by Liz Tyner
‘I’d never met a duke?’ Innocence poured from the words.
‘Why me?’
‘A man wearing a hat like yours, I guessed you wouldn’t put up much of a fight. But you didn’t make it easy,’ she mused as she sat down on the stump and crossed her ankles ‘I’d seen you from a distance. You have a shadow that blocks the sun and the night in your eyes. I liked that. And your servants don’t complain about you...much.’ She viewed her boot laces, sat her cup on the dirt and tied one of the worn, mismatching strings.
She grinned. ‘My scrawny Child grew into being a Miranda. It’s a suitable name. She fits it.’
‘Makes no sense. Abducting the two of us.’
‘I don’t have to make sense. I’m addled. I’m old. I’m so old I don’t even know how old I am.’
‘You could hang.’
She shrugged. ‘You want me to hang? To let this be in the newspapers. To ruin the girl? Child would not let me kill the hare eating our beans even when I told her we would starve.’ She frowned. ‘For her, I had to get a dog to scare the rabbits away so we could eat. I’m sure the dog ate meat and we ate vegetables.’
‘Abducting me is enough to send you to the gallows. I don’t need to spread tales about her.’
The old woman nodded. ‘I hoped...’ She pulled the shawl tight and he heard the sound of beads clicking together. ‘I’d hoped to guide the governess to marriage.’ She lifted her cup. ‘I wanted the best for her. That’s how I picked you.’ Her stare wavered. ‘Against my better judgement. But no matter. I saw it in the stars.’ She gazed overhead. ‘But I can’t really see the stars at night any more. They’ve faded. So maybe I imagined it.’
She wriggled her boots out in front of her and he noticed the loose sole on one.
‘You should find yourself some new boots.’
She tapped the toes of her boots together, the sole flapping. ‘I like these.’ She grinned up at him. ‘I’m saving funds for my dowry.’
‘Why do you act as you do?’
She let out a deep breath, and stared at the ground, disgusted. ‘My eyes are so dim, I can barely see the lines in a palm, so I just tell the people whatever I want to say.’ She held out her arm as far as she could, studying the inside of her own hand. ‘I’d have to have the palm this far from me to see it and who would believe I could see into the future if I can’t even see my own hand? So, I bumble along and do what I can.’ She gave him a smile. ‘I say what I wish and everyone is happy. I found you a bride and I caught Child a husband.’
‘You call your granddaughter Child?’
She chewed her bottom lip, smiled, and said, ‘I don’t have a true granddaughter.’
‘Miss Manwaring.’
Staring at her boots, she spoke. ‘She is my granddaughter by heart, not blood.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Drucie. That was the name her mother gave her, but I just called her Child or Grandchild. Seemed to make us a family. Her true mother died when she was just a little one and her real father possibly a rich man.’ She stared at him, death in her eyes. ‘Made me angry to see a little babe, running and laughing and her true mother dead, and no one but me to care for her and her as innocent as everyone else wasn’t. I couldn’t toss her away. Then...’ She examined the sun. ‘The stars told me I could get her dressed in silk.’ She laughed. ‘I just preened, wondering if I could do such a thing.’
This woman truly was for Bedlam.
‘Or I dreamed it.’ She sniffed. ‘There was a story about a babe left in a basket.’ She cupped her chin. ‘So, I studied the world and I knew where Child belonged,’ she continued. ‘I put Child in her best dress. Did her hair nice and put smudges beneath her eyes. I sat her beside the road where Manwaring’s wife—not the flea-ridden mange he beds down with now, but his first wife—went to Sunday Services.’
‘You were risking a child’s life.’
She sneered. ‘Manwaring was rich. His wife was childless. I’d read her fortune and told her she’d discover a child soon that was to be her reward. Told her how a brown-eyed child would bless her.’
Then the old woman’s eyelids dropped, but not before he saw the determination.
‘I’d heard this story about a little boy being left floating in the stream and a princess found him and took him in and made him a leader. Long ago in a faraway place. I had the spare child. Decided it might work.’ She chuckled, and her face brightened. ‘It did. Almost.’
The woman met his glare. ‘Child’s mother was the daughter of the gamekeeper. So, we met. Not long after the babe was born, they stayed here. Talked about the babe’s father. Then the daughter ran off and left Child with me. Died soon after.’ Her eyes tightened. ‘I didn’t like that babe being so alone, so I took Child.’
Wind whispered through the trees.
‘Manwaring’s wife, not the most sensible, but she always paid me well when I read her fortune. Her brain not much bigger than my little finger, but her heart bigger than ten of mine and she could give the little one a home. So, I read her fortune that way.’ She shuffled her shoulders. ‘She wanted a baby. I gave her one. I don’t think Manwaring thought it was as good a plan as I did. The toad.’
Then she tossed the dregs of her coffee away, sat the cup on the ground again, and snapped the shawl into a knot. ‘Then the woman went and died.’ She huffed, shaking her splayed fingers. ‘That nearly killed me. I had to scramble around when I knew that Child was without a mother to protect her. Not only once. Now a second time. I didn’t know what to do. Took me some time to work on it.’
She chuckled. ‘So, then I read about twenty fortunes at no cost, finding out what I could where I could, and I found a rich man, Trevor, who had a sickly wife who wasn’t expected to live. I read Miss Cuthbert’s fortune and told her about the governess being needed. Once his wife died, I decided the man would trip over his own feet falling in love with Child.’
The toes of her good boot touched the ash of the fire before she reared back and moved her feet closer. Her glare pinched. ‘Wouldn’t you have expected the man would have fallen right away in love with her? Any man with a grain of sense would.’
He didn’t move. ‘Yes.’
‘But she’s not getting any younger and when I read the fortune of the scullery maid I found out about the stories of the house where Miranda is a governess.’
She moved her hand as if wiping off crumbs. ‘Only tales of that house’s master was of him being distracted and not by Child. Her praises went high and wide, but no secret looks between her and the master and no whispers of the servants about how the two of them might be carrying on. Only carrying on was by the cook and a stableman. I had to do something, Child is turning into a spinster.’
The fortune-teller held up her chin. ‘I had to get her a husband. What if something might happen to me? Who would watch out for her then?’
She glared again to the sky and seemed to talk to it, holding her hand high. ‘Three times now. Three times I have had to guide the blasted stars.’ She composed herself, then scratched the loose skin of her neck. ‘I figured you were my last chance to get her settled in gold and you would have eyes enough to see her value.’ She spat at the ground. ‘I didn’t call that one right.’
He studied her.
She scowled at him. ‘I was fond of having her around, but then I decided she deserved better than rags.’ She sneered. ‘Perhaps you believe I should have left her in tatters.’
‘You are to stay clear of her,’ he said to the old woman.
She shook her fist at the sky, moving her head in a negative shake, then spoke to him as she raised both palms. ‘I give up on her now. She’s alone in the world. Just like the rest of us.’
‘You will stay clear of her.’
‘I wash my hands of the brat. I would have done better to have found her a job as a scullery maid. I keep trying to
turn her into a silk purse and she keeps finding sow’s ears.’
‘You wished for me to marry her? That’s why you trapped us together?’
The woman frowned. ‘By that hat, I knew you didn’t have a woman around to guide you. And you might be simple-minded enough to fall in love with her. I call her a beauty, although she’s not much to look at, but it was dark enough in there.’ She squinted. ‘No. You’d expect a peer’s daughter. Not a mindless simpleton Child. Not a woman who wastes all her time caring for a rich man’s children.’
Anger flared in him. ‘You could hang.’ She dared criticise Miss Manwaring.
‘I should. One simple task and I could not complete it. I wanted Child to have a home of her own. A family. Marriage.’ She kicked at the dirt.
‘You can’t be tossing people into a room expecting them to marry.’
‘Yes. You can. I did. It didn’t work.’ She straightened her shoulders and puffed out her chest.
She held out her palm again, and studied it. ‘Doesn’t seem to work like it should. Maybe because I can’t see the lines any more.’ She spat into the fire. ‘What use am I if I can’t make up nonsense to give people hope?’
He looked at the old woman. Every servant in his house dressed better than she. And his butler and man of affairs had spectacles.
And she spoke of giving people hope. This tattered vagrant in a camp of thieves.
‘You truly should hang, you know.’
She raised her shoulders. ‘I’d break the rope.’
‘You probably would. And would claim it magic.’
She smiled. ‘Of course I would claim that. I claim the sun rising as magic and, if we need rain and it rains, I say it is all my doing. I lie, but it makes people happy. Particularly me, when they pay for my nonsense.’ She held out her palm. ‘I would like to be reimbursed for introducing you to the lovely woman.’
‘Your payment is that I will not see you hanged.’
She folded her palm back under her shawl. ‘I’ll take what I can get.’ Then she laughed to herself. ‘Not everyone can say a duke chose not to hang them.’
‘You will let her live her life as she wishes.’
She kicked at the dirt. ‘It was tiresome doing all the work to get you with her.’ She shrugged. ‘I knew you’d find a way to get out. You did, didn’t you? You always find a way to get out. Of marriage.’ One eyebrow quirked when she said the word marriage.
He didn’t need her to read his palm. He saw it in front of him. A lonely existence, if he married someone besides Miss Manwaring. His future. As routine as his sister and cousins lived their lives and he would continue to live his life and work long hours trying to move the country forward.
The country would move forward, but his life would be left behind.
She picked up a ladle and found a bowl, placed some soup into it and put the bowl into his hand. ‘Best to drink it,’ she said. ‘I’ve no spoons so I chop the vegetables finely.’
He wanted to make London a better place so little children wouldn’t starve and old women would have shoes. He expected other people to take care of the details. This woman didn’t. She took care of her own particulars.
Chalgrove took the soup and held the bowl to his lips. The broth and the vegetables satisfied. The old fraud could cook.
For an interval they talked and ate, and she offered him a hunk of bread to take with him.
He didn’t want to take food she might need, but then she smiled. And he took it and made his way back to the carriage.
‘Well?’ Wiggins asked when Chalgrove crouched to enter the vehicle.
He broke the bread in half, gave Wiggins a share and the constable took a bite, nodding.
Chalgrove settled himself on to the leather seats and raised his hand to thump the roof. ‘She’s the most daft old crone I’ve ever seen. Forget about her. Not the right woman.’
Wiggins shut his eyes and his head dropped to the side. ‘They never are.’
But Chalgrove knew who the right woman was. She just loved someone else. Two someone elses.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chalgrove left the door closed in the library, staring at it. But in his mind, he saw Miranda’s eyes and lips. Dark eyes. Bright lips.
And his irritation grew when he remembered the old woman criticising Miss Manwaring, but he suspected the harsh words had been well aimed to raise his defence of her.
Now he could think of nothing else. His mind was wrapped around Miss Manwaring.
Chalgrove watched as the door opened. Before he saw who it was, he knew. Everyone else knocked—but not his mother.
She stepped inside and he saw her eyes search his face. ‘It is a shame you were not here right after I paid a call on the lovely Antonia and her aunt earlier.’
‘I had business.’
‘None so pressing as arranging your entire future, I hope.’
‘I found the person who abducted me.’
His mother clutched the nearest chair. ‘How long before the hanging?’
‘It might be some time, Mother. An old woman, with a few ragged people around her afraid to ignore her orders. The woman’s soles are falling from her shoes. She’s got enough problems.’
His mother lunged forward, glaring. ‘What?’
He took her shoulders. ‘It’s fine. I’m fine. She’s daft. I can’t hurt her. The woman who instigated this says the stars told her to take me.’
Her fingers shut, clasping air.
‘Stars? She listens to stars?’ Her fingers opened again. ‘People don’t listen to stars. They don’t listen to clergy or parents or well-wishers. Why would they listen to stars? And she took my son. She should hang.’
‘Mother.’
‘She must hang.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘I plan to be in the country that day.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s enough for me to simply know she’s done for. It’s not as if I want a piece of the rope as a memento.’ She considered what she’d said. ‘Well, maybe a small one.’
‘Mother.’
He stood and recognised the tiredness in his jaw which told him he’d been clamping his teeth for some time. He relaxed the clench. ‘She will go free.’
She stepped closer. ‘She got away?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘Another woman can get stars to talk with her and I have to pull words out of my son.’
‘Mother. All is well.’
‘What is wrong in this world?’ She patted her cheek as if to wake herself.
‘I would give you answers, Mother, but I don’t know them myself.’
‘Don’t be surprised if we have some changes around here.’ She rotated on her heel. ‘You need a wife to take you in hand. Championing a woman who did such a thing. Unthinkable.’
He examined the lines of his palm, wishing they could show him answers. ‘I never told you, but you were right. About Susanna.’
‘I have no doubt about it. I just didn’t know if you’d ever discovered it.’
‘She was everything you concluded and probably less, I suppose.’
‘It didn’t ease me to be correct about her. But not to worry.’ She preened. ‘I’ve found you a wife, Chalgrove.’
‘Mother. I’ve reconsidered my plans on marriage.’
‘But I wish for grandchildren. And you must keep the bloodlines strong. You must assess this woman Antonia. She is the most perfect female in the world. I admit, even I was impressed at her flawlessness. I can hardly wait until you see her and how you’ll react.’
‘I’ve changed my mind. I won’t marry a woman you’ve picked out for me.’
‘I feel certain you will.’ He saw the set of her shoulders. ‘Antonia is... You have to see her to appreciate her beauty. It’s perfection. She is the best the country has to offer. I have verified it. She is well manne
red. Only a few women like this are born in a decade. Quite perfect and you know I would never say that lightly. I have not even said such a thing about my own children.’ She softened her voice. ‘You must see her and you’ll agree.’
He had to discourage his mother, but from the determination pointed at him, she wasn’t going to listen.
‘You don’t have a choice,’ she said. ‘Neither does the fishmonger or the street urchins. We’re born into our lives and we make the best of them. And my children are fortunate to be able to do so in lovely surroundings.’
‘This woman you’ve chosen may be impeccable—but...’
He could only think about Miranda. He put fingertips to his forehead. He could only think about her.
‘You must meet Antonia. She is the best of the ton. Manners to spare. Skilled in everything she attempts. Dripping with beauty so deep you can’t ignore it.’
‘I’ll think about it.’ But he didn’t have to.
His mother’s brows were drawn in a harsh line. ‘Mark my words, Robert Quincy Andrew Aubrey, Duke of Chalgrove, Antonia truly is perfection and you must see her to believe it. She will open your eyes to what is in front of you.’
She linked her arm through his and moved ahead with the strength of a bulldog. ‘We must go before your carriage is unhitched. Her aunt is having a small dinner party and we’re going to be late as it is. I accepted for both of us. I hope you don’t mind. What with your promise and all.’
* * *
Antonia Redding was all his mother had said and more. But one thing she was not, and could never be, was Miranda Manwaring.
The evening passed and he watched the smiling faces and the polite manners. This was the world he belonged in and the world he would always live in. His place in it could make another world even better—the world of little children without someone to care for them.
He applied himself to accepting his role in life and in making the people around him feel better and keeping his own feelings hidden away.
He’d never had to do that before, but now he did.
* * *
