Chapter 16
Margaret had not meant to stray so far. Truly, she had not.
The day had begun to end with a gentle sun—a soft, deceiving warmth that slipped across the walled gardens and promised a quiet sunset among the hedges while Jenny fetched her writing case from the morning parlor, the small blue one she always kept near, stuffed with estate notes and last week’s letters from Cecily.
The roses were not quite tamed yet. Margaret drifted from bed to bed, plucking spent heads between thumb and forefinger, tracing the climbing runners that needed new ties.
The air smelled of wet earth and unopened buds.
Each step further from the house made her chest ease just a fraction, as if the wide grounds might stretch the tight coil at her ribs.
Miss Fortune, who ought to have been napping by the kitchen hearth, had sprung up the moment Jenny left, tail flicking like a banner of mischief.
No sooner had Margaret turned to peer at a drooping rose than the little black creature vanished through the gooseberry hedge in a flash of whiskers and bright green eyes.
“Traitor,” Margaret muttered, half a laugh under her breath.
She had meant to circle back towards the house, but the sun was warm on her sleeves, the path dry and welcoming, and Jenny was taking an age to return.
A little further, she thought. Just to the far wall.
Miss Fortune would come leaping out from behind the currant bushes any moment now.
But it was not the cat that leaped—it was the sky that turned.
The clouds thickened suddenly, first a slow, sour yellow at the horizon, then an iron bruise overhead.
The wind kicked up, teasing stray wisps of her hair loose under her bonnet.
A low roll of thunder somewhere distant caused a halt in the birdsong overhead that made her lift her eyes just in time to see the blue flatten to a thin, gray shroud.
Margaret turned to see the house, its chimneys half-swallowed by the quick-rolling mist, and she felt a prickle she could not name.
“Jenny?” Margaret called, turning back down the path, but there was no sign of her maid’s white cap and no flicker of Miss Fortune’s sleek tail. She walked faster, boots crunching the loose gravel that lined the path, her heart beginning its fretful dance.
A breeze caught her bonnet ribbons, tugging them sideways. Then the breeze stiffened and broke with a sudden, hard patter against her sleeves. Raindrops, fat and cold.
When the first real thunder cracked, she startled so hard her hat ribbon snagged on a low branch. Margaret tugged it free with fumbling fingers. Another crack split the sky, closer now, too close. Rain burst down in a sudden curtain, cold as spilled water down her collar.
“Oh, foolish…” She gathered her skirts and turned again, half-running down a path that no longer looked quite familiar in the thickening dusk.
Where was the west gate? Where was Jenny?
Had the silly girl stopped to gossip with the dairy maids or worse, lost her way hunting up that dratted writing case?
She turned on her heel, skirts dragging through the wet grass.
Lightning pulsed behind the hedges, bright enough to burn her sight for a breath.
Her shoes slipped on the slick flagstone as she stumbled toward the garden’s edge, skirts catching thorns.
The sky answered with another shuddering boom that rattled down her spine.
A fresh gust drove the rain in a sheet across her shoulder.
Margaret stumbled, the mud sucking at her half-boots.
A hedge loomed where no hedge ought to be, the path splitting in two directions, neither of which she could swear she knew.
The garden’s easy order, so comforting when the sun shone, seemed now a maze of brambles and wind-whipped shadows.
“Miss Fortune?” she called, half-hoping for the little beast’s bright eyes. Nothing but the drum of rain and a clap of thunder that made her flinch so hard her skirts tangled about her knees.
Not now, she told herself fiercely. Not here. Do not be the mad girl trembling at branches and clouds. But the darkness crowded in, the wind snatched at her bonnet, and another crack of thunder made her heart bolt in her chest.
Another roll of thunder, loud enough to squeeze a small sound from her throat.
A shape loomed up on her left. It was an old brick shed, half-swallowed by ivy.
Some forgotten garden store with its low door hanging ajar.
Margaret ran for it without grace or dignity, skirts trailing wet and heavy behind her.
She pushed inside just as the storm broke in earnest, rain hammering the tiled roof like a thousand drums.
She stood, panting in the gloom, the smell of damp earth and old straw filling her lungs.
Garden tools leaned in solemn rows. A pile of dry sacks lined the sides of the walls.
She pressed her back against the rough wall and squeezed her eyes shut against the wild thrum in her head.
Somewhere out there, Jenny would be frantic. Sebastian—
She pressed her palms together, forcing her breath to steady. Another crack split the night, closer, and the door rattled once in its rusted hinge.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Not a child, she told herself fiercely. You are not a child. You are a duchess. You are—
“Margaret?” The door swung wide on the word.
A voice cut the storm, rough and half-laughed. “Well, Duchess. If you wished for my company, you needn’t have conjured a thunderstorm to trap me.”
Margaret’s eyes snapped open. He stood in the doorway, rainwater dripping from the brim of his hat, hair plastered to his brow in a way that made him look boyish, exasperated, and entirely too real.
“Sebastian,” she managed, her voice too thin to sound cross. “What are you doing here?”
He stepped in, nudging the door closed behind him with a boot. “Rescuing you, apparently. Jenny all but threatened to fling herself into the orchard if I didn’t come. She’s half convinced you’ve drowned in a puddle.”
“I didn’t mean to…” she muttered, fingers tightening around the edge of the sack. “I meant only to walk…Miss Fortune…”
“She’s safe with Jenny.”
Margaret let out a sound that might have been a laugh, might have been a sob, she could not tell. She pressed her sleeve to her cheek, brushing away cold droplets. “I did not mean… The storm came so quickly. I—”
More thunder rumbled low and lingering. Margaret flinched before she could stop herself. He saw it. She knew he saw it. He shut the door behind him with a quiet click, as if that single barrier could shut out the sky.
He crossed the small space in two strides. The shed felt suddenly smaller, the air tighter for the heat he carried in with him; he was near enough that she caught the sharp scent of wet wool and the faint sweetness of his cologne beneath it. He crouched before her, boots squelching.
“Are you afraid?”
She let out a breath that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t cracked. “Of course not.”
The thunder cracked closer, sharp enough to shiver the boards at her back. She flinched so hard her bonnet slipped sideways.
He took her cold hands. “You are shivering.”
“I hate storms,” she blurted before she could think better. “I always have. Since I was small. The noise, it’s like the world cracking open.”
Sebastian’s gaze softened there, then gone again behind the practiced flicker of his sardonic brow. He shrugged off his coat, draping the damp wool over her shoulders despite her weak protest.
“You ought to be in the house, not wandering my gardens with thunder for company,” he scolded lightly. “Your garden, I suppose… I forget myself.”
She swallowed, huddling deeper into the warmth he’d left behind in the cloth. “It was sunny. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I wanted air. I wanted—”
He ducked his head to catch her eye. “To outrun your thoughts?”
She huffed a laugh that caught on a shiver. “So, you do read minds, Your Grace.”
A roll of thunder made her flinch again, and then his hand was at her elbow, steadying her without hurry. “Look at me, Margaret.”
She did. Even in the thin gray light, the shape of his mouth almost startled her. It was so near and so alive.
Then, very carefully, he reached out and brushed the bonnet from her hair entirely, setting it aside on the workbench. His thumb found her temple, brushing away a stray drop of rain that lingered.
“Come here,” he murmured. He sat beside her on the dry sacks, their shoulders pressing, heat and rain and breath all tangled together.
Margaret stiffened. But when the next roll came in a deep, rolling growl that made the door shiver again, she felt herself lean. Just enough to let her shoulder settle against his.
His hand hovered at her back. May I? it asked. She gave him her answer in the tremor of her breath and felt his palm rest between her shoulders, solid and steady as stone.
They sat like that, listening to the rain hammer the old tin roof.
His coat smelled of wet wool and the faint ghost of something sweet—the brandy he sometimes sipped in his library.
She counted her breaths against his ribs and felt his thumb tap once, twice, like he might be keeping time for her heartbeat.
“You know,” he said after a while, voice pitched low against her ear, “when I was a boy, I used to pretend storms were drums. A king’s drums calling the brave out to dance in the fields.”
Margaret huffed a tiny laugh against the rough wool of his sleeve. “And were you brave?”
He paused, and she felt it in the breath he drew, deep and tight. “No,” he said at last. “But I wanted to be.”
The thunder cracked again, but softer now. Further off. Margaret felt it in her bones, but it did not catch so sharply this time.
She turned her head, just enough to see him. His hair was a wet tangle at his brow. She reached up—she did not know why—and brushed it back with trembling fingers. His lashes lowered, then lifted, a question flickering behind the green of his eyes.
Another distant rumble. Another heartbeat closer than sense should allow.
She pulled her hand back before it could become something she didn’t know. He let it go, though his eyes lingered on her mouth a fraction longer than proper.
“Listen here. We’re dry enough for the moment, but if you tremble every time the heavens growl, you’ll wear yourself out before supper.
So…” He cast a glance around the cramped little shed, his gaze landing on a teetering stack of implements in one corner.
“We shall distract you. I propose a competition.”
Margaret followed his look. “A competition?”
“For the most distinguished rake,” he said solemnly, stepping toward a rack hung with at least six of them. “And I do not mean the gentlemanly sort.”
Her lips curved. “A difficult choice. They are all in such fine condition.”
“Indeed. That one there has a very elegant handle. This one…” he lifted another and twirled it once. “Is clearly the work of a master craftsman. And here—ah, a true rogue.”
She shook her head, amusement breaking through her unease. “You cannot possibly have a favorite among them.”
“I can,” he said gravely, replacing the rake and dusting his hands. “But I shall not reveal it until the judging is complete. We must be impartial, Duchess.”
Margaret gave a small laugh. “Very well. Though I cannot promise my vote will not be swayed by charm.”
“In that case,” he said, stepping closer to the row of tools, “I suspect the competition is already lost.”
Another peal of thunder, but it sounded further now, muffled behind his easy nonsense. Margaret breathed in, out, the storm’s teeth dulled by the silly picture he painted of roses where trowels should be, a black cat ruling over blooms.
“You’re ridiculous,” she murmured, but she did not move from the circle of his warmth.
“I have it on good authority that ridiculousness is my best quality,” he said gravely, voice pitched low. “Now, breathe, Duchess. The storm will pass. I am here.”
She looked up at him then, and the words ought to have been a comfort. They almost were. But comfort was a dangerous thing—the sort of thing that lingered and made one forget how quickly the ground could give way.
“For now,” she said lightly, as though it were no more than an idle observation. “People do not stay forever, Sebastian. Storms pass, and so do people.”