Chapter 27 #2
The question was quiet but sincere. Margaret considered it carefully.
“When I first came to Ravensmere,” she said slowly, “everything felt uncertain. The marriage, the future, all of it.”
“That is understandable,” her mother said softly.
“But now?” Emily asked.
Margaret’s gaze drifted again across the room. Nathaniel had just looked up. As though sensing it, his eyes found hers across the crowd. The connection lasted only a second, yet it felt steady, intentional. Margaret turned back to her family with a small smile.
“Now,” she said quietly, “I think there may be something good waiting for us here.”
Poppy’s grin widened immediately.
“That sounds suspiciously like hope.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “It does.”
Her mother squeezed her hand gently.
“Hope,” she said, “is an excellent beginning.”
Across the room Nathaniel was still watching her. And for the first time since becoming Duchess of Ravensmere, Margaret allowed herself to believe that perhaps this house, and the man she resided with, might truly become home.
Margaret moved easily among her guests.
She spoke with warmth, remembered names, and accepted compliments with practiced grace.
More than once, she caught sight of her mother watching proudly from across the room while Emily and Poppy whispered together with barely disguised excitement.
It should have been a perfect night, and for a time, it was.
Margaret had just stepped away from a group near the orchestra when a voice spoke behind her.
“Your Grace.”
She turned.
Miss Arabella Vaughn stood a few steps away.
The woman was striking, Margaret had noticed that the moment she had seen her weeks before; dark hair arranged with effortless elegance, eyes bright and assessing beneath long lashes. She wore pink, a contrast with Margaret’s blue. They were very different, and that thought remained with her.
Margaret inclined her head politely. She had not remembered inviting her, but then she had invited the entire ton, so it was entirely possible that her housekeeper had written the invitation herself.
“Miss Vaughn.”
Arabella smiled. It was perfectly courteous, yet something about it felt sharpened.
“I wished to offer my congratulations,” Arabella said smoothly. “The evening is magnificent.”
“You are kind,” Margaret replied. “We are pleased our guests are enjoying themselves.”
“I cannot imagine anyone failing to,” Arabella said lightly, her gaze drifting around the glittering ballroom.
Then she tilted her head slightly.
“I confess, however, I was surprised to receive an invitation.”
Margaret blinked faintly.
“Surprised?”
“Yes.”
Arabella’s smile deepened just enough to suggest amusement.
“I had not expected to be included.”
“I see no reason you should not be,” Margaret said calmly.
“Didn’t he tell you?” she said gently.
“Tell me what?”
Arabella’s voice remained perfectly pleasant, her smile not having changed at all. Margaret felt something inside her still.
“He has been rather absent. You have noticed that, have you not? I mean, any good wife would have. I did not want to tell you this, but… well, if your husband will not be a man and tell you, then I shall have to. He has been with me.”
The words landed softly.
Too softly for what she had suggested.
“I see.”
Arabella’s gaze held hers, steady and deliberate.
“I had expected him to feel it would be improper to include me tonight,” she added with a faint shrug. “Given the time we spent together.”
The implication slipped into the space between them like cold air. Margaret felt it immediately, a quiet, creeping chill beneath her ribs.
“I am glad you could attend,” Margaret said after a moment.
Her voice remained steady. Arabella studied her face carefully, perhaps searching for the reaction she had hoped to provoke. Unfortunately for her, Margaret was not going to give her that satisfaction.
“Well,” she said smoothly, “I should not monopolize the hostess.”
Margaret inclined her head again.
“Enjoy the evening.”
Arabella dipped into a graceful curtsy before drifting back into the crowd, pale silk disappearing among the moving dancers. Margaret remained still for a moment, then she turned back toward the ballroom. Music swelled again as another waltz began.
Margaret forced herself to continue moving through the evening, greeting guests, exchanging pleasantries, smiling until her cheeks ached, but as the night wore on, something else began to trouble her.
Nathaniel had disappeared.
At first she assumed he had stepped away briefly, perhaps to attend to Eliza, or to speak privately with one of the gentlemen gathered in the study, but time passed and she saw Eliza and her gentleman and Nathaniel was not with them.
Another dance ended, then another, and still he had not returned. Margaret felt unease begin to coil quietly in her chest. She scanned the ballroom again. He was nowhere among the dancers, and nor for that matter was Miss Vaughn.
The unease tightened. She did not want to accuse him of anything, but it made far too much sense. His absence had never truly been explained, and his reasoning of seeing Eliza was too easy, too convenient.
After excusing herself from another conversation, Margaret slipped quietly from the ballroom into the adjoining corridor. The music softened behind her as the door closed. Lantern light flickered along the hall, casting long shadows across the walls.
Margaret paused, listening.
Somewhere deeper in the house a door closed. She drew a steady breath, then she began walking. If Nathaniel had truly been gone that long…
She had nearly reached the archway that led from the ballroom into the quieter corridor beyond when a familiar voice called softly behind her.
“Margaret?”
She turned. Beatrice stood a few steps away, the light from the chandeliers catching in the pale silk of her gown. Her eyes, always too perceptive for comfort, studied Margaret’s face.
“You look as though you are fleeing your own ball,” Beatrice said gently, moving closer. “Surely that cannot be the intention of the evening’s most celebrated hostess?”
Margaret let out a small breath that might almost have passed for a laugh.
“I am not fleeing,” she said, smoothing an imaginary crease from her glove. “Merely stepping away for a moment.”
But she had never been much good at concealing her feelings from her friends, and that was only made worse by the condition that she was in.
“Is something wrong?”
For the briefest instant, Margaret wanted to tell her everything. She wanted to tell her what Miss Vaughn had alleged, and to say that there was a part of her, as foolish as it felt, that believed it.
But the ballroom behind them was bright and loud and full of watching eyes. She could not afford to take such a risk again.
And so, Margaret lifted her chin and summoned the same composed smile she had worn all evening.
“Nothing at all,” she said lightly. “I simply realized I have not seen His Grace for some time. A hostess ought to know where her duke has vanished to.”
Beatrice did not smile back immediately. Her gaze lingered, searching Margaret’s face with that quiet, disconcerting attentiveness that had always made it difficult to hide anything from her.
“Margaret, if there is anything–”
“It is truly nothing,” Margaret said quickly, though her voice remained gentle.
She reached out and touched Beatrice’s arm, a brief reassuring squeeze.
“The evening has been perfect. I imagine he has merely been detained by someone eager to speak with him.”
Beatrice hesitated. Then, after a moment, she nodded.
“Very well,” she said. “But do not wander too far. If the orchestra begins another set without you, half the room will follow you out in search of their duchess.”
Margaret smiled more fully at that.
“I promise to return shortly.”
Beatrice stepped aside to let her pass, though her thoughtful gaze followed Margaret as she turned into the corridor. The music of the ballroom faded behind her with every step, replaced by the quieter hush of the house’s interior halls.
And as Margaret walked deeper into the shadows of Ravensmere, the uneasy chill that had begun with Arabella Vaughn’s words settled more firmly in her chest.
And when she opened the door to the library, she wished that she had not.