Page 40 of So Wild A Heart

“Warn me? About what? I am sorry, Mr. Caulfield, but I am afraid that I don’t even know you.”

“You do not,” he agreed, advancing toward her. “It is forward of me to show up on your doorstep like this, I know, but I had to warn you. I could not let you marry that devil.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Lord Ravenscar. I heard you were to marry him. Gossip travels, even as far as Brighton, especially when it’s about the Earl of Ravenscar. I could not let you do it. I could not let another innocent young girl be sacrificed.”

“Mr. Caulfield,” Miranda’s voice was chilly, “I appreciate your concern, but I cannot stand here and allow you to slander my future husband. I think it would be best if you left now.”

“Not until I say what I came to say!” he burst out, and his bright blue eyes took on an even wilder look. He tapped his cane hard upon the floor for emphasis. “The man is a murderer!”

Miranda stared at him. Her knees felt suddenly weak, and she sat down in the nearest chair. For a moment she could not seem to find the breath to speak.

“Aha! I see that got your attention, right enough,” the old man said with a touch of glee.

“Excuse me.” Miranda found her voice again, a rising indignation giving her strength. “That is a serious accusation you make about Lord Ravenscar. You are alleging that he killed someone?”

The old man sneered. “Oh, he didn’t dirty his hands with it, no. It’s nothing the authorities would do anything about. But he killed my granddaughter just the same, killed her as if he’d thrown her into the ocean himself.”

“Mr. Caulfield,” Miranda said crisply, rising to her feet, “I will not sit here and allow you to talk about my fiancé in this manner. You say he is a murderer, but he didn’t actually kill anyone. Exactly what is it you’re talking about? What are you accusing him of?”

“He seduced her, that’s what! And she couldn’t bear the shame. She threw herself into the ocean. Because of him!” Caulfield’s eyes glittered with fury, and he shook his fist in the air. “I called the coward out, and he didn’t even answer me.”

Pity stabbed through Miranda. “Mr. Caulfield, I am very sorry for your loss. But it sounds as though your granddaughter killed herself.” She wondered how much of the old man’s story was true and how much of it he had concocted in his mind to assuage his own grief and guilt. She knew that if the old man had indeed sent a challenge to Devin, it was pity, not cowardice, that had made Devin refuse to answer it.

“Because of him! He drove her to it. She was a good girl until she met him. He led her astray.”

Miranda did not know what to say. She had little understanding of someone who, when faced with a crisis, would choose to escape the matter in death, leaving her loved ones to suffer as this man obviously had. Instinctively, she could not believe that Devin had seduced a virtuous young maiden and then had refused to marry her when she got pregnant—for, reading between the lines of Caulfield’s story, that would have had to be the case for anyone to kill herself. Even a foolish young girl would not choose to die simply because she had made an all too human mistake unless her shame was going to be exposed to her grandfather and the world. She knew that, as Rachel had said, deep inside Devin was a loyal and honorable man despite his apparent wildness. He was not the sort of man who would turn away a woman carrying his child, let alone a young girl who had been untouched until she met him. Nor, quite frankly, did Devin seem to be the sort who went about seducing virtuous young women. By all accounts, he had spent his time with sophisticated, knowing women like Leona Vesey, not blushing young maidens.

She had to think that Mr. Caulfield’s granddaughter had not been the virtuous maiden he liked to believe she was. However, she could scarcely tell the man that, any more than she could point out that she doubted the girl would have killed herself if she had believed her grandfather to be a kind and forgiving man.

“And now, young lady,” the old man went on, raising his forefinger and waving it warningly at her, “he’s gone after you. Because you’re an heiress. He wants to get his hands on your money. And what do you think will happen after that’s done? Eh? He won’t have any need for you any longer. You’ll be lucky if he just leaves you and goes back to his fancy ladies in London. Because he just might decide he doesn’t want to have to put up with the bother of a wife at all!”

A fierce anger seized Miranda. “That is quite enough, Mr. Caulfield. I have tried to be considerate of you because you are obviously somewhat unhinged by your grief. But you go too far now. Lord Ravenscar has no deadly designs on me. I am positive of that. And you have no right to come here and try to frighten me with your nonsense.”

“I am trying to help you!” he shouted, slamming his cane down on the floor again, his face turning an alarming shade of crimson.

“No. You are trying to hurt Ravenscar. There is a difference. Now, please, you had better go before you do damage to yourself. You are very overwrought.”

She marched over to the bell cord and pulled it sharply, summoning a servant. Behind her Caulfield began to rant and rave almost unintelligibly, spewing out hatred of Ravenscar and dire warnings of what would happen to her if she married him.

The footman who had shown Caulfield in soon appeared at the door, and his eyes widened with alarm when he saw the raging old man.

“Please see Mr. Caulfield to the door,” Miranda instructed him crisply.

“Of course, miss. I’m terribly sorry, miss, I would never have let him in if I had realized….”

“Of course not. You couldn’t know.”

Relieved, the servant took the old man by the arm and firmly led him from the room. Miranda followed them into the entryway to make sure both that the wild old man was gone and that the footman did not handle him too roughly. She watched as he firmly set the man outside the door and closed it behind him. She turned to go back to the study, although she felt little like continuing with the packing list. The old man had upset her. She was certain that what he had said could not be the truth, but she could not entirely dismiss it, either, given Devin’s reputation, and the turmoil of feelings left her a trifle queasy.

She looked up and caught sight of her stepmother standing at the railing at the top of the stairs, her eyes wide and her face pale. “Who was that?” Elizabeth asked in a horrified tone.

“An old man who was, well, distraught. But he’s gone now. There’s nothing for you to worry about.” Miranda went up the stairs to her.

“But why was he here? What did he say?” Elizabeth questioned, reaching out and taking Miranda’s arm in an almost painful grip. “He looked quite mad.”

Miranda patted her stepmother’s arm soothingly. She could scarcely tell Elizabeth what the old man had said about Devin; she was already too doubtful about Miranda’s marrying him. Mr. Caulfield’s accusations would doubtless send her into a frenzy of worry.