Chapter Six #2
Thea lowered her voice. “In the beginning I was. We started off with hopes and dreams . . . and gained disappointments. Boyd had many weaknesses. He really wanted to be married to a duke’s daughter.
My father’s following through on his threats to disinherit me was a disappointing blow to him.
He believed Father had some respect for him.
He didn’t realize that while my father could be open and congenial with the help, that didn’t mean he wanted one of them marrying his daughter.
Then again, neither my husband nor I were perfect.
That was a hard lesson for me to learn. A humbling one. ”
“And once the disappointments start, they don’t stop, do they?” Lady Margaret agreed sadly.
“Why haven’t you married?” Thea asked, suddenly having her own suspicions. “You are past the age. What are you? Four and twenty?”
“Five and twenty.” Lady Margaret gave a rueful smile. “I was in love once. It was the most marvelous feeling in the world. Life made sense. I truly thought we could conquer everything.”
“And then?”
“He did not love me with the same passion.” Her gaze slid away from Thea’s. She seemed to study the pattern of the wood floor a moment before saying stiffly, “I suppose it would be more polite to say we didn’t suit.”
There was more to the story. Thea would have wagered everything she owned on it. Someone had broken Lady Margaret’s trust. He’d slipped past her guard and taken all that she’d had.
It made Thea angry. How dare that man, or any man, Boyd included, take a woman’s loving nature and betray it?
Oh, there were women who deserved their comeuppance.
Selfish creatures whose skins were tough and their wills unconquerable—but Lady Margaret was not of that ilk.
She was like Thea, honest in her feelings, incapable of protecting them.
Thea crossed to the younger woman and put her arms around her. “You are better than him. He was not worthy of you.”
Lady Margaret’s face turned pinched and her nose red, as if she held back tears, but she stood still in Thea’s arms.
“Go ahead and cry,” Thea said. “Scream, yell curse even. The sin is his, not yours.”
“I knew better,” Lady Margaret said. “But even now, I wouldn’t change everything that happened. He made me realize some hard truths. If we’d had children, they would have carried the curse. It’s important to stop it now. To let it end here with my brothers and myself.”
Thea took a step away. “Can you do that? Set yourself apart from the world? I have my sons to live for, but you would have nothing.” And she wondered if Lady Margaret was making this sacrifice out of guilt more than conviction.
“I have my brothers.”
“Is that enough?” Thea shook her head. “Pardon me, but my siblings and I are not close. I haven’t spoken to them for seven years, so imagining they were all I had in my life is a bleak proposition. It’s almost as if you are putting yourself aside in a nunnery.”
Lady Margaret moved away from Thea. “Nothing of the sort. We are family. We are all we have.”
“I remember your brother saying much the same thing during our summer of friendship.” Thea risked pushing her point.
“You were raised in a cold house, one that had no affection. Of course, it caused you and your brothers to be very close. You were all you had. I wonder,” Thea continued, “what Neal would say to the request you are making of me. You choose to live a lonely life for this curse, but he doesn’t.
Can you not respect that it is his choice? ”
“How much is he paying you, Mrs. Martin?” Lady Margaret countered, her manner growing frigid.
“I wonder if the money is worth the personal cost, not just to my brother but to his children. They will either be doomed to live without a father or to that very same cold house to which you just referred. Can you live with yourself knowing what you do about our history?”
The curse again.
Thea was worn out speaking of it. “What I know of your history is that some of your ancestors died young or in battle. Your father died at a ripe age and after he’d found happiness with a woman neither you nor your brothers thought best for him.
I don’t question your belief in this curse.
If you say it is true, it is. But what right have you to interfere with your brother’s life? Who are you to make his decisions?”
“I am his sister. A blood relative—”
“But you are not him,” Thea interrupted. “He is the only one who can make the choices for his life. I appreciate that you care enough for him to worry. But he isn’t worried. You must respect that.”
“And you do not know what you are playing with.” The words she threw out sounded as if they’d been torn from Lady Margaret’s heart.
She looked wildly around the room as if searching for a way to convince Thea.
Instead she turned on her heel and practically raced to the door.
“Please, I beg of you, rethink what you are doing. I don’t feel good about this.
There are signs. She came to me in a dream.
She was laughing. It was a hideous sound. Evil.”
“Who is she?” Thea demanded.
“The witch,” Lady Margaret answered. She drew a great, shuddering breath. “She comes to me,” she said, dropping her voice. “I haven’t said anything to my brothers.” She paused and then repeated, “She comes to me.”
Thea’s first thought was that a madness had gripped Neal’s sister. Her passion, the abrupt change in demeanor, her anger at Thea’s refusal to do as bid were disconcerting.
Then again, Thea’s father had been this sort of person as well. Pleasant when he was pleased and absolutely vicious or whining when crossed.
But Lady Margaret didn’t act vicious. She was frightened.
“Think on it,” Lady Margaret ordered. “Your life is now involved in this as well.” She opened the door and escaped out into the evening. Thea crossed to the door and watched the other woman dash across the street to where a hired chaise and her lady’s maid waited for her.
“What was she talking about, Mother?” Jonathan said from the stairs.
Thea forced herself to smile, then shut the door and turned to her sons. “She had some concerns about Lord Lyon,” she said, giving them part of the truth.
“She was upset,” Christopher declared.
“People often are when they don’t have their way,” Thea said, coming up the stairs.
She gathered her boys close to her and gave them a hug.
They smelled of the soap they’d used to scrub behind their ears, as well as dirt—a sign that the only place they’d washed was behind their ears.
She welcomed the opportunity to take her mind off Lady Margaret’s disturbing visit.
“You boys haven’t washed your faces and necks,” she accused.
“We tried,” Jonathan said.