Bertrice Small

by Unconquered

  “Are you offering me a carte blanche?” she asked him.

  “Good Lord, no!” he whispered fiercely. “I hold you in greater esteem than that.”

  She didn’t understand, but she was far too happy to care. She loved him. She had loved him from the moment she met him. He had not said the words, but she knew that he loved her, too.

  He left just before first light, slipping out the back door of the cottage and riding home across the misty fields in the gray world of predawn. At nine that morning Miranda received Jonathan in her bedroom. Sitting up in bed, a rose pink silk bedjacket about her shoulders, her hair in a neat braid, she was an extremely fetching morsel, he thought. He kissed the hand she extended. “Madam.”

  “Good morning, m’lord. For a gentleman who spent the entire night out, you’re looking quite well.”

  “You’re mighty well informed for so early in the morning,” he teased.

  “Ah,” she chuckled, “the stable boy saw you come in and he told the dairymaid who told the kitchenmaid when she brought in the eggs this morning. The kitchenmaid naturally passed it on to the cook who mentioned it to my maid when Perky went for my breakfast tray, and Perky told me. She’s quite indignant that you’re neglecting me.” Here, Miranda skillfully mimicked her loyal servant, “It whats you can expect from a gentleman once he’s got what he wants, m’lady.”

  Jonathan laughed. “I’m delighted to know that I live up to Perky’s ideal of a gentleman.”

  “You’re troubled,” she said, “I can see it in your eyes. Is there any way in which I can help?”

  “I’m not sure,” he answered. “You see, I’ve fallen in love, Miranda. I want to marry, and because I must be Jared, and not Jon, I cannot even tender the lady a respectable offer. And I want to, Miranda. I don’t want Anne believing my love a shallow thing. I want to tell her who I really am, but I don’t know if I dare. I cannot endanger Jared.”

  Miranda was thoughtful for a few moments, then she said, “First you must tell me who the lady is, Jon.”

  “Mistress Anne Bowen.”

  “A quiet and discreet lady, I have heard. Are you sure she would accept you if you asked?”

  “Yes.”

  “I cannot see that Mistress Bowen’s knowledge of our secret would harm Jared,” said Miranda slowly. “Surely he will soon be home, and this masquerade can be ended. We are far enough from London, and this is not a fashionable enough place to draw the ton. I would not put Mistress Bowen under a painful strain believing that she is involved in an adulterous situation. I think you had best tell her the truth, Jon. Do you think, however, that she will believe you? This is a rather unusual situation.”

  “She will believe me if you come with me when I tell her.”

  Miranda’s mind began to churn. She had been considering a plan and now she saw that if Jon were occupied with Mistress Bowen she would be free to go her way. “All right, Jon, I will attest to your honesty with Mistress Bowen.”

  Elated, he kissed her hand again and left the room whistling. Miranda smiled to herself. She was glad to see him happy, and with Mistress Bowen to soothe him, he should not be too distressed when she disappeared.

  She had decided to go to Russia to find Jared. He had been gone almost ten months. Just before they had left London, she had managed to corner Lord Palmerston. The British Secretary of War had been abrupt. “When I know, you’ll know, madam,” he said.

  “He has been gone months, my lord, and I have been allowed no word. I have just borne my child alone. Can you give me no hope? No word at all?”

  “I repeat, madam, when I know, you’ll know. Your servant, m’lady.” He smiled cordially and bowed.

  It was all Miranda could do to keep from screaming. Lord Palmerston was the most arrogant man she had ever met, and he was being terribly unfair. She was through with waiting. She could stand no more. If Jared could not come to her, she would go to him.

  Of course, she could not discuss this with anyone. She had consulted a map in Adrian’s library, and saw that it was well over a hundred miles to the small village on the piece of English coast known as The Wash where Jared’s yacht, Dream Witch, was moored. She would need a coach, for she could not use a Swynford vehicle. Most of all, she would need help, but whom could she rely on?

  Then it came to her that she would have her own coach brought up from London! Amanda and Adrian had insisted it wasn’t necessary that they have their own coach here in the country when the Swynford carriage house boasted so many vehicles. She would now need that coach, and Perky could help. Her flirtatious maid was currently enamored of the undercoachman.

  Brushing her mistress’s hair that evening, Perky sighed quite audibly. Miranda quickly took the advantage. “Poor Perky! That’s a lonely lover’s sigh if I ever heard one. I imagine you miss your young man.”

  “Yes, m’lady, I do. He’s asked me to marry him, and we thought we’d have this summer to do it in, and be together. Then m’lord left the coach in town.”

  “Oh, Perky, why didn’t you tell me!” Miranda was all sympathy. “We will simply have to get your young man … what is his name?”

  “Martin, m’lady.”

  “We will have to find a way to get Martin to Swynford!”

  “Oh, m’lady, if you only could!”

  Miranda plotted. Adrian and Jon had been invited by Lord Stewart to go fishing on his estates in Scotland. Both she and Amanda had insisted that they go even though the invitation was set for a date immediately after the birth of Amanda’s baby.

  “I should feel so guilty if I denied Adrian his summer pleasures,” said Amanda. “Besides, the christening will not be until Michaelmas. Newborn babies look so odd—not at all at their best, whereas an infant of three months is quite handsome.”

  “Upon what do you base this conclusion?” teased Miranda gently.

  “Old Lady Swynford has assured me it is so. You know, Miranda, I misjudged Adrian’s mama. She is quite an amiable female, and we both want what is best for Adrian. I am amazed at how similar many of our opinions are. And she admitted to me only last week that she had been mistaken in her opinion of me. She says that I am the perfect wife for Adrian!”

  “How fortunate for you both that you have become friends,” remarked Miranda drily. More than likely, Adrian’s mama realized that the less she tolerated Amanda, the less she would see of her grandchild, thought Miranda. Well, at least Mandy would not be friendless once she was gone.

  Once Jonathan and Adrian were gone off to Scotland, the coach would arrive from London. She had debated what to tell her sister, and finally decided that the truth was best. Poor Jon would be hard pressed to explain her absence to an outraged Amanda and her spouse. Best Mandy know that the man she believed to be Jared Dunham was in reality his brother Jonathan. Better she understand that the reason Miranda must leave her child was to go in search of her husband. But Amanda could not be told until the last minute. She would be horrified and frightened by what Miranda intended to do. No. Amanda should not know until the last minute.

  Her own coach, driven by Martin, would take her to the little village of Welland Beach. She would be accompanied by Perky, for no respectable woman would travel without her maid. She would see that Perky and Martin were married before they left. They would wait in Welland Beach with the carriage until Miranda returned with her husband. It was a very sensible plan.

  The days passed and spring became early summer. One afternoon Jonathan asked Miranda if she would accompany him in the high perch phaeton. As they drove down the drive he remarked, “You are looking quite fetching today, my dear.” Miranda smiled prettily at him. She was wearing a pink muslin dress sprigged in small white apple blossoms with pale green leaves. The dress had short puffed sleeves, and although the back of it was high, the neck was low. Beneath the bustline, the gown was tied with green and white silk ribbons. Miranda wore long green gloves that reached her elbow. Her high-crowned hat was of straw, and tied with ribbons that matched the ones on her
gown. As the horses reached the open highway Miranda opened her pink parasol to keep her complexion safe from the sun.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I have arranged for us to meet Anne at an inn ten miles from here,” he said. “We could hardly meet openly in Swynford village without causing comment, and I want this settled as quickly as possible. I cannot allow Anne to go on believing that I am a married man.”

  “Ah,” she teased him, “it is Anne now, and no longer Mistress Bowen.”

  “I love her, Miranda!” he said intensely. “She is the dearest, sweetest woman alive, and I want her for my wife. She believes she has gone against everything she believes for love of me. Although she says nothing, I know it hurts her terribly.”

  “Then why don’t you marry her, Jon?”

  “What?”

  “Why don’t you marry her? With our connections it is a simple matter to get a special license. You could be wed in a small parish some miles from here where we are not known.” She paused, then had a wicked thought. “Ask Lord Palmerston to help you. I believe he owes us some small courtesy! Mistress Bowen should feel more secure once she is your wife.”

  “You are marvelous!” he cried.

  They drove west to a small whitewashed and half-timbered inn set in the Malvern Hills. The Good Queen had window boxes full of flowers, and was surrounded by a lovely garden. Miranda was puzzled as to how Mistress Bowen would get to such an inaccessible spot.

  “I arranged for a closed carriage to meet Anne two miles from the village,” Jonathan enlightened her.

  “You are most discreet,” she replied.

  As the phaeton pulled up before the inn, a boy ran out to take the horses and Jonathan leaped down, lifting Miranda to the ground. “Walk those bays till they’ve cooled down, lad. Then you may water them.”

  As they entered the building the innkeeper hurried forward. “Good day, sir, madam. Would you be Mr. Jonathan?”

  “I am.”

  “Come this way then, sir. Your guest has already arrived.” The innkeeper showed them to a private room and inquired, “When shall I have them serve tea, sir?”

  Jonathan turned to Miranda. “My dear?”

  “I believe a half-hour should be sufficient, Master Innkeeper.”

  “Very good, madam,” replied the man, closing the door behind him as he withdrew.

  A heavy silence hung in the room. Miranda stared openly at Mistress Bowen. She knew the woman was thirty, yet she didn’t look past twenty-five. Her gown was white muslin of poor quality, but beautifully made. It was decorated with pale-blue ribbons, and a straw bonnet with matching blue ribbons lay on a nearby table. She was very pretty, Miranda decided, and probably quite the perfect wife for Jon. As he could do nothing but stare like a lovesick calf, Miranda took the initiative.

  “How nice to finally meet you, Mistress Bowen. Come, let us sit down, and we shall explain everything to you.”

  Dazed by Miranda’s smile and her kindly attitude, Anne Bowen allowed Jonathan to seat her. The beautiful Lady Dunham enlightened her quickly and without fuss.

  “I suspect, Mistress Bowen, that the simplest way to explain this is to be straightforward. This gentleman, whom you and everyone else believes to be Jared Dunham, is actually his brother Jonathan. My husband, Jared, has, since late last summer, been in St. Petersburg on a secret mission for the American and English governments. Since he could not get back to England before the Russian winter set in and it had to appear that he was in England, Jon was smuggled through the English blockade of our American coast in order to impersonate Jared.

  “No one but a wife or mother can tell the differences between my husband and his brother. They look more like twins than my twin sister and I.”

  “Wh—what are the differences?” ventured Anne Bowen.

  “Jared is taller by about a half-inch, and his eyes are a bottle-green, not the gray-green of Jon’s. He has a more elegant hand, and there are other little differences. People here in England do not know Jared well enough to discern those differences. Even my own sister and her husband believe Jon is Jared.”

  “Jon is a widower. His first wife died a year ago. You shall have three stepchildren, I should warn you. John is twelve, Eliza Anne is nine, and little Henry is three. If you wed Jon you shall have to live in Massachusetts, for my father-in-law owns shipyards, and Jon is his heir.

  “Now I suggested to Jon that he go up to London and obtain a special license so you may be wed immediately. It must be secretly, you understand. I should feel guilty if you bore Jon a child without benefit of clergy.”

  “Miranda!” Jonathan Dunham finally found his voice. “For God’s sake, don’t be so indelicate!”

  “Indelicate? Good heavens, Jon, are you going to deny the fact that Mistress Bowen is your mistress? Poor Mistress Bowen, not you, would be censured if she finds herself with child. I must insist you marry as quickly as possible!”

  Anne Bowen had sat almost silent throughout Miranda’s whole recitation, her gray eyes occasionally widening in surprise. Now she looked from Miranda to Jonathan, convinced that Lady Dunham was telling the truth.

  She placed a gentle hand on Jonathan’s arm. “I believe Lady Dunham’s point is well taken, m’lord—I mean, Mr. Dunham. Perhaps, however, you do not wish to offer me marriage. A gentleman such as yourself could seek a finer match, I know.”

  “Oh, Anne, of course I want to offer you marriage! Will you marry me? We have fine schools in America, not as old as Harrow, Oxford, and Cambridge, but very good. I swear I’ll educate your son, and I’ll dower Mary Anne as well as my own Eliza! Massachusetts is a fine place for children.”

  “What of the wild Indians there?” she ventured nervously.

  “Indians? Well, there are Indians in the Western territories, and some sections of the South, but there are no more wild Indians in Massachusetts.”

  “What will your family say if you bring home a new wife?”

  “They will say that I am the most fortunate of men to have found such a treasure.”

  “I shall be a good mother to your children, Mr. Dunham.”

  “Jon. Oh God, Anne! How I long to hear you say my real name!”

  “Jon,” she breathed the word. “I shall be a very good mother to your children. We will, however, have to begin calling my John Robert, plain Robert, so we will not confuse him with your oldest son. How fortunate we are that the children are of like ages.”

  “You mean you will marry me?”

  “Did I not say so?” she said. “No, I didn’t, but yes, Jon, I will most certainly marry you. Oh, my darling, I love you so very much!”

  “Excellent!” said Miranda as Jonathan took Anne in his arms and kissed her. “Now that that is settled we can have tea. I am famished.”

  Rosy with kisses, Anne said happily, “How can I thank you, Lady Dunham?”

  “You may begin by calling me Miranda,” was the sensible reply. “In America there are no titles, and I am plain Mistress Dunham, as you shall soon be!”

  It was a lovely afternoon, one that Miranda would remember for a long time. She genuinely liked Anne Bowen, instinctively knowing that despite the difference in their ages they would become good friends. She knew that Anne could be trusted to keep their secret. Mistress Bowen left them immediately after tea to return to Swynford Village. She had left her children in the care of a neighbor, but did not wish to impose.

  “I like her,” said Miranda, helping herself to another cucumber sandwich and a cream cake. “You are very wise to wed her. I suspect your father has Chastity Brewster in mind for you. Your choice is far more suitable.”

  “Chastity Brewster! Good Lord, I should never wed that giggling, overstuffed creature. She turned down every eligible bachelor who ever asked her because she fancied she could catch brother Jared!” He chuckled. “She’s not Jared’s type at all. He fancies far more fiery wildcats with sea-green eyes and silver-gilt hair. Thank you, Miranda, for all your help.”

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nbsp; “You deserve some consolation for putting up with me, Jon.”

  He laughed. “You’re too much for me to handle, Miranda, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

  She smiled mischievously at him. “Go up to London tomorrow on the pretext that Palmerston has sent for you. You will, of course, see him, and when you do, insist that he arrange for you to have a special license. If he demurs simply threaten to return to Swynford as Jonathan Dunham, not Jared. If he still demurs, tell him I shall scream to high heaven about my missing husband and the nefarious dealings of England’s War Department. Whether people believe me or not I shall cause a stir and the gossip will last for several months. Lord Palmerston is not the most popular gentleman in England. I do not think he can afford the fuss I shall cause.”

  “You are a very tough opponent, my dear,” he said. “May I ask when you have decided my wedding should be?”

  “Oh, yes! Let Adrian go off to Lord Stewart’s alone. Promise him you will follow him in a week. Use our friend Palmerston as an excuse again—a quick mission perhaps. Then you and Anne can be wed and have a few days together. She can claim a dying, elderly relative, and arrange for her neighbor to care for the children during those few days. It is quite simple if you plan ahead.”

  “So I see,” he remarked. “I begin to think, my dear, that you have missed your calling. You would make Bonaparte an ideal strategist.”

  They rode back to Swynford Hall, the bays, fresh and well rested, stepping smartly along. Upon their arrival they found the Swynford barony in an uproar. Miranda hurried up the stairs to her sister’s apartment and was greeted by the dowager Lady Swynford, looking somewhat distraught.

  “Oh, Miranda, my dear! Thank heavens you are here! Amanda will not cooperate with Dr. Blake, and I fear for both her and the child!”

  Miranda went immediately into Amanda’s bedroom. “So,” she said cheerfully, “the Swynford heir has finally decided to make an appearance. Good afternoon, Doctor. Would you like to get a cup of tea while I sit with my twin?”

  Dr. Blake looked at Lady Dunham with new respect. “Thank you, m’lady. I shall just be in the anteroom.”