Miracle (57 page)

"I wasn't in danger. His Grace is perfectly aware that I'm a more than capable rider." Turning on the duke, she declared, "You've seen me ride Napitov—"

He stared at her blankly.

Drawing back her shoulders, Miracle returned to the duchess. "I suppose you'll be sending me home, now that I've brought such discomfiture to Your Grace."

"Ah. I begin to understand, I think. You thought that if you did this silly thing, I would send you packing. No more marriage. My grandson would be saved the humiliation of your breaking off the engagement yourself. Clever girl. But not that clever. No, I shall not send you packing, my dear."

"But surely you cannot still want me to marry him!" she cried.

"You've given me no logical reason why I shouldn't."

"What about what I want?"

"Which is?"

Miracle covered her face with her hands. She tried to breathe. To reason. She felt like she had been dragged before a magistrate to defend her life, and at that moment, her life made no sense whatsoever. The tangle of emotions inside her was excruciating.

Finally, she focused on Salterdon's hard face again. "I
want
to love you still," she told him, her voice quivering. "If I could find a semblance of the man you were on the island, then perhaps
. . . He
was gentle.
He
laughed at my pigs, even spoke to them. Oh, don't deny it, Your Grace, I saw you when you thought you were alone, chatting to Chuck."

His mouth pursed.

"You treated John like your equal. You enjoyed my porridge. You encouraged my dreams. Your eyes were soft, your hands were warm. You liked my hair down, blowing in the wind. You called me
Meri
Mine. You rallied for my honor—a knight in shining armor. You turned your face into the wind, and I showed you how to fly.

"You were vulnerable. I could touch you then. You cared nothing for convention.

"You looked like a farmer.

"And you cared enough about my happiness to buy a dozen silly shirts because I'd sewn them."

The duchess cleared her throat, and in a kinder voice, said, "There will be wedding plans to be made, of course. In the meantime, I feel you should leave London. Occasionally, time away from one another helps to mend emotional rifts." She left the chair and walked to Miracle, took Miracle's chin with her gentle fingers that were cool and soft and sparkling with rings. "I can see why my grandson came to love you so." She turned away. "Mistress
Ellesemere
?"

Ellie moved up and curtsied.

"See that Miracle's belongings are prepared. I think a little time in the country will help her spirit, not to mention her heart."

"Yes, Your Grace. May I ask to where Lady Cavendish will be traveling?"

"To Salisbury," she replied. "To Basingstoke."

There had been little time to dwell on her circumstances. The sudden banishment to Basingstoke had taken both Miracle and Ellie by surprise. By the time they had returned to Park House, their belongings had been trunked. Gertrude had prepared a basket of food for their journey, and Ethel had presented Miracle with a bouquet of yellow roses she had plucked from the garden. Miracle had rewarded Thaddeus with a kiss on the cheek, and his face had turned beet red.

Leaving the house that had been her home for such a short time, Miracle wondered if she would ever see it again. She wasn't certain that she cared. She felt numb. And unhappy. She wanted to go home to Cavisbrooke, to see her horses and her father. Would he forgive her for leaving him like she had, with nary a look back and no good-bye? Imagine: After all these years, the many times she had wished to herself that Johnny had been her father, now he was.

The foremost thing that struck Miracle during their journey to Basingstoke was the beauty of the countryside, from the exquisite turf and foliage and soft, moist atmosphere, to the buttercup meadows and vales covered in huge elms that lifted to airy heights against the blue sky.

They passed farmhouses of beautifully fashioned brick and stone with enameled meadows and filigree hedges. Outside each hamlet there were alehouses with placid drinkers gathered beneath the spreading oaks and chestnuts, old men who lifted their tankards in greeting as the chaise lumbered by, and always there were the old gray churches and barns rising up from the ground as if they were a part of the earth themselves.

As it was Sabbath day, the church bells pealed a continuous chain of music that rang like angels over the countryside. Families milled about the grounds, the road, the meadows, children in white gowns, prancing in carpets of flowers while the choir's voice reverberated their lyrical message to the heavens.

"Lovely, isn't it?" Ellie commented as she gazed out at the passing countryside.

"The most beautiful country I've ever seen," Miracle replied honestly, and for the first time in days, she smiled. A butterfly of excitement had taken wing in her stomach, and the confusion and despair she had experienced the last days, nay, weeks, now seemed less monumental. There was something about the land and sky and the freedom to enjoy them that was a panacea to the soul. "Will we be arriving at Basingstoke soon?" she asked eagerly.

"My dear, you've been on Basingstoke grounds for the last quarter hour."

Surprised, Miracle searched the hills and vales even harder. Yes, she could see it now, the uniformity of the countryside. There were great oaks and hedgerows of elm and ash and a scattering of forest trees in the distant meadows.

Ellie called out to the driver to stop, then she climbed from the chaise and said to Miracle, "Come along, my dear. One can hardly appreciate the beauty and serenity of the countryside when it's flying by so fast. Here, take my hand. We'll walk to the top of the hill."

Miracle took Ellie's hand. It was warm and as small as her own, and gripped her with a firm fondness that brought a tightness to Miracle's throat.

Reaching the top of the knoll, they stopped, and Miracle caught her breath. As far as she could see, the lush landscape spread from horizon to horizon. There were cultivated plots of young corn, a field of barley, another of wheat. Sheep grazed on the east grounds and cattle on the west. Amid it all were the labyrinths of woody lanes, crossroads, and
cartways
leading up and down hills to straw-roofed stone houses that were buried in leaves and wreathed to their clustered chimneys with vines. Everywhere, along the wagon roads, the footpaths, and even where Miracle and Ellie stood, were hedges of shepherd's rose, honeysuckle, and wildflowers.

"Basingstoke?" is all Miracle could manage to say.

"All of it," Ellie told her, her voice proud. "The houses yonder belong to Basingstoke's tenants. There are the farmers, of course, and their families. But there are also craftsmen whose workmanship is some of the finest in England. There are the drovers for the sheep, the woodcutters, hurdlers, spoke choppers,
faggoters
, and the rake and ladder makers. Not to mention the blacksmiths, wheelwrights, masons, and carpenters. They build the fences, the barns, the windmills and watermills. The church we passed several miles back. Lord Basingstoke had built for his workers, not to mention the alehouses. The church is used as a school for the tenants' children on every day except the Sabbath. Lord Basingstoke doesn't allow children under twelve to toil in the fields. He feels that education is of foremost importance to the young mind. I might add, his lordship finished Oxford magna cum
laude,
you know, then went on to study at Gray's Inn."

"Shall I meet him at last?" Miracle asked, and a look of slight consternation crossed Ellie's brow.

"I'm not certain," she replied. "I've heard he's out of the country . . . gone to Paris, I'm told."

"A shame," Miracle sighed. "I should like to meet him.

He sounds quite . . . exceptional." She closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun. The wind kissed her cheeks and toyed with her hair. Ah, the solitude, broken only by the whirring of partridges and pheasants. She had not enjoyed such quiet and peace since leaving Cavisbrooke.

"We've not got much farther to travel," came Ellie's voice, and Miracle reluctantly opened her heavy-lidded eyes to see Ellie pointing toward the very distant hill. "Just beyond there is Basingstoke Hall."

Nothing could have prepared her. Nothing.

Stepping from the chaise, Miracle stared, speechless, at the house. Only it wasn't a house. It was a palace. Even the term
palace
seemed to understate the structure before her.

"Basingstoke won the estate in a card game ten years ago," Ellie explained, nodding to the driver to unload their baggage. "He was only twenty at the time. The house you see before you was little more than a ruin."

Miracle moved down the wide bricked pavement leading to the sprawling marble entrance of immense pillars, while around her the lawns stretched out like green lakes, broken only by meandering footpaths that led to fountains and walled gardens. How cunningly blended was the artificial with the natural, lawns merging with park, which glistened with sun-kissed ponds. Miracle's heart raced as a deer grazing in the distance raised its head and regarded her in so tame a fashion she was certain she could have walked up to it.

The doors opened before her.

Ellie spoke softly to the
majordomo,
but Miracle didn't listen. Standing in the center of the vast entrance hall, she slowly turned round and round, her senses taking in the porphyry columns and cornices adorned by Etruscan griffins. The ceiling, rising at least fifty feet, depicted cherubs and angels amid clouds, all of which had been painted in a manner to reproduce Italian classics of centuries ago. A fairylike chandelier was suspended there as well, hanging from carved monastic heads. At night it would glisten with hundreds of candles.

Ellie said, "According to Marvin, Lord Basingstoke is in residence after all. However, since no mention of our arrival was made to the staff, we can only assume Her Grace failed to communicate our visit to Basingstoke. In other words, he wasn't expecting us."

"Where is he now?" Miracle asked, still studying her surroundings in amazement. "Shall I meet him? Perhaps we shouldn't stay."

"Oh, we'll stay," Ellie replied stubbornly, "and you'll meet
him . . .
if it's the last thing I ever do. Come along, my dear, and prepare to be sufficiently astounded."

Marvin shoved open immense double doors, revealing a continuous chamber some three hundred feet long. Its ceilings were
spandreled
and
traceried
in the Gothic taste, its walls paneled with golden moldings and shields emblazoned with the
quarterings
of England. The spread of windows along the left wall were curtained with crimson velvet, and every fifty feet, chandeliers, exactly like the one in the entrance hall, hung from the ceilings.

They passed the circular dining room, whose walls were lined with silver and whose pier glasses reflected forests of Ionic columns with silver capitals: the crimson drawing room with a blue velvet carpet and a breathtaking chandelier whose three circles of lights surrounded a cascade of crystal glass; the vestibule; the anteroom; the rose satin drawing room; the blue velvet room; and then they came to a circular double staircase, which they ascended on royal blue carpets to another set of apartments, the corridor sweeping past a library with shelves of leather-bound books so high one would be forced to mount a ladder to reach them.

Next came the golden drawing room, then the Gothic dining room, and right to the anteroom, dining room, and conservatory. Then, at last, to the private apartments. There were twenty-six in this wing alone, Ellie pointed out.

Finally, they arrived at a room so large it would have easily swallowed the great hall at Cavisbrooke. On both the north and south walls were massive fireplaces, big enough, Miracle thought, to roast an entire ox. In the center of the room, upon a circular dais, was the largest bed Miracle had ever seen, with yards of lilac sheers spilling from the tester canopy.