Margaret’s eyes met his across the table. Understanding flickered there. And something that looked like resignation.
His jaw clenched.
After breakfast, he tried to corner her in the library, but Aunt Agnes appeared within minutes, suggesting Margaret might like to see the rose garden.
He tried again at luncheon, but the room was full of guests, all watching, all judging.
Once more, he tried on the terrace, but before Margaret’s hand could even touch his sleeve, Aunt Agnes materialized. “Lady Margaret, your sisters require you.”
No cries followed and no urgent footsteps, just that careful blankness sliding into place on Margaret’s face like armor.
Henry managed a bow that felt like swallowing glass.
This wasn’t chaperoning. This was sabotage of his courtship.
At luncheon, Margaret “accidentally” dropped her napkin.
Henry retrieved it before the footman could move. For one heartbeat, their fingers brushed. Her thumb pressed once against his knuckle. Quick. Secret.
Tonight. Don’t give up.
Later, he found a note tucked beneath his teacup:I am sorry. I am not refusing you. I am surviving them.He kept it in his pocket like a talisman, the only thing that kept him sane later, when his aunts’ musicale commenced with all the subtlety of a military campaign.
Every unmarried young lady in three counties had been invited—a parade of potential duchesses. A reminder of what he could have if he’d just stop being stubborn about the widow from the countryside.
Henry sat through three pianoforte performances that made his ears ache, a harp recital that lasted a geological age, and a soprano whose ambition far exceeded her skill and whose high notes could shatter crystal.
His gaze kept drifting to Margaret at the back of the room, spine straight, hands folded in her lap, enduring the torture with stoic grace.
Three weeks of proper courtship. Three weeks of stolen glances and careful touches and wanting her so badly he could barely breathe.
Enough!
When a certain Miss Carnie began her third encore, Margaret’s eyes met his across the room. She tilted her head toward the door. The smallest, most deliberate movement.
Then she rose and slipped out.
Henry’s heart kicked.
He waited exactly three minutes. Long enough to be discreet.
Then he stood. “Forgive me. I require some air.”
No one tried to stop him.
He followed her through the terrace doors, down the steps, into the moonlit garden, where shadows pooled and the air smelled of roses and possibility. Her lavender dress glowed silver in the moonlight. She’d chosen a bench tucked into a corner, private and hidden, facing a fountain that burbled softly.
“Margaret,” he said, barely more than a whisper.
Her head turned, and her eyes offered relief. Warmth. Hunger.
“Henry.” His name on her lips felt like coming home. “Isn’t this lovely?”
“The music is dreadful, don’t be kind, it’s simply—” He realized she looked up. She meant the garden. The moon.
The world melted away. He only had eyes for her. “Absolutely stunning.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry for abandoning the entertainment, but the gardens were calling.”
