by Karen Ranney
And now she didn’t have a brother.
He suddenly understood her in a way that surprised him. Family was vitally important to her. Family gave you protection. Family offered unconditional love.
Minerva wasn’t a law unto herself. She wasn’t alone and separate from others because she wished it. She had simply adapted to the circumstances that life gave her and made the best of them.
Neville was family.
In a perfect world, Neville would be the loyal little brother. Would she, in this perfect world he imagined for her, have married and had children? He could envision her as a mother. Part of her character would insist on pushing her babies out of the nest, inciting them to go and explore and find themselves, while at the same time guarding them with her life.
How did she see him? A despoiler of innocents, a man separated from his life of debauchery by a certain level of tragedy. A man so bored with life that he’d enlivened it by being a source of gossip.
He’d come to the same conclusion months before she had.
If his sight were magically restored tomorrow, if he woke and could see in his left eye, would he go back to the life he lived before America? A question he’d never before asked himself, and one that troubled him now.
How did he expunge those images he’d seen in America? How did he remove the scars incised on his soul? How did he forget the men he knew, some whom he’d admired, most he’d liked, fallen on the field of battle? Men from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, some places he’d never heard of before going to America.
Each one of them seemed a reminder to him. Not of Dalton MacIain, pre-America, but of a Dalton who was like them, separated from family and those he loved, aching for home and a better time. Thinking that all he needed to be happy was a cessation of gunfire and the smell of flowers or baking bread instead of blood.
If, somehow, magic happened and he awoke with the ability to see the day, would one of his first acts be to go to a gaming hell or wander into one of the ton’s innumerable entertainments and announce himself home again?
Would he seek out those sycophants who had yet to call on him, those widows and straying wives who had never sent him a note or card? Or would he be bound to a better nature, something that was growing inside of him now, a need, an urge, a wish to be more like Arthur and less like Lewis?
Would his blindness be an eternal reminder of who he had been? Or a goad to be something more?
He was not the Rake of London. He was only himself, mortal and humbled, the yoke of responsibility hung around his neck in the form of an earldom. A title for which his brother had probably killed.
What was he going to do about Lewis? Summon the authorities and give them his suspicions? Would that be enough? Would Lewis escape punishment for taking a life?
He brought himself back to the conversation.
“You wouldn’t frighten people in the least, Dalton, if you ventured out into society more,” Minerva said. “Especially since you started wearing an eye patch. You look quite dashing with it.”
“Mrs. Thompson made it,” he said, then wondered why he had. Was it so important that he give the woman credit? Yes, it was.
“She does like you,” she said.
“How do you know that?”
“She always smiles when speaking of you. There’s always a very maternal look in her eyes.”
“Good God.”
“You don’t like people caring for you?”
How had this conversation been turned on its ear? Minerva had a way of doing exactly that.
“Why on earth would I want to venture out into society?” he asked.
“To be part of it again,” she said.
He smiled. “I was one of them once. I lost my calling card on the battlefields of America, in places like Manassas and Leesburg.”
“Is there nothing about society you miss?”
“Absolutely nothing,” he said, realizing it was true.
“Nothing you want to experience again?”
“No.”
“Then what will you do with the rest of your life? Act the part of recluse?”
“I’m finding that it has its pleasures.”
“Have you always been able to dictate the terms of your life?”
“Once I obtained my majority, yes. Money brings with it a certain freedom, Minerva. Neville no doubt felt the same.”
There, he needed to bring Neville back into the conversation. He needed to right himself, else he would capsize in a sea of words.
“Didn’t you feel the same when you came into your fortune?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “since it was obtained only after my parents died.”
He wanted to call back the question and apologize, but she continued.
“Women are expected to adhere to a certain position in life. Your wayward duchesses and dance hall girls are the exceptions. The rest of us are exceedingly proper.”
“There aren’t that many of you who are exceedingly proper, Minerva. You would be surprised at how many women wish to be wicked.”
“See? That comment alone makes me think you miss society. Or your hedonism, if nothing else.”
“Ah, because men have needs, is that it? Because we all need release, I believe.”
She didn’t speak for so long he wondered if she was embarrassed. Were her cheeks red? What about the tips of her ears? Or was she simply staring at him narrow-eyed, her lips pursed in annoyance?
He evidently had the ability to annoy Minerva very quickly.
“Well, yes,” she finally said. “But you have a mistress, don’t you?”
He had never had a conversation about sex with any woman, let alone in his library, at his desk. That it was happening with Minerva Todd didn’t surprise him, however.
“A mistress? I can assure you, Minerva, that I don’t have a mistress.”
“Perhaps not now, but once. Do you not think a man should provide for any offspring of an illicit union?”
“I do believe a man should provide for his offspring, however they were introduced into the world.”
“Good,” she said, in such a particularly officious tone that he was annoyed.
“I’m happy I meet with your approval. What about you? No more lovers among your staff? Have you a footman or two? Are you going through the servants one by one?”
“No, I haven’t a footman, and no, I’m not going through the servants one by one.” She sounded insulted. “Perhaps I have a gentleman caller.”
“I doubt it.”
“Why? You consider me so plain that I wouldn’t attract any man? Perhaps they’re hungry for my fortune.”
“You’re most definitely not plain. I’ve felt your face, remember? If you had a gentleman caller you would have told me about him already. You might have even bragged about the fact. You’ve told me everything else about your life.”
“I have not.”
“Then tell me what you haven’t mentioned,” he dared her. “Something that you’ve held back because it’s too personal.”
She didn’t speak, but he heard her skirt brush against the desk as she stood. Had he truly insulted her this time?
“Forgive me. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Neville,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m afraid you might be right about Neville. If you are, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The door opened, then shut, and the room was curiously empty without her.
Chapter 22
Minerva walked into her storeroom, closing the door behind her. This room was her sanctuary, more than any other place in her home, especially at this hour of the day. Here, the servants knew not to bother her, even to knock on the door to announce a visitor. As far as she was concerned, when she was in this room, visit
ors could go to perdition.
Right at the moment she felt that way about the entire world.
She loved the early morning. At this time of day the house was quiet. She could get a great deal of work done, but also be alone to think.
In the past, she’d looked at the storeroom as a place of solace. Today, however, she was so miserable she doubted even her work could take her mind from her troubles.
The room was large but made smaller by open shelving lining each wall. Shelves even obscured the lone window, and if there had been a fireplace in the room, she would’ve placed shelves in front of it as well. As it was, the room was cool during the summer, though almost frigid in the winter.
Scraps of fabric and pottery filled the boxes on each shelf, each carefully labeled with a string and tag.
Since she was a little girl, Minerva had been fascinated with the past. The people who lived five hundred years ago captured her attention more than the living. She wanted to know about their lives, their hopes, their daily routines. A year ago she’d found an intact bowl, a delicate piece of pottery with a design in blue and black squares around its lip. She’d held it in her hands for nearly an hour, wondering at the person who used it last.
The air in the room was musty, despite Mrs. Beauchamp’s efforts at squirreling potpourri jars filled with cinnamon or lemon or something flowery in various places. She had tried to tell the housekeeper that the smell didn’t bother her but knew that she was going to lose this domestic battle as she had lost countless others.
A scarred, gray wood table sat in the middle of the room, two chairs facing each other on either side it. In actuality, the second chair was rarely occupied. Neville sometimes followed her into the storeroom to argue a point. Or, before he was given his inheritance, to badger her about money.
A length of dark blue fabric was stretched out on the table. One of her recent finds at Partage Castle, it was a richly embroidered garment she thought was a ceremonial robe that had survived when other fabrics like linen and wool would have dissolved after the passage of years. Beside it was a tray of her tools containing delicate picks, soft boar’s-hair brushes, an examining glass, and her journal. She needed to examine the garment, to make sketches of the pattern of the embroidery and consult her reference books in order to try and date it.
Until a few days ago she’d been excited at the prospect of sharing what she found. Now she sat and stared at the garment and only saw Dalton MacIain laughing.
There is no explanation that would induce me to forgive him.
What was she going to do?
She could go to her solicitor and ask if he’d heard from Neville, but the man didn’t have a good opinion of her brother. Still, perhaps Neville had requested a bank draft or that a letter of credit be forwarded to him.
Whenever she mentioned Neville, she had to parse her words carefully. Mr. Pettibone did not like her to disagree with him. On those rare occasions when she did so, his fleshy nose turned bright pink and his cheeks a ruddy color. More than once she thought the poor man was going to explode.
The solicitor knew that Neville had gone to America. She’d had to endure an hour of lecture over that knowledge. If she told Mr. Pettibone that Neville was missing, he would probably move heaven and earth to freeze all of her brother’s funds.
Why hadn’t Neville returned home? Or had he come back to London and just not informed her? Had he resented her rules and instructions? He’d once accused her of conspiring with Mr. Pettibone to limit the amount of money he could withdraw in a month.
When she told him it was only a matter of prudence, he’d lost his temper.
“I’m a grown man, Minerva,” he said. “I’m not still in short pants and you don’t get to dictate how I live. Not anymore.”
If Mr. Pettibone gave instructions to the bank not to pay any of Neville’s drafts, it might bring him out in the open. Did she want to resort to such drastic measures?
She had promised her mother to care for her brother to the best of her ability. She’d never thought the vow would be so onerous.
Before Neville went to America, she hadn’t seen him for months on end, even though they shared the same house. He had either been staying with friends, attending country house parties, or she was in Scotland.
How odd that she felt his absence so keenly now. Was that because she knew, somehow, that he needed her? If so, it would be the first time in years.
On the rare occasions they were together, she attempted not to treat him like a younger brother, but it was difficult, sometimes, to hold her tongue, especially when she saw him spending too much money in ways that would not benefit him one whit.
“You only have so much principal, Neville,” she once told him. “I hope you’re not spending any of that. Or, heaven forbid, gambling it away.”
He had leveled a look on her that was almost hateful. No, she was just imagining that. He’d been annoyed, that was all.
“I didn’t realize I had to get your approval before I spent a penny, sister.”
“Of course you don’t,” she said. “But I do hope that you allow your natural common sense to come into play.”
She had gilded the lily a bit with that comment. The problem was, Neville hadn’t yet grown into his common sense. He had the strangest friends and he didn’t seem to consider the pros and cons of a matter before jumping into a situation, such as going to America with the Earl of Rathsmere.
She knew Dalton had to be wrong. Neville would never have tried do something so terrible as try to kill him. Perhaps she should have shared with Dalton the last letter she’d received from America. In it, Neville apologized for his abrupt departure, which made her cry. He seemed, in those words, to have matured, to have become the man she’d always hoped he would be.
No one could have a better sister, Neville had written. Or a more patient one. I’m certain I didn’t deserve your patience, Minerva, but I’m grateful for it all the same. You and I are family and family matters more than anything else.
Were those the words of a would-be murderer? No.
She had the feeling that if Neville hadn’t come home, it was for a reason. Was he afraid of something or someone?
Was he afraid of Rathsmere?
If Neville had truly tried to shoot him, there had to be a reason. What had Rathsmere done that was so evil? What had he done that he wasn’t admitting?
She pushed away the memory of him sitting across from her in the carriage, adorned in his eye patch, his blue-green eye fixed on her as if he could see clearly. Or in his office, talking about his brother. Sometimes she caught him looking at her before glancing away. In those moments, she’d come very close to asking him what he saw. Did he still think her arrogant? Or ugly, for that matter?
“I beg your pardon, Miss Minerva.”
She looked up to find that Mrs. Beauchamp had opened the door of the storeroom, a strict violation of her orders.
“The earl is here.”
“You mean his carriage,” she said.
“No, Miss Minerva. I mean the earl himself is here.”
It was only a little after seven. He never sent his carriage before eight and he’d never come himself.
“I’ve put him in the family parlor, Miss Minerva. Shall I bring him refreshments?”
She nodded. “Please, Mrs. Beauchamp. And a few of your spice biscuits, I think.”
Her housekeeper smiled and took herself off, no doubt to fawn over His Lordship.
What was he doing here?
She glanced down at herself. At least she hadn’t been going through boxes. Her dark blue dress was free of dust. Her hair was carefully arranged in a no-nonsense style, the snood at the nape of her neck covering the bun.
Was she pale? Did she need a little color? And why was her heart beating so fast? He couldn’t see her, and if he did, could just as easily o
ffered a scathing comment about her appearance as he had when they first met.
The parlor was large, stretching nearly the length of the house. When her parents were alive, they often entertained, the room filled with people laughing and talking, the sound of music, and the scents of her mother’s bouillabaisse or chicken stew. She hadn’t entertained in the intervening years. Nor had Neville ever brought his friends home.
Her mother had loved red, so the settee and chairs were upholstered in red. The white lace curtains were tied back with red ropes ending in tassels. The ferns once in front of the windows had been removed. Neither Mrs. Beauchamp nor anyone else on the staff had the ability to nurture the plants, and she herself didn’t have the patience.
The settee was in front of the fireplace, while a chair sat on either end, each piece of furniture accompanied by a round tufted ottoman in red velvet. White lace runners sat on each of the mahogany tables, deftly dusted by the downstairs maids every few days.
Not a speck of dust could be seen on any of her mother’s statuettes of dogs, shepherdesses, and tiny sheep. The lamps were perfectly polished, their wicks trimmed in expectation of a gathering in this room she so often ignored.
She walked into the parlor and stopped, staring at Dalton. He commanded the room. He was seated in a chair, his posture rigid, his chin at a perfect autocratic angle as he stared in the direction of the fireplace. His hand rested on top of the walking stick at his side as if it were a scepter. She could almost see him with a crown and robes of state. He had the demeanor to be a king.
“Are you going to take your place in the House of Lords?”
He turned his head toward her. “Good morning to you, Minerva. I haven’t yet decided. What brought that question on?”
“You looked very regal sitting there.”
“I was just trying to determine how many types of potpourri were in the room.”
“Three,” she said. “I think. My housekeeper is determined to make everything smell like flowers or oranges or lemons.”
