“If you will buy expensive clothes,” she said lightly, “what do you expect?”
“I got it on tick,” Jem said with satisfaction. “Now my sister’s going to be a countess I’ve got great expectations.”
Margery laughed. She could see Lady Wardeaux hovering behind them, her expression creased with disgust at Jem’s vulgarity. She wondered whether Lady Wardeaux would attempt to refine her brother in the way that she had tried to improve Margery herself, or whether she would simply consider that a task too challenging even for her talents.
She grabbed Jem’s sleeve.
“Walk with me to my room,” she said. “We’ve got so much to catch up on.”
Jem offered her his arm and they walked through the hall toward the grand stair. “That old trout is determined to send me away,” he said as the drawing room door closed behind Lady Wardeaux. “While we were taking tea she asked me whether I wouldn’t feel more at home staying at the Templemore Arms in the village.”
“Well, I am sure you would,” Margery said. She gave a little giggle. “If you stay for dinner she will probably make you take it in the servants’ hall.”
“I’d have more fun down there,” Jem said. “I had no notion that being a nob was so deadly dull. What do you do all day, Moll?”
“Lots of things,” Margery said tartly. “Being Lady Marguerite is my job now. I ride out and meet the villagers and listen to their concerns and learn all there is to know about the estate. I receive visitors, I plan menus, I arrange flowers and I change my gown five times a day. There isn’t much time for anything else.”
Jem yawned ostentatiously. “Well, don’t overdo the excitement, Moll.”
“You can always go back to Town if you find it so tedious here,” Margery said.
“Oh, I’m in no hurry to leave,” Jem said quickly. “I fancy a taste of the high life.”
Following his gaze, Margery saw that Chessie was approaching from the hothouses, a basket of early roses over her arm. She looked beautiful, a vision in pink with the cream haze of the flowers only serving to accentuate her prettiness. To Margery’s amusement Jem stopped dead in his tracks.
“I’m definitely in no hurry to go,” he repeated.
“You have already met Lady Alton then?” Margery said. “I might have guessed.”
Jem glanced down at her but she had the impression he was not really seeing her. “Do you mind if I leave you here?” he asked. “Lady Alton might require my help with the flowers.”
“I doubt that,” Margery said “Especially as flower arranging has never been one of your talents.”
“She’s lovely.” Jem was still staring as Chessie came toward them down the West Passage. “Like a flower herself.”
“Poetry is not your forte either,” Margery said. “For goodness’ sake, Jem, you sound ridiculous.”
“I can’t help it,” Jem said. “I think I fell in love with her at first sight.”
“Love, is it?” Margery said sharply. “I thought it was something rather less profound. It usually is with you.”
“You can be so harsh, Moll,” Jem said, grinning.
The front door opened and Henry came in. Fortunately Jem was still distracted watching Chessie so Margery seized her moment.
“Jem, about Henry—” Margery began.
“Who?” Jem said vaguely.
“Lord Wardeaux,” Margery said sharply, still failing to reclaim his attention. “You met him in London. At the Hoop and Grapes.”
For a moment Jem looked completely bemused, then his expression cleared. “Oh, the nob. Yes. What about him?”
“He’s here,” Margery said. “He’s Lord Templemore’s godson. That was his mother you took tea with this afternoon.”
Jem’s expression changed. “No wonder he behaves as though he has a poker up his—”
“Yes, thank you,” Margery said quickly. “Could you try to be civil to him? We have guests tonight and my grandfather would not care for it if you took a swing at Henry during dinner.”
“Might liven things up around here,” Jem said, looking unfavorably at the suit of armor and the marble busts of long-dead Roman emperors that guarded the top of the stair. He caught Margery’s agonized expression and sighed. “Oh, all right,” he said. “I’ll do it for you, Moll.”
“Thank you,” Margery said, feeling a rush of relief. She left Jem at her chamber door and went in to change. It was raining in earnest now, a shroud of mist hanging over the deer park, the water gurgling down the old lead pipes and pouring from the gargoyles on the roof. The peacocks, soaking and bad-tempered, were huddled in a corner beneath Margery’s window.
Margery stripped off her filthy riding habit and rang the bell for Edith to bring her some hot water to bathe. She wanted to look her best this evening. Her beautiful golden gauze gown would make her look every inch an heiress and give her confidence. She lay in the steaming, scented water, enjoying the heat of it and the soft rub of the soap on her skin. It felt rich and decadent and her body felt awake and alive, still humming with awareness from Henry’s kiss.
Dinner was an even more uncomfortable experience than she had expected. Lord Templemore presided, the first time he had hosted a dinner for a number of years. The neighborhood turned out in style. There was a distinct current of antagonism in the air between Jem and Henry, but as Lady Wardeaux had seated Jem at the far end of the table and Henry at the top, they had no conversation. Lady Emily also seemed to have taken exception to Jem, casting him dark glances.
“The cards foretell bad things, Celia,” Margery heard her mutter to Lady Wardeaux. “Are we to be visited by every one of dear Marguerite’s disreputable relatives?”
Lady Wardeaux spent much of dinner telling Lady Radnor her plans for their trip to London for the remains of the Season. As Margery had not been consulted she could feel little prickles of annoyance jabbing her at regular intervals.
Jem was exerting himself to be pleasant to Mrs. Bunn, the vicar’s elderly mother, who was placed on his right, and Miss Fox, the doctor’s dowdy sister, who was on his left. In between he watched Chessie, who ignored him with polite indifference. It amused Margery. Such lack of interest from a beautiful woman was a very new experience for Jem.
She felt only slightly less self-conscious herself. Discovering her feelings for Henry had had a disastrous effect on her composure, making her as gauche as a schoolgirl in his presence.
The ladies withdrew while the gentlemen took their port. The talk was of the humid weather and an outbreak of typhus in the village. Miss Fox commented that a traveling fair was encamped on the green, so no doubt the village would be a hotbed of crime and was it not a disgrace? She seemed overly excited at the prospect of so many potential thieves and pickpockets in the neighborhood. Margery thought she would probably swoon if she realized she had been sitting next to one at dinner.
“We should make up a party and go,” Margery said. “I love the fair.”
As with so many of her comments, this one was met with utter consternation.
“Oh, Lady Marguerite!” Miss Fox twittered. “We could not possibly! It would be most scandalous and quite, quite wrong!”
“It would be very inappropriate,” Lady Wardeaux confirmed with a grim smile as though appealing to all the local ladies to sympathize with quite how much she had to put up with in trying to educate her charge in the manner befitting a lady.
Later, when the guests had departed and the family had collected their candles and made their way up to bed, Margery stood by the window in the tower room and looked out into the spring darkness, across Templemore’s manicured lawns to where the lanterns of the fair swung in the distance. She was so tempted to go. Except that she knew that if she disappeared to the fair her grandfather would worry.
She felt intolerably hemmed in tonight, both held captive in a gilded cage and hostage to her feelings for Henry. They made her feel restless and pent up. She glanced toward the door in the corner tower. It seemed to beckon to her.
Suddenly, she made her decision. Tonight she would escape, if only for a little while. Tonight she was going to be Margery Mallon again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Lovers: Strong emotions, a choice of the heart, the power of attraction
TWO HOURS LATER, MARGERY was as happy as she had ever been at Templemore, a capacious white apron over the top of her golden evening gown, her hair bundled up under the cook’s spare cap, up to her elbows in flour and sugar with a batch of marzipan cakes cooling on the table and some ginger biscuits cooking in the range.
The air was thick with the scent of spices and steam. All the servants were crowded around the long pine table sampling the almond drops and the Naples biscuits. Mrs. Bow, the cook, had been completely won over by Margery’s sponge roll, declaring it the best she had ever tasted. The hall boy had taken a parcel of cakes out to the stables for the grooms and the coachman to try, and even Barnard the butler had biscuit crumbs trailing a guilty path down his livery.
After the initial half hour he had cracked open the second-best bottle of sherry, supposedly for cooking purposes only, but it was not long before one of the footmen had surreptitiously passed the bottle around. From the sherry they had somehow progressed to port and from there to champagne and so the confidences had started to flow along with the wine.
Daisy, the second housemaid, had told Margery all about her younger sister who did not want to go into service but wanted instead to be an actress, and how their mother thought that was more likely to be the start of a career as a lightskirt than anything else.
William the footman told Margery about his father’s farm over near Faringdon and how it was losing money hand over fist because his father converted the barley into beer and then promptly drank the lot. Even Mrs. Bow had confided her worries about her sister who was sick with the typhus and had four children to care for.
Margery listened and chatted, and drank from the bottle, and felt that at last she was accepted below stairs, not as someone with a background in common with the servants, but entirely for herself. It was lovely.
Then, suddenly, the door of the kitchen swung open and Henry stood there, wet hair plastered to his head, water droplets scattered over the shoulders of his coat, looking formidably furious.
Silence descended on the kitchen like a shroud falling. Those servants who had been sitting at the table scrambled to their feet and executed hasty bows and curtsies. Barnard tried to brush the stray crumbs from his livery.
“My lord,” he spluttered.
Margery hastily pushed the empty champagne bottles out of sight behind the dresser.
Henry strode into the room. “I am sure,” he said, glancing around at the guilty faces, “that you must all have work to attend to.” His voice cut like a whip.
“We’d finished—” Daisy the housemaid began, only to be hushed by Mrs. Bow.
“Then you can go,” Henry said curtly.
No one argued. One by one they melted away.
“You did not need to spoil their fun,” Margery said reproachfully. She felt miserable, all the pleasure she had taken in the baking and the camaraderie of the evening leaking away like gas from a balloon.
Henry’s gaze focused on her hard and fast, and she felt her stomach drop with nervousness at the anger she saw there. “What the devil do you think you are doing?” he demanded.
“I am baking cakes,” Margery said, “as you can see.” She gestured to the scatter of pastries, marzipan and ginger across the table. “I like it,” she added defiantly. She was scared by the anger she saw in Henry’s face but she felt mutinous, as well. Henry was so good at spoiling her fun. “It makes me happy,” she said.
“You were distracting the servants from their work,” Henry said. His gaze picked out the bottles lurking behind the dresser. “And I see you are drunk, as well.”
“No, I am not!” Margery said, stung.
Henry simply looked at her. He came up to her and took her by the shoulders. Margery’s stomach swooped down to her toes with a mixture of fear and anticipation. Henry bent his head and, without any preamble at all, he kissed her. Shock skittered through Margery’s veins at the rough possession. She gasped in outrage as he slid his tongue into her mouth, tasting her. It was deliberate and insolent and she felt it all the way through her body. A heat that was different from that radiating out from the ovens lit her from within.
“You taste of champagne,” Henry said. There was something dark and heavy in his eyes now. His gaze lingered on her lips.
“We were only having a little glass,” Margery said. She wiped her damp palms down her apron, willing her hands to stop shaking. “The servants had finished for the night,” she said. “You heard Daisy—”
“Who?” Henry said.
“The housemaid,” Margery said. “She is sister to one of the grooms. You know their father. He is grandpapa’s chief gamekeeper—”
Henry made a brief gesture, cutting her off. “I am not concerned with that,” he said shortly. “I am concerned with you disappearing and letting no one know where you were.”
“I don’t see why it matters,” Margery said.
Anger flared again in Henry’s eyes. She could feel it in him, banked down, under control, but burning fiercely for all that. His fists were clenched at his side as though he wanted to catch her to him and shake her. She could feel his fury and his frustration but she could not understand it.
“It matters because it is dangerous,” he said. “Do you know where I have been?” He flung out a hand. “I have been out looking for you because I thought that you had run away to the fair! Anything might have happened to you—” For a second there was raw anguish in his voice, then he took a steadying breath and moderated his tone. “It was foolish of you not to tell anyone what you were doing.”
“I am sorry,” Margery said. She felt shaken and confused by his anger but she sensed something deeper, something that tormented him.
“Sorry is not good enough!” Henry said. His voice shook with repressed feeling. “Someone is running around taking pot shots at you with a bow and arrow and yet you vanish for several hours without explanation. You have become so spoiled that you do not have any sense, nor do you stop to consider other people’s feelings!”
The blatant unfairness of this made Margery’s temper snap. “That,” she said furiously, “is completely unjust.”
She walked over to the sink and washed the flour off her arms. She did it very deliberately, keeping her back turned to him. Inside she was fizzing with indignation at Henry’s criticism. All he ever seemed to do was tell her off and drag her back to face her unremitting duty. He drained the joy and the color out of everything.
“I did not even leave the house.” She swung back to face him. She could feel her cheeks burning with heat and fury. Her whole body was shaking. “The reason you did not realize that I was here was because you are so stiff-necked and proper that you would never visit the kitchens yourself!” She threw down the cloth she had been using to dry her arms and stalked straight up to him. “You claim to care for the people of Templemore, but I think you are a fraud, Henry. You don’t even know the servants by name! I think all you care for is to be seen to fulfill your obligations. The people themselves do not matter to you at all. They are just another means by which you can demonstrate that you do your cold duty!”
There was a frozen silence. Henry’s eyes had gone as icy as a winter night, his expression terrifyingly aloof.
“Is that all you have to say?” His tone was extremely polite.
“No,” Margery said. She felt like a runaway carriage careening down a hill; now she had started, she could not stop until the inevitable crash at the end. “You show your mother not a single jot of affection,” she said. “You call your godfather ‘sir.’ You care for no one. You have not a drop of love in you and you never have—”
She stopped. For one brief second she had seen in Henry’s eyes a pain so searing, so vivid, that it stole her breath.
He turned and walked away. The sound of his footsteps echoed on the stone flags of the floor. Margery heard the soft swish of the green baize door closing. Then there was nothing but silence.
She stood irresolute for a moment. Already, the anger draining from her, she felt completely wretched. Stung by Henry’s criticism, weary of always being forced to put duty before pleasure, she had lashed out at him in frustration and hurt, and in doing so had hurt Henry in turn. She had been unfair to him. The one thing she could not question was his devotion to Templemore and its people. She had seen his kindness to them and seen, too, the respect in which they held him.
She grabbed the candlestick and hurried from the kitchen, her quick steps pattering on the stone stairs up to the green baize door. If she left this now and went to bed she knew what would happen in the morning. Henry would be his usual courteous but distant self. He would behave as though nothing had happened. They would continue in this state of remoteness and yet another brick—an entire row of bricks—would have been erected in the wall between them.
She did not want that.
She realized it with a little jump of the heart. She did not want Henry to treat her like a stranger. She could not bear such coldness between them. She wanted more than that.
The house was very still. A light showed beneath her grandfather’s door and from within Lady Wardeaux’s chamber came the sound of voices. No servants were about. At times like this, Templemore echoed with emptiness.
Henry’s chamber was at the end of a long, dark passage shrouded in tapestries and wreathed in shadow. Margery paused outside his bedroom, listening for voices, but there was no sound from behind the heavy panels of the oak door, no sound other than a faint crash and Henry giving voice to a muffled curse. Margery stood listening some more. She pressed her ear to the door. And then she turned the handle.
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