Chapter 20
Twenty
“How are you finding it?” Arabella asked, seated beside Margot as she was.
“Hmm…?” Margot looked up to find Arabella watching her.
“I’m having difficulty with the shadows,” Arabella said. She indicated the sketchpad rested on her knees, and then the tree across the garden that the two were supposed to be drawing. “They keep moving, and the longer it takes me, the more they shift.”
“Yes…” Margot glanced at her own sketchpad, which remained untouched. My mind is elsewhere, so much so that I wonder if it was worth inviting Arabella to join me today. “It is difficult.”
“Can I see your drawing?” Arabella shifted to try to peer onto Margot’s lap. “How did you do it?”
Margot winced. “I… I confess, I am having the same difficulty. The darn shadows.”
Arabella caught sight of the bare sketchpad, and her face dropped. “You have not even started yet.”
“I…” She winced. “I was going to.”
“We have been at it for thirty minutes, Margot – you were the one who suggested it!”
“I am simply a slow drawer, is all. Do not judge me.”
Arabella blew through her lips. “I knew you were lying to me. I knew it!”
“Lying about what?”
“You know well what.” She raised an eyebrow at Margot. “When I asked you earlier if everything was fine with you, you told me it was. When I asked if you were still having difficulty with His Grace and needed someone to speak to about it, you told me you did not. When I asked –”
“Yes, yes,” Margot said. “I lied. Are you happy?”
“But why?” Arabella asked with a forlorn voice. “If you are still so upset, you know you can speak to me. I want you to.”
“Did you stop to think that I do not want to?”
“Still…” She bit her lip. “Does that mean, should I not… I can drop it, if you like? I just do not enjoy seeing you like this, Margot. You do not know how much pain it brings me.”
Margot sighed. “I would talk about it, Arabella – and I do not wish to upset you. Sadly, talking about it does nothing. Solves even less. What is happening between the duke and me is…” She clicked her tongue with frustration. “It is resolved. Speaking of it will change nothing.”
“It is?” Arabella blinked. “What do you mean, resolved? Resolved how?”
“I mean that I know now where I stand, and complaining or wishing it away will make no difference. So, I have decided that the best thing I can do is not think about it and pray that in time I am able to forget about it completely.” She went back to looking at her sketchpad as if she meant to start finally.
“Now, if you do not mind, I have a tree to draw.”
“Margot…”
“Forget it, Arabella,” she sighed, refusing to look at her friend’s face.
If I do that, seeing the hurt in her eyes, I might just break.
“It is done. Truly, there is nothing to be gained from speaking of it further. If we can just…” She felt tears welling, but she sniffed them back.
“If we can just focus on this. Believe me, it is for the best.”
Arabella was still looking at her, and from the corner of her eyes, Margot could see how desperate her cousin was to help. Not to pry, not to seek gossip, but to offer a hand because she loved her cousin and would do anything for her. As I would do anything for Arabella.
Sadly, Margot knew there was nothing to be done. Sebastian has made that perfectly clear.
That was the current state of things. Following on from their conversation the previous evening, Margot had resolved herself to the belief that nothing was going to change and there was nothing she could do about it.
Sebastian was the reason for how things were, and if he wanted to tell her why he was acting this way, it was up to him.
I will not beg him. I will not badger him. I will not let him know that I care. Not again.
It was frustrating to admit. And she knew that the likely outcome was a marriage that would remain this way for the rest of her days.
But Margot was sick of hoping, tired of wondering, done with giving her time to a man who did not wish to give her his in return.
Such was her life from now until forever…
“So…” Arabella spoke carefully. “The two of you… Have you spoken since yesterday?”
“Arabella,” Margot groaned. “Please, do not –”
“I will,” Arabella spoke over her. “Not because I am trying to annoy you, but because I care about you. You used the word resolved, which means that something was said between you.” She was looking right at Margot now, forcing her attention.
“Come on then, what did he say? At least give me some indication so I know how much I should hate the man.” She tried for a disarming laugh.
“That is, when we complain about him, we will know what for.”
Margot laughed softly, for she could not help it. “I do not hate him.”
“Oh?”
“No…” She bowed her head, annoyed that such a thing was so easy to admit. “I want to. It would be so much easier if I did. Only, well, he makes it hard to do.”
“What did he say?”
She clicked her tongue. “Not much, truth be told. We spoke yesterday evening, and he admitted that he does care for me – he even apologized for how he has been behaving toward me.”
“He did?” Arabella brightened. “That is good, no?”
“It would be, if he cared to tell me why.” She scowled at the memory.
“I just don’t understand it, Arabella…” Despite herself, Margot felt her frustrations pouring from her.
“He stood right there –” She pointed across the garden.
“—all but admitting that this last week was his fault, that he did not wish to behave as he did, that he wanted more from this marriage. Ha!” She scoffed.
“He even went so far as to claim that he was attracted to me and how difficult it was for him to not act on this attraction.”
“No!” Arabella gasped.
“I’m afraid so,” Margot sighed. “He nearly kissed me…” Her stomach flipped at the memory.
They had been so close. He had stepped into her, taken her by the face, leaned in, lips puckered so she could feel the warmth of his breath tracing her lips.
And then… the world had turned around her. “He did not kiss me, however.”
“What… what do you mean? What did he –”
“He pulled away,” she said with a sneer. “Then he offered some vague excuse about how he could not allow himself to fall for me. How he could not let this marriage transform into anything other than what it was. And when I begged him to tell me why…” She scoffed again. “He refused.”
“And then what happened?”
“I stormed away…” She laughed bitterly. “He does not want to tell me why – he does not even want to explain himself. Then I am not going to beg him or chase after him or… or… or hope that things change. He made it perfectly clear that they won’t be.”
Arabella did not answer immediately. She studied Margot, her face scrunched tight, biting into one lip as she considered what she had heard. And then, she smiled. “So, things are nowhere near as bad as they could be.”
“Excuse me?” Margot gaped. “Did you not hear what I just said!”
“Oh, I heard you.” She waved her down dismissively. “And where indeed things did not go as planned, they are not nearly the travesty you seem to think they are. In fact, I might choose to see the positive in them.”
“It’s the sun, isn’t it?” Margot said. “The heat is getting to you.”
“Think about it, Margot.” She was sitting up, looking eager now. “The duke admitted that he cares for you – that he is attracted to you. Was that not what you feared all this time? That he had been lying to you? Trying to trick you? That he was a cold fish playing a game with you at the center.”
“What difference does it make!” Margot cried. “If the result is the same.”
“But it does not have to be,” Arabella insisted. “Clearly, the duke is dealing with something. And that is what is holding him back – not you. Not even this marriage. By the sounds of it, he wants you, Margot. He wants this marriage to work.”
She scoffed. “You were not there.”
“Which is why my opinion is impartial and thus more important.” She nodded rightly. “And if you just give him time, I truly think that he will change his mind and –”
“Forget it,” Margot snapped. “I gave him time. I gave him chances. And time and time again, he has turned them down.” Her lip curled.
“He might have claimed that he cares for me or wants me. He might pretend that he is not what I think. But at the end of the day…” She sighed, shaking her head as the desperation began to seep in.
“At the end of the day, he is the same as the rest of them. Men,” she confirmed.
“They are all liars and cheats, and we are merely pawns in their game. Expendable and not important.”
Arabella’s brow was scrunched as she studied her cousin. “This isn’t about the duke, is it?”
“Of course it is!”
“No…” She shifted her chair across and rested a hand on Margot’s knee. “The duke is not Lord Ashcombe, Margot. He simply isn’t. Lord Ashcombe was a liar and a cheat; no one is denying that. But you cannot keep blaming yourself for what happened.”
“I am not blaming myself.”
“You are,” she said. “But you were younger then. You did not know – nobody did. And if you keep on using him as an excuse to not trust again, then Lord Ashcombe wins. Do not let him win.”
Margot winced at the truth in her cousin’s words.
That was what it boiled down to, the scars from what Lord Ashcombe had done still present and affecting her even to this day.
She knew what had happened was not her fault, but she could not escape the feeling that had she been just a little more guarded, she might have avoided that horrid incident altogether.
And now, with the duke, what if it happened again? What if I try a final time, allow him in, and he proves to be exactly what I suspect? If that happens, then it will do no good to claim that Lord Ashcombe was at fault. If that happens, then everything that is wrong with my life is my doing.
“I think you should talk to him,” Arabella said gently. “The duke. He wants to let you in.”
“He does not.”
“He does,” she emphasized. “Men are not like us, Margot. They keep their emotions bottled up. But if you pressure him, force it from him, he will open up to you. I know he will.”
“You do not know him…”
“Neither do you,” she pointed out. “Not yet, anyhow.”
Margot chuckled softly, loving her cousin in that moment. She wanted only the best for Margot, and she spoke from the heart in a way that Margot needed to hear.
But could she do it? And what was more, did she want to give the duke another chance? Did he deserve such a thing? If not, she knew where her life would lead… no life at all, was where.
The question became, what was more important to her? Her pride? Or her happiness? Time would tell, she supposed.
“… you are the wind in my sails. You are the sun that sees flowers bloom. You are a goddess, and I am a mere mortal praying that you will notice my cries of love. Athena, born again, blessed as I am that you might look my way. Miss Margot Harcourt, my heart is yours. All I ask in return is that you be gentle with it…”
Margot lay on her bed, reading a letter that she had found buried at the bottom of one of her trunks.
She had found it just ten minutes ago, knowing it was there, not entirely certain why she had kept it after all this time.
I suppose I wanted to remember what it was like to be worshipped and wanted and chased.
That thought made her laugh with a sense of bitter realization and irony that she could no longer ignore.
The letter was written to her by Lord Ashcombe, one of the earlier pieces he had sent her when his courtship for her hand had first started all those years ago.
She could still remember how she had felt when she’d first read the letter.
She had not loved him as she wanted, but she had still felt a flutter in her stomach and a beating in her heart, nonetheless.
The words were sappy but honest, she had thought, such that she had known the man loved her as he claimed.
But it was all a lie. And I, the fool that I was, ate it up and asked for seconds.
Reading the letter now, she could not believe how easily she had fallen for it.
It was so obvious to her that Lord Ashcombe felt nothing, that he was simply writing the words he assumed she needed to hear.
He had been toying with her, manipulating her, using her to his own advantage. That was the type of man he was.
She read the letter again, trying this time to picture the words coming from Sebastian. That thought made her laugh because there was no world that existed where he might write such things. But this was not as big a travesty as she might have thought.
Lord Ashcombe was a liar; there was no doubt about that. But Sebastian… he was different. Yes, he had played with her emotions and toyed with her in his own way. But there had been an honesty to it. A truth behind his actions. He was not trying to use her. In fact, the complete opposite was true.
Margot thought further about what Arabella had said earlier today.
How she had interpreted what Sebastian had said – how she had seen the positive.
Sebastian might have refused to tell Margot the truth, but he had also admitted there was more going on than a mere convenience of lies and betrayal.
He cared for her. He wanted her. He was just holding back because of reasons that she could not guess, because he would not tell her.
But there is a good reason. There has to be. And where I have been comparing Sebastian to Lord Ashcombe all this time, that comparison doesn’t feel at all justified.
Was Lord Ashcombe to arrive on her door and ask for another chance, Margot would know he was lying to her. But was Sebastian to do it… all it would mean was that he was finally ready to be honest with her.
All this time, she had used what happened to her in the past to justify the way she guarded herself. Now, she wondered if she was right to do so. Was it worth giving Sebastian one last chance? Was it worth at least trying to learn the truth?
She was not sure. What she was sure of, however, was how done she was with thinking about Lord Ashcombe. With that in mind, she rose from the bed, tore the letter in two, and tossed it into the bin. A sense of relief fell over her, that feeling that she was finally ready to move on.
As to what she’d be moving on to? Tomorrow, she hoped, an answer would come. She would see her husband, she would look into his eyes, and she would decide for them if this marriage was worth giving one more chance.
And as she went to bed, Margot could not help but smile. Just the thought that things might change, that happiness might find her, was enough that she slept soundly and peacefully in a way she had not for longer than she could remember.