Unconquered (32 page)

“Except my Thomas, of course,” teased Miranda.

“Nonsense!” retorted Amanda. “Neddie is a perfect cherub with his golden curls, and those huge blue eyes. Oh, Miranda! Did you ever see such marvelous curls? I do believe we’ll be able to christen him at two months rather than three. Your Tom has lovely coloring, but that straight black hair of his cannot possibly compare with Neddie’s curls. My nephew looks like his Papa,” she said somewhat smugly, “and Jared is so
American.
”

“So are you, my dear sister, just in case you’ve forgotten!” snapped Miranda, suddenly angry. “I do believe motherhood has addled your wits, Mandy. I shall leave you to dwell on your son’s perfection.” She stormed out of Amanda’s bedroom, and headed for the nursery. There, to her mounting fury, she found the entire nursery staff clustered about the Swynford heir’s lace-draped bassinet.

“Jester!” she snapped sharply, and her young son’s nurse turned. “You are paid to care for my child, not ogle my sister’s baby.” She picked Tom up, and her rage grew. “He is wet!” she accused, and thrust her now howling son at his nurse. “If this ever happens again I shall turn you out without a reference!”

“Oh, please, m’lady! I didn’t neglect Master Thomas! I only just took a moment to look at the new baby.” She began changing the baby.

“You have had your warning, Jester,” said Miranda ominously. “If this happens again, you will be gone before the sun sets that same day. Remember, though my son must share a nursery with his cousin, it is Dunham money that pays you, not Swynford. My son is heir to a greater fortune and a far greater estate than is my nephew. Were it not for this silly war we should be home on Wyndsong now!”

“Yes, m’lady, it won’t happen again,” promised Jester, and she lifted little Tom up. “Do you want to hold him now, m’lady?”

Miranda took the baby from his nursemaid, and cradled him a moment. Tom’s eyes were beginning to turn green. Looking carefully at his poker-straight black hair and the change in his eyes, she muttered, “You do look like your father, damn him!”
The baby gave his mother a lopsided grin, and Miranda’s heart contracted painfully. He reminded her so much of Jared. “Oh, my baby,” she whispered softly so only he could hear. She kissed his silky little head. “I will bring your daddy home, I promise you!” Giving the child back to Jester, she shook a finger and warned, “Remember, my girl.”

“Yes, m’lady.” And clutching her charge, the nursemaid curtseyed.

“Wot’s gotten into her?” demanded one of the two wet nurses once Miranda was gone.

“Don’t know,” murmured Jester. “I ain’t never knowed her to be mean before. She ain’t like the other swells. She’s always been more considerate.”

“Well, she had some bee in her bonnet today, that’s for sure,” came the reply.

Miranda stomped downstairs and out of the house. The day was warm and pleasant, and she soon found herself walking beyond the boundaries of the formal garden, past the Grecian temple summer house by the estate lake, and up the green hills. Her anger grew with every step she took. In a nearby tree a lark burst forth in joyous song, and Miranda had the urge to throw a stone at it. Everybody was so blasted happy! Everyone except her!

Jonathan had gone whistling off to London this morning to see Lord Palmerston. Jon was definitely happy. And then there was Adrian, her sweet-natured idiot brother-in-law. He seemed to believe he was the first man in the history of the world to have fathered a son. How many times had he come up to her this morning, wrung her poor hands until they were pulp, and said, “A son, Miranda! Amanda has given me a son!” The last time he did it she had wrenched her bruised fingers from his grasp, and snapped, “A son, Adrian? I thought it was a basket of puppies!” The hurt look on his face had made her instantly contrite, of course, and she had excused herself. “I am tired, Adrian.”

It was an easy lie, and one readily accepted by the susceptible Lord Swynford, who believed all women were delicate. The truth of the matter was that she was disgracefully healthy, having recovered from her childbirth in a fortnight. Her irritability stemmed from all the happiness about her. She ached for her husband, gone almost ten months now. There had been no word,
for how could she explain letters from a husband who was supposedly with her? He didn’t even know he’d had a son! She longed for him, for his voice, his touch, the passion he could rouse in her. She sighed. It had been so long!

“Lady!”

Miranda started and looked down at a small boy with a head full of dark curls, and curiously adult sharp black eyes. “Hey, lady, you want your fortune told?”

Within the nearby woods there was a gypsy encampment. There were many bright-colored wagons, and a number of fine-looking horses were tethered in the meadow. “Are you a seer?” she asked the boy, amused.

“Wot’s a seer?”

“Someone who tells the future,” she answered him.

“Ain’t never heard it called that before, lady, but it ain’t me who tells the future, it’s me grandmother. She’s the queen of our tribe, and famous for her predictions. It’s only a penny, lady!” He tugged at her hand.

“A penny!?” She pretended to consider the offer carefully.

“Aw, come on, lady, you can spare it,” he wheedled.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Yer dress! The fabric’s the best quality muslin, the ribbons is real silk, and yer shoes the finest kid!”

Miranda burst out laughing. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Charlie,” he grinned at her.

“Well, Charlie, my gypsy lad, you’re right! I can afford to have my fortune told, and I’d like it if your grandmother would tell mine.”

If Miranda expected a sinister, toothless crone she was doomed to disappointment. Charlie’s grandmother was a tiny, apple-cheeked woman wearing a full, bright-green skirt with several petticoats beneath, and a yellow blouse embroidered in multicolored threads. On her feet were red leather boots. There was a circle of daisies on her dark, graying curls, and a clay pipe was clenched in her teeth.

“Where you been, you scamp?” she scolded, “and who’s this you’ve brought into camp?”

“Lady to ’ave her fortune told, Grandma.”

“You can pay?”

Miranda drew a silver penny from her pocket and handed it to
the old woman. The gypsy took the coin, bit it, and said, “Come into my wagon, m’lady.” She clambered up the steps of her wagon and Miranda followed her into the cheerfully vulgar interior where plum silks rioted with scarlet, and violet, and mustard, and peacock blue ones. “Sit down, sit down, m’lady.” The gypsy reached for Miranda’s hand. “Let’s ’ave a look now, dearie!”

She looked deeply at her customer for a moment. Miranda expected the usual nonsense about a mysterious stranger and good fortune. Instead, the old woman studied the slim white hand in her own gnarled brown one, and said, “Your home is not here in England, m’lady.” It was a statement. Miranda said nothing. “I see water, much water, and in its midst a shining green land. That is where you belong, m’lady. Why have you left it? It will be a long while before you see that land again.”

“You mean that the war will go on?” asked Miranda.

“It is you who determine your fate, m’lady. And for some reason you are bent upon your own destruction.”

Miranda felt a chill creeping over her, yet she was fascinated. “My husband?” she said.

“You will be reunited, m’lady, never fear. You must be careful, however, for I see danger, great danger! I see in your hand a young golden god, a dark angel, and a dark devil. All three will bring you pain, of a sort, and you might escape them if you only will. It is up to you. I fear you have a stubborn nature that will not be bridled. Your survival will, in the end, be in your own hands. That is all I can see, m’lady.” She dropped Miranda’s hand.

“One more thing,” begged Miranda. “My child?”

“He will be fine, m’lady. You need have no fears for your son.”

“I did not say I had a son.”

The old gypsy smiled. “Nevertheless,” she repeated, “
he
will be fine.”

Miranda left the gypsy encampment and walked slowly back toward the hall. If anything, she was even more restless now. In her mind there was but one thought: she had to get to Jared. If she could be with her husband then everything would be all right. She must have her beloved Jared, and nothing was going to stand in her way!

Jonathan arrived back at Swynford Hall several days later, looking as pleased as punch, and Miranda knew immediately
that he had been successful in obtaining the special license. She asked him, “When will you wed?”

“We already have,” he answered, surprising her greatly. “I had Anne meet me at a small village outside of Oxford two days ago. We were married at the church there, St. Edward’s.”

“Oh, dearest Jon. I wish you happy, you and Anne both! I truly do! Why, however, did you not wait so I might bridesmaid my new sister?”

“I was afraid of you being recognized, Miranda. When I was in London I bought a pigtail wig to wear so I might look like myself again. Believe me, I enjoyed being Jonathan Dunham again! No one seeing me with Anne would connect the pleasant American gentleman who wed the little English widow with that arrogant Anglo-American milord who is my brother. We were wed quickly and quietly, and Anne returned to Swynford Village the next day.”

“You were right, Jon, it was best done that way.” Then she chuckled mischievously. “How is our dear friend Lord Palmerston? I must send him a note commending his cooperation.”

Jon laughed outright. “Henry’s admiration of you is balanced by fury at your cheekiness. He is not used to being blackmailed by, as he so delicately put it, ‘an upstart Yankee wench.’ Nevertheless he was most cooperative, and sympathetic of my position.”

“Did he speak of Jared?” she asked anxiously.

Jonathan shook his head. “He would say nothing.”

“Oh, Jon! What have they done with my husband? Why will Palmerston not even offer me a word of comfort? Since the day Jared rode off from Swynford Hall I have heard nothing! Not a word from his mightiness, the Secretary of War! Not a scrap of a note! Nothing! How much longer am I expected to carry on this way? Palmerston is inhuman!”

Jonathan put an arm around her. “Palmerston does not think in terms of you and Jared, of Anne and me. He thinks of England and all of Europe, of the destruction of Napoleon, who is his mortal enemy. What are the lives of four people in light of all that? Lord Palmerston frightens the Regent. He frightens all of his contemporaries. He is a maverick—a brilliant one, but a maverick nonetheless.”

Adrain went off to Scotland at week’s end. Jonathan bid Miranda
a proper farewell, and slipped off to join his new bride. In a few days he would join Adrian in Scotland.

Miranda waited several days after the gentlemen had left before speaking to her twin about her own departure. Everything was arranged. The coach, driven by Martin, the undercoachman, had been brought up from London, and the day after its arrival Perky and Martin were married in the Swynford Village church.

“You are much too indulgent of your servants,” scolded Amanda. “It is so American!”

“But I am American,” retorted Miranda.

“American-born, living in England, and using your legitimate and rightful English title. When in Rome do as the Romans, my dearest. You would not wish to be censured for conduct unbecoming to a lady of the ton, Miranda.”

“How quickly you have changed, little twin. You forget that you too are American.”

“Yes, Miranda, I was American-born, and Wyndsong was a lovely place to grow up, but the truth is that I only spent eighteen years of my life there. I am married to an Englishman, and if I live to be as old as Mama I shall have spent most of my life here in England. I know nothing of the politics of governments; nor do I wish to know these things, for I should not understand them if I did. What I do know is that I am an Englishman’s wife, and that I prefer living here in England for it’s a gentle and civilized land. I am not brave and bold like you, dearest.”

They were sitting in Amanda’s sunny morning room, which was decorated in yellow and white, and furnished with lovely Queen Anne pieces done in Santo Domingo mahogany. Upon the fireplace mantel and on several tables were arrangements of apricot-colored roses and cream-colored stock in blue and white porcelain bowls. Miranda had been pacing the room. Now she sat down next to her sister on the yellow and white silk sofa.

“I do not know if I am brave, Mandy, but I will admit to a certain boldness. I am going to be bold once more. However, I will need your help, little twin.”

“What do you mean, Miranda?” A wariness born of past experience crept into Amanda’s cornflower-blue eyes. “Oh, dear, I thought you were over playing tricks.”

“I am not going to play any tricks, sister, but I am going away, and I want you to understand why.”

“Miranda!”

“Hush, Mandy, and hear me out. Do you remember the reason Jared and I came to Swynford last summer?”

“Yes, Jared had a mission and it could not be known he was out of England so you came here where no one would bother to visit.”

“Jared never returned from Russia, Amanda. The man who has been here all these months masquerading as my husband is his older brother, Jonathan.”

“No! No!” cried Amanda. “That cannot be!”

“Have I ever lied to you, little sister? Why would I lie about such a thing?”

“Wh-where
is
Jared?” quavered Amanda, stunned.

“To the best of my knowledge he is still in St. Petersburg.”

“Don’t you
know
?”

“Not really,” came the reply. “You see, Mandy, Jared has not been allowed—for security reasons, of course—to write to me. I have not been allowed to communicate with him because, in the eyes of the world, he is here by my side, waiting out this silly war between England and America. Lord Palmerston refuses to give me any information. Do you know what he said to me the last time I saw him? ‘When I know, madam, you will know’! He is an unfeeling beast!”

“Miranda!” Amanda’s soft blue eyes were round with distress. “Oh, Miranda! You have been sleeping with a man not your husband!”

Miranda’s hands clenched into little fists, and her nails dug into her palms. Taking a deep breath to still her irritation, she said, “Mandy, dearest, there have been no improprieties between Jon and me. It is true we share the same bed, but there was always a rolled quilt between us, a makeshift bundling board if you will.”