Glimmer of Hope (27 page)
Authors: Sarah M. Eden
Tags: #separated, #LDS, #love, #fate, #miscommunication, #devastated, #appearances, #abandonment, #misunderstanding, #Decemeber, #romance, #London, #marriage, #clean, #Thames, #scandal, #happiness, #Regency
“But you have given up so much.”
“I realized something at Clifton Manor while waiting for you to wake up.”
Miranda sat up a little straighter so she could watch him and hear him better. She had to know, to be sure, he wouldn’t look back on their time together and rue what he’d lost.
“I thought about all of the things I wanted in my life, the things that were most important to me. You, of course.” He leaned forward and kissed her. “My career was on the list too,” he said after a moment. “I felt guilty about that, at first. I wondered if there was something wrong with me for feeling that way when my wife was so ill.”
“Oh, Carter.” He was far too hard on himself.
“Do you know I love the way you say that?” Carter broke from the topic and grinned at her.
Miranda felt her color heighten and smiled back.
“So I thought about why it was important to me,” Carter resumed his tale. “Why I picked politics in the first place.”
“And what did you decide?” Miranda asked when Carter stopped his explanation to kiss the hand he hadn’t yet lavished his attention on.
“Because I wanted to make a difference in the world.” Carter reached up to stroke her hair. It was the gesture he’d offered most often during her convalescence, the one she’d found the most comforting. “I wanted to do some good.”
“You have done a great deal of good.”
She looked up and saw him smiling down at her.
“You told me that before,” Carter said. “Do you remember? When I first came to Clifton Manor, you told me you had followed my career and that I had done a lot of good.”
“It is the truth.”
“That’s what I realized, my dear.” Carter held her face lovingly in his hand. “I don’t have to be prime minister or a cabinet member to do what I have always wanted to do. I have made a difference simply as myself.”
“Then you’ll have no regrets?” Miranda felt a twinge of doubt. “You won’t ever wish you could have risen further in your career?”
Carter pulled her close to him once more so her head leaned against his chest, his arms wrapped around her. “To be perfectly honest, there will probably be days when I will wish I had more influence than I do, days when I might wonder what it would have been like to be prime minister. But I don’t
need
that. I
need
you. Having your love and loving you in return will ease any regrets I might momentarily entertain.”
“And you will be happy?”
“Without you, Miranda, nothing I accomplished will make me happy. That will still be true years from now—and it will be
years
, Miranda,” he said with authority. “I will still love you when you are old and gray and complaining of rheumatism.”
“I do love you, Carter.” Miranda kissed him softly.
“Then I can face whatever comes our way. I will love you, my dearest Miranda, all your life. I will love you after you’ve gone on. And I will love you forever after.”
Sarah M. Eden read her
first Jane Austen novel in elementary school and has been an Austen addict ever since. Fascinated by the English Regency era, Eden became a regular in that section of the reference department at her local library, where she painstakingly researched this extraordinary chapter in history. Eden is an award-winning author of short stories and was a Whitney Award finalist for her novels
Seeking Persephone
and
Courting Miss Lancaster
. Visit her at www.sarahmeden.com.