So Wild a Heart (38 page)

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Authors: Candace Camp

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General

BOOK: So Wild a Heart
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"What?" Elizabeth exploded scornfully. "Is that the story you told this innocent girl?"

"It is what happened! Why did you write me that note? Why did you run away and pretend to be dead? Why didn't you come to me and—"

"Just a minute." Miranda turned to her stepmother, whose eyes were lit with an unholy fire. "Did you know that old man, Elizabeth? The one who came to visit me a few days before we left London?''

“Yes, of course. It was..." Elizabeth's voice roughened. "It was my grandfather. He raised me after my parents died, and then I shamed him before the world. I shouldn't have been surprised when he didn't come after me. I had destroyed all his trust in me. I was a fool to think—"

"Wait. That man came to tell me not to trust the Earl of Ravenscar. And the reason he gave was because Ravenscar had seduced his granddaughter and she had killed herself."

"What?" Elizabeth blinked, confused.

"That is what he told me. He believes that you are dead, too."

"You left notes, Elizabeth!" Devin came closer to her. "I— You wrote me a note telling me that I had ruined your life and you despised me. You said that you would rather die than live with the shame of bearing an illegitimate child. You disappeared. They searched for your body for days. And I was so...so furious that you had not even come to me and told me about the child. Do you honestly think that I would not have married you?"

"What are you talking about?" Elizabeth stood, and her voice rose hysterically. "You refused me! You denied that the child was yours. You said you would bring witnesses against me to prove that I had been promiscuous if I tried to force you to marry me. You—"

"I did not! How can you say that? You never even told me about it!"

"Of course I did!"

"When? Where? I was often drunk, but I know I could not have completely forgotten that."

"I did not tell you face-to-face. I hadn't the courage. I was afraid, ashamed. And you had—you had stopped coming to see me. So I wrote it in a letter and gave it to Leona to deliver to you."

"Leona?" Devin's face went white. "You gave it to Leona?"

Elizabeth nodded. "Yes. She was my friend, as well as yours."

"The only letter she gave me was the note you left saying that you were going to throw yourself into the sea to avoid the shame of what you had done."

There was a long silence. Elizabeth's mouth began to tremble, and she crumpled more man sat back down in her chair. "Dear God."

“How did you learn that Dev rejected you and your child?'' Miranda asked pointedly.

"Leona..." Elizabeth's voice was barely above a whisper. "She was my friend. She had been so kind to me from the moment she came to Brighton. She was dazzling and sophisticated, and I was thrilled that she even took any notice of me. I was just a country nobody. I couldn't tell my grandfather about my pregnancy. I couldn't face Dev. So I went to her and told her all about it. She said that she would deliver a note to Dev if I wrote it, so I did. The next afternoon she came back and sat down in the music room with me. I remember I was practicing the piano. And she told me very gently that Dev had read my note, then had torn it up and thrown it into the fire. He said he was going to leave for London, and I was not to follow. He said that—the things I told you, that he would deny and shame me if I pursued the matter. I was devastated."

"Of course you were." Miranda went to her stepmother and knelt down beside her, taking her hands in hers. "Anyone would have been."

"I didn't know what to do, and she said that the only course left to me was to leave. She suggested that I go to America or India or some other colony, where no one would know who I was. She gave me money because she was my friend and felt sorry for me. And she said that in a new country no one would know who I was. I could change my name, I could pretend to be a newly bereaved widow, and no one would ever know the difference. She was so kind. She helped me to pack and to leave. She even hired the post chaise for me, and sent her maid with me to help me."

"More likely to make sure you didn't change your mind and decide to come back," Miranda corrected. "And to steal a shawl to leave beside the sea."

"I—I suppose so. My God..." Tears formed in her eyes and spilled over. "Even after all this time, it hurts. I thought she was my dearest friend, and she betrayed me."

"She betrayed everyone." Miranda's voice was hard with anger. "Your grandfather has been nearly driven mad with grief. He has mourned you all these years. Everyone thought you had died. People blamed Devin for your death. It was a terrible scandal, and Dev's father disowned him. Leona recklessly destroyed three lives." Miranda stood up, her gray eyes like steel. "And I know why. She wanted Devin for herself. He had been pursuing her, and she had been teasing and putting him off, but she always meant to have him, I'm sure. However, when you told her you were pregnant, she knew that he would do the honorable thing and marry you. She would lose him, and she did not want that. It would ruin her plans. So she lied to you. And she lied to him. She lied to everyone."

Miranda stood up and turned in Devin's direction.

He was pale with emotion, and there was a stunned hurt in his eyes that tore at her heart. Miranda thought that if Leona were there right at that moment, she would have gone straight for the heartless woman's throat.

"Veronica is my daughter?" Devin asked, his eyes going from Miranda to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth nodded, brushing at the tears that still trickled down her cheeks. "Yes. She—she has no idea. I have always told her that her father was Roddy Blakington. A wonderful man I made up. She—I—" Panic filled her eyes. "You won't tell her, will you?" She looked from Devin to Miranda and back, her hands clenching nervously in her skirt. "I don't know what it would do to her. I—she would be bound to hate me."

"I am sure she wouldn't hate you," Miranda began soothingly.

"I won't tell her," Devin added, his voice rough with emotion. "Keeping silent is the least I can do after all the pain I caused you. Caused everyone. But I will also look after her as a father would, I promise you that." He hesitated, then went on. "Constance... Elizabeth, I am sorry. I know no amount of words can make up for the suffering you went through. Please, believe me, I did not know. I would not have— I know I have never been the model of a gentleman, but I would not have behaved so dishonorably."

Elizabeth nodded, pressing a hand against her lips, tears running down her face.

Miranda looked at her with concern. "Let me take you to your room, Elizabeth. A nice, soothing lie-down would be good, don't you think? I'll ring for your maid, and she can put a lavender compress on your forehead."

"Yes," Elizabeth choked out. "Please. I—I need to be alone."

Miranda did as she had suggested, taking Elizabeth's arm and helping her up and out of the room. She led her up me stairs to her bedroom and over to the bed, then rang for Elizabeth's maid.

"I was a fool," Elizabeth whispered. "I was a fool back then, and I am still one now."

"You are not a fool. You simply trusted the wrong person. That is all. I am sure many women would have acted just as you did."

"Not you."

"I wouldn't be so sure. Most people are not very wise when it comes to love."

"You didn't marry for love. You were very practical about it."

Miranda smiled.. "You think not?"

"Are you saying that you love him? That you loved him before you married him?"

Miranda nodded and took her stepmother's hand. "He really is a good man, Elizabeth. Those things you thought about him all these years were false."

"I know. But I—I hated him so long that it will take a bit of adjusting to feel differently. Oh, Miranda! Will you ever forgive me? I have been half-mad with fear the last few weeks. I was so afraid he would hurt you, but I could not bear to tell you the truth. And I sent Hastings to hurt him! I have been such a fool, such a coward and— Can you ever forgive me?"

"Of course I can. I know you have been—well, you haven't been yourself."

At that point Elizabeth's maid came in, and Miranda left Elizabeth to the girl's ministrations. She was sure that Elizabeth was not the only one in a state of shock and needing to talk right now. Devin had looked as if his world had been turned inside out.

She started toward the stairs to go back down to the library, but she found Devin sitting on the top step, waiting for her. "Miranda." He stood up and turned to face her. There was a bleak look on his face that tore at her heart She went to him and wrapped her arms about his waist leaning against this chest. His arms went around her, and he hugged her to him tightly.

"God, Miranda! What a fool I've been!" he burst out, echoing Elizabeth's words. "All these years... Leona's been lying to me. Toying with me."

Miranda's arms tightened involuntarily around him. Devin's pain hurt her, and it hurt even more that his pain sprang in large part from the fact that he had loved Leona. But she put her own emotions aside for the moment.

"Let's go to my room." She took his hand and led him down the hall to her bedroom. Devin sat down on a chair with a sigh, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands.

"That was when she let me have her," he said, staring sightlessly at the wall as his thoughts turned back to that time fifteen years before. "I had been chasing Leona for over a year. She would tease me, offer more and never fulfill it. When I went to Brighton, she introduced me to Constance. Leona knew that I was mistaken about Constance's being experienced, and she did not correct it. I think she wanted to see what would happen. Leona would come to my apartments late at night and want to know what had happened with Constance. It was a kind of triumph for her to know that my telling her about it made me crazier with desire than anything Constance and I had done."

He shook his head, then plunged his fingers back through his hair. "I am sorry. I should not be telling you things like this."

"You can talk to me about anything," Miranda said calmly, despite the hot anger against Leona that burned in her.

“But I guess when Cons—when Elizabeth told her that she was pregnant, Leona realized that the fun and games were over. I had taken her to task over not telling me that Constance was a virgin, and she must have suspected that I would marry Constance even though I loved
her.
She didn't want that. So she made up those lies—convinced Elizabeth to flee to America, made all the rest of us believe that Elizabeth was dead so that we would not try to find her."

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was rougher. "I think that she wanted me to feel to blame for Constance's death. She knew that my sinking deeper and deeper into wickedness would bind me to her even more. It would make me more like her and less like my family and the other people I knew. The more I separated myself from the rest of the world, the more I was tied to her. Does that make sense?"

Miranda nodded. "Yes. She didn't understand the good parts of you, I am sure, and they frightened her. She knew that it was the goodness inside you that would make you likely to leave her."

"She ruined Elizabeth's life without a second thought." He shook his head. "She watched me suffer with guilt. She stood by while my father and I broke over Elizabeth's death. I never spoke with him again. He died despising me. And she never said a word to me about what really happened." He looked up at Miranda, tears shimmering in his eyes. "How could she have been so heartless?"

Miranda's throat closed with sympathetic tears, and she could only whisper, "I don't know."

"She never really loved me," he went on.

"I don't think she is capable of love," Miranda agreed.

"It is no wonder she never felt jealousy. Her heart wasn't in danger. All she cared about was having power over me. She even urged me to marry you. She did not realize—" He stopped abruptly and looked at Miranda. "Dear God..."

"What? What's the matter?"

"Of course. It is she who—"

“Who what? Devin, what are you talking about?''

"It is Leona who has been trying to kill you."

"What? Why? What would she get out of it?"

"Everything. Don't you see? You have interfered with her power over me far more than Constance ever did. I told her the other day that I was not going to see her again. Even before that, she was bound to realize that her control over me was slipping away. I haven't been with her since I became engaged to you. She's lost me." He grimaced. "More importantly for her, no doubt, is the fact that she has lost her chance at your money."

"What?"

"I told you, she wanted me to marry you. She thought, as I did, that your money would be under my control. She no doubt still thinks that. I never told her any differently. Her idea was that I would spend your money on her and the things we liked to do. She told me that Vesey was curtailing her spending. So to her way of thinking she has lost a great deal of money. If you were dead, however, she would assume that I would inherit your money. And with you out of the way, I am sure she thinks that she could get me back under her spell again. No doubt it was she who arranged for all your 'accidents' to happen."

"You really think so?"

"Who else? It makes sense now." Devin rose to his feet. His eyes glittered with an unholy light. "I'm going over there. I'm going to make sure that nothing else happens to you."

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