“You do not really intend to marry him, do you? If nothing else, he’s too old for you.” Lord Rockingham finally broke the silence.
Margaret shook her head. “Men are never too old for anything. A lady is nothing but too old once she passes the age of five and twenty.”
“You are not too old for me.” He was, indeed, a grown man. But he was a very young grown man. Margaret’s foot slipped and had he not been holding her wrist; she might have landed on her bum.
“I don’t know why we are even arguing over this. I am too old.”
“You did not seem too old the other night.”
Margaret exhaled loudly. “That matters not.”
He would not let it be. “Let me understand you properly. Passion matters so much that you were willing to seduce my uncle, who, by the way, is over twenty years your senior, but not at all with me, who is only a few years your junior.”
Margaret exhaled loudly again. Even if he was interested in her now, it would not last very long… And he wasGeorge’s nephew! “Leave it be. If our first meeting had been a normal and… proper one, I daresay you would not have even noticed me.”
“Possibly,” he answered, disappointing a tiny piece of her—a vain piece of her that wished he had denied the lowering truth. “But not likely.”
Her heart skipped a beat.
She drew her hand away from his as the path evened out in an attempt to place some distance between them.
“Four and twenty,” he finally said. “And Iwouldhave noticed you. I am certain of it. You are not like the other ladies here.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know that you are courageous. I know that you are compassionate. At the same time, you are proper and proud. You are interesting—an intriguing combination of woman, Margaret.”
“Lady Asherton,” she corrected him. Dear God, what was wrong with her? Because she warmed at his words. They fed something in her that had felt starved for so very long. Toward the end of her marriage, she had been a friend, a confidante, and a caretaker to her husband. Lawrence had appreciated her. He hadneededher. But at some point, she had ceased to feel like awoman.
The terrain leveled out and the dirt and rocks turned into an even stretch of nothing but sand. The sound of crashing waves drew her attention, tempting her to remove her shoes and wade into the surf.
“You know you want to do it. The sun is yet warm and this might be your last opportunity before the cold sets in.” His words seemed to echo her thoughts. There was no guarantee that it would be warm enough to wade in at the end of the house party, or tomorrow, even, for that matter.
Lord Rockingham had already lowered himself to a nearby rock and was removing his boots.
She had not been in the ocean, in the water, since before Lawrence passed away. Why was that? She would not remove her boots. She would not wade into the foaming waves that practically called out to her. She would wait and watch the others from a nearby boulder until everyone was tired and sandy and then she would hike back up.
Just as she went to sit down, a voice carried across the sand.
“There you are, My Lord!” Miss Drake and, behind her, a handful of other young people had emerged from the path onto the beach. “And Lady Asherton! How very brave of you to hike down before anyone else could go before you! You are so very sturdy and independent.”
And yet, her words did not feel like a compliment of any sort.
“Surely, Lord Rockingham, you do not plan on going into the water. Lady Asherton, you must talk some sense into him.” Mrs. Glenda Spencer spoke up from behind the young blonde woman. The second lady couldn’t be much older than twenty, herself, but had married into one of England’s most prominent families.
Both of the young women’s assumptions irked Margaret. She wondered that she had never found herself feeling so annoyed by such comments before attending this house party.
“I have no reason to talk Lord Rockingham into or out of anything. He is his own person and must arrive at his own decisions.”
His laughter echoed off the rocks that surrounded the cove.
“All that aside, why would Lady Asherton attempt to stop me from doing something she intends doing herself? Nothing scandalous about dipping one’s toes into the sea, last I heard.” He directed his words toward those who had just arrived, but Margaret felt as though he was daring her.
The sideways glance he slid in her direction confirmed her suspicions.
Miss Drake hugged her arms at her elbows and flicked a glance toward where the waves folded onto the sand and then bubbled and frothed before halting and then retreating.
The sea captured Margaret’s attention as well. “The summer is over, and the days are growing short,” she announced. “And I daresay that the water is like to turn one’s toes into tiny chips of ice.” She met Mrs. Spencer’s gaze, knowing Lord Rockingham was watching her. “But I daresay, this is bound to be our last opportunity this year, and I’ll simply have to take my chances.” And with that, she bent forward and began unlacing her half-boots. It had been too long. Far too long.
