The Fairy Tale Bride

by Kelly McClymer

CHAPTER NINETEEN

  She no longer knew what to think.

  The stone of the garden bench was cool beneath her in the dawn's pale light. But the quiet of the morning had not calmed her churning fears. He had almost made love to her. He had reached for her in the dark, entwined himself around her body and her heart, loved her as she wished to be loved.

  She closed her eyes against the tears that came despite her battle to remain dry-eyed and rational. His touch had been so tender and fierce at the same time — she had shattered beneath him only to find a surprising peace. And then that peace had been torn away in an instant by his harsh withdrawal. How could he have made her feel as if she had truly joined with him into one soul and not felt it himself?

  Was it fear? And if so, why was he afraid to make love to her if he was convinced he would die shortly, anyway? He was no coward, she knew it deep inside her with a certainty that was absolute. Could his pride be the barrier between them?

  Katherine said that a man could be afraid of failing at lovemaking. But if he roused her to such fever with only the touch of his lips and hands, how could he ever fail her?

  Could it be that he was afraid he would fail himself? Voices startled her out of her seat like a frightened hare. She could not be found here, not now. No doubt her eyes and nose were red and swollen from her tears. Questions would be unbearable, and gossip only a further insult to her own wounded pride.

  As the intruders neared, she hid herself behind a box hedge and wished them away. It was only as she recognized the dowager and her American approaching that Miranda tore her thoughts away from her own misery to wonder what had brought these two out to the gardens at dawn.

  Their voices were lowered, but it was clear the two were in the midst of a heated argument when the dowager ground out, "You are mad."

  "Listen to me. You don't understand."

  "I don't understand? I've lived with them, father and son for most of my life!" The dowager's eyes glittered with anger as she stood rigid and brittle, facing down her American, right in front of the box hedge where Miranda hid. "Proud. Stubborn. Fools. As are you."

  "Not this time. I will not make the same mistake twice."

  Her voice was flat, brooking no argument. "You already have, by insisting on returning to America."

  "That is where our future is." There was an urgency to his voice, as if he needed her to agree with him.

  "My future is here, with my son and his bride." She added in a whisper, "And Arthur, if Simon truly goes."

  He laughed, a short, harsh bark. "You never belonged here. I should have freed you then, but I was too much a coward."

  She shook her head. "You were not a coward." Her voice sharpened. "Not then."

  He hissed with impatience. "Your husband is long dead, and Simon is a man now, capable of choosing his own path. I promise you if you come to America with me —"

  She turned away from him and Miranda could not see her face any longer, only the proud set of her shoulders. "I cannot throw my hands up at my responsibilities to run away with you. I am not made that way. You, of all people should know that."

  His voice was harsh with anger and grief. "Then why did you let me think you cared? Did you think I would stay and be your plaything?"

  The dowager said nothing.

  "You know that is all I could be if I stayed here."

  She turned back toward him, a challenge in her eyes. "That is hardly true."

  "Maybe you can't see that it is." He sighed, and Miranda knew sadly that he had finally given in and recognized her mind would not change. "Or maybe you think a title and position are more important than being married to me."

  When she said nothing further, he spun around on his heel and left her standing in the garden alone. Except for Miranda, still trapped behind the box hedge. Afraid to move a muscle lest the dowager discover that her most private discussion had had an audience, Miranda stifled the urge to gasp when the dowager whispered bitterly, "You and your family motto haunt me from the grave, Sinclair. Honor and Truth in All. Like father, like son."

  Her legs stiff and cramped, Miranda could feel only relief when the dowager wandered deeper into the garden and she was free to slip back to her room. There was no solace in the thought that the dowager's private life was as tangled up in pride and honor as her own. It had obviously been so for a very long time without resolution.

  For once she did not have a solution for any of them. She had to hope that Valentine, as a fellow man, would offer a key to the puzzle of Simon's pride. At the very least, she needed her brother's encouragement to lift her spirits and allow her to believe there was hope for her future. Thank goodness he was due to arrive within the week.

  Sister,

  I am fully aware that I am behaving in a cowardly manner and deserve whatever chastisement you choose to give me next we meet. But I find I cannot be in residence at the same location as Emily. Not now that I have read the news of her recent engagement.

  Please, forgive me. I am certain that Simon, Juliet, and Hero will be your support. And I trust that you will prove yourself to be the courageous sister I have known all my life, even without my presence.

  v.

  Miranda, perched on the bottom stair of the wide main staircase in the entry hall, stared down at the paper in her hand, and strove to quell the panic that Valentine's note raised inside her. He was not coming. Her husband would not make love to her and might possibly even hate her. In hours her house would be full of people armed with razor-sharp wit and keen eyes, and he was not coming. How could he do this to her?

  She wanted his advice, had counted on his level head to guide her. Until she opened the note, delivered by a towheaded boy in a grimy uniform, however, and read his words three times in order to make sense of them — believe them — she had not realized how much she relied on his arrival to bring sense to the chaos that her life had become.

  How could he do this to her? She needed his male perspective in order to divine some answer as to what to do about Simon. And now, with Simon avoiding her, Katherine too busy with the children to practice her healing arts, and Grimthorpe arriving as a guest within hours, Valentine had sent a note to say he was not going to be here for the weekend.

  Coward! Not that she could blame him. He had ceased talking about Emily after those first few awful days. But she knew that he had not ceased loving her.

  Miranda had hoped for a reconciliation between them. But she recognized as well as Valentine had that Emily's engagement made such a dream impossible. Perhaps it was just as well that he had not come. For him, at least.

  She sighed. The first guests were due any moment. The grooms, stable boys, and footmen stood at the ready with their uniforms ironed and their boots polished. The dowager, Hero, and Juliet waited in the largest receiving parlor. Where she should be now, instead of sitting like an errant child on the stair, reading over again this message that she most definitely did not want to read.

  "Have you decided to greet our guests from here?" Simon came up behind her so softly she was unprepared. The sound of his voice set her heart to beating rapidly. But she was uneasy in his presence. He had been avoiding her since the night he had thrown her out of his bed. It was humiliating even to think about it. She hesitated to look up at him.

  "No." Miranda glanced up and nearly lost her breath. He was so handsome he made her heart ache.

  Katherine, Hero, and Juliet had to be wrong when they assured her that his love for her shone from his eyes. If he loved her, he could not look so calmly at her, as if he had not stolen her mother's necklace, not given it back to her and then kissed her, as if he had not almost made love to her. If he loved her, his heart would beat as wildly as hers and surely she would hear it. She held out the note to him.

  He took it without touching her hand. He glanced at it and frowned. "I'm sorry. I know how much Valentine's support meant to you." There was sympathy in his eyes, but relief, too.

  She knew he had been worried about havin
g Valentine and Emily under the same roof. But he had stood firm when Emily's father had objected. Valentine was family, he had said.

  His sympathy brought tears to her eyes. It was sheer irony that she would not have needed Valentine's support if things were well between she and Simon. "He would be here, if only Emily were not."

  He sat on the step next to her. For a moment she thought he intended to put his arm around her, but he did not. "I think he is showing wisdom. Emily's betrothed will be here, as well as Emily and her parents."

  How could he be so understanding and so very distant while she could barely resist her impulse to climb into his lap and bury her face in his neck? All at once it occurred to her that this feeling of tension, this not knowing what to say to make things right, was why Valentine had not come.

  Her brother must feel helpless in the united face of Emily, her family, and her betrothed. So he had chosen not to put himself in that position. If only she had the freedom to make such a choice. But where could she run? Anderlin was no longer her home.

  She whispered. "I don't know how he can bear it. There is nothing worse than not being able to show the one you love how much you love them." Even when one was married to him.

  The sympathy in his expression receded, even as she watched. He stood up. "Your brother survived army discipline and the heat and rain of India, he most certainly will survive the loss of one matrimonial possibility. With his fortunes looking up, there will be many Mamas and Papas interested in an alliance with him for their daughters, dowries and all."

  "You don't understand." How could he love her and say something like that? Katherine was blind to think Simon felt anything for her at all. And then, she wasn't certain, but she thought she saw a flicker of pain cross his features.

  He held out his hand. "Yes. I understand very well what he has lost." His fingers grasped hers as her hand met his, and he pulled her to a standing position. He let go of her hand as soon as she had her balance. "But we bear what we must."

  His voice sounded so cold and distant she could almost have thought she was talking to the dowager. She stared at him, suddenly angry at his withdrawal. "Do we?"

  He didn't respond, would have turned away if she hadn't reached out to put a hand on his arm. "I don't know if I can bear this distance between us, Simon. Must I?"

  The sound of carriage wheels on the drive became clear in the silence between them. Then voices and a flurry of activity as the footmen began to carry boxes into the hall.

  Without acknowledging her question, Simon turned toward the door. "We must go out to greet our guests."

  Miranda did not stir. "Must we?"

  He turned back to her and his coldness faded as he smiled ruefully and touched her cheek gently. "Better to face the enemy than to run and hide."

  She pulled away, afraid that his touch would make the tears that threatened spill forth. "Easy for you to say. They are not your enemies." They were hers. And tears and tension would just add spice to the gossip.

  There were two carriages in the drive. Grimthorpe, naturally would be among the first arrivals, and the other carriage contained Emily and her parents. The passengers had alighted from their coaches and were brushing off their clothing in preparation for entering when Simon and Miranda went to greet them. Arthur joined them as they began to welcome the tired travelers.

  The last time Miranda had seen Emily, the girl had been laughing and waving as she headed off to the border with Valentine. Her brother's love, looking paler and more sober than that last time, greeted her politely, but did not meet her eyes.

  Her mother, the countess, was a thin, forbidding woman. To Miranda's discomfort, she displayed an open curiosity over how Simon and Miranda had met. Her questions began immediately after her greeting and did not seem to have an end.

  "Did you meet at a country dance at one of the local squire's homes?"

  "Had you known Simon long?"

  "Did you expect to be pulled from the shelf at this late date?"

  Emily gave her one quick, sympathetic glance, but then seemed to find herself entranced by the sight of her slippers peeping from under her skirts as she walked. Miranda looked toward Simon.

  There was no rescue from that quarter, however.

  Emily's father had left the chattering to the women and pulled Simon to the side. Before Miranda could blink, before the countess could finish her latest question, the two men were instantly deep in a discussion of business matters.

  Seeing Grimthorpe's approach, Miranda braced herself.

  To her surprise, she heard Arthur's firm greeting from behind her and was glad to find him there, as if he knew that she needed support.

  Grimthorpe drew near, a wolfish half-smile on his face as he quickly surveyed — and dismissed — Emily, to turn his attention to Arthur. "You're looking well, I see."

  Arthur merely nodded and returned the compliment. "As are you."

  "Thought for sure you'd have popped off by now, old man. Any bees around this weekend?"

  "Certainly not." Arthur stiffened and gave Grimthorpe a stern look. To her surprise, there appeared to be animosity between the two men. Miranda had never before seen Arthur appear anything more than mildly chagrined. But his attitude toward Grimthorpe bordered on anger. She wondered from whence it stemmed.

  Seeing Emily's mother preparing for yet another round of questions, and dreading lest Grimthorpe hear them, Miranda hastily led the other women inside to where her sisters and the dowager awaited.

  She would let Simon handle the man. They deserved each other.

  As they walked, Miranda tried to reassure Emily, without actually using words, that she did not need to fear any embarrassing disclosures about her this weekend. Or any anger. If Emily no longer wanted to marry Valentine, then so be it. Miranda would not interfere.

  But what if Emily still loved him? What if she loathed her husband-to-be? Don't ask for trouble, she told herself, already knowing that she would not be able to rest until she was certain that Emily had truly put all hopes of marrying Valentine behind her. After all, her love life — and the dowager's both seemed so hopeless she must look elsewhere for a happy ending.

  "I hear the dowager and Simon have been reconciled. Is that so?" There was no ignoring the way that Emily's mother insinuated herself between them, even as she spewed her questions, as if she were afraid that Miranda might contaminate her daughter.

  Or incite her to another elopement. Miranda smiled politely and murmured a vague answer to yet another of the countess's questions. She could not avoid the knowledge that the weekend was likely to be the longest of her life.

  The guests continued to arrive, keeping the footman and maids busy scurrying to see to the needs of the new arrivals and keeping Miranda so busy greeting people and making sure of their comfort that she barely noticed how Simon always seemed to glide away from wherever she moved. Even as the guests gathered in the ballroom, dressed in their finest and prepared to dance the night away, Simon stayed a room length away.

  Not that she was overly eager to see the distant look in his eye. Or to hear his detached comments about the number of guests and the scheduling of entertainments for tomorrow. Even worse would be his dry compliments on how beautifully the ballroom had been decorated. They both knew it was all his mother's work.

  "May I have this dance?" She turned to find one of the eligible young bachelors had detached himself from Hero. He was tall and dark and the only feature which kept him from handsomeness was a petulant set to his lips and a thinness to his nostrils that suggested he did not like to breathe common air.

  "Thank you," she accepted. She would have preferred to decline, but the dowager was staring at her from across the dance floor, and she had already been reminded three times that she was a duchess now. Miranda presumed that duchesses did not refuse dances from perfectly decent, if callow, young guests.

  He was an adequate, if not perfect, dancer, and she was just beginning to enjoy herself when Simon cut in and swept h
er away from the young man. With a flare of his nostrils, the usurped gentleman headed quickly back toward Hero's vicinity, leaving Miranda to deal with Simon on her own. Her heart dropped as she looked up into his eyes.

  He scowled. "I am not amused."

  ***