A Lady of True Distinction

by Grace Burrowes

  “Thank you,” Margaret said, leaning into him. “Thank for you making the time to pay this call, thank you for keeping Bancroft away from me, and thank you for agreeing to return on Friday. I want to leap from this carriage and run up the drive to hug my girls one more time. Bancroft will never let us have them back. I know that now, but I also know the girls are bearing up, and that’s… that’s something.”

  Maybe heartache was like this—cresting and ebbing, never quite resolving, and never obliterating all reason. Grief certainly fit that description, and in her first marriage, Margaret had developed an intimate acquaintance with that emotion. The prospect of more grief—a parent’s grief rather than a spouse’s—had her wrapping her hand around Hawthorne’s arm.

  He had been right to view this visit as a reconnaissance mission, but the facts in evidence were discouraging.

  Hawthorne remained silent until he’d turned the gig through the gateposts. “We will return on Friday. I meant that.”

  “Despite haying?”

  “To perdition with haying. Let’s pay a call on Hannah Weller, shall we?”

  Hannah took one look at Hawthorne and Margaret and set her kettle on to boil. “Trouble afoot?” she asked, taking down a tin of herbs.

  The scent of the little cottage was a revelation to Hawthorne, a blend of everything from mint, to anise, to roses and honey. Margaret could probably list twenty different aromas without trying.

  “We’ve paid a call on Bancroft,” Margaret said, unpinning her bonnet. “The visit went well, which was both lovely and awful. I don’t want my girls settling in at Summerfield. I want my girls home.”

  A look passed between the women that put Hawthorne in mind of the glances exchanged between Greta and Adriana. Someday, he and Margaret would be able to communicate like that, but not with secrets lying between them and Bancroft getting up to mischief.

  “We both want the children home,” he said, “and the girls want to be home.”

  “Bancroft has London guests.” Margaret hung her bonnet on a hook on the back of the door. “He’s courting a Miss Emily Pepper, and I regret to admit that she seems kind and intelligent.”

  “You’d rather she were a horror?” Hannah asked, setting out tea cups with a pattern of blue flowers glazed around the rim.

  “Margaret would rather Miss Pepper not be so fabulously wealthy,” Hawthorne said.

  Across the cottage, Margaret paused before a portrait that looked to have been done in Oak’s hand. The framing was rough wood, which suited the rustic fellow portrayed. Hannah’s grandson Lucas had been a merry, friendly youth, taken too soon, and…

  An odd shiver passed over Hawthorne’s nape. He knew those eyes, knew that impish smile, but where…?

  The kettle sang, and Hannah poured the water into the teapot, then set out a strainer, sugar, honey, and milk. “Are we in the mood for biscuits?”

  “Made with butter?” Margaret asked, though what that had to do with anything, Hawthorne did not know.

  “Yes, missy.” Hannah set another tin on the table. “Made with butter. Some people like to experiment with a recipe from time to time.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about experimenting,” Hawthorne said, “with medications.”

  “Sit.” Hannah patted a chair. “Have a spot of chamomile tea, and we can chat all you like.”

  Hawthorne held the ladies’ chairs, then took his place at the little table. Maybe the scent of the herbs was soothing his temper. Maybe the notion that he was getting closer to the truth gave him patience. He liked this place, liked it better than the high ceilings and gilt pier glasses at Dorning Hall.

  Hannah poured the tea, the pot handle wrapped in a towel. “You are trying to tell yourself that the girls will manage at Summerfield if they must,” she said. “I do not accord Bancroft nearly that much goodwill where another’s interests are involved. He’ll send the children off to spite you, Margaret. He’s that hard-hearted.”

  She put a lump of sugar into Margaret’s cup. “How do you like your tea, young Hawthorne?”

  “Perhaps a drop of honey?”

  “Good choice. Have a few biscuits.” Hannah poured out for herself. “You too, Margaret. I can see you trying to make peace with a bad fate. You’re good at that.”

  Margaret cradled her tea cup in her hands. “Sometimes we have to be.”

  “Not this time,” Hawthorne said, “not if I have anything to say to it. Tell me about foxglove, ladies, and about Charles Summerfield’s illness.”

  Margaret hunched over her tea cup and remained silent.

  “The case was simple enough,” Hannah said. “He had the classic symptoms of dropsy. Failing energy, could not get his breath, swelling in the face, hands, feet… such a shame in a decent young man. Margaret put him on a regular dose of foxglove dissolved in hot water, and his symptoms subsided. Showed those London doctors a thing or two.”

  “Is foxglove a cure?”

  Margaret passed him a biscuit. “For some people, it apparently is, at least for a time. Not for Charles. He eventually got less and less relief from the same dose. We increased it, and again, some relief for some time.”

  “He lived for years the London doctors said he’d never have,” Hannah added. “Good years, mostly comfortable because Margaret took such good care of him.”

  “He took care of me, too, Hannah, and of the girls.”

  “What happens when the foxglove stops working?” Hawthorne asked. The biscuits were simply butter biscuits with a touch of cinnamon, a perfect complement to the chamomile brew, though as to that, the tea wasn’t simply an infusion of chamomile. Other flavors subtly complemented the chamomile, turning the tea into a rich pleasure.

  “For Charles, the medication still hadn’t ceased giving some benefit,” Margaret said, “not entirely. Charles could get out of bed most days. He could still manage the coach ride to Summerfield from Summerton on a good day.”

  “But he was losing ground,” Hannah said. “I don’t think it much bothered him, except that he’d be leaving Margaret and the girls. His affairs were in order—he told me that himself—but he had a sweet life, and leaving it had to be a sorrow for him.”

  Hawthorne helped himself to another biscuit. “He wasn’t ready to go, then?”

  Margaret looked up from her tea. “No. He wasn’t, not really, and I wasn’t ready to let him go, but with a bad heart, the timing is always unpredictable. A patient can appear to be improving, and then pass away while enjoying a quiet hour at the end of the day. Another patient looks to be at death’s door, but then rallies and can resume life at a normal pace.”

  “Does foxglove ever become dangerous? Margaret has mentioned that the plant is poisonous, but is the medication ever a hazard to the patient’s health?”

  “Yes,” Hannah said when Margaret remained quiet. “Foxglove is both angel and devil. The difference between a dose that takes down the swelling and a dose that causes bellyaches and worse is perilously close. For some people, those two overlap.”

  “How do you manage such a medicine?”

  Margaret rose from the table. “You experiment. You start with a small frequent dose and level off as soon as the symptoms of dropsy begin to subside. For the first year of our marriage, Charles never once had ill effects from the drug.”

  “And then?”

  She shifted to study the portrait again, her back to Hawthorne. “Then it became more difficult. Charles needed a higher dose, but we had to space them farther apart, or his belly troubled him, his heart fluttered, and his head hurt. As time went on, the balancing became delicate, but Charles was stoic, and when he argued with me, wanting more of the drug despite evidence the dose was too high, I argued back until he saw reason. Misery can make even the most sensible man difficult.”

  Hawthorne went to stand behind her. “How do you think Charles would have reacted if, instead of your sensible, knowledgeable, conscientious self to speak reason to him, he instead had a brother pouring the medication
down his throat, dose after dose?”

  Margaret turned. “Such a course would have resulted in suffering, if not death. Once the medicine has begun causing mischief, the only thing to do is withhold it until the patient’s condition improves. That’s well documented in the medical literature, and Hannah and I have both seen cases where the medication must be temporarily stopped.”

  Hannah bit into a biscuit. “So Bancroft killed his brother? Can’t say that surprises me.”

  Margaret listed into Hawthorne, her weight sagging against his chest. “Bancroft is lazy, selfish, underhanded, mean, and greedy, but he wouldn’t…. he didn’t…” She looked up at Hawthorne. “Bancroft said the medicine was worthless, that Charles should have stuck to the cold baths and plasters prescribed by the physicians.”

  The hurt in her eyes, the self-doubt, nearly had Hawthorne galloping back to Summerfield to call Bancroft out.

  “Bancroft told you that you killed Charles, didn’t he? Not your medications, but you, personally. Your care.” A pained silence bloomed while Hawthorne wrapped Margaret in his embrace. If she dissembled on this point, he’d… He’d be patient and understanding and try again and again until the truth was exposed.

  “After the funeral service,” Margaret said quietly. “The men were going off to see to the burial. The women were coming back to Summerfield House to lay out the food. Bancroft helped me into the carriage and told me—plain as the crepe on the coach windows—that I killed my husband, and I had best put aside any notion of dabbling with herbs ever again. I could not believe my ears. I wasn’t even with Charles when he died, but Bancroft is good at intimidation.”

  “And you’ve been waiting for him to renew that threat ever since.”

  “He could,” Margaret said, subsiding into her chair. “He could easily have an inquest called. The local squires may not respect him, but they don’t cross him, and for the most part, they serve as our magistrates.”

  Hawthorne sat next to her and took her hand, which was cool in his. “And you hoped that marrying me might at least give Bancroft something to think about before he grew too confident with his schemes. He was with Charles when Charles died, or under the same roof. I do not believe Bancroft intended to kill his brother, but he at least hastened Charles’s death.”

  Hannah poured herself more tea. “What happened?”

  “Charles apparently had a bad day. He asked for more medication in the evening, and Bancroft gave it to him—several doses in quick succession. Charles did not last the night.”

  “He wouldn’t have,” Hannah said. “Most patients can survive a dose or two beyond what’s helpful, but not several nearly at once. Even a healthy man could succumb to that much foxglove.”

  “Oh, my poor Charles.” Margaret bowed her head. “My poor, dear, ailing… I should not have let him go to Summerfield without me, but being able to travel on his own, to see to his various properties without me fussing at him and reminding him… I should not… Oh God. God help me. God…”

  Hawthorne scooted his chair closer and wrapped an arm around her. She began to weep, then to keen and sob. Hannah rose, patted Hawthorne’s shoulder, and went out the front door, while Margaret’s tears wet his shirt.

  She cried a good, long, loud, messy while. Hawthorne held her until she was sitting in his lap, arms around his neck, her nose pressed to his throat.

  “Bancroft told me I married a murderess,” Hawthorne said, stroking Margaret’s hair. “Told me to be careful around the tisanes. I have never been as tempted to do a man violence as I was in that moment.”

  “Good,” Margaret said, her voice raspy. “He deserves a sound thrashing. When Charles grew cross, he became impatient. He would have demanded more of the medication, but the Summerton staff knew to fetch me when that happened. You’re sure Bancroft didn’t kill Charles on purpose?”

  “I am certain he did not, but Charles is just as dead, isn’t he? And Bancroft inherited the bulk of the estate.”

  Margaret raised a pink, blotchy countenance to Hawthorne, then extricated herself to take her own chair. “I must look a fright.”

  Hawthorne kissed her. “I tell you that you not only had nothing to do with your husband’s death, but that you’ve been unfairly bullied by the man who did send Charles to his reward, and your first reaction is to cry for Bancroft’s other victim. I love you, Margaret Dorning, especially when you look a fright, especially when your hair is coming undone, especially when you trust me to guard your dignity in a moment of heartbreak.”

  She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Foxglove poisoning is a bad way to go, Hawthorne, usually. Maybe for Charles it was quick, because he was so weak, but still…”

  Was she blushing? Her splotchy complexion made it hard to tell. “Bancroft was half-seas over when he recounted his actions, and as you said, he doesn’t appear to have known how dangerous the medication could be. Is this why you haven’t fought him yet for the girls?”

  Margaret nodded, took a sip of her tea, and chose a biscuit. “Bancroft’s accusation—that I was responsible for Charles’s death—hung in the back of my mind like the sword of Damocles. He still hasn’t renewed his threat outright, but one doesn’t forget being labeled a medical incompetent. I feel relieved, angry, disoriented… I don’t know what I feel.”

  Hawthorne felt tremendous admiration for his wife’s fortitude, and rage at Bancroft for his sheer meanness. Charles Summerfield had gained years of good, loving life thanks to Margaret. Rather than be grateful that his brother’s suffering had been eased, Bancroft had resented Charles’s marriage. Not a man worthy of the term brother.

  Mostly, though, Hawthorne was in the throes of a determination so powerful as to make the way before him as clear as a scythed row down the center of a ripe hayfield.

  “The children will come home to us on Friday,” he said. “Send Miss Fenner a note to see to the packing on Friday morning.”

  “You’re certain? You don’t want to wait until your brother returns from London?”

  His brother, the earl. “I do not. I’ve asked Grey to come back to Dorning Hall, but he has not replied to my letter.”

  “So we wait until Friday,” Margaret said. “I never knew waiting would take such courage.” She rose and collected the tea cups and plates onto a plain wooden tray, then set the tray on the counter by the window. Her herbal bore a resemblance to this cottage, now that Hawthorne studied the appointments, probably as close to a home as she’d known growing up.

  Hawthorne wrapped her in his arms, and she tucked close. “You have been so brave for so long,” he said. “But this time, your bravery got you married to me. That means you don’t have to deal with these consequences alone.”

  She returned the embrace, the feel of her perfect in his arms. She had put down a heavy burden of self-doubt and sadness, and Hawthorne could feel the difference in her.

  “I love you too, Hawthorne Dorning.”

  As much as he rejoiced to hear those words, as much as they meant to him, that was not all he’d hoped to hear from her. He kissed her and led her out to the gig, but on the journey back to Summerton, Margaret said nothing more.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “From your brother Valerian.” Margaret passed Hawthorne the note, so weary she could have gone straight up to bed. She was appalled at Bancroft’s stupidity and his sheer nastiness, also terribly relieved to know that his threats regarding Charles’s death amounted to nothing.

  Less than nothing, because Bancroft himself had unwittingly hastened Charles’s demise. God help Miss Pepper if she became Mrs. Bancroft Summerfield.

  “Valerian asks for the pleasure of my company at Dorning Hall.” Hawthorne took Margaret’s cloak and hung it on a peg near the front door, then unpinned her hat.

  She let him undress her as if she were a tired child, sliding her gloves off and dropping them in the crown of her bonnet. “You don’t want to go?” she asked.

  “If somebody had an accident in the hayfield, I’d go,
but a mere summons...” He passed her the note. “No. Not now. They can learn to wait.”

  Join us at the Hall at your earliest convenience. Much to discuss. V.

  “Rather cryptic, but it doesn’t sound urgent.” Hawthorne wasn’t muttering about returning to his blasted hayfield either, which was fortunate. Margaret had taken comfort simply from sitting beside him in the gig, and she wasn’t ready to lose sight of him.

  He unbuttoned his coat and hung it on the peg that had become dedicated to his garments.

  “I want to take you upstairs,” he said, “and make love to you until we’re both exhausted and at peace. Spending time at Summerfield was less than pleasurable, though I’m glad the girls are well.”

  “They are well,” Margaret said, taking off his hat and brushing her fingers through his hair. “They are not happy.”

  Neither was she, exactly. Relieved, of course. Very relieved. Angry with Bancroft, though her anger was edged with both physical and emotional exhaustion. How dare Bancroft behave so wretchedly? So stupidly? She could not make her mind focus on what was to be done next, though.

  “Did you really mean you want to go upstairs with me, Hawthorne?”

  He brushed his thumb over her lips, a casual intimacy that nonetheless sent desire trickling past the welter of emotions the day had brought.

  “I meant it. Supper isn’t for some time.”

  “Send a note to your brothers to meet you here in two hours, then. If they have something important to say, we can both hear it.”

  Hawthorne took her hand and kissed her fingers. “I like that idea. I like it a lot. They can gallop across the fields at my summons for a change. Take me upstairs, Mrs. Dorning. I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too.” Margaret did take him upstairs, leading him by the hand and ignoring a smiling Higgins when they passed her in the upstairs corridor.

  Marriage to Hawthorne was proving more complicated and more rewarding than Margaret had envisioned. He was a good man, putting her in mind of Charles. Both of her husbands were honorable, devoted to family, courageous in a quiet way, and practical.