The Fairy Tale Bride (19 page)

Miranda protested. "I'm certain they must be
much too tired for an interview at this point, Simon. Why don't we
let them get settled in and then you can meet them."

It did not escape his notice that she had
attempted to change a formal interview into a casual meeting But
his new wife would soon find out that he would not allow her to
turn his household upside down.

If he could not bed her, he could at least
see to teaching her how to conduct herself now that she was a
duchess. "Send them to me immediately," he told Dome. He had an
uncomfortable feeling that he was going to recognize the "servant"
in question and he was not at all happy about it.

As he waited in his study, Miranda anxiously
watching him, he soon found his suspicions confirmed. The woman
from the village ... and Betsy. They stared at him with their big
blue eyes, both seeming to recognize that he was not pleased, and
that their fates hung in his hands.

Nervously, Miranda performed the
introductions. "I have hired Katherine Lawton as my new lady's
maid. Perhaps you remember her from the night we—"

"I remember her well." Simon interrupted.
"But I do not recall it being said that she was a lady's maid." He
wondered if Miranda had hired her knowing what the woman did to
earn her living. Surely she could not have.

Just then, like a tiny whirlwind, Betsy broke
from her mother's side and ran up to Simon. She curtseyed deeply,
then stood there, her blue eyes trained on him as she gave him a
wide smile and asked, "Do you remember me? I'm the little girl you
rescued."

Simon surprised himself when he found that he
had no difficulty in smiling back at her. "I remember you very well
Betsy." He lifted the little girl into his arms and she laid her
arms around her neck. "Just as I remember your mother." He gave
both women a measured glance, to ensure they knew he had not gone
soft-hearted because of the child.

He said steadily to Katherine. "So you want
to be a lady's maid? For what reason?" The flicker of surprise that
passed over the woman's features as she quickly sought Miranda's
gaze for guidance confirmed his suspicions. She was no more than
another of his bride's misguided attempts at rescue.

Miranda stepped toward Katherine, one hand
outstretched. But her eyes were on him, pleading in the oddly
imperious way she had. "Simon, I know that Katherine will be an
excellent servant. Let us call a halt to this interview now, and
let them get settled."

He opened his mouth to tell her dearly and
compellingly that he was master in his own home, when a new voice
interrupted. "Simon, what is going on? Why is this woman — dragging
a child along, no less here? Surely she is not claiming the child
is your by-blow."

Katherine paled and Miranda tightened her
grip on the other woman's arm as she addressed her mother-in-law,
"Of course not. How could you think such a thing?"

The dowager turned her attention to Simon,
who was still holding Betsy in his arms. "He seems comfortable
enough with the child. It was a natural mistake to assume he was
her father."

Simon loosened his grip on Betsy when she
squirmed, and he realized that his hold on her had become
ironbound. It was a long practice for him to tamp down his anger
and pretend to a cold civility. "Good morning, Mother. When I did
not see you at breakfast, I thought you had taken your leave."

"That would have been quite rude of me,
Simon. Your bride should certainly appreciate the benefit of my
experience as chatelaine of this home for more than half my
lifetime."

She turned to Miranda and inclined her head
toward the doorway. "Would you like to start with a tour of the
main house, my dear? Perhaps the family wing? I promise not to tell
you all the stories today, just the ones that seem the most
important."

Simon cut off his objection before it began,
realizing that for once his mother was working in his aid. He would
be able to deal with Katherine and her daughter without
interference. "An excellent idea. Miranda, I will handle this
matter. You go with my mother."

She looked from Katherine to Simon, and he
could feel her dilemma as if it were his own. Fortunately, it
wasn't his to decide whether to try to cushion the interview with
Katherine or bear the cold company of his mother.

It wasn't hers either. He had decided for
her. With a firm hand on her back, he propelled her toward the
door. "Don't be shy. I'm sure my mother will be her usual
informative self."

"But ... " Her eyes were locked with
Katherine's.

And then something so subtle seemed to pass
between them that Simon nearly missed it. Only the fact that
Miranda nodded and turned toward the dowager made him realize that
some form of communication had occurred. He wondered briefly, as
his wife left the room, if he had made a bad bargain in being left
alone with Katherine and Betsy.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The dowager's method of touring seemed to
consist of walking briskly through room after room while reciting
capsule histories of the room's flaws. The Elizabethan Parlor, a
quite charmingly sunny room, was too warm in the summer. The formal
drawing room, in which hung a beautiful tapestry in scarlets and
bright greens and golds, possibly done by one of Simon's ancestors,
had a persistent leak on days with heavy rain.

As the dowager led her quickly through the
various and sundry parlors and drawing rooms, Miranda abandoned all
attempts to commit the lay of Simon's home to her memory. There
were rooms that would not be found again by any method other than
an excellent memory.

Off the White Duchess's parlor — so named for
a three-generations-removed silver-haired virago--was a tiny,
exquisitely designed reading room with a comfortable chaise lounge,
a large sunlit window, and several shelves of books meant expressly
for feminine tastes.

Miranda would have lingered, but the dowager
had no such intention. The room's flaw seemed to be that it
encouraged an unhealthy degree of solitude.

She found herself able to concentrate on the
whirlwind of information with only half her mind. The other half
she was unable to pry from the study where Simon was undoubtedly
cross-examining Katherine. She believed she could trust the healer
not to spill the true reason she had been hired. Simon would be
furious if he found out. Worse yet, he might refuse the
remedies.

Hopefully, Katherine had said nothing to
Betsy. The child had not yet learned to be discreet, as they all
had well to remember. She smiled, remembering how easily Simon had
swung her into his arms. It was heartening to see that he held true
affection for the child, despite the way he had spoken of "urchins"
in the loft. He would make a good father, if he were given the
chance.

Miranda hastened her steps, in danger of
losing her companion. Curious, she followed the dowager into a
gallery with a high ceiling that arched overhead. Imposing
portraits of men in heavy and ornate gold frames lined the left
wall, while somewhat less imposing portraits of women hung
opposite.

Although they had been painted hundreds of
years apart, by different artists, the eyes in the portraits were
all of such a compelling nature that Miranda felt as if she were
being observed by every one of Simon's ancestors. Their expressions
were all so uniformly solemn she had no doubt that she had been
found distinctly lacking.

For a moment, the two of them stood without
speaking, as if the dowager recognized that the overwhelming
watchfulness of the room was unnerving and was allowing her a
moment to recover. And then her acerbic words made Miranda doubt
that she could possibly have had such a kind motivation.
"Impressive lot, aren't they? I wonder if they cowed the portrait
painters as effectively as they do anyone who enters this
room."

Miranda stopped at a portrait that held a
strong resemblance to Simon, but seemed somehow wrong. "Is this one
of Simon?"

"No, that is Peter, his older brother."
Oddly, Miranda noticed, the dowager deliberately did not look at
the portrait before she answered.

"I never knew that he had an older brother."
The man in the portrait was young, but not a child. "They are very
alike."

As if drawn against her will, the duchess
slowly turned her head to look full at the portrait. She moved
closer. Her hand hovered near, but without touching the bottom of
the gilded frame. Miranda noticed that the slender fingers shook
ever so slightly. "Yes. They were indeed alike."

The older woman gave herself a slight shake,
as if it took great effort for her to remove her attention from the
portrait and turn her gaze to Miranda. "At least in looks. They
never had the opportunity to meet each other, since Peter died not
long after Simon was born."

Miranda's breath caught in her throat.
Somehow the long ago death of the brother seemed to make Simon's
own impending death a reality. Her sympathy was entirely genuine
when she said, "How awful for you."

But the dowager seemed to have recovered from
any passing weakness that came from strong emotions. She waved her
hand in dismissal. "He was not my son. Sinclair's first wife was
his mother. He was older than I by several years."

Miranda had no answer for such a cold
statement. "Then I'm sure it was difficult for the late duke."

The dowager gave a tiny, graceful shrug. "I'm
sure he grieved – in his own fashion. But he had Simon as an heir
to replace him."

Miranda thought of Valentine and the girls.
They were irreplaceable. Were she to lose one, it would be a
permanent and irredeemable loss. As would Simon's death, if she
could not prevent it.

If she and Katherine could not cure Simon,
she would soon be without him. The sense of loss took her breath
away. How had she come to care for him so much in such a short
time?

Certainly he was a brave and honorable man,
his loss would be a grave one to society. But it was not a general
sense of loss that she felt. Her feelings of loss came from the
thought that she would not be able to receive one of his quick
smiles, and from the realization that she might soon hear only in
her memory the rich voice that set her nerves a-tingle.

She pressed a hand below her heart to ease
the ache. Not being kissed by him ever again. Not touching him,
smiling at him across the table. No, her feeling of loss was
personal indeed, for a husband she had not really wanted and who
was, for the most part, maddening in the extreme.

She looked at the portrait again. The man in
it had the slim build of a young man still approaching his
majority. And he had died before he'd had the chance to know love
and have a family of his own. She would do her best to see that the
same was not true for Simon.

Idly, trying to stifle the grief that
lingered at the edges of her consciousness, she said, "If only
Peter had lived long enough to marry and have a son, Simon would
not have to scour the hillside for suitable heirs."

The dowager's reaction was remarkable. Her
eyes closed and her voice hushed to a whisper. "Sometimes I imagine
that he did. He was far away in France then, and we did not hear
from him. He could have married and been happy for at least a short
while before his death. Sometimes I pray it was so."

There was a tremor of sadness that could not
be dismissed. For the first time, Miranda realized that the dowager
duchess of Kerstone was still a fairly young woman. No more than
forty-five at most.

The thought that Simon might have an unknown
niece or nephew set fire to her imagination. "Did he investigate
the possibility?"

"No. I don't suppose he ever thought of it."
With an almost invisible struggle, the dowager regained the cold
demeanor that Miranda suspected now was only a facade to hide a
lonely and sad woman. "Certainly I didn't mention the possibility
to him. It was merely a foolish fancy of mine."

Unbearable sadness swept over Miranda. "I
don't suppose it is very likely. Even if he were to have been
married, how often does a short marriage produce a child?"

She was not thinking of his brother, though,
but of herself. In this gallery of Watterlys, generation after
generation, the ache for Simon's child was sharp.

She fancied, as she glanced from portrait to
portrait, the eyes that judged her — women as well as men — seemed
to have made up their minds as to her failure. And she was fearful
that there was nothing she could do to avert that failure. She
could not get close enough to Simon to do her wifely duty without
causing him to become overwrought.

The dowager seemed to sense the conflict that
percolated through her. "Even a long union is no guarantee of
children. Simon was my only child in twenty-five years of
marriage."

Once again struck by the dowager's youth,
Miranda had no time to puzzle the meaning of her statement, for at
that moment the sound of childish sobbing, along with the rapid
patter of feet along parquet, echoed in the hallway. Both women
turned to see Betsy running toward them, tears flowing freely down
her cheeks.

"Betsy!" Miranda bent to catch the child and
raise her into her arms. Betsy's arms clung tight and warm around
her neck as the sobs continued.

"What on earth is the matter, my sweet?"
Miranda murmured soothingly.

Between sobs the distraught child managed
eventually to gasp out, "His Grace is going to turn me and me mam
out. He don't like Mam at all." Her wails took on a piercing
quality as she finished.

Miranda forced herself to smile. "Nonsense. I
have hired your mother, and you will both stay here."

Betsy did not seem convinced, although her
wails lessened in volume. Children were often fearful when adults
argued, Miranda had found. The best reassurance would be for her to
swiftly relegate such fears into the rubbish bin.