by Sara Bennett
When she looked at Louis her heart didn’t soar. She wasn’t sure why she wanted it to. Her sensible soul told her that a soaring heart wasn’t really a prerequisite of marriage. The wild ups and downs of romantic love were for novels like Glenarvon, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to feel something more than friendship and warm affection. Perhaps love would grow? Perhaps one morning she’d wake up in a lather of wild passion for her mild husband?
His quiet voice interrupted her inappropriate thoughts. “I came to see you. Was there some upheaval here this morning with Lady Strangeways?”
“I’m afraid so. Have you heard the whispers already?”
He sighed, glancing at the door again. “I wish your father would not pay quite so much attention to what Lady Strangeways says.” The words were unusually daring for him and Margaret eyed him with surprise and hope, which he took to be censure.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Your father—”
She silenced him with a wave of her hand. “I agree with you, Louis. All of this arguing does not make for a peaceful time of year, when Christmas is supposed to be just that.”
He looked down at the floor and she noticed that there were some snowflakes in his fair hair. “I hope between the two of us we shall prevent any serious outbreaks of disharmony,” he said, looking at her again, and smiled.
“We shall,” she agreed.
Louis hesitated a moment, as if he would say more, and then smiled again. “I will see you at luncheon?” It had become a habit for him to join them for their main meal.
“I expect so.”
His blue eyes were full of warmth as he looked upon her. Affection, and an understanding that they were of a similar mind when it came to the vicar and Lady Strangeways. They had much in common, Margaret reminded herself, and she was fortunate in that because so many marriages were founded on much less. It was time to put away her foolish dreams and face her future. Perhaps Lady Strangeways’ improving tome would help settle her after all.
The door closed behind Louis and she stood staring at it, telling herself that she was going to marry that man. They would lie together in their marriage bed and probably have children together. He seemed a good man, a man she could talk to and who would listen to her opinion and act upon it.
She had seen far worse matches made in Denwick and elsewhere, and few of them were the happy endings Monkstead created.
She should be relieved and grateful.
Why then did she feel as if all the colour had gone out of her world?
3
Winter 1816, the North of England
The coach rumbled along the narrow road, the excellent suspension ensuring them the least discomfort and the two outriders keeping a close watch for highwaymen. Another coach followed at a discreet distance, carrying the earl’s valet and Sibylla’s maid, as well as two footmen. Dominic always travelled in style. What was the point of being as rich as Croesus otherwise?
Dominic and Sibylla had stayed at the homes of various friends along the way, being entertained with soirees and parties, but now they were nearing their destination. Sir Cecil Throckmore lived in England, but only just, and he was their father’s uncle, and therefore their great uncle.
As far as Dominic could recall it was at least twenty-five years since he had last visited Cecil, and that memory was dim. He vaguely remembered the house—it had been rather grand—and he remembered being told by Cecil that he could see the Scottish border from his attic windows. What he did remember clearly was how his great uncle had gone on to embellish this with tales of the Scots coming over their border to commit heinous crimes. Dominic hadn’t been able to sleep that night, or the next, but after that his father had explained these stories were from hundreds of years in the past. Perhaps he’d even had words with Cecil, because his great uncle never told Dominic stories like those again.
“I’m not sure I want to see Great Uncle Cecil after all,” Sibylla complained. Her lovely face was creased in a frown, what he could see of it within the fur-lined hood attached to her cloak. After many years living in warmer climes, chiefly Italy, his sister was not partial to the cold.
“He’s a very old man,” Dominic responded. “This may be the last time anyone sees him. He’s invited us to visit him for Christmas. We should make the effort, don’t you think?”
She sniffed. “Well, promise me we will not stay long, Nic. I need to get back to London.”
“And why is that?” he asked, staring out of the window at the bleak landscape.
The snow falls had been light as yet, but one never knew when they could turn heavy, and then they might be trapped in some godforsaken inn for a week or more.
If that happened, then he agreed with Sibylla—he wasn’t sure that their distant relative was worth that sort of pain. But what Sibylla didn’t know and what he hadn’t told her was … it wasn’t his great uncle he was here for.
A silence had fallen between them and his sister still hadn’t explained to him why she needed to get back to London, but he wasn’t surprised by her confession. Before they’d left, she’d been spending rather a lot of time with one of those species of gentlemen he’d much rather she kept away from. Why was it Sibylla was drawn to the bad pennies? He’d have thought her late husband would have been enough for her.
“Where is Great Uncle Cecil’s house?” she asked, sitting up a little straighter. They’d just passed through a non-descript village with a sign post and a grey stone church, an ugly vicarage nestling beside it.
“Three miles further on.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion and she turned to look at him. “I thought…There was a sign …What was that village we just went through called, Nic?”
“I’m not exactly sure—”
“Oh, I think you are sure! That was Denwick, wasn’t it? It’s Margaret’s village! You sneaky thing! You knew all along that it was Margaret’s village and she lived three miles from Great Uncle Cecil, and you didn’t say a word.” She clapped her hands together and laughed aloud, her eyes sparkling as they hadn’t in days.
He shrugged, as if none of that had occurred to him, or he didn’t care. Or both. “I can’t help it if our relative lives three miles from Miss Willoughby, Sib. Mere coincidence.”
She was still smiling. “How long is it since we’ve seen our great uncle?” she quizzed him. “I’m not sure I ever have.”
“I think I was six when father brought me up here. You were a babe in arms, too young to make the journey.”
“Why on earth was Great Uncle Cecil so important that father brought you here at all, Nic?”
“Family was important to father, you know that, and Cecil was a wealthy man with no heirs. Last I heard I was his heir. I suppose that was why we came, so that Cecil had a face to put to my name when he wrote out his will.”
She shook her head. “I still don’t understand why it is suddenly so imperative that we see him, now, in the dead of winter. Come, this is to do with Margaret, admit it, Dominic. You haven’t been yourself since she left.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Are you planning to check on her? See if she really is as miserable as everybody thinks she is? And if she is, then what? You can hardly just ride off again. You’ll have to do something. Of course you will! That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“I suggest you save your breath, Sibylla. If I remember correctly, the steps leading up to Great Uncle Cecil’s front door are very steep.”
She laughed as if she thought he was joking. She soon discovered he wasn’t.
Sir Cecil Throckmore’s house may once have been grand, but these days it seemed closer to falling down. As Dominic stepped through the front door, he wondered why his great uncle, who was rumoured to be almost half as rich as he himself, hadn’t spent a penny of it on making his life more comfortable. Had he known how dire his relative’s circumstances were, he would have visited much earlier. He could have settled Sir Cecil in Mockingbird Square, he told
himself, and looked after him. However, as soon as he came face to face with his great uncle his visions of a jolly old man shrivelled and died.
“You’ll have to take me as you find me,” Great Uncle Cecil announced in a gruff, unfriendly voice. He glared at his relatives through pink, watery eyes, barely visible beneath a hat that resembled an upside down bowl with fur lining, while wrapped about his neck. Most of his chin was a thick woollen scarf liberally sprinkled with bread crumbs from his last meal. Dominic wasn’t sure how many extra layers of clothing Cecil was wearing, but it must be a lot. He looked as round as a ball.
“Don’t you have any servants?” Sibylla demanded, clearly of the opinion that the elderly couple who had greeted them at the door weren’t enough. “I have brought my maid with me, and Nic has his valet, and then there are a couple of footman and the outriders.” Her dark eyes widened in her distress. “Where are we going to put them all?”
Sir Cecil smiled, showing off his large false teeth, and it wasn’t an amiable smile. “There’s an inn in Denwick. They can put up there if they don’t like it here. Young people have no stamina. In my day you expected to be cold in the winter.”
“Not indoors,” Sibylla retorted.
“You don’t have to stay, you know,” her great uncle went on, unrepentant. “As I said, there’s an inn in the village and I believe it is very well thought of.” He looked out of the window at the fast falling snow and his face—what they could see of it—turned smug. “Although it doesn’t look as if you will be decamping there tonight.”
Dominic rubbed his hands together to thaw them out. He told himself they could remain in this frozen shell of a house for one night. Dominic’s constitution was strong, but after tonight he would have to remove his sister to the inn.
“I wasn’t prepared for visitors,” Great Uncle Cecil stated the obvious.
“You did write and invite us,” Dominic reminded him.
“I write and invite you every year, Dominic, but you never come.”
Sibylla made a snorting sound, her eyes twinkling, and said, “I knew it!” Her brother pretended not to notice.
After a hearty meal of soup and bread, and some rather good port to follow, Sir Cecil left them to the mercies of his elderly servants. Dominic didn’t blame them for the poor welcome, they’d done their best under the circumstances.
He’d thought he could manage one night but it was even worse than he’d feared. His bed chamber was freezing, the fire smoky and sullen, his bed was unaired and the sheets damp to the touch. Every surface was covered in a noticeable layer of dust. He decided not to undress but wrapped himself in a quilt and lay staring up at the ceiling, his every breath a puff of white, and wondered what on earth he was doing here.
He shouldn’t have come. He’d known that when he set out but he’d been unable to help himself. Sibylla was right in believing he’d tricked her. He’d led her to think they were on a visit to Great Uncle Cecil when all along he had been planning to visit someone else altogether.
Margaret Willoughby.
Why couldn’t he forget her? He had tried. She’d been gone for three months now and yet he still expected to see her in the square, walking that arthritic pug of hers, and firing darts at him from her bright green eyes.
The catalyst for his mad dash into the north—if one could call a ride in a well sprung coach a ‘mad dash’—was his visit to Olivia Maclean, Margaret’s cousin. Olivia was back in her townhouse for the winter. A sensible girl, she wasn’t keen on Scotland at this time of year, no matter how much her husband might try to persuade her of how romantic it was when the loch froze over.
After the usual pleasantries, Olivia had poured out her news, and most of it was to do with Margaret.
“She’ll be engaged soon.” Judging from her tone of voice, this was not a happy occasion in her eyes.
“Have you met the curate?” he’d asked.
“Louis Scott? Yes, he’s a gentle, mild mannered fellow. I’m sure he and Margaret would deal well together,” she admitted grudgingly. “Or they would if it was just the two of them. But her father will never let them live their lives in peace, you can be sure of that. He’s a selfish man and he will demand that they run themselves ragged doing everything he asks of them.”
“Your cousin seemed to think such a life was her fate,” he’d said.
“I imagine she did. That’s the fate of many women. I just happen to be one of the lucky few who married a man I love.” She smiled and he felt that tug in his heart again, not for Olivia, but for his own solitary state.
“They say love can grow after marriage, or at least that is what I have been told.” He knew he sounded bitter and wondered at his own lack of self-control. Fortunately, Olivia wasn’t listening. She was too eager to get her own point of view across to him, though why he had no idea. Perhaps she thought he could fix Margaret’s situation, or perhaps despite his best efforts to appear disinterested she’d guessed he wanted to.
“But that’s not the point, Monkstead!” she cried out in frustration. “I did not think you, of all men, to be so slow-witted.”
“What is the point then?” he asked, deciding Margaret wasn’t the only Willoughby with a sharp tongue.
“She will be living in the place she was born, almost as if she never left it, and although I am sure she will pretend to be content and …. and happy, the truth is she will be brow beaten until she’s just a shadow of herself. She will have frittered away a life that could have been so much more. Margaret was made to be loved and cossetted and … and desired, and instead she will barely exist.”
“Mrs Maclean, please, don’t distress yourself.”
Olivia’s eyes had filled with tears. “Why shouldn’t I distress myself over Margaret? No one else will. She should be loved, Monkstead. She deserves to be loved and cherished. I always thought I would save her from what she calls her fate, and now she seems determined to sacrifice herself.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t want to be saved,” he’d responded, but the words didn’t sound as unruffled as he’d meant them to.
“Believe me, Monkstead, neither does she want the life she is currently leading. Not in her heart. I’ve never seen her happier than she was when she first came to Mockingbird Square.”
He’d walked away from that conversation in a daze. Here he was in London while Margaret was in the north and about to be married to a man she didn’t love and end her days in a place she loathed, all because she felt she had no choice in the matter. He’d said he would save her and yet he’d let her go. Some hero he’d turned out to be.
Of course, it hadn’t been that simple at the time. As soon as he’d spoken the words she’d given him that look. Green eyes flashing, cheeks flushed, head tilted back as she thought of a suitably acerbic response. He’d wanted to kiss her then, and keep kissing her until she admitted she wanted to kiss him back.
Was that arrogant of him? Margaret would certainly say so.
But in that moment his desire to save her had been genuine, and although he had tried to put her out of his mind after she’d left, Olivia had resurrected all of those feelings. What she’d said was true. Margaret was the sort of woman who would always choose duty over her own pleasure, and she needed an arrogant man to persuade her that sometimes pleasure mattered more.
And now here he was, three miles from Margaret, and still he wasn’t sure how he was going to lure her from her vicarage and into his arms. Sibylla might believe a woman would choose ruination over a respectable marriage, but she didn’t know Margaret like he did.
Could he win her over? Could he make the idea of ruination with him more palatable than respectability with the curate? And what if, when he finally arrived at her door, it turned out she was blissfully happy with her circumstances and his journey had been a fool’s errand? A sensible man would pack up and go home while he still could.
By the time he dozed off the house was quiet. He slept fitfully and it was early morning when he found himself sit
ting bolt upright, abruptly awoken by the sound of screaming.
He was struggling to unwrap himself from his quilt when his sister flung open his door. Even in the pale light trickling through his windows he could see she looked pale white, with dark circles under her eyes from her sleepless night. She’d clearly had a fright.
“What the devil is it?” he demanded, running a hand through his dark hair and wondering if he’d find icicles there.
“Great Uncle Cecil is dead! Stone cold dead in his bed!”
4
Winter 1816, Denwick, Northumberland
“I have heated some stew for you, Mrs Pritchard.”
The old woman gave Margaret a sour look. Mrs Pritchard was one of the more difficult members of her father’s flock, and also one of the oldest. No one was sure how old she was, but she claimed to remember Queen Anne’s coronation, so that would make her very old indeed.
“Was a time when the vicar himself would come to visit me,” she muttered. “Not this latest vicar but the one before. He was a thoughtful gentleman.”
Margaret wasn’t sure her father had ever visited Mrs Pritchard, but she knew her mother had. Now the visits fell to Margaret.
“I heard there was nobility in the parish,” Mrs Pritchard went on, soaking up the stew with some bread.
“Nobility?” Margaret blinked. “I don’t think so. Only Sir Cecil Throckmore, who has lived here for years and years, and I’m not sure you would call him nobility.”
“Not ’im!” the old lady growled. “I mean proper nobility. Lords and ladies come in from London.” She filled her mouth with a crust of bread and worked on it, falling into contemplative silence.
Margaret dismissed her gossip, busying herself about the tiny cottage by stoking up the fire and remaking the bed. Mrs Pritchard lived on her own and had no one to care for her, and although she might sometimes be an unpleasant old woman that didn’t mean she should be treated with callous disregard.