Page 45 of Christmas Comes to Little Valentine

“Not if I outlive you,” the dowager shot back, her eyes sparkling.

“Gee-Gee,” Nat reproached her softly, shaking his head.

Lady Louisa huffed and reached for her wineglass.

“I do hope you are not inciting sedition at your end of the table,” the duke remarked dryly, giving his grandmother a warning look.

“Why? Frightened, are you?” she demanded, looking as if she relished the exchange.

“Of you? I’d be a fool not to be,” his grace replied with a snort.

Meg glanced at him once more, surprised to discover there was a deal of warmth in his voice, and he looked genuinely amused. He loved his grandmother, she realised. Perhaps he was truly not as terrible as he appeared.

The soup was removed, and the table laden with such a vast variety of dishes Meg was relieved it was up to Aubrey to serve her. He did so with elegance, placing a little of each of her preferred dishes upon her plate.

“What was your mother’s name?”

Meg glanced at the dowager, relieved it was she who had asked and not the duke. “Margaret. I was named for her, you see. She was Margaret Fairchild before she married Papa.”

The dowager skewered a roast potato with her fork, murmuring to herself. “Fairchild, Fairchild, that rings a bell. Where did she hail from?”

Meg swallowed a sigh of impatience, wishing they would leave it alone. “Somerset, I believe. Possibly near Bath, though I could not say where precisely.”

“Do you have none of your father’s papers?” the dowager demanded impatiently.

Meg sent Nat a look of appeal, for she could not explain that she had nothing but a small carpet bag, that her father’s papers had all been kept by the lawyer who had dealt with his affairs, for what could she do with them? She could not reveal that every item they had owned had been sold save for that one precious book.

Nat stepped in at once. “I believe the papers remained in the hands of the lawyer, Gee-Gee. Now let poor Meg eat her dinner in peace. Between you and Hawkney, you’ll give her indigestion.”

His grandmother harrumphed but let the subject drop, much to Meg’s relief, and she got through the rest of the meal unscathed. After dinner, the gentlemen remained to linger over the port, whilst the ladies went with the dowager duchess to the sitting room.

Tea was ordered, though the dowager decided upon a brandy.

“Would you like a cigar with that?” Louisa demanded, with a little sniff of disapproval.

The dowager ignored this remark. “You can be mother and pour the tea, Louisa, and I’ll enjoy my little nightcap in peace, if you please,” she said, settling down in her chair beside the fire.

“You, miss, come and sit beside me,” she said, gesturing to Meg, who obeyed. “No, not you, Mabel. Entertain Miss Percy, there’s a dear, for she looks like a fish out of water and Louisa is ignoring the poor girl. Keep everyone busy and let me speak to Miss Bancroft in private.”

Mabel hurried off to do the dowager’s bidding, and Meg sat down with some trepidation.

“Tell me more about yourself,” the dowager commanded, her intelligent eyes alight with interest. “Tell me about your life in Hereford. Dull, was it?”

Meg laughed. “I suppose many girls might have thought it so, and there were certainly times when I longed for pretty dresses and to go to balls like those I read about in books, but I cannot honestly say I found it dull. Papa educated me as he would have done a son. I believe he had hoped for a son, in truth. Eventually, however, he said he was glad I was a girl because a son would have gone off to seek his fortune and see the world, but I was a companion to him.”

The dowager snorted, and Meg smiled ruefully.

“I know he could be selfish, but I was happy enough. I had books and my own horse. I could walk or ride out for miles with no one to gainsay me, and in the evening Papa and I would eat together and discuss our day, his work, or what book I was reading, what I had learned.” Meg shrugged, feeling rather wistful for her old life, as restrictive as it had been. It had been safe, at least, or so she had thought. If she had known what fate had in store for her, or how badly her father had managed their meagre finances, she might have felt differently.

“Hawkney’s right about one thing. You should contact your kin. Your father ought to have sent you to your mother’s people years ago, and what’s more I think you know it,” the dowager said, holding up a hand when Meg opened her mouth to protest. “If they were as wicked as all that, they’d have refused to take you, and if they took you and ill-treated you, you could have returned home. But they might have regretted losing their daughter, and they might have welcomed their granddaughter with open arms. Who are you, Miss Hoity Toity, to deny people the chance to make amends? Or do you believe there is no room for forgiveness in this world? A sorry state we should all be in if that’s the case, don’t you think?”

Meg stared at her uncertainly. “I-I have never thought of it that way before.”

“Ha! That’s because you’ve never spoken to aught but your papa. Men like that, the kind who live their lives between the pages of a book, they’ve no notion of life, of what people feel and think. Not unless they’ve been dust for over a thousand years, at any rate,” she said scathingly. “Well, I ain’t dust yet, and I’ve lived and loved and lost too. I’ve made mistakes and regretted them sorely. If I had the chance to make amends for things I’d done, I’d take ’em, so I tell you,” she said crossly, her gnarled fingers playing with the glittering rings that adorned them.

“But surely, they must have known where my mother was, who she married, that she had a child? They’ve had time enough to seek me out if they wished to make amends,” Meg protested, unsettled by the dowager’s words, by the notion there might be people who wished to claim her as family. She did not want to pin any expectations upon something that seemed to her a forlorn hope and one doomed to make her miserable.

“Perhaps,” the dowager agreed, nodding. “You may be right.”