Chapter 24- Margaret
“Ithought—” she started. She swallowed and gathered her courage. “I thought if I married anyone, it would be the third son of an earl.”
Callum stared at her, waiting for her to continue.
“You know,” she said. “A gentleman with a crooked nose and a hump in his back from studying textbooks in low light.”
Callum’s frown only deepened. Finally he said, “You’re in love with the third son of an earl who’s a humpback?”
“Don’t be purposefully obtuse.” Margaret began walking again.
She’d thought she’d been hurrying along, but Callum, mammoth that he was, kept pace with her easily.
“I confess I am confused,” he said.” Is there an earl’s son, or is there not?”
“Apparently not,” she said, stopping in the center of the path once more. “Apparently there’s only you.” She gestured at him lamely.
“And what is it about me that you find so objectionable?”
“Nothing.”
She could hardly admit that that was the problem.
If he’d had faults—other than being relentlessly focused on her—she might have been able to talk herself into believing he wanted her.
If he’d been stupid, that might have counter-balanced his daringly good looks.
Inattentiveness, a bit of boorishness…even a hint of body odor would have been welcome in her mind.
But there was very little to complain about if Callum had been telling the truth this whole time.
She shook her head and started walking. “I’m just trying to figure out what you see in me. You could have anyone.”
“I just want you.”
Margaret did her best not to scowl, even as a ribbon of warm delight unspooled in her stomach. “Perhaps I would feel better if this were a more private courtship, but with you about, everyone stares.”
“Who stares?”
“Everyone,” she said. “The ladies, the gentlemen, all of them.”
“And you don’t like the staring.” He said it slowly as if he was endeavoring to understand everything she was saying.
“Right,” she said. “I don’t care for it.”
“But such a thing hardly would matter as long as you cared for me,” he said, a wrinkle in his brow.
“I don’t know if I care for you,” she said honestly.
“Which is precisely my point. You don’t know me well enough.”
“Shouldn’t you say that neither of us know the other?
” she demanded. “Part of what I find so discomfiting about this is how firmly you’re set upon me.
Perhaps I would feel better if you’d made more of an effort in regards to other ladies.
Yet, to everyone’s knowledge, I’m the only one you’ve visited. Why is that?”
He smiled. “Margaret, have you been talking about me behind my back?”
“It’s not funny, Callum.” She barely refrained from stamping her tiny foot in the grass.
“You’re right. Courting should be a serious thing, with absolutely no amusement allowed.”
Margaret sighed and gave him a withering glance as he grinned at her. “Perhaps I wouldn’t feel so out of sorts if you would admit, once and for all, that you were accompanying her down the street.”
“Accompanying who?”
“Miss Daisy Knope.”
“Who on earth is Daisy Knope?” His voice rose slightly for the very first time. “I don’t know any Daisy. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a Daisy, let alone walked with one.”
Margaret’s face twisted into a mulish glower. “That isn’t true. I saw you with her.”
“Margaret,” he said, taking a deep breath as if to regain his poise. “I haven’t accompanied any other woman on a walk since I arrived in London.”
“Yet I saw you walking with her.” Margaret’s arms were crossed.
“Where?” he demanded. “When?”
“Before the start of the Season, on Highbury Street. I was looking for…” Margaret paused, for she had been making one last-ditch effort to find her missing journal. “A pair of boots,” she finished, rather lamely.
Callum didn’t seem to have noticed her fumble. He squinted over her left shoulder as if, if he focused hard enough, he might be able to see into the past.
Finally his frown deepened and he met Margaret’s eyes. “Are you speaking of the lady with the sprained ankle?”
“Pardon?”
“I do recall there was a lady on Highbury Street. Blonde hair, lots of bric-a-brac in it.” He gestured above his head to help illustrate his meaning.
Margaret had to admit that did indeed sound like Daisy.
He continued, “She told me that she had sprained an ankle, that her lady’s maid was too slight to help her to the corner to hail a cab.”
And that certainly did sound like the maladroit, conniving methodology that Daisy preferred.
“I thought her name was Miss Dorinda Cope,” he confessed.
Margaret huffed a laugh and shook her head. Was that truly all there was to it—an explanation as simple and innocent as that?
Margaret could very easily believe that Daisy would lie to Callum’s face about her ankle in order to be among the first to meet an eligible duke.
She’d proven herself to be an excellent liar, and she was in desperate straits.
Margaret didn’t doubt that the young lady would do nearly anything to regain some sort of social clout.
She shook her head. “I am sorry, Callum. I fear I cannot think straight where Miss Knope is concerned.”
His forehead wrinkled in concern. “You two have a history, then?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Margaret admitted. “Our families socialized when we were children. She and I—” Margaret faltered. She wouldn’t lie, but she also didn’t want to tell the full scope of the truth. “She and I didn’t get along,” she finished lamely.
Callum made a humming noise that made Margaret think he suspected she wasn’t telling the complete truth.
But how could she, when such a thing sounded ridiculous? There was no good way to explain that someone had terrorized you as a child. No good way to say that the mere sight of the young lady was abhorrent.
Margaret had tried to tell her mother once about how Daisy Knope behaved when no adults were present.
Her mother had listened sympathetically, then suggested that Margaret and Daisy might be better friends the following year, as if it were a simple divergence of personalities between them and not a cataclysmic divide.
Callum took a deep breath and nodded as if he’d heard every unspoken word Margaret had said.
“I don’t know the lady. And though I did help a young woman to the corner and hail her a cab, I wouldn’t recognize her were she standing next to me right now.
You see, Margaret, there’s only one name I’ve bothered to remember, only one lady I could recognize on a crowded street, and it certainly isn’t Miss Delilah Knope. ”
“Daisy,” Margaret said, shaking her head with a rueful smile. “Her name is Daisy.”
“Well, it might as well be Delilah or Dorinda,” he said with a gentle smile. “I am interested in neither of them.”
It probably shouldn’t have cheered Margaret as much as it did to hear those words, but she felt a keen sense of relief. It was another mystery solved, a piece slotted properly in its place.
For if Callum had been courting Daisy at the same time, Margaret couldn’t have forgiven that. She couldn’t have overlooked that duplicity.
“Very well,” she said, for she believed him.
But right on the heels of her words, all the things she’d said to him, all the things she’d done to him, came charging in. Margaret nearly staggered back.
“Why on earth are you here?” she cried.
Callum huffed an impatient breath through his nostrils. “I thought we’d just covered that.”
“No, I mean…I’ve been awful to you. Simply dreadful.” Margaret knew she was wringing her hands in earnest, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “What with the French and the Matilda and—”
“Don’t forget breaking the parasol on my knee just a moment ago,” he teased with a smile. “That was my favorite bit.”
Margaret swayed on her feet. Heaven help her, she had done that, and worse!
Callum caught her by the elbow and gazed down at her with warm hazel eyes. “I would forgive a thousand times worse than those trifling challenges, if only you’d truly speak to me, Margaret.”
She blinked up at him with wide eyes and couldn’t think of any words. It was just as well—she doubted she could vocalize them.
They walked together in silence for several moments after that, each deep in thought. Margaret was consumed by how terrible she’d been to Callum, how badly she’d misjudged him from the start.
“Forgive me for bringing it up again, but I still don’t quite understand,” he said with a frown. “Why would me walking with Miss Knope be such a blemish upon my character?”
Margaret thought that she owed him the truth, considering all she’d done. She winced, then took a deep breath and told him the whole of the terrible story with Daisy, Millicent, and John, and the kiss in the gardens.
“I hope you don’t think less of me for it,” she said. “I was only eight and didn’t grasp the full implications of…of kissing someone.”
Callum waved away her fears as inconsequential. “Of course not. You were a child. And I’m very sorry that happened to you.”
“It was a long time ago.” Even as she said the words, she realized the truth of them. Margaret felt ashamed for allowing something from almost fifteen years ago affect her so deeply.
“I’m sorry that you thought I was capable of something similar,” he said.
She shook her head. “It’s silly, now that I say it aloud. Truthfully, I wouldn’t blame you if this entire misunderstanding made you think less of me.”
“It makes me want to throttle John Knope is what it does. And perhaps I shall, if I ever meet him.”
“Oh, don’t,” she said quickly. “He’s matured into quite a pleasant young man. He’s married to a lovely young lady who’s even fatter than I am, and they have two adorable children already.”
Callum stopped short in the center of the pathway. Margaret realized her error immediately and flushed.
“You are not fat, Margaret,” he said sternly. “And even if you were, I daresay you’d still be stunningly beautiful.”
Margaret cast around for something to say, but her words were jumbled and she couldn’t put them in order quickly enough. Thankfully, Callum didn’t seem to need a response. After a moment he chuckled.
“What is it?” She looked up at him curiously.
“Just thinking of our tea with the regrettable Mr. Beetlesby. Your treatment of me makes much more sense now.”
Margaret shook her head. “I confess I was trying to push you away. I thought if I paid better attention to a gentleman other than you, you might lose interest.”
“Of course I wasn’t going to let Mr. Beetlesby drive me from your presence.” He said the name disdainfully, as if someone had just offered him a boiled boot for his supper.
“Again, I must apologize…”
“Must you?” Callum arched an eyebrow. “For I am of the firm opinion that once a sincere apology has been made and accepted, there’s not much left to do but to laugh at the aftermath of the misunderstanding.”
“That’s a very generous view, considering.”
“Besides, I might have been jealous if you hadn’t called him by a different name several times.”
“I didn’t.” Margaret blinked. “Did I?”
He chuckled. “First it was Mr. Beet, then Bleet, then Mr. Beetles. It was all I could do not to laugh. And the fellow was so bewildered because you certainly acted interested. But how interested could a lady be when she wasn’t even able to remember one’s name correctly?”
“No one explained how difficult flirting could be.”
“Is that what you were attempting?” His eyebrows flew upward and he grinned. “I daresay it had the desired effect until you started crying.”
“My eyes stung,” she said defensively. “Someone told me to make as much eye contact as possible to let a gentleman know that I was interested. I was trying to get you to go away.”
Callum laughed until a reluctant smile appeared on her face. Margaret had to admit that, in retrospect, the entire thing had been ridiculous.
“Margaret, I want to know you more,” he said earnestly. “I want to court you properly.”
Margaret suppressed the urge to shush him. The morning was waning on, and a pair of gentlemen walked the same path. They might hear him.
But why should I care if they do? she thought.
“Fine.” She straightened her back in sudden determination. “You may court me. I’ll even participate in the process moving forward.”
“I'm thrilled to hear it. Truly. However, may I make a gentle suggestion?”
Margaret raised an eyebrow in invitation. She had used all her courage in saying that Callum might court her.
“In the future,” he said, “if you have a charge against me, will you please bring it to me immediately?”
“Of course; that’s only fair.” Margaret inclined her head. “I fear that I would have gained the courage sooner if it hadn’t involved Daisy.”
“Understandable, considering the circumstances. Let’s speak of that no longer—I, for one, consider the matter quite behind us.”