CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"Less than a month to prepare a house party to reintroduce you to polite society? And I suppose it must be perfect? How very like Simon to set such an absurd standard."
The dowager sat at a fragile cherrywood writing desk, a pile of invitations in front of her, her quill waving through the air for emphasis as she spoke.
Miranda wondered, not for the first time, if she would be better served to permanently alienate the dowager, rather than attempt a reconciliation between Simon and his mother. She smiled with strained patience. "We certainly have made a good start on it in these last weeks. I thank you for your help, despite the need to do so much so quickly. It's just that there are considerations ..."
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 fe
lt 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.