The Fairy Tale Bride (22 page)

The dowager raised one elegant eyebrow,
reminding Miranda uncannily of Simon. "Such as the haste of your
marriage? The scandal you fear? Your five younger sisters, two of
whom must be brought out quickly and well?"

Miranda thought she had hidden her anger —
and astonishment — well, until the dowager continued. "My dear,
don't look surprised. I am very well informed--even if not kept so
by my son. And never fear. I am very organized. We shall be the
talk of the season."

She couldn't help wondering if that would be
a good thing or not, but she kept her reservations to herself, and
if she somehow let them show on her face, the dowager was
mercifully tactful enough not to bring it to her attention
again.

In the last few weeks they had planned a
menu, entertainment and — most importantly — a guest list. Miranda
found herself reluctant to make the decisions and deferred to the
dowager on almost all things — where the dowager would allow the
decision to be deferred, of course. All that was left to be done
was pen the invitations.

"Are you certain you want to include him?"
The dowager pointed to Giles Grimthorpe's neatly penned name.

"Simon thinks it best." Miranda was annoyed
at her own timidity. She had agreed with him, so why hadn't she
said,
we
think it best? What was it about the dowager that
made her feel as if she were back in the schoolroom?

"Yes, I can see his point. He is a relative,
after all."

The dowager brushed the feathered edge of the
quill against the underside of her chin. "Still, it makes for an
awkward weekend."

Miranda shrugged her shoulders. "I suspect
the entire weekend will be unpleasant."

"I meant awkward in the sense of where to
place his room, and who to seat him near at table, child." She did
not hide her amusement — or her condescension.

"I meant unpleasant in that he — and everyone
else — shall be whispering and buzzing about the rumor that
something untoward happened between us five years ago and hoping
for a scandal. If they even deign to attend."

"Of course they will attend. The hint of past
scandal as well as the curiosity about Simon's new duchess will
ensure that." The dowager seemed to find that an encouraging
fact.

Miranda nodded miserably, trying to maintain
the stiff upper lip the dowager so admired at the thought that she
would be on exhibit like an ancient ruin for the pleasure of her
guests.

The dowager said sharply, "And they will
whisper, as well, but you will deal with that."

"I will do my best." Of course, her best had
not been good enough five years ago. Had she learned enough
cloistered at Anderlin, selling candlesticks and jewelry and
raising her sisters, to handle London society again? Even with
Simon's protection and in her own home?

She would feel safer back on the street where
that awful man had relieved her of Anderlin's candlesticks and her
mother's necklace. Those things were much less precious than the
secrets that she had to guard now from the gossipmongers. How
titillating they would find it that the Duke of Kerstone was ill —
too ill to make love to his wife. Worse, would the rakes consider
her sisters fair game?

As if sensing her concerns, the dowager
commented with acerbity, "I trust that you have learned to control
your own behavior. Have you spoken to your sisters? It would be
unfortunate to have one of them repeat the lesson you have already
learned."

"Yes, I have warned my sisters. But I would
prefer to protect them by not exposing them to such potential for
predation. I would not mind canceling these plans and never going
into 'polite' society again."

The dowager's disapproval tinged her words
with ice. "That is not the attitude of a duchess."

Miranda acknowledged the rebuke with a sigh.
"It has been some time since I was in society, and that was only
for a brief part of one season." And even then she had not coveted
the position of duchess, which according to the dowager, required
one to never allow any room for evil to been seen or spoken of in
connection with oneself.

At times she felt very much like the miller's
daughter, pretending to spin straw in to gold and any moment
waiting to be found out as a fraud. Only Miranda's Rumplestiltskin
did not want her firstborn son — he wanted her husband's good name
destroyed.

The dowager looked up. Her sharp eyes seemed
to pick at the threads of Miranda's frayed nerves. "When do your
sisters arrive? It is a wonderful tonic to have others to look
after."

Miranda could not help but smile at the
thought of the five females due to turn this sedate home into a
beehive of activity. "They arrive tomorrow. Though perhaps you will
wish them away the day after."

To Miranda's surprise, the dowager's
expression grew distant and her lips curved upward slightly. "Five
young girls running through these halls. Sinclair would never have
countenanced it. He did not value girl children."

Miranda did not want to encourage the dowager
to speak disrespectfully of her dead husband. She found herself all
too easily picturing the man as a monster, and that could not be
true. "Surely he would have loved a daughter, if you and he had
been blessed with more children."

A brief flicker of pain crossed the dowager's
face. ''That would have been a miracle, indeed. More children.
Sinclair did not need more children. He had Simon."

"Did you not ever wish for another
child?"

The dowager's intensity surprised her. "Every
day."

Instantly, as if she regretted her
revelation, she shuttered her features and gave a cold smile.
"Children running through the house, the gardens, through the
kitchens; they would have driven Sinclair to his grave much, much
sooner."

The words shredded Miranda's anticipation of
her sister's visit. "Do you think they will have an ill effect on
Simon?" She had not considered that the noise and flurry of
activity that her sisters would bring might be detrimental to
Simon's health.

The dowager knocked the pile of invitations
askew with an awkward jerk of her hand, so very different from her
normally elegant movements. "He always begged for brothers and
sisters when he was small." She quickly rearranged the stack of
invitations until the edges were even and straight. "Now he will
have to cope. I'm certain he can."

"He seems to be looking forward to seeing
them again."

The dowager touched the edge of one
invitation. "Your sisters will need gowns and all the necessities.
Simon has not overlooked that detail, has he?"

"No, indeed," Miranda laughed. "The girls
arrive tomorrow and the modiste arrives the day after. Simon says
she and her seamstresses are not to leave until my sisters are
completely outfitted."

"It is a shame he will not be here to run
Kerstone. He has a natural talent for the job."

Miranda sat silent, unsure how to respond to
the unexpected emotion. When their eyes met, they held for a
moment. Miranda felt compelled to reach out and pat the other
woman's arm.

The dowager's eyes widened slightly and she
regained her composure with a prim frown, but her hand came up to
give Miranda's a quick squeeze. "He is even better at it than
Sinclair was, and though I despised the man, he was a good overlord
to his estates."

She was silent for a moment, as if
contemplating the possibility. "Of course, he would never have
thought of arranging for the outfitting of females." She sighed.
"It is a pity that my son is depriving Kerstone of his
leadership."

Miranda felt the wall rise up between them
again, just when she had felt that she'd removed a stone or two.
The dowager seemed to blame Simon for his illness. "He has no
choice."

Haughty condescension was back in place, as
if there had not been any vulnerable emotion moments ago. "You
think not?"

"Perhaps he could make some attempts to treat
his symptoms, but it is the mark of his care for his
responsibilities that he tries to ensure everyone else will be
taken care of when he is gone." Miranda blinked back tears at the
thought. "That is why he is working hard to train Arthur—"

The dowager's eyebrows lifted quizzically.
"Yes, he is working diligently at making a man of that meek mouse.
You seem an intelligent girl. Isn't it obvious to you that he is
wasting his efforts? He would be better served to train a manager
to manage Arthur than to try to train Arthur to manage anything but
his precious library."

Miranda was inclined to agree, but loyalty
prevented her. "Arthur works very hard to learn what Simon must
teach him about running the estates."

The dowager conceded the point. "It is only
too unfortunate that he does not have more of the warrior and less
of the chivalrous nature of his namesake about him. I suppose,
though, that he is the best that Simon can do."

"What do you mean?"

"He scoured the country for any and all
Watterly cousins." She crumpled an invitation on which she had
evidently made a blot. "Of course, they do seem to be a feeble
lot."

Miranda's curiosity was piqued. Simon had
refused to talk about his difficult search for heirs. "Did you know
any of the other heirs?"

"No. None actually arrived here. One died en
route in a carriage accident, and two succumbed to the grippe just
before Simon's agent located them. He was quite put out." She
looked at Miranda austerely.

"How odd that they should die so
conveniently."

"I believe Simon hired an enquiry agent to
make certain there was no sign of foul play."

Miranda wondered if she should confess to the
dowager that not only had Simon set an enquiry agent to look into
the deaths of his distant cousins, but she had sent an enquiry
agent to find out whether Simon's brother Peter might actually have
left an unknown wife and child behind.

She decided against it, after a moment's
consideration. After all, it had been weeks with no word from the
man. There was no point in getting anyone's hopes up for such an
unlikely possibility.

But from every evidence she could see, Arthur
himself was not thrilled with his own status of heir. His somewhat
endearingly direct comments about children and the patter of little
feet bordered on begging Miranda to give birth to a houseful of
heirs for Simon.

She had found that he enjoyed collecting old
manuscripts. She could imagine his relief if a son was born to
Simon. He would be back to his books and his dusty library before
the babe's first cry echoed in the portrait gallery. But babes were
not conceived by husbands and wives who did not make love.

With a sigh, she crumpled the invitation she
had just ruined with a careless blot of her pen. She closed her
eyes and listened to the scratch of the dowager's pen against
parchment.

Resolutely, she cleared her head of thoughts
she could do nothing about and began writing again in a careful,
flowing script her mother would have exclaimed with pride over.
Duchess of Kerstone. Yes, her mother would have been pleased.

She thought of the life her sisters would
bring to this austere home tomorrow. Swift upon the heels of that
thought was the worry that Simon's health would be adversely
affected. Well, then, Katherine and she would need to be even more
observant than they had been. Not that there had been much to
discover.

She wondered if Simon had tried the tea she
had brought him this morning. The brew had smelled quite awful even
with the lemon and sugar they had to add to make the odor more
inviting, but Katherine thought it might help.

Try as she might to see Simon's point of
view, she could not see the harm in drinking a cup of herbal tea.
But his warning still rang in her ears — he did not want to be
dosed.

When he had raised an eyebrow at the tea, she
had forced herself to lie and say that Cook had over brewed it. She
wondered if he had believed her. At least, if he had not, he made
no protest. She took comfort in that small victory.

"There is a gentleman to see you, Your
Grace."

Dome could not hide his disapproval — or,
Miranda speculated, he chose not to hide it.

"May I see his card?" Miranda held out her
hand.

''I'm afraid he has none, Your Grace." Dome
paused, his face impassive except for the twitch of his nostrils.
"He is an ... American."

"Oh." Miranda smiled, intrigued. "I have
never met an American. Send him in, then."

The man who followed Dome into the parlor
stopped short at the sight of Miranda. He was tall and had a full
head of gray hair. His manner of dress could only be called rustic
and appeared to have suffered from a great deal of travel and
little care. She supposed that Americans did not have valets.

His face called some recognition from deep
within her, but she could not place it. Certainly, she had never
met an American before today. The sight of his lined and
sun-chapped skin seemed romantic to her. Americans were little more
than ruffians and barbarians, but that had its own charm.

He stared in disbelief at her for a long
moment until she became uncomfortably aware of the danger of
ruffians and barbarians, despite the romance of their hard lives.
"How may I help you, sir?"

His voice. was rough and his accent
uncultivated when he grated out, "There must be some mistake. I
want the Duchess of Kerstone."

Feeling like a schoolgirl caught in her
mother's finery, Miranda protested with absurd formality. "I am
Miranda Watterly, the Duchess of Kerstone."

He paled. For a moment she thought the big
American barbarian would collapse to her carpet in a dead
faint.

She hastened to add, "I am married to the
present duke, Simon Watterly. Perhaps you were expecting his
mother, the dowager duchess?"