It was then that Miri realized that somewhere along the way, Aunt Beanie had grown old. Just as Miri herself had.
She hadn't realized it, Miri supposed, even though she saw the woman frequently. However, there was no denying that life and time were slowly slipping away from the old woman quietly seated before the fire. And when she was gone, what would Miri have then?
Nothing, for there was no more Will in Miri's life, at least not after this morning. And he was the only man she could envision in her future.
Without him, Miri would never have a house full of children - should they ever discover she was not truly barren - or a husband to care for her when she reached her own infirmity. Nor would she have her extended family, for Sarah and Rayne were moving on with their lives and Miri's other sisters were so much older than she that they had never really been close.
Until this moment, Miri had never considered just how fortunate Aunt Beanie had been that she had enjoyed a closeness with her sisters - not to mention the love of a husband - that Miri herself would never be fortunate enough to enjoy. Instead, Miri would have her stars and where once that might have been enough, she now knew that it no longer was. Not after having found so much joy and love in Will's arms. Of knowing that people could give her joy and love, and not just gift her with pain.
"Miri?" Aunt Beanie asked again when Miri didn't move. "Has someone died, child? You look like death itself has taken hold of you."
Sinking down into the chair her aunt indicated, Miri sighed forlornly. "I might as well be dead." Once more, she blinked back tears. "Oh, auntie, I have lost him."
"Who child? Is it your brother?" It was clear the older woman had no idea who Miri was speaking of.
"Will." Even saying his name hurt.
"Lord Blackthorne?" Beanie asked in confusion. "Lady Anna's brother? I know from the gossip rags that the two of you were supposedly courting, but I thought..." When Miri burst into tears, her aunt clucked her tongue in disapproval. "Oh, Miriam. What have you done?"
Miri sniffled miserably. "I fell in love, Aunt Beanie. With Will. I fell in love with him and it hurts so much now that he is gone," she admitted sadly as she took the delicate lace handkerchief Beanie offered. "I didn't mean to. In fact, we both swore that we wouldn't. It was all a show for my family. You know how they are. They want me to marry but I want to keep my freedom. And Will was desperate..."
The older woman held up a worn, withered hand. "Slow down. You are not making sense. Though, yes, I do know of Lord Blackthorne's rather unfortunate circumstances." When Miri's mouth gaped open, her aunt gave her a reproving look. "You thought I would not have him investigated? The day you sent 'round your note informing me you had selected the man's sister after week upon week of delay in choosing, I knew something was afoot. I had no idea what you were up to, however. So I decided to find out for myself."
When Miri would have protested, Aunt Beanie halted her again. "You are not a rash woman, Miri, and yet that morning, there was an urgency to your note that worried me. Greatly. I trusted your judgment, of course, and you did make a fine choice in Lady Anna. But something was amiss. Your words were not those of my careful and controlled niece but rather a woman infatuated." She sniffed. "Having been so in love with my own husband I knew the signs well. So I had Bow Street do some digging on my behalf."
"So you know that the rumors about Will are true. About what he was going to do in order to secure the funds his family needed." Miri felt sick to her stomach.
Her aunt nodded, an eyebrow raised as if Miri was a fool for not realizing that nothing got past the elderly woman. "I also know that he did not go through with his plans to obtain that money through the oldest of professions. Though I know he was seriously contemplating it." She inclined her head. "But I also know that you paid him good coin for...something."
"Pleasure." Miri almost choked on the word where once it came easily to her lips. "I am lame, aunt, and until only recently, I despised people. Before Will. He...changed me. The night I met him, I saw an opportunity laid out before me that seemed both foolproof and irresistible. What other chance would I have had to know physical love?"
"You were afraid of people, you mean," her aunt cut in abruptly. "You did not despise them. You feared them. Your fool mother and brother might not have been able to tell the difference, but I always could." She sniffed. "And you could have found a husband like most normal young ladies. Not to mention that as a matter of course, if something is 'foolproof' as you say, then nature will most likely build a better, more clever fool."
Miri shook her head. "You are missing the point, Aunt. Marriage is not for me. And Will betrayed me. It hurts. He hurt me."
"Marriage is for you, young lady," Aunt Beanie shot back, the force of her voice not matching at all with her frail frame. "Yes, you have been hurt so often that you have convinced yourself that you are better off alone than with a man who might harm your heart." She sniffed again. "Until you fell in love with this man, that is. Even if, in the end, he hurt you. Though I am certain he did not mean to do so. From what I know of Will Davenport, he is desperate and likely just as big of a fool as you, but he is not cruel."
"How do you know all of this? About Will and me and what kind of man he is?" Miri was incredulous. "Do you have spies everywhere?"
Aunt Beanie shook her head, pulling her shawl tighter around her. "Not exactly, no, but I was very much like you once, young and foolish and believing that I was better off alone than risking my heart. So when I witnessed you trodding the same path, I made up my mind to keep an eye on you." She gave Miri a reproachful look. "You are not the only young lady ever to suffer a physical deformity." Beanie reached down and lifted the edge of her skirts to reveal a twisted leg that looked very much like Miri's own damaged limb. "From a carriage accident when I was a child. And don't think the children back then weren't cruel because they were. Very much so. Perhaps even worse for the medical sciences weren't as advanced then as they are now."
Stunned, Miri sat in silence for a long moment as her aunt's skirts slid back down to hid the damaged leg once more. "I never knew..."
"Except for my beloved Howard, no one did." Her aunt rearranged her skirts. "And by the time you came along, I was already so old that I limped anyway. No one ever had to know. It was better that way."
"Don't you think it would have helped me to know that...that...that I wasn't alone?" Miri wished she had possessed this information when she had been younger. Perhaps then she would not have felt like such an outcast.
Her aunt sighed. "To what end, Miri? Your mother had already brainwashed you that you were different...damaged...by the time I was allowed back into your life. Remember, my marriage to Howard, even though he was a duke, was not accepted by everyone - in either of our families. By the time I was forgiven, Ophelia had convinced you that you were unattractive to men and would become a spinster, though I don't believe she meant to do that exactly. You the consequences of her words were the same."
"I still wish you would have told me." Miri hated that she sounded like a petulant child but she wasn't certain how much more her heart could endure at the moment.
Aunt Beanie sighed. "Perhaps I should have. You are right. Still, you were already a stubborn thing when we met, set in your ways and firm in your belief that science and rational thought ruled all. Emotions, especially love, held little value for you. Would you have listened to any advice I would have given you, especially when I would have told you that love and people and emotions helped me and had actually improved my life? That I was wrong to have been so afraid? That without Howard, I would have still have been cold and unfeeling? Just as you were becoming?"
Miri allowed herself to think about that for a moment. "No. Likely not." The truth was that even from a young age, just like her brother Rayne, Miri made up her mind about things rather quickly and there was little anyone could do to change it - especially if the plea was an emotional one. She despised emotions, thinking she was incapable of them. But ha
d she really simply been afraid? Just like Aunt Beanie?
"Part of the reason I trusted you with The Letter program wasn't just because you have the skills necessary to carry out things as I would like them, though there is that." Aunt Beanie rubbed wearily at her eyes. "I had also hoped that being around people, perhaps meeting some of these young women, perhaps meeting their families and, ahem, their bachelor brothers should you be so fortunate, might help coax you back out into the world. I would have done it sooner, but as I said, by the time I came into your life, the damage was done. So I did what I could from a distance."
Her mind whirling, Miri took in everything that Aunt Beanie had just said and quickly came to one very terrifying conclusion. She had made a terrible, awful, unforgivable mistake in dismissing Will and not listening to his side of things. She had been wrong about Aunt Beanie, after all. Could she have been wrong about him too?
She knew Will and she knew his heart. It was very possible he had never done any of the horrid things she claimed that he had. And when he had attempted to explain himself, she hadn't wanted to listen.
As Miri wiped at her eyes again, her aunt rang for tea and gave her niece some time to collect herself. By the time two steaming cups of tea loaded with cream and sugar had been poured, Miri felt significantly calmer.
"So now why don't you tell me about your young man and what exactly he has done to hurt you so deeply?" Aunt Beanie asked as she took a sip of tea and Miri did her best not to notice the lines of exhaustion around her aunt's eyes. "Are things truly so broken between the two of you?"
"They might be," Miri admitted sadly as she picked at a biscuit. "But I am also afraid that it is now largely my fault. I was summoned to Madame LaVallier's this morning on an urgent matter. As I was arriving, I discovered Will with Lady Colchester, the same woman who propositioned him in our library the night of the ball."
Aunt Beanie's eyes narrowed. "The woman he refused to bed for coin."
"Er, yes." Miri blushed a bit as she realized her aunt knew intimate details of her life with Will. "Her hand was on his chest and they were discussing his next...encounter with her."
"Do you know for certain there was a first...encounter, as you call it?" Aunt Beanie arched an eyebrow in Miri's direction. "Did he say as much? Him. Not her."
Biting her lip, Miri replayed the interaction between Will and the other woman, no matter that each time she pictured the lady's hand on his chest, she was filled with an inexplicable anger. "Well, no."
"So you assumed?" her aunt guessed and Miri nodded. "But you don't know for certain that he bedded this woman, do you? For all you know, she could be a mean and vindictive witch who is angry because she has been spurned by a man she has chased for a year or more even though she is already married. Perhaps she might even be the sort to lash out at someone who has already won the prize she has coveted for so long." Then Aunt Beanie made a rather nonchalant gesture. "Because according to the rumors, he is a rather delightful prize to be had."
"You...know this?" Miri was incredulous. "About Will and Lady Colchester and...and everything?"
"Everyone knows this, child! Well, everyone other than those with their noses buried in the stars perhaps." Her aunt sniffed in a rather annoyed fashion. "And I suppose you did not give him a chance to explain himself."
Miri bit her lip. "I...tried."
"Not very hard I would wager, knowing you." Aunt Beanie shook her head in clear disappointment. "No, I can only guess that you saw what you wanted to see. Or rather what you believed you deserved to see and that was the end of things. You never did hear him out, did you?"
Shaking her head, Miri sighed again. "No. All I could hear was Sarah's voice in my head telling me that Will was using me and that there was no possible way a man like him could love me..."
"Your sister in law sticks her nose in where she should not," the older woman snapped. "This didn't concern her and really, I expected better of her considering her own troubles with love. It should have been your brother Brook's decision and no one else's. Save for yours and Lord Blackthorne's of course." She was indignant on Miri's behalf, which warmed the younger woman's heart.
"I wanted to believe Will," Miri admitted, "but Sarah was so certain she was right and then he sent me this expensive telescope that I knew he did not have the funds to pay for..."
Aunt Beanie interrupted again. "Did you ask him where the money came from or did you simply assume on his behalf once more?"
"I...assumed." Though Miri had come here seeking unconditional support, she was instead being forced to examine her actions. It wasn't at all pleasant. It also made her more than a little ashamed.
"As I suspected," the older woman said as she shook her head. "Had you asked you might have learned that in the last few days, a number of sculptures by Antoine De Clercq have come on the market and are commanding an obscene price. Vulgar, really, how much is being paid for them, ugly things that they are."
Miri frowned in confusion. "The Belgian sculptor who just died of a fever in Miss Webb's bed? What does he have to do with any of this?"
Aunt Beanie clucked her tongue. "The former Lady Blackthorne was a patroness of De Clercq's for many years, especially in his early days. A rather generous one, from what I understand. Until the man passed, his creations were generally viewed as abominations. No one wanted them. Now? Well, let's just say that death has a way of making some people famous whether they deserve to be or not."
"Will sold his family's art collection? For me?" Actually, that sounded very much like something Will would do if there were a good reason. Such as buying the woman he loved an expensive telescope.
"Some of the collection," her aunt corrected. "The creditors, of course, took most of the valuable items long ago until all of the debts were settled. Until this past week? De Clercq's pieces were almost worthless and would have cost them more to dispose of than they could receive at a sale. Now? They're not worthless. In fact, they're worth a fortune."
"So...he had the funds." Miri swallowed hard.
"Which you would have known had you but taken the time to ask." Aunt Beanie clucked her tongue again. "I am ashamed of you, Miriam. You, of all people, know better."
Miri closed her eyes in grief and shame. What a mess she had made of things. She had insulted Will and accused him of the most awful things. He would never want to see her again and she couldn't blame him. She had accused him of prostituting himself and then she had thrown him out of her life. Oh, what a mess she had made of things!
Unable to stop herself, Miri began to cry again. This time not for herself but for Will and all of the pain she had caused him.
"You love him, don't you? Very deeply, unless I am wrong. And I never am." Aunt Beanie sighed quietly as she settled back into her chair. Now that she was finished interrogating Miri, she looked small and fragile once again. How much of that was an act Miri couldn't say, but she did know there were hidden depths to this woman that few realized.
Miri nodded. "I do. More than anything."
"Does he love you? Still? After everything?" There was a hint of uncertainty in her aunt's question that Miri didn't like.
"I don't know. Maybe. I hope so." Right now, Miri wasn't certain of anything other than that she still loved Will. And that she had made a mistake - a very big one. Now, she might well pay for it for the rest of her life. She prayed not, but the possibility was there. It would take a strong man to forgive her after all of the terrible things she had said. Was Will that strong? Miri honestly didn't know.
Aunt Beanie nodded. "Assume he does, child. Assume he does or you'll lose all hope."
"Then what do I do now?" Miri was desperate for some good advice, for at present, she had no idea how to undo the damage she had wrought.
"Then make a plan to get him back and stick to it."
Miri closed her eyes and sighed. If only it were that easy.
Chapter Nineteen
Town Tattler
It cannot be said that I didn't warn
Society of this. I did. But that does not mean I have to enjoy being right. Usually, I do. This time? I do not. If anything, it pains me to admit that I was correct and that the courtship of Lady Miri Bexley and Lord William Davenport, the Earl of Blackthorne, has come to a crashing end. I am told there was something of a row between the two at an unnamed shop here in London a few days past. Before that? I am told that wedding bells were in the offing. Now? They haven't spoken a word since that fateful day. I wanted to be wrong in this case. Truly I did. It saddens me that I am not. However I refuse to give up all hope until one or the other party weds another. After all, Lord Haddington and his lovely new wife Cassandra had their troubles on their way to marital bliss. Now they are living happily ever after. Might the same not be true for Lady M and Lord B?
In other news...well, what other news is there to print, really? I could mention the news surrounding Blackthorne's sister, Lady Anna, but why bother? That would require an entire column, and I do not have the space for that.
Or what about Lady Charlotte or Lady Dory or Lady Aurelia? They all have tales to tell and I, not the column space to tell them. Perhaps this Season, I should consider switching to a magazine format. I think we would all be better served, don't you?
-Lady A
After her visit to her aunt's house, Miri knew what she had to do, only her family - or rather Sarah - seemed to be thwarting her at every turn. In fact, if Miri didn't know any better, she would have sworn that they were attempting to keep her prisoner in her own home. Or at least Sarah was - and doing everything short of locking Miri in her room to accomplish the task.
An Earl For Hire Page 24