His brow furrowed and he shook his head in disbelief as if she were talking gibberish.
Margaret had now found herself in the bizarre position of defending behaviour that not long ago she would have seen as indefensible, but she hated to see him looking so downcast when he should be celebrating.
‘You wanted to save your…’ she paused ‘…your mistress from the disgrace of a divorce based on infidelity.’
‘Ex-mistress.’
‘Well, yes, but in doing so you were acting in an admirable manner. One could almost say you were being gallant.’
His eyebrows drew close and his expression suggested he thought she was losing her mind, and she had to admit she was pushing the definition of gallant somewhat.
‘Then you married me because we were…’ again, she paused ‘…caught in a compromising position. You didn’t have to do that.’
‘I did. Your father threatened to ruin me.’
It was her turn to send him a look as if he were talking nonsense. ‘You’re a duke. You could have got out of this, despite Father’s threats.’
‘But putting you in a position where we had to marry was not the behaviour of a good, kind or generous man.’ He sent her a defiant look, as if challenging her to deny it.
‘If I remember correctly, you did not put me in this position. I put myself in this position.’
‘Hmm,’ he said, looking back up at his mother. ‘But you are now in the same position as my mother, stuck with a man you don’t want to be married to.’
‘Jacob, you are nothing like your father,’ she said, lightly placing her hand on his arm.
‘God, I hope not,’ he said quietly.
Margaret drew in a long, slow breath before she continued. ‘A man like your father would never tell his bride that she was…’ she drew in another strength-giving breath ‘…was under no obligation to do her wifely duty. I’m sure a man like your father would not have tried to reassure his wife that they could just be good friends. I doubt a man such as he would do all he could to make the best of this situation and encourage his wife to do the same.’
‘Hmm,’ was all he replied as he continued gazing up at his mother’s portrait.
‘I know she would be proud of you, Jacob. I know she would have loved the man you grew into.’
Just as I do, she could add, that realisation breaking over her like a wave that had breached the cracks in her defences, washing away the last of her determined resistance to the truth.
She closed her eyes and breathed in and out, slowly and deeply, as she collected herself, then opened her eyes and turned to face him. He was gazing at her, and she was sure tears were glinting in his blue eyes. She took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
‘I believe it is you who are kind, generous and thoughtful,’ he said, returning that gentle squeeze. He looked back up at the portrait. ‘Another thing I have in common with my father is we both married women who were far better than we deserved.’
‘Well, I’m not going to argue with you over that,’ she said, adopting a teasing tone to mask the magnitude of what she was feeling.
‘What? No argument?’ he said in a similarly light vein. ‘But it is what we do so well.’
‘Oh, all right, you’re wrong. You got exactly the woman you deserved.’
He laughed, as she’d hoped he would. Looked up at the portrait, then back at her.
‘Right, now that we’ve transformed this entranceway and made it welcoming rather than gloomy and oppressive, there is another room I promised you we would transform.’
She angled her head in question.
‘You need to find your perfect studio.’
She clapped her hands together. ‘Oh, yes, let’s do that.’
To that end, they took a tour of the house, looking into countless drawing rooms, music rooms, libraries, studies, a billiard room and a ballroom. The list seemed to go on and on, not to mention countless bedrooms on the second floor, and that didn’t include the servants’ quarters and their bedrooms.
Finally, she settled on a morning room that looked as if it had not been occupied for many years. Facing north, it had perfect light and not just in the morning. Once the heavy velvet curtains had been removed from the floor-to-ceiling sash windows, it would have good natural light throughout the day. It looked out over the gardens and the hills in the far distance, and Margaret was sure the ever-changing outlook throughout the seasons would be a constant source of inspiration.
