by Gaelen Foley
At ease, Major. She shook her head as the queue shuffled forward, little by little. He is adorable.
Suddenly, Maggie felt Delia’s elbow drive discreetly into her side. Snapping to attention, she looked forward again, only to find the dragon lady’s stare locked on her. “And who have we here?”
Delia took a step, putting herself forward, as she was wont to do.
Fluttering closer, Florence humbly did the introductions. “Lucinda, allow me to present the Marchioness of Birdwell and her sister, Lady Margaret Winthrop—daughters of the late Earl of Halford.”
“I see,” said the dragon, narrowing her eyes at Maggie and her sister in turn.
Delia dropped a deep curtsy. She’d come to curry favor, after all. “It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Your Grace. Thank you for the invitation.”
“As if I had a choice,” their hostess muttered. “My nephew insisted that all his friends from Moonlight Square attend, and I don’t mind telling you, I do not approve of that place, on the whole.”
“Why ever not?” Delia blurted out.
“I know what goes on,” the duchess said. “That place has earned a reputation for scandal of late. In my view, no one of taste ought to live there. It’s a haven for scoundrels.” The duchess dissected her sister with a relishing stare, sizing her up, daring her to protest.
But the Marchioness of Birdwell was in no wise accustomed to being addressed in such a fashion.
Maggie was. So she saw in a glance exactly what was going on here. The dragon lady was testing her unsuspecting sister.
Unfortunately, before Maggie could restrain her, the proud, hotheaded Lady Birdwell dared to naysay the duchess—politely, of course.
Delia swallowed her startlement and forced out a superior laugh. “Allow me to assure Your Grace that most in our neighborhood are entirely respectable.”
“Oh? That may be your opinion, young lady. But mark my words. It only takes a few bad apples to spoil the lot! What say you to that?”
“Certainly not, ma’am,” said Delia.
Maggie kept her mouth shut, but her heart sank. Oh, Delia, you don’t bother arguing with such a woman. Trust me on this.
“Oh, I see!” said the dragon. “You would contradict me in my own home, then?”
Delia spluttered while Maggie glanced around discreetly. Where is Edward? she wondered with increasing distress, but the serene marquess was nowhere to be found.
Sensible as he was, perhaps he had simply refused to go near the duchess.
Delia must have finally realized that even she was outmatched by this fearsome enemy, and it was time to beat a hasty retreat.
“Not at all, Your Grace.” She cleared her throat and forced a smile. “Well! We are very glad to be here, in any case. And may I say, Your Grace has a lovely home.”
“So glad you approve, Lady Birdwell,” the termagant drawled. “No doubt, in your infinite wisdom, you know much more about what’s in fashion than I, hmm?”
Delia floundered at this renewed attack. Maggie looked on in alarm. The dragon’s eyes gleamed with cruel glee as she homed in on Delia for sport.
“Th-that’s not what I meant, ma’am.” Delia lowered her head, flustered. “I would never presume such a thing.”
That does it! thought Maggie. She was getting her sister out of here.
“Come, Delia.” She laid hold of her sister’s arm. “We don’t wish to take up any more of Her Grace’s precious time.”
The dragon’s belligerent stare swung to Maggie. “Something wrong, Lady— What was your name again? Madeline? Miranda? Milquetoast?”
“Margaret. Lady Margaret Winthrop, Your Grace.” Maggie’s heart leapt into her throat, but she held her head high. “And yes. Something is wrong, actually, as it happens.”
“Do tell.”
Maggie knew it was unwise but could not hold her tongue. Blast it, as much as she sometimes despised her maddening sister, she would not stand by and see her abused by this bully.
“Frankly, Your Grace, I am shocked, shocked, I say, to hear such barbaric remarks directed at guests in one’s home!”
The ongoing chatter around them stopped at the sound of her loud, angry declaration.
“Aha.” The dowager duchess beamed as though she had just found a worthy opponent. “This one has spirit. Your sister presumes to judge my tastes, Lady Margaret.”
“She gave you a compliment!” Maggie exclaimed.
“It isn’t her place. Do I require praise from a self-important little marchioness that everybody hates?”
Delia gasped, her eyes widening at this unprovoked attack, then her cheeks turned scarlet. She turned around, gathered up her peacock-colored skirts, and bolted out of the drawing room in tears.
“Delia!” Maggie cried, left standing there alone.
“Somebody better fetch Birdy,” one of the other guests murmured, while the duchess laughed gaily, basking in her victory.
“Yes, run, run away, little marchioness!”
Maggie turned to her, infuriated. “How dare you speak to my sister that way?”
“Oh, you object, do you?”
“Most heartily, madam!”
The duchess leaned forward. “And what are you going to do about it, then, you impertinent little baggage?”
Maggie leaned toward her, narrowing her eyes. “Why don’t you ask your nephew?” she answered quietly.
The dowager’s laughter stopped, and her gloating smile turned to a glare. “Ah, have designs on him, do you? Well, too bad! Don’t get your hopes up. Little nobody. I know of your family. Your father foolishly died without male issue. You are therefore of no possible significance in the world, and thus have no chance of joining this family. What say you to that, Lady Milquetoast?”
Maggie saw red. “What a rare beast you are, madam! Inviting people here to your home so that you might attack them!”
The duchess merely shrugged, waving her fan. “The whole ton knows I have an acerbic wit. Those who cannot withstand it should stay at home. That is all.”
“No, madam, that is not all.” Maggie was now quivering with wrath. “Nobody speaks to my sister that way. You bring dishonor to my family and your own, showing such incivility to a guest.”
“Dear me! Such censure from a little milk-and-water miss.”
Maggie clenched her fists at this particular accusation. For, in truth, it was her worst fear about herself. “I am not a milk-and-water miss, for your information,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Oh? What are you, then?”
“The daughter of the Earl of Halford, ma’am.” And the future Duchess of Amberley, she almost said, but somehow managed to keep their secret.
“As for you, Your Grace…” Maggie leaned closer. “People warned me you were a dragon, but I see now they were wrong.” She pointed her finger in the old woman’s face. “You, madam, are an ogress!”
A loud, rude “Ha!” suddenly sounded from the back of the drawing room, which Maggie now realized, in the throes of her trembling outburst, had gone absolutely silent.
Her pulse pounding, she had forgotten all about the other people in the room.
The three approved debs were staring at her, open-mouthed, and, peeking from the corner of her eye, Maggie beheld the crowd of guests gaping at her with expressions both shocked and appalled.
At the back of the room stood Connor, however, wearing a devilish grin that stretched from ear to ear.
Maggie suddenly felt the room spinning. With a gulp, she looked over at little Lady Walstead.
Who was gazing at her in wonder.
Maggie was filled in that instant with an overwhelming need to get out of there. How she kept herself from running as swiftly as the god Hermes in his winged shoes, she knew not.
But somehow, she straightened up, lowered her hand to her side, and lifted her chin, pivoting to face the stunned crowd with all the dignity she could muster.
People cleared out of her path as she walked slowly, head hi
gh, out of the silent room.
Upon gaining the galleried staircase landing, she noted—with considerable relief—that Wellington had gone. One did not wish to make a fool of oneself in front of a national hero, after all.
But the staircase was clear, so she went right past Connor and fled down the steps as fast as her slippered feet would carry her.
“Maggie?”
She didn’t look back.
The entrance hall was still thick with guests; she’d never make it out the front door. Instead, she flung around the newel post and hurried down the ground-floor hallway, forging deeper into the house, in frantic search of an exit.
Heart pounding, she tried all the while to fathom what on earth had come over her. It seemed inexplicable. But hearing that dreadful woman abuse everyone around her—even sweet Lady Walstead—was more than she could bear.
No one had ever sent Delia running away in shamefaced tears before. Seeing that had cracked something open inside her that Maggie had never felt before: an instinctive need to fight back, protect her own, no matter how flawed they might be.
At last, she found an exit at the back of the house and strode out into the night-clad garden on legs that had turned to jelly beneath her.
Gulping in deep breaths of cool night air, she walked off across the terrace in a daze, pressing both hands to her forehead. Oh Lord, what have I done?
But she knew. She was fairly sure she had just destroyed her own reputation.
CHAPTER 25
The Major
Connor was seriously impressed by what he had just witnessed. Upon his return from walking Wellington out, he had caught only the tail end of the row in the drawing room, but, by Jove, he hadn’t thought the girl had it in her.
First she had stood up to Delia in Hyde Park; now she had defied the dragon lady herself. I fear I’ve created a monster. He could not suppress his grin while the rest of the drawing room looked confounded—except for Aunt Lucinda, whose lined, doughy face was puckered up in rage.
This defiant outburst from a social inferior had not just shocked the duchess; it had veritably roused the dragon from her cave and brought her forth ready to breathe fire.
It seemed Aunt Lucinda had just met her match in the unlikeliest of places.
She even made the effort of rising from her chair in grand indignation, but as the murmur of astonishment began to spread throughout the drawing room, Connor sent the matriarch a hard look of reproach for starting this.
She would answer for it when the party was over.
How would she react, he wondered, when he also told her he had found out about her past as Lucky Lucy Bly? Maybe the ton had forgotten who she’d been fifty years ago, but Connor had realized that most of Her Grace’s bluster was but a façade.
She might fool others, but she wasn’t fooling him. Her outrageous rudeness was meant to help cover up her own sense of inferiority, after having clawed her way up from the gutter to join the aristocracy.
How she must hate these highborn maidens of the ton, whose quality was never questioned. That would explain why she made it her business to put them all in their place.
Well, he thought, it had not worked on Maggie.
Already in motion, Connor went after her, pardoning his way past his guests. He rushed out onto the upstairs landing and looked over the banister just in time to see her flitting off down the hallway.
He ran down the steps, ignoring the guests just arriving, except for his trusty new friend, Major Peter Carvel, who had just walked into the crowded entrance hall with the Duke and Duchess of Netherford.
“Amberley!” Carvel looked amazed, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “We just saw Wellington leaving!”
“Aye.” Connor flashed a taut smile at his fellow veteran, who was likewise in uniform. “He stopped for a quick visit, can you believe it? Sorry—can’t talk at the moment. Minor emergency. I’ll be right back.”
“Need any help?”
“Ah, not at all, thanks. Glad you all came,” he added distractedly, then hurried after Maggie. He could not imagine what she was feeling at the moment.
But it was no mystery to him why she had exploded like that, never mind that Delia was no prize for a sibling. Nobody needed to explain clan loyalty to a three-quarters Irishman.
Still, he was startled and rather tickled by it all. After seeing how Society cowered from his aunt, little Maggie Winthrop was the last person in the world he would’ve predicted to stand up to her.
Amazing, how this woman continued to surprise him.
He strode down the hallway that led off the entrance hall, glancing around for her in every room he passed. When he saw the French doors in the morning room at the back of the house left slightly ajar, he realized she must’ve gone that way.
He crossed the room in a few swift strides and went outside. After pulling the door shut behind him, he spotted her wandering aimlessly a few yards down the central garden path with her hands pressed to her head.
“Lady Margaret!” he called, aware of a few guests standing on the balcony above.
Maggie looked back at him, her eyes as round as those of a spooked horse. She sent him only the briefest of glances over her shoulder, as though too ashamed to look at him.
“Are you all right?”
She didn’t answer, and kept her back to him, walking faster down the graveled path. Connor followed.
His aunt’s garden spanned the luxurious width of the terrace house and was bound by an eight-foot stone wall. Wrought-iron furniture was arrayed around a square flagstone terrace that overlooked the greensward, emerald and flat.
Here and there throughout the garden stood decorative pillars topped by stone busts or urns burgeoning with flowers. Connor passed sculpted topiaries, blooming flowerbeds, and a few small, ornamental fruit trees in blossom as he strode after her.
“Maggie, it’s all right. Come back.”
“Leave me alone!” she said in a shaky voice, sounding forlorn. “I’ve caused enough trouble for one night. I…I just need to collect my composure for a moment. Then I’m going home.”
She walked under the trellised archway, at the end of which sat a small, gurgling fountain with a curved stone garden seat across from it.
Connor briefly deliberated on what tack to take with her. With all his heart, he did not wish to see her cry. He was bursting with pride in the girl.
Cheer her up, he decided.
“There, there, Lady Maggie,” he said as he, too, passed under the trellis, approaching the fountain and the stone bench, where she had sat, looking routed.
“You cannot join me out here, obviously,” she said with a sniffle. “It’s not proper!”
“Why start now?” he murmured as he reached the fountain.
She looked up at him with an air of desperation as he stood there, and the moonlight caught the panic glittering in her wide, stricken eyes.
“What have I done?” she whispered.
“Darling.” Everything in him wished to comfort her.
“I can’t believe I just did that.”
“Neither can I,” he said with a chuckle, sitting down beside her. “Who are you, fearsome young spitfire, and what have you done with my meek, mild-mannered Maggie Winthrop?”
“Oh, please, don’t tease me!” she begged him, tears in her eyes.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just trying to put a smile back on those lovely lips.”
She covered her face with both hands and shook her head. “I’ve made an utter fool of myself.”
“On the contrary, darling, you were magnificent.”
“Oh, hang your Irish charm,” she whispered, turning her whole body away from him, trembling.
Connor gazed at her creamy shoulder with tender concern. “My aunt is the one who acted badly, not you.”
Maggie trembled. “I should not have risen to the bait. Why on earth would I throw away my reputation for my stupid sister’s sake? Delia hates me!”
“No, she doesn’t.
She’s your sister. That’s just her way.” He pulled his clean, pressed handkerchief out of his breast pocket and tapped her gently on the shoulder.
She glanced back and accepted it with a grateful nod.
As she dabbed at her eyes, still half turned away from him, Connor leaned closer and kissed that pearly shoulder. “Don’t cry, love,” he whispered. “All will be well. I promise.”
Maggie sniffled, wiping her nose. “You should go back inside. You really should.”
“I can’t,” he said. “Not until you feel better.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said woefully.
Connor stayed planted, resting his arm along the back of the bench and stretching his legs out before him.
Idly, he crossed his ankles, with no intention of leaving until she had fully regained her composure. It was pleasant out, starry. The spring night wrapped around them in dark, silky serenity.
The fountain bubbled and arced, its waters silvered by moonlight. The frogs sang, tucked away in their green hiding places. The cool night air smelled of lilacs.
“Your aunt’s garden is beautiful,” Maggie said in a weary tone after a moment.
“Almost as lovely as her temperament,” he drawled.
She let out a low snort of laughter, then turned around and finally gazed at him. “Should I apologize?”
“God, no,” he said. “She’d lose all respect for you now if you did.”
“Respect?” Maggie echoed.
“Aye. That’s how you earn it with her kind. They shove you; you shove back harder. Believe me, I’ve seen this sort of thing a million times. Besides, she had it coming, I daresay. So I repeat: you were magnificent.” He caressed her shoulder with one knuckle. “You made me proud.”
“You would say that.” She smiled uncertainly, then glanced toward the house. “They can probably see us from the balcony, you know, so you’d better behave.”
He shook his head. “Not from this angle. Blocked by the trellis. We’re safe.” As a rifleman, after all, he understood the geometry of a clear shot.
“Humph, it’s probably worse if they can’t see us,” she mumbled, sounding resentful. “Then they’ll just make up whatever they want instead of reporting what they think they saw. Not that it matters anymore. I’m sure I’ve just become an outcast, anyway.”