Amanda Scott (27 page)

If her dreams were not entirely innocent, they had mercifully faded from her memory by the time she awoke the next morning to discover Sadie at the window, drawing the curtains. Margaret stretched lazily, savoring the first moments of the day, noting idly that sunlight poured through the window much as it would in summer, laying paths of gold across the highly polished floor.

“Good morning, Sadie.” She yawned delicately behind her hand.

Sadie turned, smiling. “’Tis a good morning, indeed, miss. A true spring day, it be, and there be buds forming on the rose bushes in the garden, Moffatt says.” She crossed the room briskly to a table near the door. “I’ve brung yer chocolate. I’ll just be putting the tray ter the bed, an ye’r ready fer it.”

Margaret sat up, plumping pillows behind her, and allowed the woman to set the tray across her lap. Besides the pot of chocolate there was also a covered dish, and Margaret lifted the lid to reveal several slices of buttered, toasted bread. Inhaling the enticing aroma, she smiled again. “This is lovely, Sadie. I think Mrs. Moffatt makes the best bread for toasting in the entire world.”

“Indeed, and she’s a fine cook,” Sadie agreed. “Will that be all, miss? I promised to ’elp the chambermaid wi’ the others, Lady Annis’s woman not coming down this morning, and that Archer gone like ’e is. Lady Celeste’s Millicent took ’er ladyship’s tray up an hour ago, of course, but you’ll not find her helping no one else.”

Mention of Lady Annis’s woman brought memories of the previous evening back with a vengeance, and the toast Margaret had been eating paused halfway between her mouth and the tray as she gaped at her tirewoman.

“Miss? Be somethin’ wrong, Miss Margaret?”

Margaret collected herself quickly, setting the toast down with a hand that shook slightly. “I apologize, Sadie,” she said at last. “My thoughts wandered for a moment. I expect you’ve heard a good deal about what happened here last night. No,” she added quickly when the woman’s eyes lit up and she opened her mouth, clearly with the intent of repeating to her mistress exactly what she had heard, “I don’t wish to discuss it now. Moreover, I should take an extremely dim view of your repeating elsewhere anything you may have heard.”

Sadie gasped indignantly. “As if I would, miss! A tattle-monger I ain’t, ’n I’ll thank you ter remember ye’ve trusted me afore this.”

“All right.” Margaret held up her hand and said apologetically, “I know I have no cause to believe you would say anything out of turn, Sadie. Just mark it up to the fact that such a bumble bath as this has not turned our lives upside down before. I know I can even trust you to depress any tendency in one of the maids to gossip about our affairs. Do forgive me.” The hand was held out, and Sadie stepped forward to squeeze it.

“Ye’ve known me many a day, miss. Never yet fret about the goings-on hereabouts these past weeks. They be over and done, now ’is lordship ’as taken ’em in hand. He’ll see all right and tight. ’E was fair muddled ’isself, I ’ear, afore we came home, not that I’d believe it if I ’adn’t seen m’self ’ow those Mustons an’ the Others was livin’. But ’e’s isself again, ’n no mistake.” Sadie smiled knowingly, and Margaret winced but didn’t say another word about the matter, merely dismissing Sadie to help with the morning routine, saying she could manage her own dressing well enough without assistance.

Finishing her chocolate at leisure, Margaret put the tray aside long enough to get out of her bed and then set it outside her door for one of the maids to retrieve. Deciding to take a morning ride in order to enjoy at least a portion of the beautiful day before she had to face the details of reality, she donned her green habit, the gray one seeming entirely too drab for such a day, and brushed her hair into shining splendor before confining it in a net at the back of her head. Putting on her green felt hat, she collected whip and gloves and hastened downstairs and out through the back garden to the stables with a cheerful greeting to each servant she met along the way.

She saw Lady Celeste in the breakfast parlor, seated near the window, and waved to her. Though Margaret knew the old lady was no doubt waiting for her so they could discuss what was best to be done in the interval before Abberley arrived, she knew, too, that Lady Celeste would contain her impatience, realizing that Margaret needed to gallop the fidgets out of her head before she would be able to think clearly about anything.

Trimby was waiting with the black mare already saddled, clear evidence that word of ructions in the big house had reached the stables, for Margaret had not sent word ahead that she wished to ride. She said nothing to him about his prescience, however, merely accepting a leg up into the saddle and telling him she meant to ride out across the downs. He swung up into his own saddle, prepared to follow, and she led the way out of the yard. For a full hour she rode, trying Dancer’s assorted paces and her own capabilities in a series of maneuvers she had not attempted since her teens. Not since the days when she had practiced such things daily in order to appear to advantage whenever Michael and Abberley had been at hand to see her had she worked herself so hard on the back of a horse. She did not think about her brother or her brother’s friend now, however, concentrating instead upon her horsemanship. By the end of the hour she was content to ride back to the manor at a walk, talking amiably with Trimby about unimportant matters.

As she had expected, though she took time to go up to her bedchamber to change into a dark-gray frock with silver buttons all down the front and silver braid at the cuffs and at the high waistline just beneath her breasts, Lady Celeste was still in the breakfast parlor. The old lady was reading the London
Times
, which was delivered to the manor twice a week with the morning post. A cup of tea sat by her elbow. At Margaret’s entrance she lowered the paper and reached out to feel the teapot beneath its embroidered cozy.

“Tepid,” she said. “Ring for another pot, dear.”

Margaret obeyed. “I apologize for keeping you waiting, ma’am, but the morning was so magnificent I couldn’t resist a long ride.”

“Pish tush, don’t apologize. ’Tis nothing to me. I’ve been amusing myself with the paper, as you see. There are the most entertaining items. Here, for example”—she raised the paper again—“listen to this. ’Tis a story about two convicts who have been hung at Newgate. First they received a visit from a reverend. It says here that ‘Brandeth’ (that’s one of the convicts, not the reverend) ‘got a long new pipe in his mouth, which he held by his right hand, while he kept his left hand in his pocket. He dashed his chains about as if he felt them not, and seemed quite composed and at his ease while he looked coolly around him and smoked his pipe.’ Oh, I see,” she went on in a different tone, “he was in his cell, for it says he looked out the window, ‘through a small grated window,’ it says here. One would almost think the writer to have been sitting beside him, wouldn’t one?”

“Really, Aunt,” Margaret protested with a weak smile, “I’d as lief not discuss a pair of convicts. Particularly if their crime was murder, as I suspect it probably was, considering the reverend. A reverend visiting a pickpocket would hardly be noted by the
Times
.”

“No, I daresay he wouldn’t,” agreed her ladyship, scanning the rest of the article rapidly. “They are indeed murderers, though of course one of them at least denies it, and they are also convicted of high treason. Still, it appears that they cannot be monsters, for one of them, when on the scaffold, requested the Bible out of which the reverend was reading, kissed it, and then requested that it be given afterward to his younger sister. Oh, how melancholy this is. He said that he hoped a book given in such circumstances would be afterward read with greater attention and profit.”

Margaret grimaced. “Trading upon the feelings of the spectators at his execution, no doubt. I should be surprised if such a man even had a sister.”

“Now, dearest, anyone might have a sister,” said her ladyship in a calming tone. “Not but what you are quite right,” she added, folding the paper and laying it aside. “The subject is not one we would wish to discuss at the present. Not that Annis is on her way to the gallows, nor more unfortunately is that muffin-faced footman of hers, but still we ought to discuss more cheerful subjects. Have you seen Timothy this morning?”

“No, but I saw Melanie when I was leaving my bedchamber to go to the stables and he had already had his breakfast. I told her there was no reason he could not go to the vicarage as usual this morning, so I assume that is where he is now.”

Lady Celeste nodded. “Then, what shall we do today, dear? Mrs. Moffatt was saying only a day or so ago that it is high time and more the linen closets were turned out and a new inventory made of the contents. She usually does such a turnout this time of year, you know, but being shorthanded, she wasn’t certain she ought to begin yet. Still, it ought to be done.”

Margaret knew the linen closet ought to be done. Like all the other large closets, it needed doing at least twice a year. That was when anything that hadn’t been mended before got mended, when old sheets were torn into dust rags and sheets of lesser age got their hems turned, and when lists of what was needed to bring the numbers to their proper levels were drawn up. It was not a chore left to one’s housekeeper in a well-regulated house, no matter how trustworthy or expert the woman was. It was a chore that must be directed, at least, by the lady of the house. Still, Margaret knew perfectly well she wasn’t up to dealing with sheets and towels and table linen. Not today. Not until certain outstanding matters had been attended to.

“Have you seen Jordan this morning?” she asked.

“Well, that is hardly an answer to the question I put to you, but I must confess I have not,” replied Lady Celeste, regarding her closely. “What do you want with him?”

“Oh, nothing, I merely wondered if he and Abberley had set a time for going into town.”

“I expect they did, you know,” her ladyship said placidly. “No doubt Jordan will meet Abberley on the road. Pure foolishness for Adam to ride over here and then backtrack to reach Royston.”

Margaret nodded, telling herself that she ought to be relieved the earl wouldn’t show his face at the manor, but feeling disappointed in spite of herself.

As it happened, however, he did pay them a visit that afternoon. She was descending the stairs, having formed the intention of routing out her housekeeper and informing her that she would help her attend to the linen closet on the morrow, when the front door was pushed open and Jordan entered.

He was chuckling. “As easy as kiss your hand,” he said. “Who would have thought the matter could be arranged without setting everyone at sixes and sevens?”

“What was so easy?” Margaret asked, drawing in a quick breath when she realized he was not speaking to her but to Abberley, who followed close upon his heels.

Jordan looked up at her, grinning and looking more like a carefree young man than he had looked since she had first seen him at Caldecourt. “I am to be married by special license,” he said cheerfully. “Mr. Maitland has agreed that it would be best for all concerned and is at present engaged in composing a letter guaranteed to wring the heart of the archbishop, to whom I must make my application.”

“Then, you must go to London?”

“Immediately,” he agreed, “and Mandy and Tuckman go with me. Everyone seems to agree that the sooner the thing is accomplished and we are off, the better. There will be any number of ships sailing now that the weather has improved, so we should have no difficulty booking passage. I cannot thank you enough,” he added, turning back to the earl. “Without your assistance, I doubt things would be going so swimmingly now.”

“Think nothing of it,” Abberley said quietly, his eyes on Margaret. “I felt it was the least I could do after so badly misjudging you.”

Jordan frowned. “You know, I cannot help fretting a bit about Mother, though you have told me time and again that I needn’t do so. If it weren’t for my feelings for Mandy and everyone’s concern that we leave before even a whisper of our intentions begins blowing about, I know I should never allow you to take the burden of all this onto yourself, sir.”

“Don’t think about it,” advised the earl. “Your chief concern is to get yourself leg-shackled without pain to your intended. Believe me, if she is as sweet as I believe her to be, now I’ve met her, she would be deeply hurt by the sort of comments that would come her way the minute your intentions become known. The quicker you’re away, the better. Your mother will be in good hands, I’ll see to that.”

“I know you will, sir, though I still don’t know why you’d allow yourself to be saddled with such a business. It won’t be easy, you know. She will fight you tooth and nail. Perhaps I ought at least to speak to her, to tell her that I have agreed to your plan and that it is the best course for her to take.”

Abberley shook his head, but his voice was gentle. “I have no right to order you to do nothing of the sort,” he said, “and if you truly feel you must speak to her, then you must. But do not think anyone else expects you to do so. You have made your feelings with regard to her activities—supposedly on your behalf—well-known to the rest of us. What I fear is that you will try to make her understand them as well. You won’t do it. She has clearly managed to hide herself behind a wall of misunderstanding. She has convinced herself that she did nothing wrong, that whatever she did, she did for you, and that Fate determined that her plans should go awry. She takes no responsibility whatever for her deeds. At best you would have dozens of recriminations flung at your head for your ingratitude. At the worst you will have to suffer through a series of spasms and palpitations.”

Jordan snorted derisively. “I know that much, sir, but surely you must realize that I have scarcely ever held a conversation with the lady when I haven’t suffered through exactly the sort of scene you now describe. No, I shall go to her and tell her what I intend to do. She will be no more pleased about Mandy now than she was last night, but she deserves to hear the whole from me.”

Margaret, watching and listening from the stairway, was impressed by Jordan’s attitude. No longer did he seem to be nothing more than a dandified fop with no more than solid bone above his eyebrows. He was confident. His shoulders were squared and his back was straight with resolution. It was a change, she decided, definitely for the better.