“I think that having passion and being ladylike are not mutually exclusive,” Emma said. “What is life without a little passion?”
She blushed as she said the words, and Meg smiled. “You would not have said that three months ago.”
Emma laughed. “Perhaps not. Perhaps love gives us a different view on passion. I don’t know.”
Meg felt her smile slip away at the mention of love. She was truly happy Emma and James had found it, for her brother deserved nothing less than the devotion he’d found in the woman across from her. But seeing them so blissful only put her own situation in starker focus.
“What is troubling you?” Emma asked softly, her hand coming out to cover Meg’s.
Meg sucked in her breath as pain mobbed her. Pain she pushed away with greater and greater difficulty. “Troubling me? Nothing, of course.”
“I don’t believe that’s true.” Emma’s voice was very gentle. “You have not seemed happy since two nights ago, when the date for your marriage was announced.”
“Why would I not be happy?” Meg choked out. “I will at last be Duchess of Northridge, just as my brother always desired.”
Emma’s brow wrinkled. “James’swish, yes. You always put it that way. But what aboutyourwishes, Margaret? What are they?”
Meg pushed to her feet and walked away, for she had a great desire to simply scream out all that was in her heart. Right now the pressure of it was so great that she longed to spill it free where it could no longer torment her.
But when she looked at Emma, she saw more than a confidante and friend. More than a sympathetic ear.
“You are my brother’s wife,” she whispered. “Whatever I tell you will either go back to him or…or you’ll be forced to keep it from him. I don’t want to cause strife between you. I would never hurt my brother.”
Emma’s lips parted and she slowly rose, her hands outstretched. “This is very serious, isn’t it? I can see it in your eyes, feel it in the way you tremble. Meg, your brother adores you. Let us go and talk to him about whatever it is that’s troubling you. I’m certain we can work it out. That it can be fixed.”
Before Meg could answer, the door behind them opened and the dowager entered the room. She jolted at finding the two of them standing so closely together.
“Was I interrupting?” her mother asked, and Meg was pleased that she did not sound drunk this afternoon. That was one less weight on her shoulders.
“No, we were finished,” Meg said. “We were just talking about my playing.”
Her mother glanced at the pianoforte. “Ah yes, I have not heard you play in an age, Meg.”
Meg flinched, for she had played for the group not three nights before. That her mother did not recall that performance put her limitations in stark focus.
She smiled at Emma before she returned to the instrument. “Let me play for you now, Mother.”
She took her place, set her fingers on the keys and began to play her mother’s favorite song. Emma let out a soft sigh before she walked over to join the dowager beside Meg. As Meg played, she could feel her friend’s stare burning into her back.
For once in the longest time, her mother had actually saved her from herself. From whatever would be caused if she lost her head and admitted her heart. Now as she played, she remembered herself.
Because she had to.
Many nights, for many suppers, Simon had been placed beside or across from Meg. He had played the role of her good friend for so long that everyone expected them to chat and smile and rib each other good-naturedly. Even in gatherings outside their inner circle they were sometimes placed together. It came so very naturally.
Except for tonight. Tonight was different. Meg sat beside him, but she was not engaging in conversation with him. She wasn’t smiling or laughing or teasing with him. She was staring at her plate, at her uneaten food, and seemed to be doing her level best to just get through this supper so she could leave his side.
That truth stung, especially after their intense encounter on the terrace two nights before. He’d thought it meant something. Now he wasn’t certain.
“You are avoiding me, Lady Margaret.”
She glanced up and met his stare, but her dark eyes darted away just as swiftly. “How can I avoid you when you loom up everywhere you go? Even now your elbow is in my space,” she said.
He would have smiled at her statement, for this was a conversation they often had. Of course normally her words were said playfully. It was a game. Tonight her voice was dull and her body language closed and turned away from him so it brought him no pleasure.
He moved the offending elbow slowly. “Are you looking forward to the games tonight?” he asked.
She jerked her face back toward him, her eyes lighting up with something akin to…anger. Meg was angry with him? Why? He had done nothing to her that he could recall.
