Chapter 16
Sixteen
“Margot, is something the matter?” Elizabeth asked warily.
“Hmm?” Margot had not been paying her cousin attention, saving it for across the garden as her frustration steadily brewed. But she turned to hear the question, blinking back her surprise when she saw both her cousins watching her with clear concern.
“Well, that answers that question,” Elizabeth said.
“What’s the matter?” Arabella asked her, leaning across the table and resting her hand on her leg. “You have been acting strangely all day.”
“Have I been?” Margot responded innocently. “I have not meant to be.”
“It’s that bad?” Elizabeth grimaced. “I thought things were improving?”
“Me too,” Arabella agreed. “They looked as if they were.”
“What are the two of you talking about?” Margot sighed, even if she knew the answer.
A part of her wanted to dismiss the conversation entirely, because to speak of it brought nothing but pain.
While another part knew she needed to speak what was on her mind, desperate as she was to get it out there rather than stewing in silence.
“Your marriage to the duke,” Elizabeth confirmed. “Obviously, that is what is troubling you – and do not dare lie to us, Margot.”
“You have not given me the chance to yet.”
“Ha!”
“We thought it was getting better,” Arabella said, concern painting her voice and clear across her face. “The Marlow garden party last week…” She looked at Margot hopefully. “It appeared that the two of you were…” She trailed off, not daring to speak it.
“We saw you just three days ago,” Elizabeth said. “You did not say anything was wrong.”
“And I still have not said it.”
Elizabeth looked at her flatly. “Nor do you need to. Since arriving, you have been as present as a ghost. With a mood to match a mule being taken out to pasture. What happened?”
“Did he do something?” Arabella asked. “Tell us.”
“Yes, tell us,” Elizabeth agreed. “We want to help.”
She scoffed. “I am beyond helping.”
“Then it sounds like times are ripe for complaining,” Elizabeth said rightly.
“To which, we will happily lend our ears. Now, come…” She shifted closer down the table, a look on her face that told Margot there was no point in arguing.
“What is happening with the two of you? Clearly, it is something.”
Margot considered, her insides twisting as the truth reared its ugly head. Her worries formed on her tongue, but before she unleashed them, she glanced across the garden, finding Sebastian right where she had last seen him. Standing as far away from me as is possible by the looks of things.
He had been doing the same all day, since the moment they had arrived.
Funny that when he was the one who suggested they attend this luncheon, she had dared to think that maybe he was finally ready to give in to what she suspected he wanted, sick of ignoring her as he had been doing, and ready to try again.
For a day and a night, she had looked forward to today like nothing else, picturing it to be a repeat of the last time they had left the home together.
Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth.
The moment they arrived, Sebastian left her.
He did not say what he was doing, who he was seeking out, or suggest he would come to find her again.
Rather, he had simply walked away, and from then on stayed away, happier speaking with men she suspected he did not like because he would rather have done that than be with her.
Why are we even here? What is the point of it all! She knew that answer, too. Appearances only, an invitation they could not turn down, another chance to fool the ton into thinking this marriage was a happy one.
Margot was at her wits’ end. And not just with Sebastian, but herself also.
She was sick of feeling this way. She was sick of wondering, hoping, trying to figure out the truth of it.
And such was her state of being that the chance to complain to her cousins was a chance she decided she could not miss.
They cannot help me. But as Elizabeth has said, sometimes having a person to complain to is helpful enough.
“What happened at the garden party was…” She clicked her tongue with annoyance, hating that this was what she’d been reduced to. “It was an apparition. Theatre. Not real,” she confirmed.
Elizabeth frowned. “I don’t understand. The two of you looked –”
“I know how we looked,” she snapped before she could help herself. Elizabeth reared back in surprise, and Margot’s tone softened with guilt. “I am sorry. It is not your fault. Or anyone’s fault for that matter.”
“I still don’t understand,” Arabella said.
Margot sighed. “I know how things looked between us. And for a moment I thought…” Her insides squirmed. “It does not matter what I thought. Since then, Sebastian has done everything to remind me that our marriage is circumstantial at best. One of convenience, as promised.”
“What did he say?” Elizabeth asked. “What were his words?”
Margot laughed bitterly. “He did not say anything. But that is the point. For the entire week now, he has ignored me as if I do not exist. He barely talks to me. He does not look at me when we are in the same room. We are strangers, living together, bound by a signature on a piece of paper and nothing more.”
“Oh, Margot…”
“It is fine,” Margot assured them both. “Truly,” she then emphasized because she thought she must. “To be honest, I am more angry with myself than anything.”
“What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked.
Margot looked at Sebastian again. Still, she could not escape the attraction she felt for him. And still, she could not scrub that single evening from her mind, a few hours in time where things had felt so perfect. But it was all a lie…
“That I let myself believe he was different. Although truth be told, he is even more different than I thought. When we first wed, he was…” She laughed and shook her head at the memory.
“He was as you would expect. Forward. Flirtatious. I had to warn him off and put him in his place several times. And I assumed that was how things would continue, more so after the garden party. But now…” Her lip curled, and she looked away from him. “Now he is the opposite of that.”
“And you… How do you feel about that?” Elizabeth pressed. “I do not want to upset you, but the two of you looked happy. Truly, I thought…” Her smile was soft and filled with concern. “I thought maybe there was hope for your marriage.”
“We both did,” Arabella confirmed.
How do I feel? I wish I knew. I wish I could go back to that evening and stop myself from hoping. I wish I could reckon with why I am finding it so hard to admit the truth of what this marriage has become.
“I am fine,” she lied. “Truly, I am,” she said as she looked between her cousins.
“After all, this is what I wanted – what was promised. This marriage was only ever meant to be convenient, and I find it hard to blame the duke for giving me exactly what I asked for.” A bitter chuckle. “There is an irony there, I am sure.”
Her two cousins looked at each other with concern. None seemed to know what to say, aware they would only make things worse. And now that Margot had gotten it all off her chest, she didn’t much feel like being coddled. Best to move on and hope for a better day tomorrow.
Having said that… sometimes getting what one wished for wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. A point proven when Elizabeth looked past her, through the crowd that gathered in the garden, and widened her eyes with surprise. And fear. “Oh no,” she said.
“What?” Margot perked up and followed her cousin’s gaze, seeing immediately what it was that she had found, wishing now that she was anywhere but here.
“Oh no…” she echoed as her stomach flipped.
He was crossing the garden, thankfully looking in the opposite direction to where Margot was sitting. And where she could not see his face fully, there could be no doubt who it was. Lord Julian Ashcombe.
What is he doing here? And not just at this party, but in London? I thought he had left – I had assumed he’d fled in shame, never to return. But no, of course he didn’t. As far as everyone is concerned, I am the one who wronged him, not the other way around.
Lord Ashcombe was the man who, for a brief period, had been engaged to Margot.
She had been just eighteen at the time, desperate to meet a lord above her station and wed.
She had wanted an escape from her life; she had wanted what she felt that she deserved – what she had been told all her life that she did. And Lord Ashcombe had offered her that.
Margot had not loved Lord Ashcombe, but she had liked him well enough.
He had appeared kind and caring and besotted with her, enough that she’d trusted him.
Only when he learned that her family was poor did it also come to her attention that he was not the man he’d said.
He was even more destitute than I was. But in his eyes, my lie was the one that broke the camel’s back.
She supposed it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Were all men not liars? Putting on a face that was not their own? She had been more innocent back then… apparently, she still was.
“He hasn’t seen you,” Elizabeth said. “Should we…” She indicated toward the other side of the garden.
Margot was still watching him, feelings coming to the fore that she had not expected.
Not love. Not even regret. Simply a reminder of her doomed life, as if she needed to be told again that she was forever cursed with meeting men who saw only to use her.
It made what was happening with Sebastian feel worse somehow, and she thought she might well be sick right here at the table.
“No,” she said to Elizabeth. “I…” She considered what to do. “I think I might just go.”
“Don’t do that,” Arabella pleaded. “Don’t give him the satisfaction.”
“He already has it,” she laughed bitterly. “What is a little more?”
She said goodbye to her friends, keeping an eye on Lord Ashcombe to make sure he did not see her. And then, once he was out of sight, she rose quickly and made for Sebastian.
He saw her coming, frowning with apparent confusion as if the sight of his wife approaching him was a most odd thing. He stood with three men she did not know, but he turned from them as she neared.
“Ah, dear wife,” he beamed with open arms and a smile. “I was just about to come and –”
“We need to leave,” she cut him off. “Now.”
He frowned at her, noting the purpose in her voice and the look in her eyes. “What… why?”
“Please…” She asked softly, not wanting to beg. “Can we just go?”
She braced for him to argue, as surely he would do just that.
Sebastian did not like being pushed around, and likely, he would think this was some sort of power play.
Thankfully, he seemed to notice just how desperate she was, and his expression softened so that she thought he was about to pull her into a hug. He did no such thing.
“Of course,” he said. Then, he stepped into her and rested a hand on her back.
She winced at his touch, feeling none of the warmth she had once coveted so much.
“Gentleman,” Sebastian addressed the group of men.
“I am afraid I must leave you. My wife…” He winked.
“I might be the head, but she is the neck that tells it what way to turn.”
The men laughed, Sebastian laughed along, and Margot scowled because she could not be bothered with pretending. And then, together, they left the party. No words were said between them, and for once, Margot was glad for it.
Still, she could not stop thinking about Lord Ashcombe, his sudden appearance playing havoc with her senses. It was as if a light was being shone upon her, highlighting all the mistakes she had ever made, confirming that they were her fault and there was nothing to be done.
As bad as this last week had been, Margot sensed things were only going to get worse.