Write to me in Devon if you are able to find the time. I know that you have my grandfather’s direction. I will see you in Wiltshire in two weeks’ time.
All my love,
Your dear wife,
Miranda
Carter stared. This letter had been written the day he’d left for London. It was addressed to him, and yet he’d never received it. Obviously it had been delivered. But why was it in among Father’s papers, opened and apparently read?
If Father had opened it himself by mistake, he would have told Carter of it. Carter grabbed the next paper in the stack. Another letter. Again, addressed to him and dated a mere four days later.
October 21, 1804
Lord Gibbons,
I am writing to inform you that Lady Gibbons has arrived this morning at your family’s estate, Clifton Manor in Dorset, and wishes you to be notified of her presence here. She further instructs me to inform you that were it not for the sudden onset of what she fears may be an influenza, she would write to you herself and tell you not to worry for her and that her grandfather, Mr. Benton, has been sent for and will see to her needs until she is well enough to return to your home in Wiltshire. She anticipates no change in her original day of return.
Your most humble
and obedient servant,
Josiah Timms
Butler, Clifton Manor
Not stopping to ponder beyond the fact that Miranda had arrived at Clifton Manor directly after leaving Wiltshire, Carter grabbed the next letter.
Oct 22, 1804
Lord Gibbons,
I have this day arrived at Clifton Manor, summoned by Miranda. She assures me you have been informed of her location and have been told not to worry over her condition. She is indeed ill but appears in good spirits for the present. We have sent for the local surgeon—a Mr. MacPherson, who has been most highly praised by the staff—purely as a precautionary measure.
While she insists that you need not make the trip to Dorset strictly for her sake, I would urge you to do so. Ever since the passing of her parents during an epidemic of fever she has been most fearful of illnesses, and your presence, I believe, would be soothing. At the very least, I would ask that you send her word that you are thinking of her and offer some written encouragement.
I will, of course, remain with her for as long as is necessary.
Yours, etc.
Mr. George Benton
Carter tore through the pile.
Oct 29, 1804
Lord Gibbons,
I do not wish to alarm you, but Miranda continues to be ill. She is not feverish but cannot manage to retain any nourishment. We are calling once again for the surgeon in hopes that he may know of a tisane or soothing tea to settle her stomach.
Miranda will not, I am afraid, be arriving in Wiltshire in two days’ time as she had originally planned and has asked me to write to inform you of that and urge you to come to Clifton Manor. She is bearing up well under the worry that being ill inevitably casts upon her, but I believe she would be greatly improved by even a single word from you.
I remain,
Yours, etc.
Mr. George Benton
Chapter Twenty-One
CARTER LET HIS HAND AND the letter he held drop to his lap. He’d been back in Wiltshire on the second or third of November—only a few days after this letter was sent to London. Miranda hadn’t been at home when he’d arrived. The only thing the staff could tell him was that she’d left in a hired conveyance and had taken only a maid who had quit her post in the household to return to her home county.
Father had suggested that she might be at one of the other estates or perhaps in Devon with Mr. Benton. Suddenly, that bit of logic seemed a little too insightful, especially considering the fact that Father had, in this MB folder, letters saying precisely where Miranda had been the entire time.
“No.” Carter shook his head. “Father wouldn’t have done that.”
Certain he’d find another explanation, he turned back to the pile. The next letter was dated more than a month since the previous letter.
Dec 6, 1804
My Dearest Carter,
I am not sure why I haven’t heard from you yet. I know Grandfather has written to you, though not for a month or more. I can only assume you have not written or come because you either are not able to at this time or do not want to. I pray your reason is not the latter.
Since the letter Grandfather sent you in October, Mr. MacPherson has determined the reason for my continued illness. I am still unwell, I fear, but knowing the source of my illness has made it easier to endure.
It seems, my dear, that we are in May to become parents.
Carter stopped there. Parents? She’d been increasing? He looked around the room, almost as if he expected to see a baby somewhere. Except, given the passage of time since the letter was written, the child would now be more than two years old. Carter dropped his eyes again to the letter and began reading more anxiously.
Mr. MacPherson tells me it is not unusual for a woman in my condition to have difficulty containing a meal. For most, the ailment passes.
I do wish you would come to Clifton Manor, Carter. Mr. MacPherson does not think it wise for me to travel until my stomach has settled and I am showing signs of improvement. Should that not happen soon, I would find myself unable to travel because of my condition.
I so want you to be here, for myself and for the baby. Please come!
Your loving wife,
Miranda
Carter immediately jumped to the next letter but stopped before reading more than the date— February 16, 1805—and the salutation—My Dearest Carter. Two and a half months had passed since the last. He held his breath and continued reading.
February 16, 1805
My Dearest Carter,
I have waited these several months since coming to Clifton Manor for some word from you and watched hopefully to see you ride up to the house. I cannot pretend to not realize now that you do not wish to come. At risk of having my plea thrown back at me, I am asking you once more, my dearest, to come to Dorset.
I would not ask were I not desperate. And I am indeed desperate. More than that, I am afraid. I am still unwell, and I feel very weak. Mr. MacPherson speaks encouragingly, but he looks concerned.
Please, Carter! I am begging, quite literally begging, for you to come, even for only a few days. Come and hold me, if only for a moment, and tell me all will be well. A week is all that would be required. I am asking for a week. Not only for myself but for this child, your child.
If you cannot give me your time, please write to me at the least. Send a word or two. Let me know I am not forgotten.
Your loving wife,
Miranda
“Good heavens.” Carter set the letter down with the others and rubbed his face with one hand. The picture grew worse with each missive.
“I didn’t know,” he said again out loud, his agony straining the words.
He clamped his teeth together, his jaw set with frustration and tension, and flipped through the stack, reading only the signatures. As expected, he found several more signed by Mr. Benton and one signed Glen MacPherson. But not another from Miranda.
Carter held the stack on his lap. He guessed it was all there—any letters sent by Miranda, Mr. Benton, probably all of the reports from Clifton Manor. Why had he never seen them? Why wasn’t he at least told what was happening?
Leaving Miranda to endure what she had alone was unthinkable, inexcusable. Carter looked back at the folder cover. MB. Miranda Benton, he realized with a sick drop of his stomach. “Benton” was, of course, her maiden name. But why label the folder that way when everything in it was accumulated after she and Carter had married? She would have been Lady Gibbons or Miranda Harford at the very least.
Shaking his head, Carter read the letter directly behind Miranda’s last.
Mar 6, 1805
Lord Gibbons,
I must be brief. Miranda has contracted a feve
r, which has gone through this area of late. She has been quite ill. Now, in her weakened condition, she has been brought to childbed. She is still two months shy of her time, and it is almost certain the child will not survive.
I write to beg you to come. I understand from the papers that you are in Wiltshire with a group of colleagues. The close proximity of these two estates should allow you to arrive swiftly.
Yours, etc.
Benton
Carter moved on, his eyes darting frantically, heart pounding in his chest.
Mar 7, 1805
Gibbons,
I am sending this express as I did the last. Twenty-four hours have passed since I last wrote, and Miranda is still not delivered of this child. She grows weaker, and MacPherson fears now for her safety, as well as the child’s. Miranda is asking for you—nay, begging. Please, if you have any feelings for your wife, come swiftly. I fear there is little time.
Benton
Mar 9, 1805
Lord Gibbons,
Your son, Alexander George Harford, was born last evening near seven o’clock. The vicar christened and baptized the infant in the short time before young Alexander passed away, less than twenty minutes after his birth.
Miranda is living but is not conscious. The vicar will remain at Clifton Manor so he may be on hand should she not survive this ordeal either.
I am asking once more for you to come to Dorset to be with your wife in what may be her final hours. I have instructed the messenger delivering this letter to await a reply so I might know in what way I should proceed.
Arrangements for your son’s burial are being held until we know both your wishes and the fate of your wife.
Yours, etc.
Mr. George Benton
A son. Carter had been a father, and he’d never known. He’d lost a child. From the sounds of Mr. Benton’s letter, he’d very nearly lost his wife. He ought to have observed a proper mourning period. He should have been present at the funeral. Carter didn’t even know where his son was buried.
A gut-wrenching grief welled up inside him, mingling with anger. Who would have kept this from him? Who could possibly have been so heartless? Each of these letters had been opened, the wax seals long since broken away. Someone had known. And someone had to have sent a response back to Mr. Benton following that letter when one was specifically requested.
“How is our patient this morning?” Carter recognized MacPherson’s accent.
He looked up, mind still swirling painfully.
“Are you well, Lord Devereaux?” MacPherson asked, looking at him with confused concern.
“I hardly know,” Carter muttered.
MacPherson crossed to Miranda’s bed, leather bag beside him. “Lady Devereaux looks a little better—coloring isn’t so bad.” He felt her pulse. “Rhythm is stronger. Breathing well.”
“She’s past the worst of it?” Carter felt so detached at the moment, his mind back three years ago, thinking of all he’d missed, of everything he’d been denied knowledge of.
“Aye. I’d wager she’ll be awake sometime today.”
“Really?” Carter set his pile of papers on the bedtable and sat on the bed beside Miranda, MacPherson on her other side. “She’ll be conscious again?” He needed to tell her so many things.
“She isn’t truly unconscious now,” MacPherson said. “Only very much asleep.”
Carter nodded and watched Miranda. She did look better.
“Do ye have some business ye’re working on?” MacPherson asked. Carter could see he was looking past him to the pile of correspondence Carter had only just left on the table.
“No,” he answered evenly. His grudge, after all, was not with this man. “I took your advice.”
“My advice?” The surgeon looked surprised and a little confused.
Carter nodded. “I found my letters.”
“Did ye? And where were they hiding?” He still sounded mildly insulting.
Carter brushed it off. There were certainly a few people who had legitimate gripes against him for what must have seemed like negligence instead of ignorance on his part the past three years.
“Among my father’s papers.” Carter motioned to the stack. “An entire pile addressed to me that I never saw.”
“And what would your father be doing with your letters? Why wouldn’t he want ye to have them?”
“I’m not certain he is the one who kept them from me.”
“Who else, then? Ye ought to be asking a few questions, my lord.”
“I cannot very well ask my father,” Carter said. “He is dead.”
“Aye.” MacPherson nodded, looking ponderous. “But your mother might know something.”
“And just what might his mother know something about?”
Carter looked up to see Mother standing in the doorway, looking as though she were at the height of her dignity. He hated to think of questioning his mother’s honor or offending her with what might be entirely ill-founded questions, but his confusion and frustration were too great to ignore.
“These, Mother.” Carter reached for the pile of letters and held them up. “Letters. From Miranda and Mr. Benton. Even from MacPherson.” He watched with a wave of sick understanding as his mother paled noticeably. “They were in Father’s things. In a folder marked with Miranda’s initials—her initials before we married. I would like very much to know how they came to be there, opened, without my even knowing of their existence.”
He saw Mother square her shoulders and set her jaw. “Are you suggesting your own mother would have anything to do with missing letters?” She looked guilty, extremely guilty, and Carter sighed, the weight on his shoulders growing heavier with each passing moment.
“This is unconscionable. I—How could—?” He struggled to find words. Shock nearly muted him as his anger simmered ever hotter under the surface. His jaw clamped tight. “How could you have done this?”
“I have done nothing wrong!”
“Intercepting my personal correspondence? Keeping from me the knowledge that my wife was ill, in danger of her life?” He all but growled the questions.
“That is—”
“I had a son, Mother! A son!” Carter snapped out the words but kept his voice from raising, not wanting to disturb Miranda’s rest. “And no one told me.”
“The child didn’t live, Carter,” Mother said sharply. “It hardly—”
“You did know.”
She seemed to realize she’d given herself away. As always, she retained her dignity and went on as if nothing untoward had been revealed. “It was for the best.”
“I did not even mourn my own child. I was not present for his funeral.” Carter fought down his emotions. “Miranda was left to believe I didn’t care—for her or our child. How could you allow such a thing?”
“How could I?” Mother’s voice rose, and her face reddened.
“I would ask ye to go argue somewhere else,” MacPherson interrupted. “Lady Devereaux needs to rest.”
Carter glanced at Miranda. He needed to know what had happened, as much for his sake as hers, but he would do nothing to further endanger her health. “Come, Mother.”
If anything, he’d learned from his parents how to be authoritative. Mother, despite her bluster, followed immediately. Carter, letters still clutched in his hand, including those he hadn’t yet read, marched silently from the room and down the stairs to the sitting room. Mother came in, looking perfectly unruffled if one ignored the panic in her eyes. She sat sedately and looked up at him.
“Now,” Carter said after several deep breaths, “explain this.”
He dropped the stack of papers on a table between them and waited.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“PERHAPS, CARTER,” MOTHER SAID AS though he were a child in the midst of an unreasonable tantrum, “you would be good enough to explain to me just what that is that you have flung onto the table. It is not like you to be dramatic.”
“Dramatic? Believe me, Mother, dep
ending on your answers, this interview could become extremely dramatic.”
She looked momentarily surprised but quickly recovered and regained her usual air of detached observation. Had she always been that way? Carter wondered. Unemotional, always tightly in control, a pattern card of decorum no matter the situation. Miranda’s aura of calm was peaceful. Mother’s, Carter realized, was unnerving.
“They appear to be letters.” Mother motioned toward the stack of paper between them.
Carter picked the top one off the pile. “October 17, 1804. My Dearest Carter, No doubt this missive will reach London before you do,” he read then flipped to the next. “Lord Gibbons, I am writing to inform you that Lady Gibbons has arrived this morning at Clifton Manor.” The next, “Lord Gibbons, Miranda continues to be ill.” He flipped faster, summing up what he knew the letters told him. “Dear Carter, We are going to be parents.” “Dear Carter, Please come; I am ill and afraid.” “Lord Gibbons, Your first child is soon to be born.” “Lord Gibbons, Your wife’s life is in imminent danger.” “Lord Gibbons, you have a son. And he is dead.”
Glimmer of Hope Page 17
