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“He’s dead now, poor dear,” she answered.
Was it Margaret’s imagination or did Louis looked relieved? She found this unexpectedly funny, and then sad. What would this mean for their engagement? Would they both go into their marriage loving other people? Would they both make the best of it because they had no other choice? Where was the justice in that?
She realised she had been silent too long and rallied. “I couldn’t possibly ask my guests to cook their own luncheon,” she said firmly.
Just then the door to the sitting room opened and the vicar stepped out. “Ah, there you all are!” he said. “Please join us. Luncheon shouldn’t be too long, should it, Margaret?”
“An hour at the most,” she reassured him, hoping it didn’t sound too much like she was plucking numbers out of the air.
“Good, good. Time for sherry then.”
With some relief, Margaret watched the others join her father and let the cook lead her to the kitchen.
She was very glad to have a moment away from Dominic. Whenever he was near her he seemed to suck up the air until she felt as though she couldn’t breathe. She wanted to ask him questions, make him answer them, and she wanted to say yes and tell him she loved him too, because she thought she did. She thought she might have loved him from the first, despite how he never failed to irritate her. Perhaps her conflicted feelings had been the only thing preventing her from throwing herself into his arms at the first opportunity.
That he loved her, that he was offering her all that he could, given his circumstances, made her ache with longing and regret. The strange thing was that his being a married man was the lesser of her concerns. Yes, she would be shunned from society and her family would consider her dead to them—her father most certainly would. Whatever life she had now would be over completely.
But deep in her heart wasn’t that what she wanted? To be cast out from Denwick and throw her lot in with Dominic?
The acknowledgement of this fact shamed her. What sort of daughter was she to choose scandal as the solution to her problems? She was destined for a life far more monotone than Dominic was offering her. She would never sparkle and glow, she would never erupt into a hundred colourful starbursts like the fireworks she had seen in London.
It was time to end this nonsense. After luncheon she would find a moment to be alone with him and tell him she had made her decision and her final answer was no. Forever no.
11
Sunday luncheon was a much grander affair than usual. The earl and his sister, as well as Lady Strangeways, made for an elite gathering. The vicar was in his element, while most of the time his wife sat meekly to the side, picking at her food. Margaret wasn’t sure whether her mother had slipped back into that twilight world she seemed to inhabit, or whether, like her daughter, she was wishing herself a thousand miles away.
She nodded for the servant to clear the first course and tried not to flinch when the girl clashed some of the good china plates together. Most eyes were on the head of the table, where her father was holding forth about his school days. He and his brother had gone to a school for the well-heeled—this was before the family lost their wealth in ill-judged speculations. Although Margaret’s uncle had regained his fortune through his own clever investments, her father’s prospects remained poor. She supposed that was why he liked to portray himself in a better light, and why this move to a more prestigious parish was so important to him.
Lady Strangeways’ braying laugh interrupted her thoughts. Margaret could see that her ladyship was encouraging her father in that odious way she always did. It always surprised her how much the woman enjoyed the vicar’s stories, given how she was usually so opposed to enjoyment of any kind. Not for the first time Margaret asked herself whether Lady Strangeways was in love with the vicar, and not for the first time she pushed the idea away as simply too awful to contemplate.
Despite herself Margaret’s gaze now slid to the earl. Between her father’s reminiscences and Lady Strangeways’ lectures, he was looking bored. At least Louis was entertaining Sibylla. They seem to have enjoyed their visit to the church, and the far more vivacious Sibylla made the quieter Louis smile a great deal. Margaret, feeling as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, was finding it very difficult to smile.
The main course arrived. Lady Strangeways took one bite and grimaced. “You really should use the fishmongers in Alnwick,” she said, fixing her grey eyes on Margaret. “They are far superior to anyone local.”
“That may be so, but they are also far more expensive,” Margaret replied without thinking.
There was a silence and the vicar set down his knife with a clang. “Margaret, you forget yourself,” he said sharply. “Lady Strangeways’ advice was well intended and I happen to think she is right. To say this fish is mediocre is to give it high praise indeed.”
“I’m sorry father,” she murmured. “I’ll remember it next time.”
“Pray do!” Naturally he had to have the last word.
Her father liked to pretend they had funds to burn, but the truth was they were as poor as the mice in the church. Margaret wondered how her mother had managed all these years because she was certainly struggling to keep up with her father’s exacting standards.
“I believe …” Margaret’s head was lowered, embarrassed at being castigated before such illustrious company, and now she looked up in surprise. Her mother had set down her cutlery and was tapping her chin with one fingertip, as if deep in thought. “I believe there were several persons who were ill after eating from that fishmonger only very recently, Mr Willoughby.”
The vicar gawped at her. “Ill?” he said. “What nonsense.”
Sibylla glanced up with her mischievous smile. “Now that you mention it, I did hear something at the inn. They had cancelled their order because of it.”
The vicar glared about him, his mouth half open to respond, but he must have felt himself outnumbered. Instead he began to eat again, but the glances he shot at his wife and daughter promised retribution in some form or other.
“You must feel relieved to be free of London society, Lady Sibylla.” It was Lady Strangeways coming to the rescue of the vicar—she certainly looked ready to do battle. Margaret tried not to groan aloud.
Sibylla cocked her head to the side, a dark curl resting against her cheek. “And why would I be relieved, Lady Strangeways?”
“Oh, only that there has been a great deal of gossip about you, has there not?”
