Page 68 of The Tartan Trap

He continued, “She told me that she had sprained an ankle, that her lady’s maid was too slight to help her to the corner to hail a cab.”

And that certainly did sound like the maladroit, conniving methodology that Daisy preferred.

“I thought her name was Miss Dorinda Cope,” he confessed.

Margaret huffed a laugh and shook her head. Was that truly all there was to it—an explanation as simple and innocent as that?

Margaret could very easily believe that Daisy would lie to Callum’s face about her ankle in order to be among the first to meet an eligible duke. She’d proven herself to be an excellent liar, and she was in desperate straits. Margaret didn’t doubt that the young lady would do nearly anything to regain some sort of social clout.

She shook her head. “I am sorry, Callum. I fear I cannot think straight where Miss Knope is concerned.”

His forehead wrinkled in concern. “You two have a history, then?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Margaret admitted. “Our families socialized when we were children. She and I—” Margaret faltered. She wouldn’t lie, but she also didn’t want to tell the full scope of the truth. “She and I didn’t get along,” she finished lamely.

Callum made a humming noise that made Margaret think he suspected she wasn’t telling the complete truth.

But how could she, when such a thing sounded ridiculous? There was no good way to explain that someone had terrorized you as a child. No good way to say that the mere sight of the young lady was abhorrent.

Margaret had tried to tell her mother once about how Daisy Knope behaved when no adults were present. Her mother had listened sympathetically, then suggested that Margaret and Daisy might be better friends the following year, as if it were a simple divergence of personalities between them and not a cataclysmic divide.

Callum took a deep breath and nodded as if he’d heard every unspoken word Margaret had said. “I don’t know the lady. And though I did help a young woman to the corner and hail her a cab, I wouldn’t recognize her were she standing next to me right now. You see, Margaret, there’s only one name I’ve bothered to remember, only one lady I could recognize on a crowded street, and it certainly isn’t Miss Delilah Knope.”

“Daisy,” Margaret said, shaking her head with a rueful smile. “Her name is Daisy.”

“Well, it might as well be Delilah or Dorinda,” he said with a gentle smile. “I am interested in neither of them.”

It probably shouldn’t have cheered Margaret as much as it did to hear those words, but she felt a keen sense of relief. It was another mystery solved, a piece slotted properly in its place.

For if Callum had been courting Daisy at the same time, Margaret couldn’t have forgiven that. She couldn’t have overlooked that duplicity.

“Very well,” she said, for she believed him.

But right on the heels of her words, all the things she’d said to him, all the things she’d done to him, came charging in. Margaret nearly staggered back.

“Why on earth are you here?” she cried.

Callum huffed an impatient breath through his nostrils. “I thought we’d just covered that.”

“No, I mean…I’ve been awful to you. Simply dreadful.” Margaret knew she was wringing her hands in earnest, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “What with the French and the Matilda and⁠—”

“Don’t forget breaking the parasol on my knee just a moment ago,” he teased with a smile. “That was my favorite bit.”

Margaret swayed on her feet. Heaven help her, she had done that, and worse!

Callum caught her by the elbow and gazed down at her with warm hazel eyes. “I would forgive a thousand times worse than those trifling challenges, if only you’d truly speak to me, Margaret.”

She blinked up at him with wide eyes and couldn’t think of any words. It was just as well—she doubted she could vocalize them.

They walked together in silence for several moments after that, each deep in thought. Margaret was consumed by how terrible she’d been to Callum, how badly she’d misjudged him from the start.

“Forgive me for bringing it up again, but I still don’t quite understand,” he said with a frown. “Why would me walking with Miss Knope be such a blemish upon my character?”

Margaret thought that she owed him the truth, considering all she’d done. She winced, then took a deep breath and told him the whole of the terrible story with Daisy, Millicent, and John, and the kiss in the gardens.

“I hope you don’t think less of me for it,” she said. “I was only eight and didn’t grasp the full implications of…of kissing someone.”

Callum waved away her fears as inconsequential. “Of course not. You were a child. And I’m very sorry that happened to you.”