Page 93 of The Tartan Trap

It was as close to the truth as Margaret could manage.

CHAPTER 32- CALLUM

Thank you for being honest with me. I feel I can truly trust you.

The words seared Callum more than any fiery brand could have. His honor lanced his very heart the entire way home.

If he were being honest, whenever Callum had envisioned telling Margaret about the journal, in his imagination, she’d already been in love with him. That was wrong, he realized. Of course it was.

Callum had to tell her, even though he couldn’t expect her to look up at him with lovesick eyes and forgive him immediately. Margaret certainly liked him more than she had at the outset, but Callum doubted her feelings were so deep that she’d attribute such a thing to divine providence or fate’s intervention. She certainly wouldn’t disregard the fact that he hadn’t told her the truth of it all this time.

The real Margaret was an intensely private person who’d initially rejected him in part because of the attention a duke’s regard had brought her. She would recognize that Callum hadn’t been fully honest about how and why their relationship had started.

A lie of omission was just as bad as telling an untruth. Perhaps worse, for one could convince themselves they’d done nothing truly wrong. Honor demanded that Callum tell her the truth as soon as possible. The best time to do the right thing was immediately.

He nodded, as solemn as a promise. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow I will tell her the truth.”

Callum went directly home, wrote and sealed a note, then handed it off to a footman.

CHAPTER 33- MARGARET

The message from Callum had arrived not an hour after he’d left her.

Margaret,

Please meet me at our park bench tomorrow morning. There is something important I need to tell you.

-Callum

Of course, Margaret’s imagination went to work filling in the most wonderful—and most terrible—possibilities for his request. It had been almost as much work to fend off the hope of the best as it was to calm her racing heart from the worst. In the end, the result was predictable. Margaret slept only in restless fits and woke up with her hair looking as if she’d wrestled a pig.

Chloe showed far more patience for the process of brushing it out and arranging it than Margaret did. She had to keep herself from bouncing a knee up and down several times, and contented herself by exhaling several puffs of impatience.

Finally she was dressed in her favorite pelisse—the sage-green one with the playful pink ribbon running through elegant lace at the edge. Margaret figured it was the perfect outfit—one that she wouldn’t mind recollecting the rest of her life, if the meeting fulfilled her wildest dreams. On the other hand, it was an ensemble that would produce a grand flurry of skirts if she had to turn her back and stride away in a dramatic fashion.

It was still quite early when Margaret arrived at the park, though not as early as it would have been if Chloe hadn’t been required to comb a veritable nest out of her hair. Margaret paced near the pond, her maid watching from a distance. Margaret stomped back and forth in the damp earth until a family of ducks quacked their displeasure and waddled away.

Margaret knew that she was acting in high dudgeon, but she couldn’t seem to stop. She’d lain awake all evening, imagining intelligent things she’d say if this meeting brought the worst.

Her imagination—usually one of her favorite attributes—worked against her in this instance. Perhaps their courtship had been nothing but a ruse all along! Perhaps Callum was already engaged—no, married! Perhaps he’d fathered seven children with his parlor maid back in Scotland and any forthcoming marriage would be contractual and loveless.

Margaret knew that the arguments she’d run through in her mind hadn’t actually happened, but they’d put her in a high temper all the same. If only Callum would hurry up and arrive so that she might put all her clever words to use!

Only, when Callum did arrive several minutes later, he looked far too handsome, and he was carrying a picnic hamper, besides. Though she hardly wanted to admit it, handsome men and picnic baskets were a couple of her favorite things. The two of them combined proved to be exponentially attractive, a fact which threatened to make her scowl.

“Good morning, Margaret.” Callum smiled. “How are you this beautiful day?”

“Fine enough, thank you,” she said rather stiffly.

Margaret hadn’t factored in the pleasantries when she’d been arguing with him in her imagination the night before. Nor had she factored in that his dark hair would still be damp and curling a bit over his collar or that he’d smell like the faintest hint of that aftershave she adored.

“Would you sit with me?” He gestured toward a nearby bench overlooking the water.

Margaret nodded, though she planned on pointing out that the birds had already claimed the bench in the most effective way possible. She was deprived of the pleasure when Callum pulled a rolled wool blanket from the basket and spread it over the markings.

A fowl-befouled bench. Certainly there was a witty joke there somewhere, and perhaps she might have attempted one if she weren’t so nervous.

“My cook is from Holland,” he said after they were both seated.