Page 35 of How Not to Marry a Duke

Which meant Margot.

Which meant trouble.

"Your stepmother has arrived," Penelope observed from the window, her voice carrying the particular brightness of someone who had not yet experienced Margot in full protective fury. "How lovely. And she has brought the most darling little girl."

"Hope is four," Florinda said. "She bites when vexed."

"Surely not."

"She bit the vicar last Easter. Drew blood. Percy was immensely proud."

Penelope turned from the window with a look of delighted horror. "You are inventing this."

"I am not. The vicar's sermon had gone on for two hours. Hope was merely expressing what we all felt." Florinda adjusted her position in the wheeled chair, trying not to think about the empty doorway, about footmen where Frederick should have been. "You ought to hide. Margot shall be in a temper."

"Why ever should she be in a temper? You have been convalescing from an injury. It is all perfectly⁠—"

The morning room door opened. Margot swept through it like a force of nature wrapped in travelling clothes, her dark eyes taking in everything—the wheeled chair, Florinda's splinted leg, Penelope's concerned hovering—in a single comprehensive glance.

"You," she said to Florinda, "managed to break your leg in the one place that would create maximum scandal. I am almost impressed."

"Margot—"

"The entire county is cataloguing how many times His Grace carries you up and down staircases." Margot removed her gloves with sharp, precise movements. "Mrs. Pemberton informed me—in excruciating detail—that her cook's sister's nephew works in the Carthedge stables and has been providing daily reports on the situation. Daily. Reports."

"I have a broken leg. I cannot walk. Someone must carry me."

"Someone. Not the Duke. Not the engaged Duke." Margot's gaze swept to Penelope, and her voice softened marginally. "Lady Penelope. Forgive my rudeness. I am Lady Raventhorn—Florinda's stepmother."

"I had surmised as much." Penelope's curtsey was graceful despite the awkwardness of the situation. "Your stepdaughter speaks of you with great affection."

"Does she? How unusual." Margot's lips twitched. "Florinda, I have brought a wheeled chair—I had one made in the village the moment I received word of your accident. You shall ride in it to the carriage. The footmen shall lift you in. We shall depart within the hour."

"Within the hour?"

"I have arranged for a surgeon to attend you at Ashbourne House. Dr. Blackwell—he treated Percy's brother's hunting injuries. Competent. Discreet." Margot's voice carried the clipped efficiency of a general marshalling troops. "You shall convalesce properly, in your own home, without—" She stopped herself. "Without complications."

Florinda understood what she meant. Without Frederick carrying her. Without the gossip spreading further. Without whatever had been growing between them having the chance to bloom into full scandal.

Margot was right. She hated that Margot was right.

"I should like to say goodbye," Florinda said. "To the household. To—to everyone."

Margot's sharp gaze softened, just fractionally. "You have half an hour. Then we leave."

* * *

Penelope found her in the blue guest chamber, Martha helping her into her travelling clothes—the same dress she had been wearing when her horse had thrown her and her entire life had become impossibly complicated.

"You cannot leave," Penelope said from the doorway, her voice thick. "Not yet. Not like this."

"Penelope—"

"Who shall I talk to? Who shall understand about—" She stopped, glancing at Martha, who was industriously folding a shawl and pretending not to listen. "About everything?"

Florinda reached for her hand. "You shall write to me. Every week. And I shall write back, and we shall be the most devoted correspondents in the kingdom, and when you are—" She hesitated over the word. "When you are married, I shall come to visit."

"Promise me." Penelope's fingers squeezed hers. "Promise you shall not forget me."