Page 30 of My Wicked Earl
Time had not healed the wound of losing Miranda. He doubted it ever would. How foolish he had been to think he could see her again and feel nothing.
“Bloody Hell.”
His hand automatically went to his pocket, feeling the familiar weight of his grandmother’s claddagh ring. His talisman. The ring had been in his pocket for years, so much a part of his wardrobe that he sometimes forgot he carried it. He hadn’t consciously taken the ring from Runshaw Park when he left for London. Nor did he recall slipping it into his pocket as he left to call on the Dowager. Yet, here it was.
The claddagh, if the wearer committed oneself, was worn upside down on the ring finger. The Irish used the clauddagh as a token of betrothal. A promise.
Who gave Grandmother Cecily the clauddagh?
His grandparent’s marriage was for land and dowry, not love, though the pair got on well enough. After Colin’s grandfather died, Cecily took to wearing it around her neck, sometimes worrying it between her fingers while she looked at something only she could see.Love, she’d once told Colin before she passed away,was a rare gift, one worth all the jewels and gold in the world.The clauddagh disappeared after her death and Colin assumed she’d been buried with it, but then the ring appeared at Runshaw Park.
Uncle Gerald likely sent it to Colin’s mother as a remembrance.
The heirloom languished at Runshaw Park for many years, put away in a velvet box Colin’s mother kept in the library. Not valuable in a monetary sense, Colin’s father never bothered to try to sell it.
Sometimes he would take out the ring, wondering who gifted his grandmother with such a token, for it certainly hadn’t been his grandfather. When his father sold the library, the ring was discovered behind a stack of books on horse breeding.
He’d given the ring to the only woman he would ever love.
Six years was not enough time to make the bitterness and anger fade.
The ring arrived with the letter. As he lay in a haze of pain and shock after his mother’s attack with the left side of his face nothing but a mass of blood and bits of flesh, he’d eagerly opened the letter, desperate for Miranda, and the ring fell out. He would have stormed to London even with his face bleeding and in shreds, demanding she see him if it hadn’t been for that ring.
‘I’ve decided to accept the suit of Lord St. Remy.’
He shut his eyes against the words, as if he were reading Miranda’s words for the first time today and not six years ago. Every word, every curlicue and flourish of her handwriting was ingrained in his mind.
The letter stayed in his pocket nestled against the ring for many years, to keep him from leaping atop a horse and riding to London. When he longed for Miranda, usually after the demands of Runshaw Park and his solitude caused him to drink a large quantity of whiskey, Colin would rub his fingers over the battered gold of the ring. He would re-read the words written across the creamy vellum of Miranda’s stationary. Cursing her in the darkness, he would want her, wishing she were not her mother’s daughter after all.
One day the letter simply fell apart in his hands, crumbling into so much dust.
The carriage rolled to a stop outside of a red brick building, lights glowing like beacons against the storm. The horses stamped their feet as the coachman swung down to open the door.
Colin pulled out the ring, rubbing the burnished gold between his fingers. The metal felt as though it were alive, warm from the heat of his body.
“My lord?” His coachman stood with an umbrella, rain dripping off of him as he waited for Colin to exit.
Taking a deep breath, Colin shook his head free of his imaginings. Stepping lightly to avoid a puddle he nodded to his coachman. “I’ll be only a short while.”
Why hadn’t she married St. Remy?
The question haunted him. On his return to London, he expected to find her a duchess, secure of her place in society. A woman who decided to chose title and security over Colin’s poverty and love.
How easy it would have been to continue to hate that woman.
Instead, he found Miranda a spinster, an unheard of state for the sister of a Marquess. Nearly on the shelf. Still lovely, but with a sadness in her eyes that bespoke of regret. He wanted to ask Cam, or even better, Nick, why Miranda hadn’t married, but there hadn’t seemed to be the right time. Had St. Remy broken the betrothal? That would explain the vague whispers he’d heard of Miranda’s unsuitability, most of which he’d ignored until today. Unfair or not, the woman was usually blamed for a broken engagement and suffered the results of such. The thought of her humiliation did not make him as happy as it should have.
Momsby and Sons bustled with activity, even with the weather outside. A clerk approached Colin immediately and took his hat and coat, shaking the rain from the garments.
“Lord Kilmaire to see Mr. Momsby.”
“Yes, my lord. The Elder or the Younger?” Momsby had two sons, one still away at school and the other who worked alongside his father at the establishment that bore their name.
“The Younger, if you please.”
“Of course, my lord. I’ll have tea brought, it’s quite a frightful day, is it not?”
“Frightful indeed.”
