Carter felt his stomach clench with guilt.
“If she’d been in better health when her time came, the lying-in would have been much easier,” Mr. Benton said. “But it stretched into days, and she was not holding up.”
“Damaged her already weak heart,” MacPherson said with the precision of a medical man. “The strain took her heart out of rhythm. A heart without a rhythm cannot accomplish much. The coloring and pulse told the story clear enough. So I made up a foxglove tisane and called for the vicar.”
“You sent for him because foxglove is poisonous?” Carter still didn’t understand that part of it.
MacPherson shook his head, a hint of amusement crossing his face. “’Tis only dangerous in too-high quantities.”
“I understood it took very little to be fatal.”
“So we gave her less than ‘very little.’ It is well known to be beneficial in resetting a heart what’s gone off its ticker if administered carefully and expertly.”
“And that saved her?”
“Not immediately,” Mr. Benton said. “Her heart kept going out. It would be improving and then suddenly slip out of rhythm again. The vicar came three times the first two weeks. Miranda slowly improved. She started stirring and eating a little without needing the nourishment poured down her throat. Eventually, she opened her eyes. After a time, she spoke.”
“What did she say?” Carter asked.
Mr. Benton paused. Carter had the very strong impression that his answer would be as haunting as the letter he still hadn’t gotten out of his mind. “She asked, ‘Did Carter come?’”
Carter dropped his head. He let out a rush of air.
“Then she asked after the baby,” Mr. Benton said. “When we told her he had not survived, she quit talking. Several days passed, and she just lay there, silently staring into space. I would have written again, but you’d already said you couldn’t be bothered.”
Carter recognized his father’s response to Mr. Benton’s letter. “I didn’t write that reply.”
“I realize that now.”
“We had Mrs. Milton at the home farm bring up her wee bairn, born but a few weeks before,” MacPherson said, retaking the story. “Lady Gibbons—she was Lady Gibbons then—just held the wee one. After awhile, she started to coo and sing to it. I think wee bairns do that for her still. They help to heal some of that ache she still carries around with her.”
Carter reached across the blankets and took Miranda’s hand. He’d never imagined her desire to see and hold the young children around Clifton Manor had such a profound cause. He gasped. “She squeezed my hand!”
He was off the chair and seated on the bed almost immediately, watching her.
“Aye,” MacPherson said with a low chuckle. “I said she was only sleeping. She’ll come ’round when she’s good and ready.”
Carter very nearly smiled. MacPherson had a way of lightening a room. He never would have guessed it the first time they’d met—MacPherson had been gruff and short with him. Perhaps, Carter thought with mounting hope, that meant Miranda had improved.
“Will Miranda ever be well again?” Carter watched Miranda sleep. She had moved a little since he’d last looked.
“Not entirely,” MacPherson said. “There is very little we can do for a heart once it has been damaged like hers.”
“But the berries and the special tea . . .”
“A colleague has found some evidence that they can sustain an ailing heart for a time,” MacPherson explained. “Until recently, that seemed so for Lady Devereaux. I have some hope that it will do her good.”
Hope surged through Carter. “Then her weak heart might not be fatal after all?”
“No, Lord Devereaux.” MacPherson shook his head. “It is fatal. It will always be fatal.”
The blow hit home. Carter squeezed Miranda’s hand, grateful she returned the pressure.
“How long does she have?” Carter whispered.
“Six months.”
Carter sucked in a breath.
“Or six years. Sixteen, maybe. I really cannot say with any certainty. Only that one day this will happen again”—MacPherson nodded toward Miranda—“and her heart will not recover. She will not wake up.”
“How do I make sure that happens years from now instead of months?” Carter closed his eyes against the thought.
“There are no guarantees, Lord Devereaux.”
“I have to have some kind of hope.” Carter shot a look at MacPherson.
“Aye. Hope.” MacPherson nodded. The man’s large hand dropped onto his shoulder—a gesture that would have been presumptuous coming from anyone else. “My profession deals in facts, my lord. But speaking as one husband to another, I’ll tell ye this—something my wife told me once. God gave us hope, and God gave us love. Ye cannot have one without the other.”
“Our man of medicine is almost poetic, is he not?”
“Miranda!” Carter recognized her voice immediately, even whispered and faint. He snapped his head around to look at her.
“I had the strangest dream,” she said, her voice still quiet.
Carter stroked her cheek. “What was your strange dream, my dear?”
“I dreamed this great lummox of a Scotsman kept poking my neck with his whappin’ great fingers.” Miranda imitated MacPherson’s Scottish lilt to perfection. “It was horrible.”
“Well, when the lass gets cheeky, that’s when I know it’s time for me to go home to my wife.” MacPherson sounded gruff, though Carter heard the kindness behind it all.
“Aye. That fine woman’s never sneistie, is she?” The feeblest of smiles crossed Miranda’s face as she spoke.
“She’s a fine woman, ye aggravating quean.” MacPherson gave Miranda a look no doubt passed down to him by his fearsome Scottish-warrior ancestors.
Miranda only smiled. She turned her eyes to Carter, and the smile remained. “Quean means ‘young woman.’ That’s not half as bad as some of the other things he’s called me.”
“Ye keep yer tongue in yer mouth, girl. Ye’re like to make your husband fair gae his dinger.”
“I have absolutely no idea what that means,” Carter said.
“It only means ye’re likely to get yerself in a rage and lose yer temper.”
Carter shook his head in amusement. “Keep using all those strange words and I just might gae my temper, or whatever it was you said.”
Miranda laughed, but the laugh turned to a cough. Carter looked to MacPherson, worried anew. The surgeon gave him a reassuring look. “’Twill happen for a while, until she gets the moisture out of her lungs. Keep her quiet an’ rested an’ she’ll be fine.”
MacPherson listened to Miranda’s heart and thumped around listening to her lungs before packing his bag and rising.
“Thank your wife for me,” Miranda said as MacPherson made his way to the door.
“I always do,” he answered. “And she always rolls her eyes at yer thinking ye need to thank her.”
Miranda nodded and smiled but didn’t say anything else. Carter rose and met the surgeon at the door.
“Thank you, MacPherson.” Carter had never meant an expression of gratitude as much as he did in that moment. “And not just for today. I know I owe her life to you.”
“I only wish there was more I could do. It’s a frustrating feeling, not being able to fix something once ye know what’s wrong. My colleagues and I are convinced that eventually there will be ways to treat an ailing heart, to undo the damage. For now, we just have to do what we can.”
“From what I’ve heard, what you’ve done is nothing short of a miracle.” Carter thought of Hannah’s account of Miranda’s previous brushes with death. “So, thank you.”
MacPherson nodded. “If ye take her to London, let me know. I have a colleague in Town who can serve ye as well as I.”
“Thank you.” Carter shook the man’s hand. “I will let you know.”
“I’ll walk MacPherson out.” Mr. Benton stepped across the thre
shold. “I think Miranda would prefer your company to either of ours.”
Carter nodded and hurried back to Miranda’s bedside. She seemed genuinely pleased when he sat beside her once more.
“You’re here,” Miranda said, her statement almost a question.
“Of course I am.” Carter pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“Every time this has happened, I have awoken, hoping you would be here.” Miranda reached out and touched his arm.
Carter noticed her arm shook, so he took her hand and held it in his. “Would you like to know why I haven’t been?” Carter asked. His heart ached to see a look of apprehension cross her pale features as she nodded. “It is a long story. One I only just learned today, myself. A story about a young man and a pile of letters.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
CARTER SAT AT THE SMALL writing desk he’d had moved into Miranda’s bedchamber. The complicated web of lies he was uncovering required a great deal of correspondence and paperwork, but he refused to spend so many hours away from Miranda.
He looked over at her sleeping peacefully. She’d been awake off and on over the past few days. Her coloring was improving a bit at a time. She still coughed and still grew weak after even small exertion, but MacPherson was encouraged by what he saw. The overwhelming fear Carter had felt was slowly giving way to a less panic-ridden sense of concern.
“One day this will happen again,” he heard MacPherson’s voice in his head, “but she won’t wake up.”
I wasted so much time being angry and proud. I should have looked for her myself rather than being satisfied with reports. He shook his head at his own stupidity. If he had only set aside his pride, the machinations of his parents wouldn’t have cost him three years with Miranda. He might have found the medical care she had needed so desperately. He might have saved the life of the son he never knew he had.
His thoughts pulled his gaze back to the pile of papers on the desk. He had every estate report sent from Clifton Manor from the time Miranda arrived. She wasn’t mentioned in a single one of them. There were no expenses listed that could possibly have served as a clue to the mistress being in residence. The estate reports, he’d discovered by talking with Timms, were sent to London by the butler each quarter day. Timms insisted those reports had been entirely accurate when sent. Carter had a letter written by the butler amongst those his secretary had found hidden in Father’s papers. The Clifton Manor reports he had were clearly written by someone else.
That afternoon, Carter had set himself to the task of discovering just who had done the altering. He had a sample of the housekeeper’s handwriting and knew she had not written the doctored reports. None of the other servants knew how to write. The estate didn’t have its own steward.
The only other people who would have had access to the reports were the Devereaux man-of-business and, until his death, Father.
He leaned back in his chair, thinking. The reports continued to be changed even after Father’s passing, likely to keep Carter from discovering Miranda’s whereabouts. Mother? But he immediately dismissed that. Mother wrote to him often enough that he knew the look of her handwriting.
The man-of-business had to be part of the conspiracy. The thought boiled in his chest. This man was among Carter’s most trusted employees. He oversaw all of the Devereaux holdings and investments. To think he’d been part of such a vicious fraud. And why would he continue to lie even after Father had died? Was he being bribed? If so, by whom? Mother might have taken that task upon herself. Or the man might have been falsifying other books, skimming funds for himself. Covering his tracks in one area of dishonesty would help prevent the rest of his schemes from being discovered.
“I might very well be employing a thief to stand guard over every penny I have.” Carter pushed the estate reports aside. The extent to which he’d been deceived astounded him.
He pulled out a sheet of parchment and scrawled off a letter to Hartley. The duke could be counted on to undertake a discreet investigation. He quickly summed up his suspicions and asked his friend to see what he could discover. He sanded the letter and set it aside.
He broke the seal on a missive that had arrived just that morning from one of the party’s most influential members. Carter had a good idea what the letter would contain—Parliament had been back in session for a week, and he wasn’t in London—but he knew better than to put off responding.
He unfolded the thick paper. As expected, he was taken to task for missing a great many important meetings and political evenings. While the existence of a “family difficulty” was acknowledged, his absence was not fully excused. The letter closed by informing him who among the other politically active gentlemen had taken up the slack for him and who had been chosen to take his place on several committees.
“Fickle, every last one of them,” he muttered.
He tossed the letter onto the desk with the rest of his papers. He could likely earn his way back into the good graces of his cronies and even work to reclaim his committee positions. But regaining all his footing would require a commitment of time and energy he was no longer willing to make.
Again his gaze wandered to his dear Miranda. Dedicating his every waking moment to his political career at the expense of time he might spend with her was out of the question. But neither would she expect him to give up altogether his efforts at helping lead and guide the country.
Political ambition would no longer consume him. He’d realized over the past days that he’d used his career as a distraction from the hurt and loneliness he’d felt during her absence. With her in his life again, he could find a better balance. He could focus on the issues he felt most strongly about and leave the rest to others.
“How is she this afternoon?” Mr. Benton stood in the doorway, watching his granddaughter sleep.
Carter pushed back from his desk and crossed to Miranda’s bedside. “She had a more substantial meal this afternoon than she has since waking. Hannah says that is a good sign.”
“It is, indeed.” Mr. Benton looked up at him then over at his desk as he too came to Miranda’s side. “You seem to have your hands full. Being away from London must complicate your various duties.”
Carter nodded. “But I’m managing.”
Mr. Benton watched him a moment, his brows pulled down in thought. “You don’t mean to take a trip to Town, then?”
“Only when Miranda is ready. I promised she could come with me, and I won’t break another promise to her.”
Mr. Benton watched Carter closely. “This is the you I remember. The quietly kind gentleman to whom I gave care of my granddaughter. The steadfast young man I knew would never break her heart.”
Carter wished he’d lived up to that trust.
“I almost went after you, you know,” Mr. Benton said. “More than once I nearly convinced myself to pack a bag and track you down. But Miranda would start feeling ill again, and I didn’t want to leave her. By the time she would recover enough for me to leave, I was too angry or had convinced myself she was better off without you in her life.”
Carter shook his head. “And I nearly went looking for her.” He sighed. “There have been too many nearlys in our relationship. Too many if-onlys and what-ifs.” What a fool he’d been. An utter, utter fool. “I cannot for the life of me understand why she’s giving me another chance.”
“Because she loves you.” Mr. Benton spoke with the firmness that came of conviction. “She was angry with you, disappointed. But I don’t think she ever stopped loving you.”
Carter adjusted Miranda’s blanket so her shoulders were covered. She seemed sensitive to the cold. He didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. “I don’t deserve her.”
“None of us do.” Mr. Benton gave him an empathetic look. “But we keep trying.”
Carter took a deep breath in through his nose and pushed it slowly out through his mouth. “I’m struggling to come to terms with all of this.” He watched the woman he loved more than life itself lying stil
l and pale in her bed. “She really is dying. I know it’s true, but I don’t want to believe it.”
Mr. Benton lowered himself into the chair pulled up beside the bed. Carter sat on the mattress near where Miranda’s arm lay tucked beneath the blanket.
“I think Miranda made her peace with this more quickly than any of the rest of us.” Mr. Benton nodded as if remembering something. “Perhaps she simply grieved both the time she would not have and the child she had lost at the same time.”
The child. “Does she ever speak of the baby?” Carter had never heard Miranda mention their child, their son.
“Not often,” Mr. Benton said. “But she visits the grave site regularly and marks his birthdays in quiet and tender ways. When she does speak of the little child, it is with longing and hopefulness and not the desperate mourning I feared would consume her.”
“Is little Alexander buried in the churchyard here?” Carter hated that he didn’t even know. He had a son and couldn’t say with any degree of certainty where that son had been laid to rest.
“He is,” Mr. Benton confirmed.
Carter opened his mouth to ask a favor but found the words buried beneath a sudden lump in his throat. The question, however, would not be so easily squelched. “Would it bring her pain, do you think, if I asked her to take me there?” He managed the question, but in little more than a choked whisper. “I would like to visit my son’s grave, and I would like her to be with me when I do, but not if it will bring her suffering.”
Mr. Benton’s expression turned fondly paternal. “Though the journey will most certainly be emotional for Miranda, I believe it will be a healing one. I think she will feel less alone than she has in some time.”
Alone. That was a feeling Carter knew all too well. But Miranda and he were together again. Neither of them would be lonely anymore.
“And what do you hear from London?” Mr. Benton asked.
“Mostly further evidence of years’ worth of lies and deception.” Carter could do little but shake his head at the enormity of it. “I’m struggling to reconcile what I’m learning with the relationship I thought I had with my parents.”
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