Glimmer of Hope (7 page)

“There has to be a reason,” Hartley insisted. “Were you ashamed?”

He answered with another shrug.
Ashamed?
That wasn’t it.

“Embarrassed?”

“Perhaps a little.” There was something a bit humbling about being run out on.

“Do you mind if I propose a theory?” Hartley asked.

Carter’s gaze narrowed a touch. He wasn’t sure he wanted his personal life laid out for scrutiny. But he’d started the conversation. It seemed a little late for objections.

Hartley apparently took his silence as agreement. “I would wager that, at least at first, you still cared for her too much to denounce her in front of everyone.”

There was a ring of truth to that. Society would have wasted no time slaughtering Miranda’s reputation for turning her nose up at a husband they didn’t see as her equal.

“And,” Hartley continued, “as time passed, you grew a little angry and your pride took a beating. So you kept up the amicable separation ruse for the sake of your dignity.”

And more than a mere ring of truth to that.

“What do you intend to do now?” Hartley asked. “Have you talked to her about any of this?”

Carter allowed a single, humorless laugh at the ridiculousness of the question. “Anytime we have come remotely close to discussing personal things, we’ve only ended up fighting or back to the tense silence we had the first few days I was here.”

Hartley gave him a sympathetic look. “That does make talking rather difficult. And at the end of the house party, do you simply pack up your bags and go? Pretend the two of you never crossed paths again?”

“I have no idea.” Carter rubbed his hand over his weary face. “We are managing to get along relatively well but only because we don’t talk about anything. Silence is the foundation of our current interaction.”

“A shaky foundation, that.” Hartley’s eyes wandered to the fire, his expression one of pondering. “It seems you’d do better to build something more closely resembling trust.”

“How can I trust someone I can tell is still lying to me?”

Hartley’s gaze returned to him. “Lying?
Still
?”

Miranda had said so many times that she loved him and was happy. Those two declarations had to have been lies for her to leave the way she had. And though he couldn’t put his finger on just what, he could tell she was hiding something from him again.

“I don’t know.” He pushed away from the wall. “Maybe it’s just that she’s so changed.”

“Changed in what way?”

“She’s . . .” In what way? “Miranda used to wear her heart on her sleeve. She was full of life and vigor. Now she hides behind this aura of calm that feels . . . It feels like a lie. There is something else going on with her that I can’t put my finger on.”

“Maybe the lady is uncomfortable with your current situation and is trying to hide that.”

“It seems like more than that.” Carter was frustrated and confused. “I simply can’t trust her. Not with our past. Not when she’s so distant.”

Hartley nodded slowly. “That could make a reconciliation tricky.”

“There won’t be a reconciliation,” Carter said.

“Why not?”

Why not?
Because I don’t want one. Because I can’t go through that again.

“There just won’t be.” And he would leave it at that. He made his way toward the book room door. “I’ll see Adèle and you at dinner tonight, then?”

“And I’ll see Lady Devereaux and you,” Hartley answered.

Carter gave him a pointed look. “Don’t start.”

Hartley held up his hands in a show of mock surrender.

Carter could almost smile at that. “And, Hartley, what I told you—”

“Won’t go beyond this room,” Hartley assured him.

“Thank you.”

Hartley gave a firm nod and took up his book again.

Spilling his troubles hadn’t made them go away. Carter wasn’t even sure it had helped. But at least the words weren’t still simmering inside. He’d pushed them out, and now he could face his problems again.

“There is to be a
picnic in the conservatory this afternoon, Miranda.” Mother gently reproved Miranda behind the closed doors of the sitting room. Carter pretended to be absorbed in a book, though he couldn’t have said which one he held. Mother and Miranda’s “disagreement” had been ongoing for the better part of a quarter hour. “This was planned several days ago. You agreed to the schedule.”

“I did not agree to the timing,” Miranda insisted in her level, quiet voice. “I asked that the picnic be held at nuncheon as opposed to tea.”

“At this time of year, the weather prevents most activities. It is best to postpone those few that remain possible until later in the day, Miranda. Otherwise, the day will drag for your guests.”

“I would think breaking the monotony of the day would be welcome at any hour,” Miranda countered.

“As hostess, it falls to you to see that all things are done properly.”

Carter was grateful Mother made her verbal corrections in private. He’d already confessed to Hartley more of the dysfunctional nature of his marriage than he’d planned to. He didn’t want the rest of the guests to realize how strained the situation truly was.

“A picnic held during nuncheon would be
im
proper?” Miranda asked.

Carter looked up from his book at the hint of defiance he thought he caught in Miranda’s tone. Mother must have heard it as well—her eyebrows arched in a look of disapproval most of the
ton
could have identified. Carter enjoyed hearing it despite himself. Miranda used to have more backbone.

“Far be it from me, Miranda, to overstep myself.” Mother laid her hand over her heart, looking hurt by Miranda’s tone. “I know I am but a
guest
in this home.”

“Of course you are not—”

“For the sake of my son and the family name, I am simply attempting to guide you through what must be an overwhelming situation,” Mother continued. “
I
am not one to run from my responsibilities.”

That remark was far too pointed to be overlooked. Mother’s obvious reference to Miranda’s flight three years earlier could only complicate an already tense situation. This was exactly the reason the past was being kept tucked away.

“Miranda.” Carter rose and crossed the room to where the two women were seated opposite one another. “Why is it that you feel the picnic ought to be held at nuncheon? Have you a pressing appointment?”

She didn’t look up at him but shook her head no.

There had to be a reason for her insistence, but she offered no explanation.

“Could you at least tell us why it is so important for the picnic to be held earlier in the day?” Carter tried another approach. She wasn’t being terribly cooperative. He meant to maintain the peace one way or another.

Miranda rose rather abruptly to her feet, her color a little high but otherwise appearing calm and collected. “I am hostess here, am I not, Carter?” she asked.

“Of course you are, Miranda.”
Technically
, anyway. Mother was the one actually holding everything together.

“Then shouldn’t I be permitted to dictate the schedule?” Still a mild, even voice.

“All of this is simply a fit of pique?” Mother asked, her tone revealing her exasperation.

“I didn’t say that,” Miranda countered, crossing toward the tall, diamond-paned window. Light flurries fluttered just beyond the glass, though Carter doubted Miranda was actually watching the weather.

Carter pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, telling himself to be patient. He crossed to where Miranda stood. “If Mother says the picnic ought to be at teatime, then that is when it ought to be. Mother is right about these things.”

She kept her gaze on the window. “Is it so impossible that I could be right?” Miranda asked in a tight voice.

“She is doing you a great favor.”

“By contradicting every decision I make?” He saw her jaw tense and realized she was very close to losing her self-imposed air of tranquility. Something in him wanted to see her crack. Once, Miranda had been full of life and energy, not this shell of humanity that had drifted through the house the past few days. He’d rather see her angry than emotionally dead.

“She is a viscountess,” Carter said.

“And who am I, Carter?” She looked up at him then, and Carter was taken aback by the hurt he saw in her eyes. “Aren’t I a viscountess as well?”

He knew his mistake then. He had, without realizing it, given his mother precedence over his wife. And not just in that moment. He’d been doing so ever since Mother’s arrival.

The guilt didn’t sit well—not when he was determined to show Miranda that her defection hadn’t injured him.
She
had made the mistake.
She
had walked out. This would not be made his fault.

Mother had earned the respect due her rank. Miranda may have had claim to the title, but she hadn’t
acted
as a true viscountess.

“A viscountess knows her duty, Miranda,” Carter said tightly. “Something you never have.”

Miranda’s face paled, but it wasn’t as satisfactory a sight as he would have thought. It certainly didn’t assuage the twinge of guilt he’d been fighting.

“The picnic will be at teatime as scheduled,” Carter pressed, determined not to lose control of the situation. That had been his place of safety since Miranda had left. He’d always kept tight control.

“Then I will not be there,” Miranda said.

“You will,” Carter snapped. “If you want to claim your rank, Miranda, then you will have to at least pretend you are suited to it.”

The silence in the room was heavy and palpable. Carter watched as his words sank in and found himself almost immediately regretting the harshness he’d employed. That hint of life he’d seen in her eyes before was gone entirely, as if she’d died a little inside.

“I am sorry, Carter,” she little more than whispered. “I will try harder.”

In an instant, they were back to tense discomfort. Just as he’d told Hartley, the slightest foray into the arena of their past inevitably led to this. Carter knew he hadn’t helped the situation, but that seemed the way of it. There was too much anger and pain.

“You should check with Cook to be sure preparations are well underway,” Mother suggested.

Miranda nodded her head and left the room silently.

With almost unfathomable force, a memory surfaced in Carter’s whirling mind. They’d been married less than two months the day they’d had their first argument. They were to attend the local assembly in the town nearest their home in Wiltshire. But Miranda wished to remain at home.

They went back and forth all afternoon and into the early evening. He finally emerged victorious in their battle of wills.

“You are Lady Gibbons now,” he said. “With that title comes certain expectations.”

He hadn’t understood then why that argument had carried the point, what it was about those words that had convinced her. He still didn’t. While she’d agreed to go, he remembered she’d looked very much as she had just moments earlier: resigned, beaten, defeated.

He hadn’t liked it then. He didn’t like it now.

“Miranda!” he called after her, not stopping to bid Mother farewell. Carter moved quickly into the hall. Miranda was gone already.

Be kind
, Mr. Benton had asked of him. Carter had the lowering suspicion he was failing in that promise.

* * *

The Duchess of Hartley had been the guest fortunate enough to find the gold sovereign in her slice of Twelfth Night cake, and, therefore, the remaining guests were at the disposal of a Queen for the Night whose sole intent as sovereign was to entertain her almost two-year-old daughter, Lady Liliana. Lord Percival Farr, it seemed, had been specifically selected to carry out the royal declarations.

“I see Liliana still has Perce tightly wound around her finger,” Carter commented to Hartley under his breath as their friend agreed to his queen’s edict that he act as her parrot—literally.

Lord Percival’s wing flapping and squawk-filled chatter had the ladies in a very unladylike state of hysterics. Except for his mother, who watched with a very proper smile. Carter had never seen his mother act in a way that might be termed anything but genteel.

Liliana, always a favorite of Carter’s, sat quite contentedly on Miranda’s lap, clapping her tiny hands and squealing in delight. Miranda’s arms were wrapped around the child as she leaned forward whispering in her ear. Miranda’s eyes, Carter noted, were laughing. He couldn’t look away. Here was a glimpse of the Miranda who’d stolen his heart so many years earlier. He knew from sad experience that she had changed, but to see those beautiful eyes filled with laughter touched a part of him he’d thought long dead.

“I would say Liliana has added your wife to her list of conquests.” The duke watched his daughter with amusement. “Liliana will begin demanding her presence in the nursery before much longer.”

A wave of guilt swept over Carter in that instant. He’d told Miranda he would ask Hartley and Adèle if she could hold little Henry. They’d been at Clifton Manor for four days, and he hadn’t even recalled that promise until now.

“I know that look,” Hartley said under his breath, amusement obvious in his tone. “What complaint have you just discovered your wife is entitled to lodge against you?”

“I doubt your wife has many reasons to complain, Hartley.” Carter couldn’t think of many marriages as obviously happy as his good friends’.

His grace laughed. “There isn’t a wife in all the world who doesn’t have a list of legitimate complaints against her husband.”

“And vice versa?” Carter asked dryly.

“It has been my experience that the balance weighs heavily against us.” Hartley smiled. “So what have you added to
your
list?”

“I forgot to do something I told her I would do.”

“Ah.” Hartley nodded sagely. “The first item on any husband’s list.”

Carter appreciated the attempt at lightness. Miranda smiled still, playing with Liliana and fully participating in the antics enacted for the child’s benefit. She looked more alive than Carter had seen her yet. The closest she’d come before was the short visit they’d made to the Miltons’ and the time she’d spent with little George.