Glimmer of Hope (25 page)

Carter nodded. “But I’m managing.”

Mr. Benton watched him a moment, his brows pulled down in thought. “You don’t mean to take a trip to Town, then?”

“Only when Miranda is ready. I promised she could come with me, and I won’t break another promise to her.”

Mr. Benton watched Carter closely. “This is the you I remember. The quietly kind gentleman to whom I gave care of my granddaughter. The steadfast young man I knew would never break her heart.”

Carter wished he’d lived up to that trust.

“I almost went after you, you know,” Mr. Benton said. “More than once I nearly convinced myself to pack a bag and track you down. But Miranda would start feeling ill again, and I didn’t want to leave her. By the time she would recover enough for me to leave, I was too angry or had convinced myself she was better off without you in her life.”

Carter shook his head. “And I nearly went looking for her.” He sighed. “There have been too many nearlys in our relationship. Too many if-onlys and what-ifs.” What a fool he’d been. An utter, utter fool. “I cannot for the life of me understand why she’s giving me another chance.”

“Because she loves you.” Mr. Benton spoke with the firmness that came of conviction. “She was angry with you, disappointed. But I don’t think she ever stopped loving you.”

Carter adjusted Miranda’s blanket so her shoulders were covered. She seemed sensitive to the cold. He didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. “I don’t deserve her.”

“None of us do.” Mr. Benton gave him an empathetic look. “But we keep trying.”

Carter took a deep breath in through his nose and pushed it slowly out through his mouth. “I’m struggling to come to terms with all of this.” He watched the woman he loved more than life itself lying still and pale in her bed. “She really is dying. I know it’s true, but I don’t want to believe it.”

Mr. Benton lowered himself into the chair pulled up beside the bed. Carter sat on the mattress near where Miranda’s arm lay tucked beneath the blanket.

“I think Miranda made her peace with this more quickly than any of the rest of us.” Mr. Benton nodded as if remembering something. “Perhaps she simply grieved both the time she would not have and the child she had lost at the same time.”

The child.
“Does she ever speak of the baby?” Carter had never heard Miranda mention their child, their son.

“Not often,” Mr. Benton said. “But she visits the grave site regularly and marks his birthdays in quiet and tender ways. When she does speak of the little child, it is with longing and hopefulness and not the desperate mourning I feared would consume her.”

“Is little Alexander buried in the churchyard here?” Carter hated that he didn’t even know. He had a son and couldn’t say with any degree of certainty where that son had been laid to rest.

“He is,” Mr. Benton confirmed.

Carter opened his mouth to ask a favor but found the words buried beneath a sudden lump in his throat. The question, however, would not be so easily squelched. “Would it bring her pain, do you think, if I asked her to take me there?” He managed the question, but in little more than a choked whisper. “I would like to visit my son’s grave, and I would like her to be with me when I do, but not if it will bring her suffering.”

Mr. Benton’s expression turned fondly paternal. “Though the journey will most certainly be emotional for Miranda, I believe it will be a healing one. I think she will feel less alone than she has in some time.”

Alone.
That was a feeling Carter knew all too well. But Miranda and he were together again. Neither of them would be lonely anymore.

“And what do you hear from London?” Mr. Benton asked.

“Mostly further evidence of years’ worth of lies and deception.” Carter could do little but shake his head at the enormity of it. “I’m struggling to reconcile what I’m learning with the relationship I thought I had with my parents.”

There was no censure, no blame in Mr. Benton’s expression, only unwavering empathy.

“The duplicity, it appears, includes the Devereaux man-of-business,” Carter said.

“A blow, indeed.” Mr. Benton nodded. “That is enough to make a man question who he can even trust.”

Carter felt himself relax by degrees. For the first time since he had begun uncovering the lies, he felt as though someone understood some of what he was feeling. “There may very well be quite a long list of people involved in this. I find myself wondering if I will ever uncover it all.”

Mr. Benton wore a look of deep pondering. “If I were in your shoes, I would begin at the top. The chances are very good any of your employees involved are being paid for their duplicity. If those paying them are taken out of the chain, the links should begin to fall apart.”

“Wise.” Carter suspected his mother was paying the man-of-business. It stood to reason the man-of-business was paying anyone beneath him. “I have asked the Duke of Hartley to discover what he can in Town.”

Mr. Benton nodded his approval of the plan. Carter had always respected the older gentleman and appreciated the vote of confidence.

Miranda made the tiniest whimper in her throat. Carter quickly stood, leaning a bit over the bed to look more closely at her. Was she in some kind of pain? She appeared to be sleeping peacefully. He glanced across at Mr. Benton, who remained seated and even looked a little amused.

“She has made noises like that in her sleep ever since she was a little girl,” Mr. Benton explained.

Carter lowered himself back down onto his chair. “What was she like as a child?”

“Very much like she is now. Quiet. Loving.” Mr. Benton watched his granddaughter fondly. “She has been the joy of my life these past years.”

Carter found himself curious about Mr. Benton. Though he had always liked him, he didn’t know much about him. “And what were you like as a child?”

Mr. Benton laughed immediately, a chuckle that came from deep inside. “I was a mischievous, troublesome child. My mother, rest her soul, despaired of me ever outgrowing that.”

Carter let his posture relax, enjoying the turn to lighter topics. “For some reason, I find myself very easily convinced of your mischievous past.”

They laughed together.

“The vicar’s son and I were the terrors of our neighborhood.” Though Mr. Benton smiled at the retelling, he spoke with a tone of sincerity.

“The
vicar’s
son?” That set Carter laughing again.

Miranda stirred at the noise. Carter laid his hand over hers, where it lay under the blankets.

He lowered his voice once more, not wishing to wake her but wanting to continue the enjoyable conversation. “Did you go about snatching apples off trees or pies off of window sills?”

“Both, and more than once.” Mr. Benton leaned his head back against the chair, his expression distant and happy. “Robert Eager was his name. He joined the army as a young man. Fought in the war with the Former Colonies and lived to return home to his family. By then I was married with a family of my own.”

“And your apple-stealing days were behind you.”

Mr. Benton nodded. “He lived out his years in Devon. Had grandchildren of his own. And great-grandchildren, who he, no doubt, would have spoiled rotten.”

“And taught them to steal apples,” Carter added.

Mr. Benton grinned. “No doubt about it.”

Carter felt an immense gratitude in that moment for Mr. Benton’s presence, both in the room and in his life. Mr. Benton would help both Miranda and himself piece their lives back together and give them the support and love they needed.

“Thank you,” Carter said rather abruptly.

Mr. Benton was understandably confused.

“For talking with me,” Carter explained. “For being a friend and . . . and . . .” He couldn’t quite put it into words.

Mr. Benton didn’t seem to need any. “You are quite welcome, Carter. Quite welcome.”

“I have never liked bath
chairs.” Miranda tried to make the remark off-hand and light. She detested being pushed about in a wheeled chair like an invalid. She
was
an invalid, but she simply disliked the constant reminder.

Carter was with her. He hadn’t left her behind. He hadn’t broken his word. He hadn’t complained about pushing her bath chair down the path toward the churchyard, but she did wonder if he resented it even a little. She wanted to be more to him than a burden.

MacPherson had recommended she get some fresh air, though he warned her not to rely on her own strength yet.

Carter turned her chair in at the gate to the churchyard. They had come to visit Alexander’s grave, the first time they’d ever done so together. Miranda was nervous. She’d come to visit her little angel again and again over the years, but Carter had never been with her. What if he felt no special connection to the son they’d lost? She’d imagined him making this journey with her so many times and sharing in her loss and heartache, of them buoying each other up. What if the trip was nothing more to him than an item on a list?

The bath chair came to a halt. Carter stepped around, smiling down at her. “The path is a little too gravelly from this point on,” he said. “If you’ll just point me in the right direction, I’ll carry you the rest of the way.”

She couldn’t tell by the look on his face just how he was feeling about the excursion.

Oh, please let this day mean something to him.

“What is it, darling?” Carter’s eyes searched her face just as she was studying his. “Are you tired already? Do you need to go back?”

She shook her head.

Carter brushed his thumb along her cheek. “I don’t want to cause you pain, Miranda. If this is too difficult—”

“He is just on the other side of the sycamore tree.”

Carter smiled gently. “Shall we, then?”

Miranda took a fortifying breath.

I want him to love our son. I
need
him to.

He lifted her from the chair and carried her toward the tree. Her insides tied in anxious knots. So much pain still sat deep in her heart when she thought of little Alexander. She’d told herself many times over the years that if only Carter would come, he would love her through it all. He would understand the grief she’d never been able to fully articulate to anyone. She’d clung to the belief that Carter, the Carter she’d fallen in love with, would grasp her heartache without words. She would simply fall apart if her faith in him proved misplaced.

“Grandfather had that bench put in.” She motioned toward the elegant stone bench beneath the tree’s protective branches. She could talk about the bench without growing emotional. “He worried I would wear myself to a thread standing during my visits.”

“The grave marker must be very nearby, then.” Carter sounded a little nervous.

She swallowed hard. “It’s the rounded headstone just there, with the angel carved at the top.”

Carter set her on the bench and carefully tucked her woolen blanket about her legs. With a look, he asked if she needed anything else. She answered by taking his hand and holding fast to it. All she needed was him there with her, sharing the difficult moment.

He sat beside her, looking in the same direction she was looking. “That marker, there?” He motioned to the headstone directly in front of them.

“Yes.”

Carter set his other hand on top of hers, clasping her hand between both of his. For a long, drawn-out moment, they sat in silence. A cold breeze blew, rustling the branches above their heads. The day was overcast but not dismal. Miranda bent her fingers around his.

“What did he look like?” Carter asked after a time.

A thickness instantly filled her throat. Still, she managed a response. “I don’t know.”

His gaze returned to her, confusion in his eyes.

“I was not conscious when he came into the world.” Pain nearly muted her. “By the time I awoke, he was buried and gone.” She closed her eyes against the tears forming. “I never even saw him.”

She felt Carter lean his cheek against her head. The very beginnings of his afternoon stubble tickled at her temple. He slipped an arm around her.

“I am so sorry, Miranda.”

“Grandfather said he was perfect in every way except size. Little Alexander was tiny, he said. So very, very tiny.” Her heart ached for that child. She’d thought and worried and cared about him all the months she’d carried him, and cruel fate hadn’t even granted her a single glimpse of her son. She never saw him. She never held him.

“Alexander George.” Carter whispered the name. “Did you choose his name?”

“Yes. Alexander for you.” Alexander was Carter’s middle name. “And George in honor of my grandfather.” She nestled into his embrace. “I hoped he would grow to appreciate the men he was named for. That was before I realized he wouldn’t—that he would never—”

The words stopped there. She slipped her hand from his and wrapped her arms around his waist, clinging to him.

A trickle of moisture ran down her cheek. But she knew the tear hadn’t fallen from her own eyes. She reached one hand up, pressing it lightly to the side of Carter’s face and finding it wet. She turned her head enough to place a kiss on his jaw.

“I should have been here with you, Miranda. I might have helped. I might have made a difference, might have changed the outcome.”

Miranda knew the endless supply of regrets life could provide. She’d spent weeks and months lost in that abyss. She didn’t want to see Carter pass through that kind of pain. “MacPherson said the damage to my heart was done years ago. There is every possibility the outcome would have been the same no matter what we might have done differently.”

“But if I had come, you wouldn’t have been alone,” he insisted.

“I am not alone now.”

She pulled a bit away and caught his gaze. The pain in his eyes, the tears yet hovering on his lashes, tugged at her heart. He did care. He felt at least some of what she felt.

“I have learned something over the past years, my dear,” she said. “Time is a precious thing. Please, let’s not waste what we have left regretting what we’ve lost.”

Carter pressed a light kiss to her lips then another to her cheek. He pulled her back into his arms. “You are a better woman than I deserve. You always were.”