When Julia announced that the tour would begin, Tom looked around for Miranda, surprised to see she was no longer in the room. Others obviously had the same reaction, for a few guests asked, “Where’s the artist?” and “Won’t Miss Thorne conduct the tour?”
“Miss Thorne had to leave momentarily,” Julia said. “She’ll meet us at the gallery.” Although Julia looked unruffled, Tom sensed something was wrong.
He braved the potential displeasure of Charles to fall into step with Julia as everyone made their way to the gallery. “Is Miranda all right?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. She forgot something in her room, that’s all.” Julia turned away from Tom to speak to Lady Toynbee.
Miranda was waiting for them at the door to the gallery, but she stood in the shadows as she welcomed the guests.
“Thank you for coming to see my paintings,” she began. Her voice was very quiet, but Tom was so attuned to her that he heard the slight tremor in it. “Most of all, I’d like to thank Lord Carrington for setting aside this room and designing it so well to show my work. I hope you enjoy the exhibition.” She disappeared inside the gallery.
Tom went in with the other guests just in time to see Miranda leaving through the doors at the other end of the room. Instead of following her, he decided to stay and look at the paintings. If she wasn’t there when everyone had finished the tour, he would find her.
He had to admit the gallery was beautifully arranged to show Miranda’s work at its best. His favorite paintings of hers were there—one of a mother and son, another of a street beggar, and the ones on religious themes: the prodigal son, the poor widow. He paused in front of the mother-and-son painting. He had seen it before, but it struck him now how much emotion was expressed in the mother’s eyes as she gazed at the boy, who was half turned away, reaching for a toy soldier.
Tom hadn’t expected anything from the portrait of Julia. He didn’t particularly want to look at any representation of her—too many people already paid homage to her beauty. But when he saw the painting, he understood why it was Miranda’s pièce de résistance: the woman who posed for the portrait didn’t matter. It wasn’t about Julia. What it was about escaped Tom, but he stared at it along with everyone else, mesmerized by the contradictory expression on the woman’s face. How could a portrait of one woman embody so many different, nameless things? It unsettled him. Could any artist paint such a thing without a lifetime’s worth of knowledge about human nature? He didn’t believe talent alone could account for it. Something about the painting reminded him of the biblical passage, “Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” Who was Miranda Thorne, this woman he loved, and did she have as many sides as the woman in the portrait?
The others exclaimed over the portrait in excited whispers. Francis Wilkinson, the art critic, said, “Miss Thorne has a remarkable eye for color. Not many artists use muted colors in such a powerful way. And the composition is exquisite.”
Miranda wasn’t there when the tour was over, and the guests asked about her again, some eager to buy her paintings. This time Julia announced that Miss Thorne was unwell and would see everyone in the morning.
Tom intercepted Julia again in the hallway on the way back. “I don’t know what all this secrecy is about,” he said, “but I need to see Miranda. Will you ask her if she’ll meet me?”
“I’ve just said she’s unwell,” Julia said impatiently. “Obviously she can’t meet you.”
“Will you look at me and tell me truthfully, on your honor, that there is nothing really wrong?”
Julia smiled. “On my honor?” She leaned closer to Tom and said quietly, “What do you and I know of that?”
“Julia, I’m serious.” He noticed a few people looking at them and tried to speak more calmly. “Tell me the truth.”
“The truth? Why, Tom, for someone who has lied to so many people about so many things, it’s quite shocking to hear of your interest in the truth.” She gazed up at him, clearly enjoying his frustration.
He waited for her to continue, refusing to rise to her bait.
“I’ve never seen you play the lovestruck suitor before, not to this extent.” Lowering her voice, she added, “You might try to hide it to save my injured pride, you know. I’ll tell Miranda when I see her to send a note to your room. Will that do?”
He assured her curtly that it would and avoided her for the rest of the evening.
26
Am I proved too weak
To stand alone, yet strong enough to bear
Such leaners on my shoulder?
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
I’m so sorry, my dear.”
Someone with Richard Morris’s voice was holding Miranda’s hand, kneeling in front of her and looking into her face with a solicitous expression, but the sudden dizziness that had come over her prevented her from pulling away or even speaking. All she had been able to do is sit down quickly in the nearest chair. When Lily had entered the drawing room to tell Miranda there was a gentleman in the front parlor asking to see her, she had assumed it was Simon, and she had rushed into the room without asking questions, relieved to have the chance to reconcile with her brother. Never in her worst nightmares had she imagined Richard Morris would find her at Rudleigh.
“I ought to have realized it would be a shock for you to see me,” he said. “Shall I call a servant to bring some sal volatile?”
“No.” She pulled her hand out of his grasp and sat back in the chair, taking deep breaths, and managed to choke out the words, “Is Sam all right?”
“Oh, yes. Healthy and happy. I truly am sorry for frightening you.”
He rose and sat in a chair a few feet away. In the seven years since she had seen him, he hadn’t changed except for a bit more gray in his hair and a few more wrinkles around his eyes. He had to be well into his fifties now, but he could easily pass for forty. Richard had always been a distinguished-looking man, not handsome, but with arresting, strong features and an alert look that reminded Miranda of an eagle. His personal magnetism had served him well as a clergyman, especially when he preached.
Miranda thought she had forgiven Richard long ago for the way he had treated her, but some residual feelings—anger? fear?—made it difficult for her to look at him without a twinge of nausea.
“How did you find me?” she asked, wishing the tremor in her voice would disappear. She didn’t want him to think she was afraid of him. In fact, she wasn’t. She was afraid only of his power over her with respect to Sam.
“A happy chance. I was at a dinner party with an acquaintance of your sister-in-law. She told me you were staying with the Carringtons.” He gave her a long look. “You’re lovely, even lovelier than you were years ago.”
Miranda felt like a wild animal caught in a trap. “Why are you here?”
“Not to make trouble for you, I assure you. Partly I came to apologize for the way I treated you.” He looked contrite, but Richard had always been difficult to read. “I meant well, at first—I hope you know that. I only wanted to help you and Simon, to provide a family for you when you needed one so badly. But I allowed myself to think too much about you, to care too much. As a married man, I should never have spent so much time alone with you.”
Miranda swallowed and looked away. She remembered how flattered she had been by his attention. Everyone admired him, and instead of considering her beneath his notice, he had praised her, encouraged her, made her feel important. In the beginning, anyway.
“I know I behaved badly towards you when you became pregnant with Sam,” he continued. “My actions were cruel, but they were motivated by fear, not hatred. I know it probably doesn’t matter what my motivations were at the time. My actions were unforgivable. I was afraid of losing my position in the church and it was easy to transfer my hatred of myself to you. I convinced myself you were to blame, and that’s why I was able to act as I did.”
She took a deep breath. “You nearly destroyed me.”
The twinge of nausea intensified. “What do you mean?”
“My wife died a year ago. It forced me to look at myself and the terrible things I’ve done. I had blamed her for so many years whenever anything in my life went wrong that it was shocking to realize I was responsible for my own bad behavior and attitudes. I’ve spent a year searching my soul and apologizing to the people I’ve misled and hurt.” He paused, looking at her intently. “I went back to Smythe and spoke to the congregation of our old church. I told them I was an impostor and that I told lies about you—I confessed my sins publicly to them. I’m here to confess to you also, to ask your forgiveness for casting you off after taking advantage of you.”
If he wasn’t sincere, he was doing a very good job of appearing so.
“I forgive you,” Miranda said, “but you can’t expect me to be glad to see you.”
“I don’t expect it. But I do have something else to say.”
A shiver of foreboding went through her.
“Years ago I promised you I’d marry you when Lucy died so you could be my true, legal wife. I’m here to honor that promise. You needn’t answer me now—I realize my coming here is too much of a shock to allow you to think clearly. But I still love you, though you’ll likely find that difficult to believe. I’ve changed so much over the years; I could be a good husband to you now.”
If he had spoken these words seven years ago, she would have been overjoyed. As ugly as it was to hope for someone’s death, especially someone as sweet and good as Lucy Morris, Miranda had hoped for it, imagining herself as Richard’s socially accepted, legal wife until it nearly drove her mad. But that was a long time ago.
The trouble was that part of that fantasy still appealed to her, and he knew it. Not to be Richard’s wife, but to be Sam’s mother. To see him every day. To be there when he needed her. To watch him grow.
As if he could read her thoughts, he said quietly, “It would be such a relief to see you take your rightful place as Sam’s mother. Lucy was good to him, of course, but only a child’s true mother can love him as he ought to be loved. How wonderful it would be to see the two of you together. He is very like you, you know: quiet, artistic, intelligent. I live in Birmingham now, and Sam is at a day school there. You could read to him every night, watch him fall asleep—”
“You must go now,” Miranda interrupted, suppressed emotion making her voice sharp. She stood up abruptly.
Richard stood also, looking at her gravely. “I’ll go. Again, I’m sorry for upsetting you. I’ll give you all the time you need to think about my proposal. Will you write to me with your answer when you’re ready?”
She nodded, not meeting his eyes.
He pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Farewell, then, my dear. Thank you for listening to me. God bless you.”
Miranda didn’t even consider rejoining the party in the drawing room. She asked the first servant she saw to give Julia a message that she was unwell, then fled to her room.
Tom had spent an hour pacing back and forth outside in the garden, and now he was doing the same in his room. It was past midnight, but there was no hope of sleep. He would be leaving in the morning along with the other guests, and he still hadn’t heard a word from Miranda. He had done everything he could think of to communicate with her that wouldn’t compromise her reputation. Given the perverse pleasure Julia seemed to have in thwarting him, he didn’t press her further, but he’d asked a servant to deliver a note to Miranda. Nothing had come of that. Lady Toynbee had sworn she saw a carriage draw up to the house and a strange man get out of it shortly before Miranda disappeared from the drawing room. Who was he and why would he cause Miranda to suddenly take to her room?
Just when he was considering going to her room, risking being seen and expelled from the house, there was a quiet knock at his door. He flung the door open to find Miranda standing at the threshold with a candle. She was wearing a white silk wrapper over her nightdress, and her hair was twisted into a loose plait from which several strands had escaped. Tom stared at her for a few seconds, then caught her free hand and drew her into the room, afraid she would disappear as suddenly as she had materialized.
He closed the door and took the candle from her, holding it up so he could see her face more clearly. She didn’t look ill, but he saw signs of strain and anxiety. Tom set the candle on a side table and took her hands. They were ice cold.
“Are you all right?” he exclaimed.
“Yes, I think so.”
“You can have no idea how worried I’ve been.”
“I’m sorry. Something . . . unexpected has occurred, and I had a decision to make. I had to be alone to make it.”
“Let’s sit down and you can tell me about it,” Tom said.
She nodded.
“Come to the window. There’s enough moonlight—we don’t need the candle.”
Tom put out her candle and led her to the window, where there were two armchairs side by side. She sat and waited while he opened the curtains to let in as much light as possible. When he sat down beside her, he regretted the loss of the candlelight. There was a sense of unreality in the atmosphere. Bathed in moonlight, Miranda looked like a ghost, less substantial than ever.
“Do you remember the vicar I told you about who . . . took advantage of me when Simon and I lived in Smythe?” Miranda began.
Tom nodded grimly.
“His name is Richard Morris, and he came here this evening to see me. Apparently his wife died a year ago and he’s been looking for me. He came to apologize for the way he treated me. He also asked me to marry him.”
Whatever Tom had expected her to say, it was not this. He stared at her in shock for a moment, then said slowly, “Do you mean to tell me you’ve accepted him?”
She rose hastily and turned towards the window, twisting her hands together. “There are things you don’t know about my relationship with Richard. About a year after Simon and I moved into the house with Richard and his family, I became pregnant with his child. I was only nineteen and terrified. When I told Richard, he was angry, as if he had nothing to do with my condition. He threatened to turn me out of his house, but I had nowhere to go.
“Simon blamed me for seducing Richard.” She glanced at Tom and added quickly, “You must remember that Simon was as much under Richard’s influence as I was. Richard could do no wrong. To my surprise, Richard’s wife Lucy was my savior. She guessed my condition, as I suppose any woman who had children of her own would have, but she didn’t guess who the father was.
“Incredibly, Lucy offered to raise my child as her own. Of course, the whole village knew by that time I was a fallen woman, and that fact, taken with Richard’s attempts to blacken my character further, ensured that I was shunned. I’ve wondered many times if Lucy suspected the truth, but as I said, everyone else idolized Richard, and he certainly said and did everything right in public. He spoke of me sorrowfully as a wayward daughter whom he had tried and failed to reclaim. People praised his kindness, his Christian compassion, in allowing my child to be raised in his home.” Her voice took on a hard edge that Tom had never heard before. “His other children could have been sullied by the child of a whore.”
Tom winced.
Miranda glanced at him again and said, “I must tell you the whole truth now. That’s what people thought of me.”
“How can you even consider marrying a man who treated you that way?” he demanded. “And how can you expect me to stand back and let you destroy yourself?”
“I would do anything to be with my son,” she said. “Besides, Richard says he’s changed. Perhaps he’ll be kinder to me this time.”
“People don’t change.”
“You don’t believe that,” she said gently. She returned to the chair beside him and sat down again.
“I’ve seen so little of Sam,” she went on, “and only from a di
stance—” Her voice broke and she lowered her head.
“Your trip to Birmingham last winter was to see him,” Tom said dully.
“Yes.” She swallowed hard and went on, “When he was born, I had three months with him before Richard sent me away. He told me that if I ever tried to see Sam again, he’d be sent out of the country. Ever since, I’ve lived in a blur of longing to be near my child, even just to have a glimpse of him. I’ve had to fight very hard not to be completely consumed by that longing, to find pleasure in life again. When I met you, I didn’t think there was room in my heart to love anyone but Sam. I could see that you didn’t return my feelings, so I thought I was safe, that there would never be anything more than friendship between us. But now . . .” She took a deep breath.
“Does Sam know who you are?”
“No. I was afraid Richard would make good on his threat to send Sam away. I’ve visited his school and watched him from afar. I went there last spring and actually spoke to him. He dropped a ball, and I picked it up and asked, ‘Is this yours?’ He took it and said, ‘Thank you.’ That moment kept me going for months.” She smiled and shook her head. “Can you imagine? But now I have the opportunity to teach him, to comfort him when he’s sad, to find out what makes him happy. After all these years.”
“Why did you never tell me about him?” Tom’s voice still didn’t sound quite like his own.
“Only Simon has known from the beginning. Julia knows now, too. And I thought you’d judge me. You were so critical of Ann Goode, even before she made those horrible accusations, but she and I have more in common than you know.”
A realization hit him. “You didn’t do charity work at a penitentiary. You were an inmate.”
“Yes. Richard convinced me to go there when he turned me out of his house.” She raised her chin, giving him a wary look.
“What right have I to judge you?” Tom said quietly, holding her gaze. “You know my past.”
Bear No Malice Page 30
