Lady Margaret looked at him curiously, and then her sister, as though trying to work out what had happened in the drawing room, before also settling. The evening continued with them discussing their passions, and with Miss Emily no longer furious, it made for a most pleasant interaction. Even LadyFairleigh was more bearable when she was not trying to tell him to choose another one of her daughters.
“I do not know what you did,” Lady Margaret chuckled as they were leaving and they had a moment together among it all, “but thank you. Whatever you said to her was precisely what she needed to hear.”
“It was nothing, I can assure you. She simply wants the best for you. However, are you aware that she knows of your situation?”
“Indeed,” she said in discomfort, shifting her weight. “She learned of it before the ball. Fortunately, she does not want Poppy to hear of it, so at least she will be spared from the knowledge. Does she know that you are assisting us?”
“She may well work it out for herself, but she does not think that I have bad intentions anymore, so we at least have that on our side.”
“That is certainly a start.”
“Your Grace!” Miss Emily called as she joined them again. “I wish to tell you that we will gladly meet you in Hyde Park two days from now. I forgot to tell you that I had changed my mind.”
“And I am pleased that you did,” he replied, and she left with a satisfied look in her eye.
Lady Margaret shook her head with a grin as she watched on.
“Does she often make the decisions?” he asked.
“She likes to think so. Will you be at the ball tomorrow?”
“I plan to be. We can consider it our first public display.”
“Then we shall be dancing again, yes?” she asked. “Once, at least.”
“Twice– no, three times, I would say. We ought to appear serious, so that when we promenade the following day we are taken for what we are.”
She agreed, and moments later they were gone.
The household was quiet again, and for the first time Nathaniel hated it. He missed the conversations, the bright voices of all three ladies. It all felt colder, and he felt Lady Margaret’s absence far more than he ever would have expected. He had known her for a matter of days, and yet she had already made a difference to him that he had never imagined.
And he had lied to her.
It was not an outright lie, but he had certainly omitted a lot. He knew he had to tell her about Eliza, about her predicament, and given all that he knew about her she deserved to know, but he could not. His sister had made him promise that he would not breathe a word of her condition to anyone, and he was determined to keep to it. He hoped that, in time, his sister wouldwarm to the idea, or that she would miss having friends so much that she would accept that Lady Margaret could be a friend to her, but until then he would have to keep it all from her.
Even so, he was happy. He had a fragile but existing truce with Miss Emily, a bond with Miss Poppy, a perfectly satisfactory distance with Lady Fairleigh and a friend in Lady Margaret. He was pleased about that.
Even if he was uncertain of how he felt that a friend was all she would be.
CHAPTER 10
Margaret did not know whether to be excited for her promenade in Hyde Park or terrified.
She knew that all eyes would be on her once they saw whose arm she was on. It was the perfect gossip fodder, and though Margaret had not been immune to it before, she somehow felt different this time.
Having been summoned before her departure, Margaret found her mother in the small back parlor, counting out coins onto a folded cloth. She winced, for her mother had never been so entirely open about their situation. It was deliberate, she decided, an attempt to remind her of what was at stake, and it was working.
“Please do not do that in front of me, Mama,” Margaret said.
Her mother did not look up.
“It is better if you see it. We are not ruined, only thinly stretched, so we can take that as a small miracle.”
Margaret crossed the room and nudged the cloth closed, her suspicions confirmed. It would have been understandable, she thought, if she had been resisting the courtship, but she was playing her part. It felt unjust.
“I did not come to be reminded of that.”
“And I did not want it to happen, but it has. I can only hope that you have some good news for me.”
