‘Mr Manwaring is at the door,’ the Duchess said. ‘He’s heard that there is to be a wedding today and he asked if he might see his daughter.’
‘He said daughter?’ Miranda touched the fichu she’d chosen to wear on her wedding day. The cloth was the only part of her old life she had. The piece of silk the old woman had told her to sit on and wait beside the road. And she’d kept it, always, and decided she must have it for her marriage. A memento.
The scarf, faded by time. Carefully mended by her mother. She ran her hand over the tiny stitches.
She felt as if someone had pressed the air from her lungs. She hoped her father did nothing to mar the day. He’d barely tolerated her for years and looked at her as if she didn’t belong in his house. Which she’d not blamed him for, because she’d been dropped on him. It seemed he’d mellowed when he’d visited her at the Duke’s house the first time, but she’d heard nothing more from him.
The Duchess smiled and put an arm around Miranda’s shoulders. ‘It is your decision whether you see him or not, but I hope you do. You have a new family now, but you’ll always wonder what he might have said if you don’t see him. If he says something that you don’t like, smile, be gracious and leave the room, and step forward into your new life and place in our hearts. You’ll likely never have to see him again.’
Miranda saw the support in the Duchess’s eyes. ‘I would like to see what he has to say.’
She headed to the library, unsure of the encounter.
He sat, dressed in black, his head bowed, but when she entered the room, he stood. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Did the old woman tell you...about me?’ he asked.
Miranda shook her head.
‘I met your mother. I was married and chose to forget it. I was young and felt invincible. She told me she was going to have a child and insisted I pay her to keep quiet. I was angry because I realised that had been her plan all along. I gave her the money she wanted. Then, and twice more when she asked. Two years after your birth, I realised she’d not asked for money in a far-too-long stretch and I searched for her. I found out she’d been ill and someone said she’d moved, but no one knew where she’d gone.’
He tucked his fingers of his left hand over his thumb, and his knuckle cracked. He shrugged. ‘Then I was driving home from Sunday Services and my driver saw something moving beside the road. Of course, we could not leave you and, of course, my wife fell instantly in love with you and I knew this child looked exactly like my younger sister had looked. My wife refused to find another home for you. Told me she would take a poker to me in my sleep if I didn’t keep you.’ He folded his arm across his body and clasped his elbow, rubbing it. ‘She’d never raised her voice before, or hinted at violence.’
‘The woman who treated me as her own—was tricked into raising her husband’s bastard child.’ Miranda felt the heat of anger within her. Her mother hadn’t deserved such deceit. The woman who’d treated her with such love and compassion had been lied to.
‘She knew. She’d found the letter asking for money to keep quiet.’
‘What was my real name?’ She had to know he wasn’t saying he was her father just because she was marrying a duke.
‘Drucie. And you’re really a year younger than you know. You were born on October third.’
‘That’s my real birthday?’ She paused. ‘And I’m not twenty-four. I’m twenty-three.’
‘My wife didn’t want it easily connected that her ward might be the child of a woman I’d known. You were big for your age and smart, so she just made you older.’
‘I think I’ll keep the birthday and age Mother gave me.’
‘She would prefer that.’
Her adoptive mother had given her a name, a birthday and a new life. ‘You really believe she knew?’
‘Yes. I sent the money to keep your mother silent, but my wife found the letter.’ He snorted. ‘I didn’t burn it. I didn’t know my wife had found it until later. She just packed up and moved to our country home. She said after her anger subsided, she couldn’t let it rest. She asked her cousin to search out your mother. He befriended your mother before she left London and found out all he could about her life.’
‘And you didn’t know?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Your mother was really a gamekeeper’s daughter, which I didn’t discover until my wife told me. He wanted nothing to do with you even before his daughter died, but a woman who lived with him kept you. She sometimes travelled to fairs and told fortunes. My wife would seek her out from time to time after you were born and give her much too much money for some nonsense. I didn’t know anything about it until after we found you along the road. I discovered that hell hath no fury like a childless woman whose husband fathers a babe and abandons it, and the babe shows up almost on the doorstep. She fell instantly in love with you that day and never felt I deserved you. She was right.’
Miranda remembered her mother running her fingers through her hair and saying it was just like someone’s hair she used to know.
Their eyes locked. ‘My hair. It’s like yours.’ Miranda touched the knot.
He nodded. ‘When your mother first took you in, if I walked into a room, she would call you and start combing your hair. My wife wanted me as far from you both as possible. And over the years, I became accustomed to it. You seemed to do fine on your own. I thought Priscilla would be a mother to you, but I didn’t understand the relationship between the two of you until you were leaving for the governess position and it seemed to make you happier than you’d been since my wife died.’ He looked at his feet. ‘You seemed to do fine.’
He coughed. ‘And, should anything happen to me, I wish to ask a favour.’
She waited.
‘I’m not really married to your stepmother. Old habits die hard, but I am faithful to her. My man of affairs has my will and I’ve left another copy with the Duke. Please take care of your stepmother, if I die before her, if she needs it.’
Miranda could not find it in her heart to brush away everything he’d done as if it had never happened. But his irresponsibility had given her life. She’d been raised by his wife and had been given the home and a mother she would have chosen. Now she was to wed the love of her life.
She might never see him as a father, but she would give him a chance to be in her life. ‘And if I were to have children? What relationship would they have with you?’
‘If you would allow it, they would be the grandchildren I never expected to have and a treasure I do not deserve.’
‘Would you like to stay for the wedding and the breakfast?’ she asked her father.
Nodding, he said, ‘I’d like that.’
They walked into the room where the old woman stood in the corner. She had on one new boot, one old one.
Miranda rushed to her side. ‘The cobbler only made you one boot?’ she asked.
‘No. Two.’ She lifted the hem of her skirt. ‘But this one wasn’t worn out yet, so I’m saving the other.’
She reached into the bag she had slung at her side and pulled out a packet.
Miranda unwrapped the parcel. A small ring. She turned it over.
‘Your gift,’ the fortune-teller said. ‘From the button. I’m fortunate to know someone who can melt gold.’ She grinned widely. ‘I have friends with many talents.’
Miranda slipped it on to her smallest finger where it fitted perfectly.
She held out her hand and the woman chuckled. ‘I can’t see it that well.’
‘What about the spectacles Chal purchased for you?’ Miranda asked.
The woman groaned. ‘I see too much in them. All the way into the future. Everyone is older. Have more lines to read. Too much knowledge for my old brain. Except I see a happy future for Child.’ She patted Miranda’s hand. ‘Even though I had to catch a husband for you.’
‘Yes, I—’
‘You did not have to catch me for her,’ Chalgrove interrupted as he stepped into the room. ‘We only needed to be introduced.’
After the festivities ended and the world calmed around them, Chalgrove took Miranda into his bedroom. She gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Roses. Real ones. Everywhere. They scented the room.
She couldn’t speak.
‘And I’ve a hat collection. I thought the flowers might soften the blow.’ Chalgrove went to his dressing room and pulled open the door, motioning her inside.
Hats. Hats, and more hats. This was not so much a collection, but a swarm.
She turned to him. ‘You like hats.’
He nodded. ‘My father’s. My grandfathers’. Even some from my uncles. It started when I kept my grandfathers’ hats as mementoes, then it just grew over time. I don’t really like hats, particularly, but they seem to find me.’
She stared, open-mouthed.
‘What do you think of my collection?’ he asked.
She walked over and picked up the most hideous hat. The one he’d had on when they were taken. The one the old woman had returned.
She put her hand inside and twirled it on her finger, smiling. Then she stood at his dressing table, contemplating his reflection in the mirror. She held the hat high, as if she were going to wear it.
‘I’m having a bonnet made in just this colour, with perhaps a dress to match, and I shall wear them with you when you go outside with this hat on.’
He grinned, eyes twinkling. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Positively. No one will ever question why you married someone not in society. Instead, they will close their eyes and mutter about how perfect we are for each other.’
He picked her up in his arms, walked into the next room and placed her on to the tester bed. She still gripped the hat.
He took it from her hands, swirled it to the far corner of the room and dropped beside her, kissing her. ‘Just like the old woman, you’ve a plan.’
‘Of course. And I want to stand out under the stars with you, night after night, and I don’t even have to make wishes, but just be grateful for what I have been given.’
‘Then we will be together and thinking the same thoughts.’
He kissed her again. ‘Would you really wear a hideous outfit at my side?’
‘If you wear the hat.’ She moved away from him. ‘But for now, we have a journey to take.’
‘Yes,’ he said, standing. The room was cleared of all his personal wear but the hats. He strode back to the dressing room and picked out one, held it up and she nodded approval.
Then he took the little parcels, a gift for Willie and Dolly, and one for his aunt.
‘I’m ready to meet the children,’ he said, ‘and later embark on a honeymoon trip.’ His things had already been moved to his aunt’s house.
‘My steward has a son who has agreed to help his father manage my affairs while I’m gone and the extra help will make it easier for me to spend more time with you when I return.’
‘The house is smaller than what you’re used to,’ she said.
‘I know. When Dolly and Willie are grown we can return to my estate. But Aunt’s house is plenty big enough for us, Wheaton and, perhaps later, our children. My aunt has told Mother she is moving in here with her. She said she fears her reputation will be diminished if I am seen near her wearing one of my hideous hats.’
‘I can understand that.’
He chuckled. ‘What about your grandmother?’
She shook her head. ‘She claims the stars won’t let her move and she must have them close at hand.’
‘My wife is what I must have close at hand and our children,’ he said and dropped a kiss on her hair. He imagined holding their child for the first time and the joy he’d have in his heart. ‘Today. Tomorrow. And until the stars stop shining.’
If you enjoyed this story, why not check out
these other great reads by Liz Tyner
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To Win a Wallflower
It’s Marriage or Ruin
Compromised into Marriage
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Silk Merchant’s Convenient Wife by Elisabeth Hobbes.