CHAPTER 16
The carriage smelled faintly of damp silk and crushed grass.
Margaret settled into the corner seat, lifting her hem slightly to keep it from the pooled rainwater near the door. The garden party had resumed with determined brightness after the storm, but the traces of the downpour remained.
Emily sat opposite her. She had been quieter than usual since they left Halworth House.
“You vanished,” Emily said at last, staring at the blurred street beyond the window.
“Only for a moment,” Margaret replied. “It began to pour.”
“I noticed, strangely enough. I was also present.”
Margaret studied her sister more closely.
“You sound displeased.”
“I am thinking.”
“That is rarely a cheerful occupation.”
Emily did not smile. She was not always pleased by a more joyous demeanor, but Margaret could sense that something was wrong.
“I saw you,” she said. “Under the oak.”
“Yes. It was raining, and so we took shelter there.”
“You were not merely avoiding the rain.”
Margaret felt warmth rise again at the memory– his hand at her chin, the nearness, the pause that had almost tipped into something irreversible. Then she came back to the carriage, to the accusation that her sister had made. She did not like the tone that Emily had taken at all.
“I was,” she protested, but she knew it was a lie.
Emily hesitated, glancing at their mother. Lady Fairfield was practically overjoyed with how the day had been, for Margarethad exceeded expectations just as she had planned to, and Emily clearly knew not to ruin that.
“You are beginning to forget how this looks.”
“How what looks?”
“Yourself and the Duke.”
“It looked respectable,” Margaret replied calmly. “And yet, there was a romance to it that I will not deny. That was the point. It was very deliberate, I can assure you.”
Margaret watched her carefully, for she did not respond. Nobody said anything, and her entire family simply remained sitting together in silence for a moment. Poppy was pleased enough, but she always was. Emily, on the other hand, was more content to look at a window that had no visibility due to condensation than to look in her direction.
It was the sort of thing that would have warranted shame, if she regretted what she had done at all.
“Something happened,” Margaret said. “I can tell. What is it?”
Emily’s jaw tightened.
“Nothing,” she replied too quickly.
Margaret waited. After a moment, Emily exhaled.
“Lady Norwood asked me how long we expect the Duke’s interest to last.”
Margaret stilled.
