Chapter 6- Margaret
Margaret hurried down the street, her smart boots striking against the tightly fitted cobblestones.
Cartwheels clattered and patient horses bobbed their head to the tune of their own steps.
A well-dressed gentleman doffed his hat and nodded her direction.
Margaret nodded back even as she averted her eyes.
She wasn’t used to being treated as a lady after those years where she’d disguised herself as a washerwoman.
Though her hair had grown out to dust her back once more, and her hands had softened and healed, Margaret thought she’d harbor some of that fear of being discovered until the day she died.
She still found it discomfiting to receive deference when she’d tried to avoid any attention at all for so long.
It surprised her how easily she’d been enfolded back into a life of privilege. It seemed now but a small hop—new gowns, a maid to wrestle her blonde hair into submission—but that step had been a cavern without William. Things had certainly changed this past year for the Preston misses.
But the city? London was as it always was. Margaret thought the city was much like nature itself—it cared for neither the rise nor fall of families. London kept right on heaving, heedless of whether its inhabitants failed or prospered.
Margaret had left Beatrice and Claire behind in the milliner’s and claimed she needed a new pen.
Truthfully, she wanted the opportunity to search the stationer’s one last time.
She’d only searched for her journal the once—perhaps she’d missed it in her panic?
It was a thin hope and she knew it. It had been days since she’d lost her diary, and she’d searched painstakingly.
As she walked, her mind shifted back to that terrible day and to the friend who’d comforted her. At Rachel’s insistence, Margaret had made her own list of gentlemen after all, even though she’d felt distinctly ridiculous writing out the names of the gentlemen she thought might be within her grasp.
A familiar laugh trilled up ahead. Margaret’s heart stuttered, then pounded in her chest. She froze so completely that her maid, Chloe, nearly ran into the back of her.
It wasn’t the girl’s fault she was following so closely—the street was thronged with elegant shoppers making their final preparations for the Season.
Margaret quickly located the source of the detestable noise.
As she feared, it was Daisy Knope, who as a child had been the architect of all Margaret’s worst nightmares.
Though childhood was securely behind them, the lady hadn’t grown out of the awful habit of making Margaret as miserable as she could at every turn.
Daisy stood with two gentlemen while her lady’s maid looked on. She wore a blue and purple striped dress edged in a fluttering abundance of ribbons. On anyone else, Margaret would have found the ensemble whimsical, but since Daisy was wearing it, she immediately decided it was overwrought.
The young lady was so wholly focused on her masculine quarry that, for once, luck was with Margaret and Daisy didn’t see her. Daisy simpered up at the taller of the two gentlemen while the shorter one poorly concealed a yawn behind his hand.
Margaret realized that she recognized the bored gentlemen as Mr. Ellis Buckley.
Though Mr. Buckley was the third son of Baron Stoneworth—and third sons were well-represented on Margaret’s list—she hadn’t added him to her roster of potentials.
He was attractive and charming and therefore quite popular with the ladies, despite his lack of fortune.
The taller man turned and Margaret was treated to a view of his profile.
He was remarkably handsome, with dark hair, a strong brow and jaw, and wide shoulders.
This was him then, the duke of whom everyone was speaking—Ettrick.
Now that she’d seen him, Margaret understood the near frenzy of the ladies of the ton.
She felt the same yearning as when she’d looked through the window of the modiste’s shop after their fortunes fell. But Margaret chidingly told herself the same thing that she’d said back then—back when she was too poor to afford meat for dinner, let alone a handsome pair of gloves.
That is not for you.
If her time as a pauper had taught Margaret anything, it was how to make economies. There was the obvious part, which was not spending more than one could afford. That was the practical part of being poor.
Margaret had found it far trickier to practice economies of expectation—to completely rid herself of the pernicious hope of more. But with great practice, she’d done it. She called upon that experience now.
Margaret determinedly dragged her eyes from the handsome duke and kept walking.
She tried not to chastise herself too harshly when she couldn’t help but cast one long last look back at the stunning man just before she turned the corner.
She reasoned it was only to be expected—she was out of practice in practicing economies.
Ever since William had returned, there simply hadn’t been the need.
Unfortunately, Margaret was so flustered—whether from seeing Daisy or the duke, she hardly knew—that she somehow made a wrong turn. As soon as she realized it, she stopped abruptly then quickly turned and doubled back the way she’d come. If she hurried, she might…
But no—Daisy and the duke now stood directly in her path. Margaret ducked into a doorway alcove and pressed herself up against the wood. Despite her size, Margaret was excellent at making herself invisible.
She was embarrassed to find herself in such a predicament, but she couldn’t resist the urge to watch the couple. Though she wouldn’t cast any of her hopes his direction this Season, she was as curious as the next person when it came to the duke.
Ettrick was handsome in face, dress, and bearing. He was surprisingly young considering all of the accomplishments that had been attributed to him by the ladies in the sitting rooms and parlors of London.
Margaret didn’t believe half of the rumors—he couldn’t possibly be that rich, for one thing. Besides, she knew better than most how fickle the gossips were, how quickly they would demean the duke if his fortunes were to falter.
Even now, the rumor mill was split on how to treat Margaret’s own family.
Half seemed inclined to forget everything now that they were wealthy.
The other half hissed vicious and increasingly implausible rumors about them—especially about how the Preston misses had made ends meet during those dark years.
Margaret didn’t mind, however. She reasoned that the more falsehoods that were being spread, the less the chance that someone would strike upon the truth.
As she watched, Daisy tipped her head back and laughed uproariously at something the duke had said while laying a hand ever so gently upon his sleeve. It was only half a second, nothing more, but the gesture spoke of familiarity.
Margaret’s impression of the duke soured immediately.
It hardly mattered that he was handsome if he was such a poor judge of character as to befriend Daisy Knope.
The duke turned and offered the lady his arm, cementing Margaret’s firm dislike.
Daisy took it readily, and they continued toward the other corner.
Margaret exhaled her incredulity in a large gust. Though many young ladies intended to throw their trimmed bonnets in the ring for the duke’s affections, it appeared that Daisy had a leg up on all of them.
Margaret wondered whether the duke didn’t care about Daisy’s strained reputation.
It was impossible to believe that the gentleman hadn’t heard of the scandal—it seemed all that anyone in London had spoken of this past summer.
Then again, it wasn’t difficult to believe that a man with the Duke of Ettrick’s excellent looks would enjoy a lady simply for the attention she could give him, that he would be more interested in pretty smiles and batting eyelashes than the true hallmarks of good character.
Margaret couldn’t wait to tell Rachel of this development. To think that her friend had put Ettrick on Margaret’s list! No matter—names were more easily scratched out than they were written, and this would be the last she would think of the gentleman at all.
Late-morning sunshine slanted past the velvet draperies into Margaret’s bedroom windows.
Beatrice, Rachel, and Margaret had landed there at the end of their migration through the house in search of something to occupy their time.
Beatrice lay flopped on the bed, a pillow over her face for some reason, her stocking feet dangling off the edge of the velvet coverlet.
Margaret was barely more presentable. Her hair had escaped its pins, even though the ladies had done nothing at all that morning. It now hung in a curling, disorderly halo about her face.
Her hair was as unruly and ill-behaved as their governess had claimed Margaret was, growing up. There was simply too much of it, for one thing. In dry weather, it behaved well enough, but the second any moisture hit it, certain sections frizzed and waved.
Margaret lounged on the tufted sofa before the fire, her feet propped on the padded ottoman before her, an encyclopedia open on her lap.
Although she had always been a reader, her interest in encyclopedias was recent—she had only ever used them for reference before, not for reading straight through.
It was Rachel Warrington who was to blame—she was the one who’d suggested that the volumes could be a form of entertainment all in themselves.
Margaret was surprised how much she enjoyed reading them in such a manner.
The books provided a survey of interests that she never would have discovered otherwise.
Rachel sat at Margaret’s desk, ostensibly reading a volume of encyclopedia herself. Except apparently she had gotten bored of the book, for she held up a piece of parchment and wrinkled her nose. “What on earth is this?”