Once More, Miranda

by Jennifer Wilde

  “And?”

  “When this is over I’m going to do something about it.”

  He finished his wine and set the glass down. The drug was having no effect whatsoever. I could feel panic beginning to grow. What if it didn’t work? Marcelon had been extremely perturbed by my request. She had been out of the room a long time. What … what if she had substituted the drug for … for colored water? Don’t panic, Miranda. Don’t panic. He’s not leaving this house. If you have to hit him over the head with an andiron, you will.

  “Have some more wine,” I said calmly.

  “I don’t suppose another glass would hurt. You’re not having any?”

  I refilled his glass and handed it to him. “I’m not thirsty. How—how do you feel?”

  “Determined. Cumberland’s death will do a lot of good for a lot of people, Miranda. This isn’t some harebrained, hot-headed scheme dreamed up by a pack of firebrands. It’s been carefully—thought—out—” His voice was beginning to slur ever so slightly. It was taking him longer to pronounce his words. “We’ve worked—everything—out. It’s taken us—over—a year to come—come up with this plan—and—and—”

  He set the glass down so abruptly that the wine splattered over the rim and made a puddle on the table. He looked at me with wide eyes, realization dawning as the drug began to cloud his mind. I gazed back at him calmly.

  “You—you—” His voice was thick.

  “I couldn’t let you go, Cam.”

  “Trea—treacherous bitch!”

  He stumbled across the room toward me. He swung his arm back, hand tightened into a fist, ready to hit me across the jaw with all his might. His eyes seemed to glaze over then and he lurched forward, toppling like a felled oak. I caught him around the waist, almost falling myself as I caught the full weight of his body. His head lolled across my shoulder. His arms hung limply at his sides. His legs might have been rubber. I tugged and heaved, trying to support him and almost breaking my back in the effort. Straining, panting, I somehow managed to guide him over to the sofa, and when I let go of him and gave him a shove backward, he fell so heavily that one of the springs broke with a noisy twang.

  I lifted his legs up onto the sofa and straightened him and put a cushion behind his head and smoothed the hair from his brow, a worried frown creasing my own. Dear God, had I killed him? No, no, he was still breathing, somewhat heavily, and his pulse seemed normal enough. My own was leaping, and my heart was pounding. I sat down in the large chair across from the sofa, the enormity of what I had done sweeping over me. He’d never forgive me. Never. I had betrayed him, yes, but I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t lose him. He would be furiously angry, rightfully so, but he … he would see, he would understand why I had to do it.

  I told myself that, and I tried to believe it as the sunlight grew fainter and the shadows grew longer and the lazy brass clock ticked on and on like some weary but persistent cricket. The room filled with a soft blue haze that gradually turned purple, darkening, and darkness fell and I could barely see him stretched out there on the sofa. The moon came out and a blurry silver seeped in, banishing the purple black. Nine o’clock. Ten. I sat very still, listening to his breathing, trying not to think of what was happening at that house surrounded by woods. Eleven. Eleven-thirty. Twelve. Cam mumbled something and flung an arm out. It dangled over the side of the sofa. He snorted in his sleep and continued to breathe deeply, evenly.

  Coffee. He would need lots of coffee when he finally woke up. When would that be? How much of the drug had he taken into his system? Would he sleep until morning? He mumbled again. The drug must be wearing off. I got up and began to light candles, banishing moonlight and shadows. Twelve-fifteen. He was scowling in his sleep. He looked like a great, limp doll stretched out there on the worn sky-blue velvet sofa. I gazed at him for several long moments before going into the kitchen to light the fire and put the coffee on. It was soon bubbling in the pot, filling the room with a rich, tangy aroma.

  Food. He hadn’t eaten. He would be hungry. I sliced bread and cheese and sausage, keeping myself busy, hoping to still the panic that was building up inside again. He would understand. He … he would be angry, he would probably beat me, but … I heard him stirring in the front room. I hastily poured coffee into one of the heavy blue cups and hurried to him. He was sitting up on the sofa, his cheeks flushed, his hair damp, spilling across his brow. He brushed it back and looked up at me with eyes that seemed to stare right through me.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “It—it’s almost one. Here—I—I thought you would want some coffee.”

  He took it without a word. He drank it slowly, his normal color returning. I brought the pot in and poured him another cup and set the pot on the mantel, a tremulous sensation rising, threatening to overcome me. I forced it back, forced myself to remain calm. I had done it and I was glad and I would face the consequences without flinching. The house was very, very still. I could hear leaves rustling in the pear tree outside. Cam finished the coffee and set the cup down and wiped his brow again. He stood up. His legs seemed shaky.

  “What was it?” he asked.

  “It was a—a sleeping potion. Mrs. Wooden gave it to me. I told her that I was having trouble sleeping. She—she had no idea what I planned to use it for. I suppose you—you’re terribly angry.”

  He didn’t reply. He tugged at the hem of his waistcoat, straightening it, brushed the lapels of his coat. He might have been alone in the room. The silence was dreadful. I couldn’t endure it.

  “Say something!” I cried.

  “There’s no need for words, Miranda.”

  “Do something! Hit me if you want to, but—”

  My voice broke. Tears filled my eyes. I stared at him, and he gazed at me as he might gaze at some faintly bothersome stranger who had entered his sitting room by accident. He looked away, and my whole body seemed to go cold. I could take his anger, take his blows, but this calm indifference terrified me. Tears spilled over my lashes as he stepped into the hall, moving past me as though I weren’t there.

  “Cam!”

  I rushed after him. I caught his arm. He took hold of my fingers, pried them away.

  “It’s over, Miranda.”

  “You must understand! I had to do it! I—”

  There was a commotion in the courtyard. Heavy footsteps rushed across the cobblestones toward the house. Someone pounded on the door. I leaned against the wall as Cam opened the door and Robbie Bruce rushed into the hall. He was out of breath. His blond hair was dark with perspiration, his clothes sweaty. He had clearly been riding at the greatest possible speed and under tremendous stress. One sleeve of his coarsely woven white shirt was torn and there were powder burns on his snug tan breeches, a dark smudge across his right cheekbone. His old leather jerkin was unlaced, flapping, stained with blood. Cam grabbed his upper arms and held him in a tight grip, and the youth took several deep breaths, sweat running down his brow.

  “What happened?” Cam demanded.

  “We’ve got to flee, Cam! We can’t lose a moment! The redcoats—”

  “What happened, man!”

  Robbie was near hysterics, incapable of coherent speech. Cam slapped him across the face, a brutal, determined blow that caused the youth to cry out in dismay. He gnawed his lower lip. He shook his head, making a valiant effort to pull himself together, and after a moment he swallowed and looked up at Cam with stunned brown eyes.

  “You—you didn’t come. We waited and waited and—and finally Ian insisted we go on. We—we were half an hour behind schedule, and everyone was edgy and—and out of sorts. They—Ian was in charge, but we all—the rest of us considered you our leader and when you didn’t show up—” He caught his breath again. “Everything went wrong—from the beginning everything went wrong.”

  Cam released him. Robbie wiped sweat from his eyes, pushed the wet blond locks from his brow.

  “The guards were out cold, littering the ground all around the house,
and we went in and found the servants and—I told Ian we were supposed to cover our faces but he—he—we overpowered them and tied them up and then he took out his garotte and told us to go on and bring the powder up from the cellar. The powder—we got six barrels up without any trouble and then MacLeod—” He shook his head, his eyes filled with grief and pain. “MacLeod dropped a barrel in the hall and it burst open and Campbell was right behind him, carrying a candle. He—Cam, he slipped in the powder! The candle—both of them were blown to pieces. The whole house shook. It—it started burning.”

  “Arabella—”

  “She—she was still upstairs. She hadn’t been able to get Cumberland to drink any of the wine. He—he hadn’t heard us before, but when the explosion went off he started screeching in terror. He scrambled out onto the roof and screeched for the guards. I raced upstairs and got Arabella and took her out into the woods and then—then the redcoats came. The relief, Cam. The relief! We didn’t know—we didn’t plan on a relief guard. They arrived minutes after the explosion and all hell broke loose. They—Ian and MacGregor were cut to ribbons, Malcolm was shot and—and they took Burns and Cochrane alive. They got Cumberland down from the roof, and he kept screeching ‘Find the woman! Find the woman!’ and then—redcoats everywhere, Cam! They were charging through the woods, looking for Arabella—”

  “Did you—”

  “I got her into the coach, watched it drive away. Two redcoats charged me. I wrested the sword from one, drove it through his chest, grabbed the other one by the throat, broke his neck. I had left my wagon in the woods—good horses, not the nags. I drove them like mad. We’ve got to leave at once, Cam. If we hurry, we can make it to Dover before the boat leaves.”

  Cam nodded, grim. Robbie caught his breath and wiped perspiration from his brow.

  “Burns and Cochrane won’t tell them about the boat,” he said, calmer now, “but Cumberland has—has ways. He’ll have them tortured until they reveal the names of all the other conspirators. It may take hours, it may take days, but we—we’ve got to leave the country at once.”

  “You’re right,” Cam said.

  “The wagon’s on Fleet, right outside the passageway. There—there’s nothing more we can do, Cam. We’ve botched it. If you had been there, maybe—maybe things would have gone differently. We would have been there half an hour earlier, you would have taken charge. Maybe we could have blown the house up and made our escape before—before the redcoats—”

  Robbie cut himself short, his large brown eyes full of pain. The lad was on the verge of tears. He frowned, squaring his shoulders, fighting to control the unseemly, unmanly emotions that gripped him.

  “Why weren’t you there, Cam?”

  “Later. I’ll explain later. Go on to the wagon. I’ll join you in a minute.”

  “No,” I said.

  Robbie nodded and left, and Cam turned to look at me. I leaned against the wall beside the grandfather clock and shook my head, silently pleading with him. He picked up his bag.

  “Take me with you,” I whispered.

  “Cumberland’s men will eventually come here,” he said. “They’ll question you. You know nothing about it. You’re merely my servant. Do you understand? Go to Bancroft first thing in the morning and tell him what happened. Bancroft will stand by you.”

  “Cam—”

  “I’ve provided for you generously. You’ll have no problems.”

  “Take me with you. Cam, take me with you. I—you can’t leave me behind. I can’t—I couldn’t go on without—”

  “You don’t understand, Miranda,” he said calmly. “You’re responsible for this. You’re responsible for the deaths of all those men.”

  “That isn’t true! I—”

  “I should kill you for what you’ve done. I won’t. I’m too goddamned weak to do it. You’ve made me that way. I rue the day I met you, Miranda. I never want to see you again for the rest of my life.”

  He might just as well have plunged a knife into my heart. It would have been quicker. It would have been kinder. He looked at me for a moment longer with cold, unfeeling eyes, and then he left. I was numb, absolutely paralyzed. My system rejected the pain. No one could endure pain like that. I heard his footsteps moving across the court. I heard them echo as he moved down the passageway. He was taking my life with him, leaving behind a mere shell of a woman, without soul, without spirit, without reason for being.

  Something snapped inside me. I flew to the door and flung it open, raced across the court and down the passageway, hardly aware of what I was doing. I stumbled onto the pavement and saw the wagon disappearing around a corner and cried out. Fleet was empty and silent, black and gray and bathed in pale moonlight. Cam was gone. I would never see him again. I stood there in front of the passageway. The cold night air chilled my bare arms and shoulders, tore at my hair, but I felt nothing, nothing whatsoever. Cam was gone. I was dead inside. I would never be able to feel again.

  It was over now. Cumberland’s men had come to the house two days later and Bancroft had been with me and I had been wearing my oldest cotton dress and a shabby dust cap and spoke in my coarsest St. Giles accents as he had instructed. He assured the men that I was merely a housekeeper, but they bombarded me with questions nevertheless, and I stammered and squawked and cursed them roundly for tearing into the house like a band of red Indians. Convinced I was an ignorant slavey who knew nothing, they ransacked the house, finding nothing whatsoever that could possibly link Cam with the rebels, and then they concentrated on Bancroft, an acknowledged friend of the traitor.

  Bancroft was thoroughly shocked by the accusations against his friend, certain there must be some dreadful error. He told them quite frankly that Cam had come to the bank three days before and withdrawn all his funds. He was planning to leave for Plymouth immediately, where he intended to sail for the colonies on the next boat. Bancroft candidly admitted that he had been startled by this sudden decision, but Gordon had told him he was disillusioned with England, with his hack work, and was going to grow tobacco in Virginia. Bancroft considered it the wildest folly, but his friend was stubborn and unstable and once he made up his mind to do something nothing could deter him from his course.

  After several hours of intensive search and brutal questioning, the men departed, as convinced by Bancroft’s performance as they had been by my own. That had been four days ago, and now Cam’s things were in storage and all of the furniture had been covered with dust sheets and my trunk was packed and waiting in the hall downstairs. Thomas Sheppard would soon be arriving to drive me to the cottage he had rented for me outside Stratford. It was on the river, he had informed me, the lawn sloping right down to the bank. There were willow trees and swans, and I would have the peace and serenity I so desperately needed. I would be able to rest, to forget, he said, and he hoped I would eventually be able to write.

  Mrs. Wooden would be coming to spend some time with me—the poodles would adore the country—and Sheppard would drive down periodically to check up on me and Bancroft would probably visit, too. The three of them had arranged my life admirably, and, listless, I had let them, making no protests, making no suggestions, showing no interest whatsoever. I was going to Stratford and I would sit on the lawn and look at the willows and the swans, but I wouldn’t forget, I would never forget, and I would never write another word either. The mere thought of picking up a quill filled me with lethargy.

  I was upstairs in his study, bidding a final farewell to the room where he had spent so much time these past months. It looked bleak and bare now, nothing of Cam remaining. His books, his papers, the samurai sword, the pewter owl, all his personal effects were stored in Bancroft’s attic, the chair and worktable covered with a shabby gray-white sheet already beginning to collect dust. Late morning sunlight slanted through the windows, making pale yellow-white pools on the bare hardwood floor. He had toiled so hard on The Stranger From Japan, determined to finish it before … I knew why now. Every penny he had received for the book ha
d been invested with Bancroft in my name, and it was already beginning to earn.

  Cam had provided for me generously indeed. Sheppard had paid a small fortune for the last Roderick Cane novel. Bancroft assured me I would soon become a wealthy woman. It meant nothing to me. How could money possibly matter? As I gazed at the empty room, as the pools of sunlight spread, making sparkling reflections on the ceiling, I felt the pain welling up and I sternly repressed it, refusing to feel. You can give way to it, Miranda, you can let it destroy you, or you can fight it. You can sob and moan, give in, give up, or you can try to survive. You’ve always been a fighter, I told myself. You’re not a weak, whining, defenseless maiden. You’ve acquired a cultivated voice, a certain amount of polish, but beneath all that you’re still Duchess Randy, raised on the streets of St. Giles and beholden to no one.

  What are you going to do? I asked myself. Are you going to let that bloody sod destroy your life? Are you? Several moments passed, and I could feel something hard and cold building up inside. I welcomed it, clung to it with all the strength I could muster, knowing full well it would be my only salvation.

  How could he have done it? How? Damn him. Damn him to hell. I loved him with all my heart and soul, but I hated him, too, and the bitter resentment made the anguish easier to bear. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to weep and wail and make a spectacle of myself. No. No. I refused to do that. I was going to Stratford and somehow … somehow I would survive. Mrs. Wooden informed me that I was young and beautiful, that there were dozens of men who would be delighted at the opportunity to help me forget Cam Gordon—Davy Garrick leading the pack—but there would be no more men. They hurt you. They abandoned you. They broke your heart.

  There were footsteps and voices downstairs. Sheppard’s manservant was carrying my trunk out. Sheppard and Mrs. Wooden were talking in quiet voices, cautious and concerned, as though I were some fragile creature unable to look after herself. They had both been wonderful, Bancroft, too, and I was grateful to all three of them, but they needn’t worry about me. I wasn’t going to throw myself into the Avon. I wasn’t going to fall apart. I was going to suffer, yes, suffer terribly, but I was much tougher than any of them suspected, and that toughness would come to my aid now that I needed it.