“It is still true,” her mother said. “And bring the gloves with the repaired seam. You fidget when you are nervous.”
Margaret glanced at her hands.
“Do I?”
“You always have,” her mother said. “I am your mother. I notice these things.”
Margaret smiled in spite of herself.
“Then I will try not to fidget.”
“Yes. See that you do.”
Margaret turned toward the door. The weight in her chest shifted into a tight, bright coil. She paused with her hand on the latch.
“Mother?”
“Yes.”
“If this goes poorly–”
“Then you will come home. We will shut the door. We will eat our supper. The world will still be here in the morning.”
Margaret nodded and stepped into the hall, the house quiet around her, the sound of the city waiting beyond the door. Her mother had not meant a word of what she had said, but she was trying. Margaret tried to be grateful for that, at least.
Margaret reached the park gate with her pulse already loud in her ears. The air held the smell of cut grass and the river beyond the trees. Carriages rolled past in a steady stream, and laughter drifted across the path. The promenade curved ahead of her, crowded with people who had come to see and be seen.
She spotted him at once.
The duke stood near the iron rail, hands clasped behind his back, his coat dark against the pale gravel. He did not pace, did not fidget like she did. He waited as if he had nowhere else to be.
When he saw her, his posture shifted.
“You came,” he said as she drew near.
“You invited me,” Margaret said.
His mouth twitched, as though amused. She liked that she amused him, if that were the case, though she wished she knew why.
“That is true.”
She glanced past him, taking in the lines of people, the bright parasols, the officers in their uniforms, the women in pale muslins. She hardly ever had the time to promenade with all of the work she was doing at home, and though she had told herself over and over that she did not miss it all, she did.
“You chose a busy hour.”
“If we walk when no one is here, our courtship is a secret. If we walk now, it is a fact.”
She considered that, laughing nervously.
“You make it sound like a legal document.”
“That will come if this goes well enough,” he said. “May I?”
He offered his arm. Margaret placed her gloved hand there. His sleeve was warm from the sun. They took their first steps together. The sound of it all struck her at once; the murmur of voices, the scrape of boots on gravel, the hush that arrived when people noticed who walked beside her.
She felt the looks at once.
“You are being assessed,” she said under her breath.
