Chapter 6- Margaret #2
Margaret glanced over and flushed. “You were the one who told me to write a list,” she said, her tone defensive.
“Yes, of eligible, handsome men. Not whatever this is.” Rachel scowled.
“I think it is a fine list,” she said. “An attainable list.”
Margaret knew who she’d end up with, if anyone at all.
Someone with a wonky nose or crowded teeth.
Someone who thought Margaret was pleasant and smiled at her antics.
She expected her husband to be her friend, nothing more, and before she settled into a lifetime of pleasant, comfortable, relational mediocrity, Margaret was determined to enjoy herself at least a little.
That was all she wanted out of this Season—a bit of fun, a lot of laughter, and not to embarrass her eldest three sisters or her brother.
For someone who was just a little accident-prone, it might be too tall of an order to ask for all three of those things.
If she couldn’t have them all, Margaret would settle for not being the familial embarrassment.
Rachel said, “Leave it to you to sell yourself so short. One should make a list with aspiration and hope in mind, not with dread and practicality.”
Beatrice suddenly flung the pillow from her face and sat upright. “What’s this about a list?”
Margaret opened her mouth to come up with some sort of a lie, but Rachel was already answering. “She’s made a list of the most boring gentlemen in the ton.”
“To avoid them, you mean?” Beatrice asked, tilting her head.
“For courting,” Rachel said.
“I thought the gentlemen were to court us,” Beatrice said, a wrinkle between her eyebrows.
“Well, yes, but it’s more of a list to prepare oneself, isn’t it?” Margaret said, already regretting this entire conversation. Now that Beatrice was involved, who knew what would happen?
“Why, this list is nothing but second and third sons,” Rachel said, aghast.
Beatrice scuttled off the bed in a decidedly unladylike fashion, came to stand by Rachel’s side, and peered over her shoulder.
“Mr. Forthswithe is missing a tooth,” she pointed out, frowning, “and Mr. Bailey has already been married twice.”
“But he’s not married now,” Margaret pointed out.
“Because his wives both died,” Rachel said. “I’m uncertain if he did it himself or if the man has terrible luck, but in either case, I wouldn’t see you entrusted to him.”
“Besides, he’s shorter than you are, which certainly is saying something,” Beatrice said.
“My height is perfectly respectable.”
“For a hobgoblin, perhaps,” Beatrice muttered.
Margaret decided to be the bigger person and ignore her. This was not the first time one of her sisters had commented on her height. She supposed it was nothing compared to the superiority they could have claimed.
“Is this truly the best you think you can do?” Beatrice cocked her chin and stared at Margaret.
Margaret lifted a shoulder and flushed. She didn’t care for their piercing gazes. Rachel stared at her until Margaret was tempted to fiddle with the lace edging her sleeves.
“Unacceptable,” Rachel finally said, crumpling the parchment in her fist and only relinquishing it to the floor once it was a compact ball. “We will start again.”
Margaret rolled her eyes. “We’ve already been through this. You think my list is preposterously dull, and I find yours simply preposterous.”
Beatrice frowned at each of them in turn. “Have you been making lists without me, then?”
“We can make yours next,” Rachel said, picking up a pen. “But Margaret is in more dire need of assistance than you at the moment.” As she wrote, she announced, “Again, at the top of the list is the Duke of Ettrick.”
Margaret made a sort of disgusted noise in her throat. “Don’t bother,” she muttered.
“You haven’t met the gentleman,” Rachel said, “so there’s no use arguing that he won’t be interested until you do.”
“I haven’t met him, but I’ve seen him.”
“Oh?” Beatrice arched an eyebrow. “When was this? You didn’t say anything.”
Margaret sighed. “I saw him on the street yesterday.”
Beatrice came round the sofa and plopped down next to Margaret, her eyes bright. “And?”
“And he’s every bit as handsome as they say,” Margaret admitted begrudgingly.
“That’s certainly hard to believe,” Rachel said, still jotting names down on the parchment. “They say quite a bit.”
“Tell me all about him,” Beatrice said.
Margaret waved her fingers through the air dismissively and said, “He’s tall, he’s handsome. But even that was not enough to admire, as I don’t care for the company he keeps. He was walking with Daisy Knope.”
Beatrice made a retching sound. “What a terrible waste that is. And how on earth does she keep getting these gentlemen’s attention? First a marquess and now a duke!”
“I don’t know the story,” Rachel said, looking between the sisters for explanation.
Margaret was thankful when Beatrice replied. It was a topic that had been discussed nearly to death, and she felt it too much effort and a waste of breath to repeat it once more.
“Daisy was engaged to the Marquess Beaufort,” Beatrice started.
“A coup for a social-climbing female like herself,” Margaret interjected quickly. Apparently she had the energy for the conversation, after all.
Beatrice nodded. “They went on a holiday to the countryside with a group of young people, and all anyone knows is that once they returned, he called off the engagement.”
“Some say she’d been discovered coming from one of the other gentlemen’s rooms,” Margaret said. “But I don’t believe it.”
“Quite. Despite her faults, Daisy isn’t so foolish as to seek another’s attention when she had a marquess upon the hook.”
“Yes,” Margaret said, huffing a laugh. “Other ladies might have their head turned by charm or a handsome face, but I firmly believe that an esteemed title is all the warmth Daisy will ever need in a relationship.”
“So what do you think happened?” Rachel asked.
“I think the marquess truly got to know his bride-to-be and was disinclined to spend the next thirty years with the talons of a discordant vulture sunk into him,” Beatrice said.
“That seems like a harsh assessment.” Rachel frowned.
“Hardly,” Margaret grumbled.