannah.

  “What letters?” Carter demanded. MacPherson looked across at him, an eyebrow raised. “You said I had ignored letters.”

  “Aye.” MacPherson nodded. “I sent ye one myself.”

  “I have never received a letter from you.”

  “I got your address from Mr. Benton,” MacPherson said. “I doubt he was wrong.”

  “Lost, then? In the post?” Carter wondered out loud.

  MacPherson shrugged.

  “I wrote to you too, Carter,” Mr. Benton said. “Maybe I wasn’t clear enough to make you understand how serious—”

  “I never received a letter from you either.” Carter looked at Mr. Benton, growing more confused by the minute, more frustrated.

  “Two letters lost going to the same person?” MacPherson shook his head. “Hard to believe.”

  “I sent more than one,” Mr. Benton said. He looked at Carter with disappointed disbelief.

  “I didn’t receive them,” Carter insisted.

  “I have a hard time believing that, my lord,” MacPherson said. “Ye need a better excuse.”

  “It isn’t an excuse.” Why didn’t they believe him? He hadn’t received a single letter.

  “Find out what happened to your letters,” MacPherson suggested. “I’ll have less reason to take an ill will at ye.” MacPherson picked up his leather bag and laid a hand reassuringly on Mr. Benton’s shoulder. “I’ll see that Cook has enough supplies for this episode.”

  Carter didn’t notice until that moment that Cook had left.

  “Will this be a short one?” Mr. Benton asked, understandable concern in his voice.

  “I don’t ken.” MacPherson shook his head and shrugged. “She looks well enough, considering. Time will tell all. Two more dribbles, Hannah.” He held up two fingers. “In two hours.”

  She nodded her understanding once more.

  “She is going to live?” Carter asked one more time as MacPherson made his way to the door.

  “We must wait and see.” MacPherson turned those too-seeing eyes on Carter, and he felt remarkably like an insect pinned to a board. “With luck, ye will not have to bother purchasing a black armband yet.”

  “You would mock a husband worried for his wife’s life?”

  “If I thought ye were truly worried after yer wife, I wouldn’t mock.”

  “How dare—”

  “I have looked after yer wife along with the staff here and her grandfather for years,” MacPherson said, seeming to grow taller as he spoke. “She is much like a sister to my wife and me. There was a time I wished ye’d come down an’ show her a little concern. If ye aren’t willing to be a husband to this ill-off lady, then I’d rather ye took yer leave.”

  The surgeon took himself and his bag and his opinions out the door. Mr. Benton looked momentarily uncomfortable, as if wanting to offer an apology but unwilling to speak the lie. After only a moment’s pause, he too left.

  They both believed him heartless and uncaring when he’d never even been told about Miranda’s illness. He’d never been given a chance to “be a husband to her,” as MacPherson had suggested. How dare they assume he would leave her now that he knew.

  A voice in the back of his head whispered that he’d planned to do precisely that. He’d intended to head off to London for however short a duration when he knew she was ailing.

  Carter brushed it off. He’d planned to come back. It was only that appearing at the opening of Parliament was crucial to his future in the party, his future in Parliament. He would have come back. He would have written to her while he was away.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, Lord Devereaux.” Hannah interrupted his thoughts. “I need to gather a few things for the sickroom. If you’d sit with Lady Devereaux?”

  “Of course,” Carter answered a little too sharply. “I wasn’t planning to abandon her.”

  “No, my lord.” Hannah backed away toward the door. “Excuse me, my lord.”

  Then he was alone, with Miranda unmoving on her bed, only the sound of her unsteady breathing breaking the silence. Carter crossed the room to sit beside her bed. He took up her hand and held it. How often had she been like this? Ill? Walking the line between life and death? And he hadn’t been there.

  His next breath wrenched out of him, breaking as it came. “I didn’t know,” he said in an anguished whisper to the empty room. “I didn’t know.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “YOU MUST AT LEAST TRY to eat, Carter,” Mother insisted that night at dinner.

  Miranda still hadn’t awoken, and MacPherson couldn’t—or perhaps wouldn’t—give him a s
traight answer about her condition. Carter glanced momentarily at MacPherson, who ate calmly. He hadn’t lost his appetite. To Carter, however, food held no appeal.

  He stood abruptly, all eyes suddenly on him. “Excuse me, please,” he said and stepped away from the table.

  “Carter,” Mother said. “What are you doing?”

  “I am going to sit with my wife.” He looked around the table, expecting arguments or disapproval. He found none. MacPherson looked begrudgingly impressed. Mr. Benton smiled a little. Mother mostly looked surprised.

  Rising from the table in the middle of a meal when one was the host was unthinkable in society. Carter, as MacPherson would have said, didn’t care a docken. He would go sit with Miranda. He wanted to be with her when she woke up. And she would wake up.

  He continued to tell himself just that as he climbed the stairs and made his way to Miranda’s room. He was so convincing he half expected to walk in and find her sitting up in bed, smiling shyly at him like she always did. Carter picked up the pace, eager to be beside her again.

  “Lord Devereaux!” Hannah jumped to her feet in startled surprise.

  Carter glanced immediately at the bed. Miranda still hadn’t moved. He thought her color looked better though. He stepped closer. She did look better—still far too pale but none of the deathlike gray that had been there before.

  “Go have your dinner, Hannah. I’ll sit with Lady Devereaux.”

  Carter heard her leave, but he didn’t look away from Miranda. “Hello, my dear,” Carter said, stroking her hair. He wished she would respond to his voice, move just a little, make some sound. “Please come back, Miranda. I hate seeing you like this.”

  Her breathing sounded a little better. Carter put his fingers to the pulse high on her neck, concentrating on the feel of it. He’d checked it a couple of hours earlier, and though it had become more regular since then, it still wasn’t quite right.

  “Oh, Miranda.” He shifted his hand to her cheek. “You shouldn’t have run. You didn’t give me a chance to explain.” Carter leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I wasn’t leaving. Not for good. Not even for long.”

  He stroked her hair, his chest constricting painfully as the memory of her collapsing beneath that tree replayed in his mind. The stinging in the back of his eyes and the burning in his throat came back. He took several shaky breaths.

  She’d said his name as she fell to the ground. But had she been calling for him or cursing him? The possibility of the latter, he knew, would haunt him.

  Carter dropped back into the chair beside her bed, holding Miranda’s hand in his and waiting for her to wake.

  Near nine o’clock, MacPherson took his leave with instructions that he should be sent for if Miranda’s condition changed. Otherwise, he intended to return the next morning to check on her. After several uneventful hours and numerous one-sided conversations, Carter drifted to sleep in the chair where he sat with Miranda’s hand perfectly still inside of his.

  * * *

  The sun was up when Carter woke, stiff necked and still tired. Miranda, he noticed dishearteningly, didn’t look much better than she had when he’d gone to sleep. She also didn’t look worse. She was pale but not gray. She was breathing, if not more deeply, at least more regularly.

  Carter stood and stretched, hoping to pull the kinks out of his joints. He passed a small table with a packet lying on top. Glancing quickly as he passed, Carter noticed it was addressed to him. Timms must have brought up the post while Carter slept.

  He walked to the window and looked out at a clear, winter morning. It was ironic, really, that such a horrible day could be so beautiful.

  “Hoped you’d be up, Lord Devereaux.” Hannah entered the room, carrying a tray. On it, she bore a covered platter, two pots of tea, and the same covered crockery that had held Miranda’s foxglove tisane the night before. “Might as well have your breakfast.”

  “Let me help you feed Miranda, first,” he insisted, crossing to the bed. They’d done this four times already.

  Carter raised Miranda almost to a sitting position, placing himself behind her for support. They required no words—the routine was already automatic. They started with a single dose of the foxglove tisane, followed by her special tea and runny gruel.

  “I think she looks a little better this morning,” Hannah said as they laid Miranda back down after her minuscule morning meal. “The tea and berries have been doing the trick, I suppose. Lady Devereaux didn’t look good this fast last time.”

  “How many times has this happened?” Carter remained seated on Miranda’s bed, holding her—as much for his own comfort as for hers. Probably his more.

  “This’ll be the fifth, my lord,” Hannah answered, reloading her tray. “First un was the worst. Called in the vicar thrice that time. Next two weren’t as bad. Last un near about killed her again. This time, though, she’s been drinkin’ that lily-of-the-valley tea and eating the hawthorn berries like Mr. MacPherson said. He heard from another doctor about how those things are supposed to be good for the heart. Looks as though it’ll go a little easier for her.”

  “This is easier?” Carter didn’t want to imagine her worse than she was.

  “Laws, yes,” Hannah said with obvious conviction. “That first time she looked dead for days. I was so afraid she was bound to die, and she’d only been here a few months.”

  Five instances like the one Carter was witnessing now. That seemed like a lot. “How long ago was the first one?” Carter asked.

  Hannah laid out Carter’s breakfast on a long table at the end of Miranda’s bed. “Nearly three years ago, my lord.” She picked up her tray with the remains of Miranda’s breakfast.

  Three years ago. Then her heart had been ailing nearly all the time they’d been apart. And Hannah had said that by the time she’d become ill, Miranda had been at Clifton Manor for a few months. That was too long to be a visit.

  Hannah had clearly tended to Miranda during all of her episodes, as had MacPherson. Had she been at Clifton Manor all along?

  That didn’t make sense at all. They had received a report from Clifton Manor in those early months, just like all the other Devereaux holdings, informing them that Miranda was not at the Dorset estate. Had she hidden her whereabouts? That couldn’t be right. Mr. Benton had said that Miranda had been expecting him. How could she be expecting someone she was purposely hiding from?

  There were too many inconsistencies.

  MacPherson and Mr. Benton claimed to have written him letters he’d never received, letters that would have told him of Miranda’s condition and confirmed her location.

  What was going on?

  He’d written to his secretary, Simson, nearly two weeks earlier, asking for what correspondence he could find among the estate papers and Father’s papers concerning Miranda. He hadn’t heard back from him yet.

  Then, like a flash of lightning, it hit him: the parcel on the table. It had to be Simson’s reply.

  Carter forced himself not to jump up. Quickly but gently, he laid Miranda back down and tucked the blankets around her. “I am going to figure this out,” he said to her. “Then you are going to wake up, and we’ll find a way to make things right between us again.”

  She didn’t respond. He hadn’t expected her to.

  With a sigh, Carter turned to the end table and picked up the parcel. It was heavy, which meant Simson had found something to send along. Carter dropped back into the chair he’d spent the entire night in and opened the parcel.

  There was a stack of papers inside, some wrapped in a protective folder, the entire pile bound together, and a letter lying on top.

  Lord Devereaux,

  I have undertaken to obtain the information you requested. I have enclosed the correspondence from Clifton Manor to your man-of-business, including the information received in the years since the passing of the Sixth Viscount Devereaux. Among your esteemed father’s papers, I found the folder I am including. Upon first glance, I dismissed the conten
ts as unimportant, the outward label not seeming related to your search. But a quick perusal of the contents revealed that these were indeed the papers you are looking for.

  I remain,

  Your servant,

  James Simson

  He had found something. Carter untied the bundle, his eyes scanning it anxiously. He recognized Father’s handwriting on the front of the folder. The letters MB and nothing else were written across it. Carter understood Simson’s confusion. What did that have to do with any of this?

  “Strange,” Carter muttered to himself and opened the folder.

  One glance at the parchment sitting on top stole his breath. “My Dearest Carter,” it began. Father had always addressed him as “Gibbons,” his courtesy title until Father’s death. Mother used his given name when speaking to him but was extremely formal in her written correspondence. Only one person would have opened a letter in that particular way—Miranda.

  Carter checked the date. “October 17, 1804.” The month and year she’d left Wiltshire. Probably close to the very day.

  He swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

  October 17, 1804

  My Dearest Carter,

  No doubt this missive will reach London before you do, considering you have only just quit this house an hour ago. Perhaps I have too many sensibilities, but I miss you already. I so wanted to go with you to London; indeed I have been dreaming of little else since you proposed the trip a fortnight ago.

  Please do not be cross with me, Carter, but I really must visit my grandfather. You will be gone for a fortnight at least, and having packed my bags already in anticipation of two weeks in Town, I have decided this would be an excellent time to make the trip to Devon.

  Do not worry for me. The traveling coach is, as you know, conveying you to London, but I have sufficient pin money to hire a coach and coachman for the journey to Devon. Sally Mills, an upstairs maid, will be serving as my companion. She is returning to her family in Devon. Do not be concerned that I will be unprotected. Mr. Henson and his son, the elder being recently widowed, were in need of a means to reach his family in Cornwall, a journey that would take them through Devon. They will be riding up with the coachman, and we shall, I am certain, be perfectly safe.