Page 8 of The Tartan Trap

Once she’d emptied every possible spot where her journal could be hiding, she slumped to the carpet, leaned against the wall, and stared dazedly at the mess she’d made.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Come in,” she said, swiping the drizzling tears from her cheeks.

She’d expected her maid or one of her sisters. Instead, Miss Rachel Warrington—her new and closest friend—sailed through the door. She wore a walking dress in her customary navy color, her blonde hair pulled back into a simple braided bun.

Rachel took in the cataclysmic disarray of the bedroom at a glance. “Redecorating?”

Margaret struggled to her feet, and Rachel seemed to get a good look at her for the first time. Her blue eyes narrowed. “What’s the matter? Do I need to send Lucien after someone?”

Margaret shook her head. She was a bit frightened to ask who, or more precisely, what Lucien was. Among Rachel’s many odd habits was the strange hobby of collecting taxidermy. Though Reginald, the stuffed raven, was fine, Margaret was hesitant to meet any additional members of Rachel’s stuffed menagerie.

“I’ve ruined my prospects and that of my sisters,” Margaret nearly wailed. “We’re soon to become the laughingstock of all the nobility.”

“How on earth did you manage that?” Rachel asked the question curiously, with a touch of admiration.

“I’ve lost my journal,” Margaret said, her voice as limp as the hands hanging at her sides.

“Where’s the last place you remember having it?” Rachel’s eyes narrowed; her gaze sharpened. “Do you think someone stole it—one of your sisters, perhaps? If so, it will hardly do any good searching in here. Don’t worry, I always use extra hairpins in case I need to pick a lock.”

Rachel had half turned toward the door, her fingers already plucking a pin from her hairstyle, by the time Margaret said, “I took it into town and lost it.”

“Oh dear, that is a problem.” After a moment’s consideration, Rachel hefted the sofa cushion and muscled it back into place before gently leading Margaret to sit next to her. “Shall we go and have a look?”

“I already did, yesterday.” Margaret pressed fingers to her pounding temples and stared at the flickering flames in the grate. “It was nowhere to be found, and I looked everywhere.”

Margaret had retraced every single stop—even going back to that blasted bookstore near the docks, pressing both her maid and the shopkeeper into service in searching for her journal, but it had been no use. Margaret finally had to give up when the sun began to set and the groomsman insisted they not be found near the docks at dark.

Margaret had cried all the way home, distressing her maid to the extreme. Not that she could blame the girl—Margaret was famously unflappable. She wasn’t prone to waterworks at all. Until this, apparently.

“Are you sure you searched well?” Rachel asked. “For I am happy to accompany you back out today. We can search again.”

“Thank you, but it’s gone.”

It was the truth, but it still hurt Margaret to admit it. Losing her journal was like losing a friend who perfectly remembered all of her secrets. Ruth had been the only one Margaret trusted to tell everything to. She rationally knew that she’d only lost a journal, whose worth couldn’t be more than a sovereign, and yet she felt as if she’d lost far more than that.

With the house being so remarkably changed from what it once was, Margaret felt that all those letters she’d written to Ruth were the most lasting record of what had happened, what she’d lived through. And now her journal was not only gone, it was presumably in someone else’s hands.

Whose? She wondered wildly.

“Very well. Let’s presume the worst,” Rachel said.

“Must we?”

“Let’s look your worst fear full in the face, so that we might leach the terror from it. Who would be the worst person who could have found your journal?”

Margaret sat for a moment, staring at the fire. “Miss Daisy Knope.”

“Right. Let’s imagine that Miss Daisy Knope has your journal right now. What precisely is she reading? Is there anything incriminating within the pages?”

Margaret chewed her plump lower lip and thought about it. “There might be, but I never signed any of the entries.” She turned to Rachel, the realization lighting all her features. “In fact, I don’t believe there’s any specific detail that ties the journal to me at all. My entries about our family and our loss of fortune are too vague for anyone other than me to know, and I never even used the initials for my siblings’ names—I use symbols instead, lest my sisters got a hold of it.”

“And what is the most scandalous thing in your journal, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Do you promise not to tell?”

“I promise.” Rachel nodded solemnly.