by Karen Ranney
“Any change in the vision in your left eye, Your Lordship?”
“No.”
“Still only a sensation of light and dark?”
“Yes.” Another truth.
He’d better watch himself. The way he was going, he might become known for his honesty.
The doctor cleared his throat and said in a sepulchral tone, “Your right eye is gone, Your Lordship. It’s a miracle you have any sight left at all.”
He wouldn’t exactly give the credit to the Almighty. Instead, it was due to him turning at the last moment when he saw the pistol aimed at his head.
He was an expert at not revealing his emotions. Not because he was the Earl of Rathsmere, but because he had years of practice being the second son. Any sign of weakness was an excuse for the earl’s disapproval or his tutor’s punishment.
The trait had come in handy in the last several years, especially when he was faced with unbelievable stupidity or great duress. Now he allowed a small smile to curve his lips.
He saw and yet he didn’t see. All he could discern was light, if the day was bright enough. Sometimes, if someone stood close to him, he could see a darker shape.
That was all.
“Perhaps one day I’ll be able to see the faces of angels.”
He could sense the physician’s affront.
“Have you any other complaints, sir?”
“In other words, something you could cure? Like a stomachache, perhaps?”
“Is there anything, Your Lordship?”
“Otherwise I am a picture of great health, Dr. Marshall. I am hail and hearty and shall, no doubt, live fifty years or more.”
If I wish it.
The unspoken words hung in the air between them.
He lifted the glass to his lips. He had changed from whiskey to wine in the last hour. He could feel the glass, knew the shape of it from countless times he’d held a wineglass in his hand. He couldn’t see the glint of light from the lamp on the crystal or the deep claret of the wine. Nor could he see the doctor’s face, and had no idea of his appearance, having never met the man before returning to London.
What use did he have for a physician prior to leaving for America? He’d rarely been sick. His good health was as much a part of him as his height or the blue eyes now damaged beyond repair.
“I still hold out hope for your recovery, Your Lordship. In some fashion.”
“Hope is a foolish thing to cling to, Dr. Marshall. I’ve found it’s much better to look at life with realism than with hope.”
The doctor did not respond, which surprised him. He’d expected a lecture. Something along the lines of: Anyone with your fortune and your title, Your Lordship, should possess hope above all things.
Instead, the doctor remained silent.
What good was a blind earl?
RETREATING TO her suite, Minerva removed her clothes, dried herself and, because the day was well advanced, donned her wrapper and walked into the sitting room.
She had equipped the room to resemble a library, something that might be found in any man’s establishment. A large marble fireplace occupied one wall, a window the next. An archway led to the bedroom, but the fourth wall was filled with a wide mahogany bookcase holding hundreds of books, each of them handpicked and read and, in some cases, reread. There were a few novels among them, but most of the books were on subjects dear to her heart: anything dealing with antiquity, Scotland, and archeology.
In front of the bookcase, and occupying the middle of the room, was the desk she’d found in a secondhand furniture shop. Three men had struggled for hours to bring it up the stairs and into the sitting room, but it was worth the cost once they were done.
Here was where she wrote letters to learned men all over the Continent, asking for them to expound on their discoveries or give her advice. None of them were shy about doing either. For some reason, men felt compelled to give her direction. Most of the time she just nodded, filed away the important bits mentally, and ignored the rest.
Her father had never felt the need to have a library. But then, he went off to work each day. Being wealthy was never an excuse for sloth, he would say. Her great-grandfather had been a minority owner in one ship. He’d made his fortune by always reinvesting his wealth. By the time he died, he owned ten ships, a fleet her grandfather had only expanded. When her father died, the Todd family had either a minority interest in over a hundred ships or owned them outright.
She’d never felt wealthy, only because such an attitude would have been discouraged. Money was a subject rarely discussed in their house. But she’d never had to worry about the cost of things or her future. She was able to pursue any interest she wished. Nor did she have to marry in order to provide for herself.
What would her parents say to see her life now?
Her father would have been more direct than her mother. Her dearest papa would have put his arm around her shoulders, drawn her in, and smiled down at her.
“Minerva, my dear, I’m afraid you’re becoming an independent woman. What some might call a spinster.”
She might be a spinster, but she wasn’t a maiden, but of course she would have never made that confession to her father. Nor would it have been possible to discuss the matter with her mother, even in a roundabout way.
Nora Todd had been a sweet woman, one who gave the appearance of being too delicate for life. Things had to be polished and brushed and perfumed, tied up in a bow, before they were presented to her. Everyone around her mother seemed to accept her fragility and never tested the limits of her strength. Instead, all of them—even the child Neville had been—were more gentle with Nora than they were with anyone else.
Strange, how she had never been considered delicate like her mother. A good thing, as it turned out. Otherwise, she would have been unable to manage Neville. Or meet with their solicitors. Or endured this last year.
If she ever married, it would be because of her parents.
They had been a couple, partners in truth. Where one was, the other could be easily found. Even during the difficult birth of her brother, her father would not be relegated to another room, but insisted on sitting beside his wife’s bed and holding her hand during the travail.
Minerva had been eight years old the day Neville was born. Eight years and two weeks. From that moment on, their birthdays were celebrated together. When she held him, Neville never fussed. Instead, he gnawed on one fist and looked up at her with bright blue eyes as if he trusted her completely.
Her heart was engaged from the first moment she saw him. What a darling little boy he’d been. What a precocious youngster and fine intelligent young man.
Until he’d met Rathsmere. Then Neville changed, had become someone she didn’t know, couldn’t understand, and didn’t like all that much.
That was the worst of it, wasn’t it? She wanted to like him. She loved him. She couldn’t erase the love. Yet she found as time progressed she didn’t admire the man he was becoming. Neville had no plans to work at the Todd Shipyards, preferring to let others run the company their great-grandfather had founded. Nor was he using his fortune in a good way.
Was it because of her that he’d become so wild? That was a question she couldn’t banish, especially at night when loneliness was her only companion.
Had she been responsible for Neville’s descent into hedonism? Had he wanted to escape her—or her rules—to the extent that he’d done everything just the opposite? Or was it the money that altered him to such a degree?
From the rumors, Rathsmere was fantastically wealthy, but that didn’t mean his hangers-on were as well-funded. Neville might be the only one who had any degree of income. Had the others depended on Rathsmere’s largesse for their very existence?
She should’ve taken Neville with her on her last expedition, regardless of his reluctance. She s
hould’ve found a way, somehow, to make him come with her to Scotland. If she had, she wouldn’t have returned to London to discover he’d gone off to war. If she had, he wouldn’t have written her the letter she retrieved from her desk now.
My dear sister,
I hope this letter finds you in good health and your expedition to Scotland pleasurable and worth your while.
Occasionally, I have envied you your single-minded pursuit of history. I have often wondered why you pursue such a path. I have no interest in the subject myself.
She knew that. Neville had never expressed any curiosity about her expeditions to Scotland. She pushed that thought to the back of her mind and continued reading, even though she didn’t need to. She knew the letter by heart. How many times had she read it? A hundred? Five times that? Each time, she was filled with shame.
Somehow, somehow, she should have been able to stop him.
You go to seek the remains of those who’ve passed, Minerva, while I seek to live in the present day. Perhaps one day people will look down on my grave with the same admiration you extend your long buried Scots and say, “Neville Todd, now there was a man of adventure.”
I have gone to America to fight in their war. I know my decision will not meet your approval. Sometimes women must simply accept a man’s path in life. This is mine, to seek adventure where it is. To test my own mettle. To see if I am as brave as I think I am.
Yours in fondness, your brother, Neville
She didn’t know what part of the letter made her angrier, the fact that he had gone off to see if he was brave, or his thought that women should simply agree to anything a man suggested.
What poppycock.
Sitting at her desk, she calmly folded the letter and held it against her chest.
She would not cry. Tears did nothing but make her eyes and nose red and congest her breathing. They didn’t solve the situation. They didn’t make her feel less guilty.
He had never mentioned America to her. What did he know about their war? Did he simply want to go into battle to see if he could survive it?
Dear God, had he survived it?
That was the one question no one could answer.
She replaced the letter in the drawer of her desk and sat quietly, thinking of her next move. If she wrote the earl again, he would probably ignore her, as he’d already done five times. If she returned to his house tomorrow, encountered his secretary again, and marshaled her arguments better, was there any guarantee Mr. Howington would listen?
She had only been jesting when she was talking to Mrs. Beauchamp, but perhaps she should engage in a little subterfuge. Every house needed servants, and the earl’s large home must require quite a number of them in order to run smoothly.
The plan being born in her imagination died a swift death. Mr. Howington had seen her. Perhaps she could attempt to engage the housekeeper’s help. Or bribe one of the servants to turn the other way when she gained entrance to the house.
She had to find a way in to see the Earl of Rathsmere. She had to find out what happened to Neville.
How could she live another day without knowing?
Chapter 4
Dalton dreamed he was standing on a hill above the battlefield, staring out at what had once been a field of corn. Now the crop was death, ready to be harvested, the sight of the sprawling bodies so hideous that his mind shied from it even in his dream. He stopped counting at thirty-three. The death toll had to be in the thousands.
The question came from his left, uttered by a voice as booming as God’s. He couldn’t see the speaker. Perhaps it was the voice of his conscience or the whispers of his soul.
What was the reason for the slaughter of these men? Was it political necessity? Pride or arrogance? Had it all been a horrible mistake? What was won by the winning of this battle? What was lost, other than the lives of all these men?
He struggled to wake up, knowing it wasn’t a dream but a memory. On that day, after that battle, he’d been staggered by the death toll, unable to answer the questions that still haunted him. Perhaps that was the beginning of his disillusionment. Or simply the day he grew up.
Coming awake, he blinked up at the ceiling, only to find himself swimming in a vast black pool.
He hated nights.
The pattern was relentless. He drank enough to ensure himself an easy descent into slumber. Two hours later with the precision of a timepiece, he woke. For those first few seconds, staring up at the ceiling, he was disoriented. He expected to see faint moonlight or the gradual graying of the sky through the open window. Ever since he was a boy he’d disliked sleeping with the curtains closed, but now it didn’t matter.
First came the panic, then the realization that he couldn’t see.
He sat up as he did every night, pushing the pillows around him, creating a cocoon of safety in his large bed.
His darkness then was absolute. Like being on the ocean on a moonless night, he was unable to tell what was water and what was sky. The sheer formlessness of night terrified him, but it was a confession he’d never made to another soul. Nor would he, as long as his courage lasted.
There were times when he wondered just how long that would be. Would he be like one of those poor men so traumatized by battle he could only sit in a corner at the hospital, back against the wall, rocking and staring out at the patients with terror in his eyes? Would he lose his senses one night? Would they find the new and reluctant Earl of Rathsmere running down the road stark naked, screaming wildly and pulling out his hair? Not that, then. He couldn’t see the road, let alone run down it. He’d probably slam into a fence or a carriage.
Self-pity was not one of his greater virtues. But then, the longer he endured being blind, the more he found himself saturated with it. Would he, as the years passed, become so disgusted by his own wallowing that he did himself in?
He rose from the bed, donned his robe, and moved to the sitting room. He found his way to a wing chair beside a round mahogany table and sat there, staring at a cold fireplace, hearing the wind whistle down the chimney until it sounded like a far off train.
At least, having acquired an earldom he didn’t want, he hadn’t had to move from his own home. Lewis was the only occupant of the MacIain family town house, located a half mile away. He would have to solve the problem of Lewis one day, but not tonight.
The silk robe was cool against Dalton’s skin even though the night was muggy. He wished he’d had the foresight to bring the decanter of whiskey to his room. He would not ring for one of the servants. First of all, it was after midnight. Secondly, he didn’t want one of the maids or, God forbid, Mrs. Thompson, wondering about his drinking habits.
On another night, before America, if he’d been alone and without companionship and unable to sleep, he would have read to pass the hours. He didn’t even have that ability now.
To occupy himself, he conjured up the pattern of the upholstery, the exact hue of the mahogany table. He knew, unless it had been changed for some odd reason, that the bed coverings were made of a particular color of dark blue he liked, matching the curtains. The windows on both sides of the bed were tall, looking out over his garden.
Alexandra MacIain had been able to coax any growing thing into flourishing, even here in London. His mother had insisted on supervising the construction of his garden. If he opened the windows now, he would smell an assortment of blowzy flowers no doubt bobbing their heads listlessly in anticipation of her return.
The MacIain clan was decimated. First, his father of a stroke, and then his darling mother. He had heard more than one person at Gledfield say something to the extent that the countess simply didn’t want to do without her husband.
He had never acknowledged hearing the remarks. Secretly, however, he wondered if they weren’t correct.
His father and mother adored each other, a singular achievement in the socie
ty that was London. Maybe such affection was possible because they didn’t spend much time in the city, choosing, instead, to live most of the year at Gledfield.
His father enjoyed serving in the House of Lords, a function Arthur had taken to as well. But then, Arthur was gone now, too, the victim of an idiotic hunting accident.
That left Lewis and him, the lesser of the MacIains, according to almost anyone.
He had spent most of his life enjoying himself, and it looked like Lewis was ably following in his footsteps.
Once more he pushed the problem of Lewis to the back of his mind, concentrating on his memories of his sitting room.
He knew the pattern of the carpet beneath his bare feet, could feel the worn parts directly in front of the chair. He hadn’t often sat here in front of the fireplace in solitary contemplation. If anything, the chair had been the scene of a few trysts.
Without much difficulty, he could envision the last woman who’d occupied his bedroom. Cassandra, that was her name, the wife of a baronet. Her husband, she’d said, was supremely uninterested in her. She’d retaliated by bedding any man she could.
In the time before America, when he was adrift in hedonistic impulses, he told himself she was besotted with him. Cassandra would not have looked for another lover once she’d come to his bed. The truth, likely as not, the minute he was gone she’d found someone to take his place. And the other women? No doubt they’d done the same. Hadn’t he?
Yet he’d been remarkably celibate since America. First of all, when you were fighting for your life, one of the last things you thought about was bed sport. Then there was the fact that he was surrounded by a sea of men but very few women. The few hardy feminine souls who appeared on the battlefield were either nurses or wives.
None of the females he’d known would be interested in coming to his bedroom now unless it was out of a misguided sense of pity or as a lark. Perhaps it might be considered something novel to bed a blind man.
