Glimmer of Hope (22 page)

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 fever, 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. “Mirand
a 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.

“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, depending 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.”

Carter’s voice broke on the last word. He dropped the letters again. “These are all
my
letters, Mother, addressed to me, though I never received them. Not a single one. They answer the questions that have haunted me these past three years, but they were kept from me. I want to know why.”

“What leads you to suspect I know anything about these letters?”

That had Carter’s hackles up again. “You knew about Alexander,” he flung back.

“Who is—?”

“My son!” Carter snapped. “You knew about my son. You knew he existed, which is more than I knew. And you knew he hadn’t lived. You knew that, and I didn’t.”

Carter watched her, very nearly glaring. She shifted in her chair, the only outward indication that she found the topic at all uncomfortable. She didn’t otherwise appear even remotely disturbed by what he said, almost as if she thought it inconsequential.

“Do you have any concept of what I have been robbed of?” Carter asked, his eyes boring into hers. “I could have held my child. I could have comforted and cared for my wife. I could have been here to mourn my son. I might have secured the very best physicians to care for them both—perhaps it would have made a difference. Instead, I have been left to learn all of this three years after the fact, by letter.”

“Letters seemed to suit you fine once upon a time.” Bitterness had entered Mother’s voice. Carter had never heard her sound anything but entirely in control of her emotions. It was disorienting. “‘Dear Father and Mother,’” she said in a mock-sweet tone, “‘I am getting married in three weeks. Come if you can.’ You gave us no chance to even meet the girl before you committed yourself. We were given absolutely no say in the matter.”

“The decision was not yours to make.”

“You were incapable of making a decent decision, as it turned out.” She looked away from him, anger, pain, and frustration on her face.

“I love Miranda, Mother.”

“Sometimes love is not enough.” When she looked back at him, her entire countenance had drooped. “You have talked your entire life about your dreams for a career: a seat in Parliament, a cabinet position, prime minister. You have the ambition and the ability, Carter. We saw that in you from the beginning. But your father and I knew more than you did.”

“Father?” Carter’s rose-colored memories of that gentleman had begun to tarnish.

“A wife has as much influence on her husband’s career as he himself does, Carter. If you were to accomplish what was always so important to you, the right wife would be essential. She would need to be active in society, with beneficial connections, cultivating those she did not already have, well versed in current issues, a political hostess.”

“And you didn’t believe Miranda could have—”

“Carter.” She sounded exasperated. “The lady you introduced to us as your future bride was too shy to speak to us. She clung to you, depended on you. A heady feeling for a young man, to be sure, but hardly what you required in a wife. She was countrified in every aspect, no Town bronze, no social distinctions or connections.”

“I thought you approved of her.” Looking back, he didn’t remember any animosity.

“I have no idea why you thought that. We spent countless hours explaining to you our misgivings, offering a handful of examples of more suitable brides. But you were beyond reasoning with. Realizing it was a lost cause, we opted to curtail damage.”

“
Curtail damage
?” Carter tapped the stack of letters. “
This
was curtailing damage?”