The Fairy Tale Bride

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

“Had you no luck?” The dowager duchess stood in the hallway, as if she were still the house’s mistress and going about the unappetizing chore of questioning the help. Her spine was straight; there was not a wrinkle in her glossy black silk skirts. Her dark gray eyes bored deep, as if to delve the depths of Miranda’s soul.

Despite the older woman’s air of composure and command, Miranda had the odd impression the dowager had been standing there, unmoving, ever since Miranda had left the house.

“What did you say to him? He was not in the least unhappy until he spoke to you.” The harsh words came unbidden. Though she was horror-struck at her own audacity, she was still reeling from Simon’s painful rejection, unable to temper her words with the respect due the dowager’s position.

Most frustrating of all, from her perspective, was the ambiguity of her mother-in-law’s expression. The older woman’s face was serene, as if she had asked after her son’s choice of apparel for the day — as if Miranda’s reply had been coolly civil and not flagrantly rude and angry.

Nothing in the woman’s expression seemed concerned, yet there was an air of expectancy emanating from her as she said, “The question seems more to be — what did he say to you?”

Even though the dowager waited silently for her answer, Miranda could feel the other woman’s eager impatience as if it were a force of its own. And yet her features were so composed that she gave the impression of a pond that had frozen over. Had this woman no heart? To distress her dying son in this manner and then act as if she were blameless?

Reining in her temper, she answered as politely as she could manage, “He will be in shortly.”

“What a pity.” Again, the dowager’s face held no clue to her thoughts.

Miranda, her temper at the boiling point, had no notion of how to respond to such blatant incivility. She finally decided to do her best to match the dowager’s sangfroid. “I feel certain you will excuse my wish to retire now.”

The dowager smiled, a simple lift of her mouth. “I had held some hope that the young woman who persuaded Simon to marry her at this juncture of his life could persuade him to be civil to his mother.”

Miranda stood rooted to the spot. For a moment she thought she had not heard correctly. Stiffly, she responded to the dowager’s attack. “My concern at this point, as I’m sure you understand, is his health.”

Though she had sworn to herself not to lose her temper again, she could not resist adding, “I don’t pretend to understand what is behind his behavior toward you, Your Grace, but I cannot worry about that when he is dying.”

“It is all that I can worry about.” The deprecating smile was so fleeting that Miranda almost believed she had imagined the slight quirk of the dowager’s mouth.

Her temper flared, and she was too exhausted to fight it anymore. “Do you not care about him?”

The anger that she was poised to vent disappeared in an instant, though, at the sadness that shadowed the dowager’s features as she spoke. “I regret that our relationship must be unmended should I never see him again.”

It seemed a cold way to discuss her son’s death, as if he might simply be leaving for an extended trip. “That is between the two of you. For my part, I can only do what Simon will not.”

“Indeed?” The dowager’s brow rose. “And what is that?”

“He will not consider doctors, apparently they have failed him in the past. So I have found someone to minister to him.”