Chapter 15

“What do you mean, ‘He’s gone’?” Miranda sat upright in the bath, sloshing water over the side. She had asked Amelia to make sure someone was taking care of Ryland. He had been through a trying ordeal as well.

Amelia perched on a chair next to the bath and tilted her head at Miranda. “I mean he has left the premises. He has departed. There is no longer anyone with that name residing here at Riverton.”

Miranda allowed her maid to help her on with her dressing robe and accepted a length of toweling to blot her hair. “Sardonicism does not become you, Amelia.”

A grin stretched across the brunette’s face. “Dear Anthony has been teaching me many things.”

Miranda frowned. “Dear Anthony should leave you alone. I like you as you are.”

“So does he. That’s why he married me.” Amelia’s grin was positively cheeky.

Miranda laughed, unable to stop herself in the face of her friend’s good humor, but then she returned to the subject at hand. “Surely he has only retired to his room.” Miranda could not believe that he was actually gone.

Amelia shook her head. “No, there’s quite a to-do in the kitchen about it. Griffith followed Marlow straight up to his room after the two of you returned. Lisette was taking fresh water up for him when she heard them fighting. She fled back downstairs. Moments later, Marlow came bursting through the kitchen. He grabbed some cheese, an apple, and a meat pie before leaving out the back door.”

“Maybe he went for a walk?” He should have had plenty of fresh air after their experience, but maybe he was still in shock. She moved to the dressing table to allow Sally to brush out her hair. She could see Amelia in the mirror.

Amelia shook her head. “I saw him riding across the field.”

“He took a horse?”

Another nod. “One of the good ones.”

Miranda turned from the mirror to better see her friend’s face. There had to be some confusion. If Ryland had taken Griffith’s horse, he wouldn’t be the man she thought him to be. “He took Griffith’s stallion?”

Amelia waved a hand in the air. “No, no, he took Trent’s horse. The one he was keeping here for when he visited.”

“That is not much better. He really took a horse from the stable? What will Griffith think?”

“He doesn’t seem very concerned about it.” Delicate brown eyebrows pulled together in thought. “He seems much more concerned with having to find another valet. He mentioned something about sending someone after Mr. Herbert.”

Miranda groaned. The poor man deserved to retire in peace. He had worked diligently for the master of the house for years. She was sure that she’d heard his creaking bones as he went up and down the stairs the last couple years.

“I wonder where he went.” She ran a finger along the embroidery on the edge of her dressing gown. He’d left her. Granted he wasn’t anything to her in any official capacity, but they’d had such a nice talk as they walked across the countryside. Was he running from that? From her?

Amelia cleared her throat and rose to take over hair-brushing duties. “Here, Sally, I can do that. Why don’t you see to having a tray brought up? I doubt Miranda feels up to going downstairs for dinner.”

Miranda sighed. “A tray would be lovely, Sally.”

Silence weighed down the room for several moments after the door clicked quietly behind the exiting servant.

“Why do you care?” Amelia finally asked.

“You’re the one who is always saying I should remember that the servants are people too.”

“And yet you’ve said nothing about the missing butler or undergardener.”

Miranda rose and went to the window. The rain had returned, bringing an early darkness to the countryside. It looked as if tonight’s clouds would bring another ferocious storm. She thanked God that she had merely contended with rain on her adventure and prayed that Ryland was already to his destination, wherever that may be.

“Miranda?”

“I want to get married.”

Amelia’s eyes widened. “To the valet?”

“No. Yes. No. Oh, I have no idea.” Miranda threw herself across the bed, burying her face in the silk counterpane.

She rolled to the side as Amelia’s slight weight caused the bed to dip. When no words were said, Miranda cracked open her eyelids to try to read what Amelia was thinking.

“I had no idea you knew him so well,” Amelia finally said. “No one else seems to know him at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I asked around a bit after hearing he had fled the estate. He distanced himself from everyone, which is not all that uncommon for an upper servant, but it was different. They said he never belonged belowstairs. His arrogance seemed genuine. Your housekeeper’s words. Not mine.”

Amelia had a way of bonding with people from every station in life. If the housekeeper were going to talk to anyone, it would be her.

“He was born higher. His family became destitute and he had to leave school and find work.” Miranda rubbed her hands over her face. This was crazy. The man was gone, and she should not be despairing over that. She should be thankful he left before she could form a serious attachment that would alter her life drastically.

“That would explain a lot of things, then.”

Miranda listened to her heartbeat echo in her ears, waiting for Amelia to say more.

“You would be destitute.”

“My circumstances would be reduced, yes, but I would hardly be destitute. I bring a fair amount of money with me. He said a person could live modestly on the income that would bring.”

Amelia sputtered. “You . . . you actually talked about . . . I mean, you and he . . .”

“No! No. I hate to admit it, but I’m not very aware of money. I’m starting to think I’ll never marry, and I wondered about taking my dowry and my inheritance and setting up house somewhere on my own. Georgina is out this year, and she’s going to be so very popular. And . . . I . . .” Tears sprang to Miranda’s eyes, and she choked on the sob.

“Oh, Miranda.” Amelia’s arms wrapped around Miranda’s shoulders and she rocked her friend back and forth, making gentle cooing noises as Miranda sobbed.

Miranda began speaking between hiccups and shaky breaths. “I don’t want to be—hiccup—a spinster, Amelia. I want—cough—I want a family, and I don’t—” Miranda’s heavy crying cut off the remainder of her sentence. She pulled a handkerchief from the table by the bed and blew her nose.

“There are many men in London who would marry you, Miranda. You don’t have to settle for a servant, no matter his birth.”

“Lord Brigham offered for me last year.”

Amelia’s eyebrows shot up. Lord Brigham was considered a fine catch indeed. He was handsome and rich and was known to take good care of his business and family responsibilities.

Miranda sniffed. “First, he asked if I thought I had any sway over Griffith’s voting decisions. Then he asked me to marry him.”

“Well, that wasn’t very well done of him.” Amelia huffed and crossed her arms.

“No, I am afraid the only men who seem to like talking to me are scandalously below me, or nonexistent, for all intents and purposes.” Once Miranda started talking, everything seemed to spill out. She told Amelia about the letters with the duke and her many encounters with the valet. “So you see my romantic prospects are nigh on hopeless.”

“I think you need to sleep.” Amelia guided Miranda to a more conventional position on the bed. “When Sally returns with the tray, you are going to eat and then go to sleep. While you do that I am going to sit here and read to you so your mind doesn’t go off on some despondent bent. In the morning, you’ll see that things are not quite so hopeless.”

Amelia tucked the blankets around Miranda as the maid returned with a loaded tray. Miranda snuggled into her pillows and began to eat. Amelia went to the desk where Miranda kept the Bible her brother had given her the year before her debut Season. It took a few moments for Amelia to situate herself in the chair beside the bed with the large book open on her lap.

She began to read from chapter twenty-nine in the book of Jeremiah.

“‘For thus saith the Lord, that after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.’”

Miranda set her barely touched tray aside and eased down under the cover, closing her eyes as she listened to Amelia’s sweet voice drift through the room.

“‘Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.’”

Sleep pulled at her, offering blissful peace and quiet. Her thoughts meandered as she relaxed into the pillows. She’d be a lot happier if she knew that God’s plan for her included marriage, because she wanted to seek God. If that involved giving up her dream and expectations . . . did she have enough faith to see it through?

Georgina proved extremely helpful in keeping God at the forefront of Miranda’s mind over the next several weeks. As Christmas approached, her excitement could not be contained. She talked of nothing but her debut in London. It was enough to make the stoutest saint beg God for mercy.

Miranda felt the loss of Ryland more than she could have ever imagined, considering he’d never been part of her everyday life. Knowing he wasn’t there made the house feel different. She still expected him to pop around a corner just as she did something foolish or unladylike.

He didn’t.

The letters stopped as well. She knew it had been a mistake to tell the duke about Ryland, even in passing. She wanted to write him again, find out if he would be in London, but she had never obtained the direction for the duke’s letters. It had been her excuse to see Ryland. She’d clung to it jealously and now she suffered for her indulgence.

Her heart pounded when a letter finally arrived—on her birthday of all days—marked with that now familiar bold, slanted script. She tore into the note, anxious for a miracle. It contained only one line.

I have not forgotten you.

What did that mean? It was nice to know, of course. But did that mean she was a pleasant memory? That he intended to seek her out in London? That he wished she’d write him again? Frustration poured through her.

It didn’t matter what he meant. She couldn’t respond. There was no way to get his direction without explaining to Griffith why she was corresponding with a man she wasn’t related or engaged to. Just the prospect of the conversation made her wince.

With no other outlet, she continued to pour her heart out in letters, although she found herself occasionally writing to Ryland as well.

On Christmas Eve, unable to sleep, pen in hand once more, she sat before the brightly burning Yule log and pleaded with the duke to come to London this year. If they could connect as well in person as they did through letters, he might be her only hope of a happy marriage.

She read over the letter, something she rarely did. Despair and self-disgust dripped from the pages. Was that really how she saw herself? Her life? She tossed the journal entry into the fire, watching the pages curl in the festive holiday flame. Maybe she should drag the entire trunk full of misbegotten letters down to give them the same funeral.

Why was it so important that she marry? Between her three siblings and Amelia, there was certain to be enough children around to dote on. She was more than the men she had lost, the men she had never truly had to begin with. She was a daughter, a sister, a friend.

She watched the flame burn until her eyes began to cross and she drifted off to sleep on the sofa.

Weeks passed and the Christmas cheer faded. To Georgina’s delight, Miranda focused on the people in front of her. As much as Miranda loathed the constant trips to the modiste for fittings and perusing the shops for matching hats, gloves, and slippers, she enjoyed putting a smile on Georgina’s face.

It had the added benefit of providing Miranda with her smartest spring wardrobe ever.

If Miranda found herself quoting certain Bible passages in an attempt to deal with Georgina’s exuberance, well, that was a good thing as well. How else was she to find the patience to listen to one more prediction of what the confirmed bachelors would do once Georgina appeared in the ballroom door?

When Mother returned at the first of March to make final preparations for the family’s journey to London, Miranda was able to find a glimmer of excitement within herself for the coming Season.

Maybe God had a gentleman in London for her.

Maybe He had a servant waiting in Kent.

It was possible He had a different future for her entirely, helping the widows and sick on her brother’s estate. Whatever it was, she finally felt ready for it. The verses Amelia had read all those weeks ago had become etched in Miranda’s brain. She recited them frequently to herself.

The time had finally come to brave London and all of Georgina’s potential admirers. She patted the lid of her last trunk, indicating to the footmen they could take it down to the waiting carriage. The prospect of putting her lack of jealousy to the test was both exciting and nerve-wracking. All she could do was pray and hope.

The twitter and chirp of birds and the scent of the first spring flowers greeted her as she walked to the carriage outside the front door.

Mother and Georgina were already within. Griffith and Lord Blackstone—who still doted on Mother after more than a year of marriage—were on horseback, leaning in to converse with the seated ladies. A footman handed Miranda into the carriage and they were off.

The countryside rolled by, a sea of changing fields and budding trees. Life was beginning anew. There was a grand adventure in front of her.