Margaret had once demanded that Lily admit she knew she was pretty. Lily had finally done so, but only under threat of having frogs loosed in her bedroom.
Lily canted her head. "I suppose it hardly matters how many gentlemen call as long as the right one does." She proceeded to stare out the window with an expression that edged very close to a frown, at least for her.
Margaret's forehead wrinkled. Ever since Lily had returned from Aunt Lucinda's, she grew pensive like that sometimes.
"You miss her a lot, don't you?" Margaret asked gently.
"Who?" Lily turned, her eyes large, her expression alarmed.
"Great Aunt Lucinda, of course."
"Oh, yes. Very much." Lily fiddled with the beading at the edge of her purse.
Beatrice pursed her lips and looked out the window. Margaret stared back and forth between them. For a moment, she could have sworn she'd scented a secret upon the air…
"Ah,finally," Beatrice said, dropping the curtain. "We're home. I'm going to call for tea in the breakfast room."
"I'll join you," Lily said.
Beatrice looked at Margaret expectantly as they waited for the steps to be let down and the door to be opened.
"I will, too, but I need to drop my packages in my room first."
"Fine, but I'm not waiting to start if you dally," Beatrice said.
"That goes without saying," Margaret said beneath her breath.
Once inside the grand townhome, the sisters scattered. Margaret headed upstairs with her stack of paper-wrapped packages. She might have let her maid or the footmen deliver them, but one of the items was especially precious to her--the aforementioned journal.
Beatrice had been right about one thing--Margaret had searched high and low for a worthy replacement. Though she'd already decided her writing companion would forevermore be called Ruth, she still felt it a momentous occasion to choose a new writing book.
She'd found precisely the right one in the fourth shop. The book had a burgundy leather cover tooled with gold leaf at the edges. It was a far cry from the plain, sturdy book she'd written in daily for the past three years, but Margaret's life had changed much in that time span; she figured it was only right that her journal reflect the change.
Margaret was also determined not to write so densely upon the page in this new journal as she had in the last. Of course, that had been from pure necessity--there certainly hadn’t beenmoney for stationary when there’d barely been enough coin for food.
All that had changed. Margaret intended to use a page per day--a scandalous abuse of wealth by her previous standard of trying to fit three or four days onto one page. Yet it cramped her hand to write that way and it made her dizzy trying to read what she'd written. She reasoned that a page per day was more for her health than anything.
Margaret sailed into her large room, barely noticing the silk-upholstered walls, the expensive furnishings and the beautiful coverlet. It was true--with enough exposure, the most luxurious of surroundings became common-place. Even when one was determined not to take anything for granted, ever again.
At her desk, Margaret set down her stack and began unwrapping them--pens and ink, the aforementioned journal, and some new wax and loose parchment for sending letters to her other sisters in Paris. The youngest four had all begged the eldest to write often about the Season so they might know what to expect when their turn came.
Margaret set her new journal in the old one's place. She gasped and jolted.
Where was it?
Her heart pounded. Her eyes went wide.
Her old journal wasn't in the spot where it had been only this morning. She'd thought about taking it with her to compare its size to new ones as she shopped, but she'd decided against that idea. Hadn't she?
But then where had she put it? Margaret sifted through her desk, pushing her purchases to the side and opening all the cubbies--even those far too small to contain her personal diary.
A sudden memory--a momentary image--flashed in her mind. She distinctly remembered holding her much-beloved, worn journal up against a new brown one. Panic choked herthroat and turned her thoughts into stuttering foolish things that ran into one another.
Margaret stepped back and gaped in horror. There was no possible way she would have forgotten it somewhere--misplaced it during their shopping trip. It wasimpossible.
She had debated with herself at length as to the advisability of taking the journal from the safe confines of home in the first place. Margaret rarely left the thing on her desktop, let alone took it from her bedroom. It had too much information, too muchhonestyto ever let the thing from her sight.
Heaven forbid her sisters know what she truly thought of all of them.
