Chapter 24
Iwill not be ignored like some piece of furniture in the house. Today I set my own rules.
Margaret went down to breakfast the following morning with a firm step and a peculiar knot in her stomach. She had spent far too much of the night thinking about Pierce, which was absurd considering how infuriating the man could be.
Still, as she reached the breakfast-room door, she found herself holding her breath before entering, ready to give him the speech she’d practiced.
The room was empty. Margaret's shoulders sagged with disappointment before she could stop herself, and she immediately became annoyed with herself for having hoped otherwise.
She took her usual seat and poured herself a cup of tea, staring at the untouched place opposite her.
"This is ridiculous," she murmured, stirring her tea although she had not added sugar. "I have survived perfectly well without His Grace for most of my life."
She took a sip and frowned at the empty chair. "And I shall certainly survive without him for one breakfast." Unfortunately, the silence offered no argument, which somehow made it worse.
The door opened, and Mrs. Norris entered with a composed expression that did nothing to prepare Margaret for what followed.
"Good morning, Your Grace," the housekeeper said, approaching the table with her hands folded neatly before her. "His Grace asked me to inform you that he has left Ravenfield and shall be away for several days."
Margaret nearly dropped her teaspoon. "Left?" she repeated, setting it down with a sharp little clink. "What do you mean, left?"
Mrs. Norris remained admirably calm beneath the Duchess's stare. "The Duke had departed early this morning to attend to personal affairs.
Margaret blinked at her. "Personal affairs?" she echoed, suddenly certain that those three innocent words concealed an entire conspiracy. "Did he say anything else?"
"He did not, Your Grace," Mrs. Norris replied gently, offering an apologetic smile. "He only asked me to assure you that he would return in several days."
"Very well," Margaret said, forcing a smile that probably looked more like a grimace. "Thank you, Mrs. Norris."
The housekeeper curtsied and departed, leaving Margaret alone with her breakfast and an increasingly unreasonable collection of thoughts.
Left? Without a proper word to me. How dare he?
Margaret stared at the empty chair opposite her as though Pierce were sitting there merely to irritate her.
He had left without telling her himself, without even giving her the courtesy of an explanation, after spending the previous evening kissing her and then walking away as though he had merely remarked upon the weather.
He has finally had enough of me.
She had irritated him beyond endurance. His mysterious personal affairs involved some investigation into Hugh's past, which would at least make sense, although Margaret found herself troubled by how consumed he had become with what had happened before she entered his life.
She frowned into her tea. Pierce seemed determined to uncover every secret surrounding Hugh, Augusta, and the mysterious months before the child had arrived at Ravenfield.
Margaret understood his reasons, of course.
If someone had taken his son away, he had every right to know why.
Yet there was something unfair about watching him devote so much of himself to the past when she had given nearly every waking moment to the present.
She had made herself part of this household, learned Hugh's habits, filled the dreary rooms with flowers, and tried to understand a husband who seemed determined to remain an enigma.
And now she discovered that she had begun to miss him terribly after less than a day.
Her cheeks warmed at the thought. "Oh, this is dreadful," she muttered, pressing her fingers against her temple. "I actually will miss the man."
She had spent weeks insisting that she wanted nothing to do with Pierce when it came to intimate matters, and now she found herself craving his company, his voice, his infuriating arrogance, and, most dangerously of all, his touch.
She looked towards the door as though he might suddenly appear and frowned when he did not.
Then another possibility occurred to her, and she nearly choked on her tea.
"Personal affairs," she whispered suspiciously. "Could mean anything."
Her imagination, which had always possessed a mischievous streak, immediately supplied the most unpleasant possibility.
A mistress. Was Lady Darren right? Was Hugh the child of some mistress and not Augusta?
Pierce had gone to see some woman he had known before their marriage, some beautiful, sophisticated creature who understood his moods and did not challenge every ridiculous rule he invented.
Margaret's stomach tightened. She pushed the thought away at once.
"Nonsense," she told herself firmly. "I refuse to be jealous of a woman who may not even exist."
She rose before she could torture herself further and went in search of the nanny.
"I want Hugh dressed for a picnic," Margaret announced when she found her, clasping her hands with renewed purpose. "The weather is lovely, and I see no reason for us to spend the entire morning indoors."
The nanny smiled and agreed, and Margaret then marched to the kitchens with equal determination.
"Please prepare a basket for us," she told the cook, listing meat pies, cold chicken, fruit, small cakes, and a flask of tea. "And something soft for Hugh. He has developed very strong opinions about food, despite possessing scarcely enough teeth to express them."
Within the hour, Margaret was seated upon a blanket in the gardens with Hugh beside her and the nanny nearby. The sunlight poured warmly across the lawn, and Hugh seemed delighted by everything, from the fluttering leaves to the distant birds.
Margaret lifted him onto her lap and kissed his cheek. "There you are, my darling," she murmured, smiling as he grabbed at a lock of her hair. "Your father may disappear for days at a time, but your duchess shall remain where she belongs."
Hugh responded with an enthusiastic squeal and tugged harder. Margaret laughed, attempting to rescue her hair.
"Yes, yes, I understand. You have missed me terribly."
She settled him beside her and produced a little wooden toy, and soon the two of them were engaged in a game that consisted largely of Hugh knocking it over while Margaret solemnly rebuilt it.
"Again?" she asked when he immediately destroyed it. "You are very demanding for such a small gentleman."
His delighted laughter answered her, and the sound warmed something deep within her.
Later, she opened a children's book and settled Hugh against her while she read, pausing every few moments to point towards the garden and show him the flowers.
He listened in his own distracted fashion, occasionally patting the page or attempting to chew the corner.
Margaret smiled down at him, feeling an unexpected peace settle over her.
Whatever Pierce's reasons for leaving, whatever secrets he was chasing, and whatever place she held in his heart, Hugh was here.
She brushed her thumb over the child's soft cheek and sighed quietly. She could not have Pierce's heart. She never would. But she had this little boy, and somehow that felt like a precious gift she had not known she needed.
"All right, little one," she whispered, turning another page as Hugh rested contentedly against her. "Your father may chase ghosts. We shall stay here in the sunshine."
For the moment, Margaret decided, that would have to be enough
But what if the rumors are true? What if he is with her? The mysterious woman who is Hugh’s true mother?
* * *
"I will not allow this to occupy my thoughts at all times. There is much to do around the house," she mumbled to herself.
Margaret sat before the looking glass, drawing the brush slowly through her hair as she prepared for the day. She had become almost absurdly aware of the passing hours since Pierce had left Ravenfield, and no amount of pretending otherwise could disguise the fact that his absence had unsettled her.
Has he truly gone south in pursuit of answers concerning Hugh, or had Mrs. Norris's vague phrase about personal affairs concealed something far more unpleasant? A mistress is a ridiculous suspicion, particularly when Pierce has given me no reason to believe he keeps one, yet why does my imagination persist in supplying one because of Lady Darren’s words?
Perhaps some beautiful woman waited for him at an elegant country house, welcoming him with the sort of warmth Margaret had no business wanting to give him herself.
She frowned at her reflection and drew the brush through her hair with unnecessary force, silently ordering herself to stop being foolish.
"How many strokes do you require to brush your hair?" a deep voice asked from behind her.
Margaret froze so completely that the brush nearly slipped from her fingers.
She knew that voice, and hearing it now, inside her bedchamber, sent a rush of warmth through her that was thoroughly inconvenient.
She rose at once and turned towards him, her eyes widening when she found Pierce standing in the doorway as though his sudden appearance were the most ordinary thing in the world.
"You have returned," she managed, staring at him as though he had materialized from one of her more troublesome dreams.
"I said that I would," Pierce replied, closing the door behind him with quiet deliberation.
His expression was composed, almost stern, but there was something in his eyes that made Margaret's heart stumble.
Of course he has returned; he had said he would, and there is no reason to look at him as though I have been waiting desperately for this very moment.
"Of course," she echoed, lowering her gaze towards the brush as she tried to recover her dignity.
Silence settled between them, thick with everything neither seemed willing to say.
It had been only several days, yet Margaret suddenly realized how much she had missed the sound of his voice, the commanding presence of him, and even the maddening way he seemed capable of making her lose every sensible thought in her head.
For one humiliating instant, she felt like a debutante seeing her first handsome gentleman across a ballroom. She wanted to cross the room, throw her arms around him and confess that she had missed him terribly, but she could not possibly know whether he had missed her in return.
Better to be cool.
She lifted her chin, forcing her familiar wit back into place. "How were your travels?" she asked, adopting a tone of polite indifference that fooled absolutely no one, least of all herself.
"Productive," Pierce answered, his gaze remaining fixed upon her.
"Did you manage your personal affairs?" Margaret asked, carefully watching his expression.
"Indeed I did," he replied, giving her nothing more.
She bit the inside of her cheek. If she asked him whether his personal affairs involved another woman, she would sound jealous, and Margaret Wilmore Sterling was many things, but she was not about to make a spectacle of herself.
Instead, she picked up her hair ribbon and studied him through the looking glass as she fixed it in her hair.
"Where did your travels take you?" she asked, making the question sound almost casual.
"South."
"That is remarkably descriptive."
"I was not aware you required a map," he said.
Margaret's lips twitched despite herself. There was the Pierce she knew. "And did you find a welcoming place to stay?" she continued, refusing to be discouraged.
His brow rose. "I stayed at an inn, like most travellers."
"An inn?" she repeated, turning slightly towards him. "How terribly adequate."
"I was not travelling for pleasure."
The answer should have relieved her, yet somehow it made her more curious. "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked, softer now.
"I believe I am closer and closer to getting what I want," Pierce said, and the quiet certainty in his voice told her there was far more beneath those words than he intended to reveal.
Margaret sighed inwardly. She was getting nowhere. Every question seemed to strike an invisible wall, and Pierce appeared perfectly content to stand behind it.
She turned fully towards him. "Well, I am glad you have returned safely. All is well here at Ravenfield."
"Indeed it is," he said, his voice quieter.
"Then what brings you to my bedchamber?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. "You could have summoned me to the parlor and…"
Pierce stepped towards her. The rest of her sentence vanished.
He moved slowly, deliberately, until the distance between them seemed to shrink with every measured step.
Margaret's breath caught as his familiar scent reached her, warm and unmistakably masculine, carrying the faint trace of leather, fresh air, and something uniquely him.
She hated how quickly her body recognized him, how her pulse began to race before he had even touched her.
Has he come merely to speak with me? Has he missed me? Or has he come because, like me, he had found the distance between us rather more difficult to endure than we wished to admit?
Margaret held her breath as he came nearer, her eyes fixed upon his.
She could almost feel the memory of his kisses returning, and every sensible thought seemed to retreat beneath the anticipation gathering inside her.
She had spent days convincing herself that she could manage perfectly well without him, yet now that he stood before her, she knew with humiliating certainty that she had been lying to herself.
Pierce stopped only a step away.
Margaret swallowed and lifted her chin, determined that if he intended to unsettle her, he would have to work for it.
"You have travelled a considerable distance," she murmured, attempting a teasing smile. "Surely you did not return merely to stand there and stare at me."
His eyes darkened. "No," he said quietly. "I did not. I came to tell you something."
Her heart gave one hard, traitorous beat.
Margaret suddenly wished she had never asked.