CHAPTER 19
To Miranda’s surprise, she found her stepmother waiting for her when she walked into the library the next morning. She paused on the threshold, hastily rearranging her plans.
“Miranda!” Elizabeth popped to her feet. Her face was white and set, determined. “I—I wanted to talk to you.”
“Good,” Miranda replied. “I wanted the same thing.”
Looking at her stepmother, it was difficult to believe any of the thoughts that she had entertained last night. Still, there was no getting around the fact that Elizabeth had been talking to the man who had attacked her and Devin.
“I know you will not want to hear this, but I have to say it,” Elizabeth began resolutely.
“All right.” Miranda walked over to the library table and sat down, her eyes fixed on Elizabeth’s face.
Elizabeth swallowed. “I—I hope that yesterday made you think again about what I said to you the other day. About your safety.”
“Yes. It made me think a great deal about my safety.”
“Someone lured you into the cellar, where you could have broken your neck. Or lain broken and bleeding for days—for who knows how long!” Elizabeth’s voice caught, and she paused for a moment, struggling visibly to gain control of her emotions.
“Yes, I know.” Miranda forced back the instinctive pity she felt for Elizabeth and faced her coolly.
“Do you believe me now? Do you see how Ravenscar is—”
“Yesterday did not make me suspicious of Devin,” Miranda said pointedly. “After all, it was he who led the search party for me.”
“No doubt he assumed you were already dead from the fall, or near death, and he would cast suspicion off himself by seeming to be looking for you frantically, worried about where you were.” Elizabeth paused, then added, “And that wasn’t the only attempt recently. The other day, when I drank your cup of chocolate, do you remember? I was terribly ill and sleepy afterward. I was so sleepy that I could barely keep my eyes open. I almost fell asleep walking up the stairs to my room. It was not natural. I didn’t know what to think. But yesterday I began to put two and two together. I realized that that had been another attempt on your life. Someone had put something in your chocolate, but their plan was foiled because you gave that cup to me.”
A chill ran through Miranda as she considered her stepmother’s words. She remembered how they had tried to awaken Elizabeth but had been unable to, and how she had worried that Elizabeth was ill. However, she also felt a stirring of hope. If her stepmother had been drugged, then she could not be the person responsible for trying to kill Miranda. Or perhaps Elizabeth had really been ill, and she had seized on it as a means of throwing suspicion off herself.
“But you just slept,” she pointed out. “I mean, you felt bad, I realize, but it obviously did not kill you. It was a soporific…if anything.”
“Perhaps he intended to do something with you when you were in a drugged state. Also, you know I have a weak stomach. If you remember, I regurgitated most of what I had drunk, to be indelicate about it. So perhaps there was not enough left in my stomach to kill me. You, on the other hand, might have been able to keep down the whole dose. It might have been enough to kill you.”
“Elizabeth, Devin did not try to kill me. I know it.”
“Why?” Elizabeth cried in an impassioned voice. “Because he told you so? Don’t be deceived by him. He is a liar. A deceiver!”
Miranda stared in astonishment as Elizabeth began to pace the room in an agitated way. Her hands were clasped tightly together at her waist, her face twisted, and she seemed to be struggling with some sort of inner demon as she walked.
“Elizabeth, stop this.” Miranda said harshly, going to her and taking her by the arm, turning her step-mother to face her. “You have been against Devin from the very beginning. You tell me that he is bad, a deceiver. But I think that it is you who has something to answer for.”
“What?” Elizabeth backed up as far as she could, looking at Miranda uncertainly. “What are you saying?”
“I saw you, Elizabeth,” Miranda said flatly. “I saw you with that man in the orchard the other day. At first I could not place him. I only knew that he looked familiar. But last night I remembered where I had seen him before. He was the man who attacked Devin and me in London.” She gave Elizabeth’s arm a shake. “What were you doing conversing with the man who attacked us?”
“No!” Elizabeth cried out in horror. “Not you! He wasn’t supposed to attack you!”
She realized as soon as she said it how she had given herself away, and she stopped abruptly, the blood draining from her face.
Miranda dropped her arm, staring at her stepmother as if she had never seen her before. “Then you did hire him? You sent him?”
“I didn’t mean for him to frighten you,” Elizabeth said agitatedly. “Certainly not to attack you. I would never harm you—you must believe that. It was only Devin.”
“Only Devin?” Miranda repeated. “Elizabeth! Why?”
“I was trying to keep him from marrying you! The first time he was just supposed to keep Ravenscar from appearing that night. I knew how charming he was. I was afraid if you met him you would agree to marry him. So I found Hastings. He said he could keep Ravenscar from showing up at his mother’s house for supper. Then, the second time, I knew I had to do something more. Hastings was supposed to frighten Devin, tell him that he had to stay away from you or he would die. I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I just wanted to keep him from marrying you!” Elizabeth cried.
“Oh, God!” She clapped her hands to her temples, tears spilling from her eyes. “I have been so stupid. I’ve made such a horrible mess of it. I was wrong, so wrong. I should have told you earlier, but I was too scared! I couldn’t bear for you and Joseph to know the truth. And now it’s almost gotten you killed. And now you think that I—that I am the one who has been trying to kill you.”
“So you are saying that you hired this man to…frighten Dev away, but he is not the one who lured me into the cellars yesterday?”
“No! No, of course not!” Elizabeth raised her head, her hands dropping away, and she stared intently into her stepdaughter’s face. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wild, and for just an instant Miranda felt a flicker of fear. “I told you, I would never hurt you. You are as dear to me as Veronica. I was only trying to protect you from Ravenscar. The reason Hastings is here at Darkwater is because I hired him to protect you after those two ‘accidents.’ He has been watching you—obviously not well enough, given what happened yesterday.”
“But why?” Miranda asked gently, reaching out a calming hand to her stepmother. “I don’t understand.”
“No. You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. You have no idea what I’m really like. What I’ve done.” Her stepmother drew a long, shuddering breath and stiffened her back.
Looking straight into Miranda’s eyes, she said, “Everything I have told you is a lie. My entire life is a lie. I am not really Roddy Blakington’s widow. Indeed, Roddy Blakington never existed. I was not married before I met your father. Veronica is—she is illegitimate. And her father is Devin Aincourt.”
* * *
Miranda felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. Her mind whirled, and she could think of nothing coherent to say. After a long moment, she managed to say faintly, “What?”
Elizabeth sagged and sat down abruptly in a chair. “I never wanted anyone to know,” she said softly. “I am so ashamed. I was not loose…I swear I was not. But one day I met Dev, and…I wasn’t the same person after that. I had lived a sheltered life. I had never met anyone so urbane and charming, so witty and—and handsome. I lost all good sense. I felt madly in love with him, and then I was so foolish and wanton as to sleep with him. I thought…I thought he loved me as I loved him. I did not realize that I was just a plaything to him, a brief fling while he was summering in Brighton. When he learned that I was pregnant, he tossed me aside like a used shoe. He refused to marry me.”
Miranda pressed a hand to her temple. “I—I cannot believe…”
“Are you saying that I am lying?” Elizabeth asked fiercely. “Do you think that I would reveal something like that about myself just for fun? The man is wicked!”
“No, of course I don’t think you are lying,” Miranda protested. “It is just—there must be some other explanation. “This is all—”
“Constance!” Dev’s stunned voice came from the doorway to the library, and the two women swung around to face him.
“Dev!” Miranda had not heard him come in. She wondered how long he had been standing there. It was obvious that he had heard at least the last part of their conversation, for he looked stunned.
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied, lifting her chin a little and looking him in the face. “I am Constance. I had been afraid that you would recognize me. I tried to stay out of sight.”
Miranda remembered how often her stepmother had pleaded sick instead of coming down to dinner, and how when Dev was around she usually seemed to fade into the woodwork. She rarely even looked straight at him. It had never occurred to Miranda that her stepmother had been acting the way she had because she knew Dev and was afraid he would recognize her.
Elizabeth went on in a bitter voice. “But clearly I need not have troubled myself. I was not important enough for you to remember.”
“But—how can—you are dead!” he finally blurted out.
Elizabeth’s brows lifted. “Perhaps that is what you hoped.”
“No! Good God.” He turned to Miranda. “This is the woman I told you about—the girl whom I got pregnant, who killed herself and left me a suicide note.”
“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 than 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 the 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.”
“Dev!”
But he had already turned and was striding from the room.