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It was clear she suspected something. Marta knew she’d crossed a line. Her eyes flicked towards Ewan, hunting for assistance. Ewan shrugged and said, “We put Marta in the centre. She’s quite light, and it did nothing for our buoyancy. I’m a seasoned rower, Mother, and I brought us easily across the water. No trouble at all.”
“I see,” Aunt Margaret said, stitching her brows together. “This afternoon, I sent a servant to Baldwin’s estate, but the servant reported that Baldwin was out on an appointment.”
“Why did you wish to see Baldwin, Mother?” Ewan asked.
Aunt Margaret allowed her shoulders to drop. For a moment, she stuttered.
“You assumed that we invited Baldwin along without telling you, didn’t you?” Ewan said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Aunt Margaret returned.
“I don’t think it’s outside the bounds of what you might do to ensure you get your way,” Ewan said.
“Don’t you dare say something like that to me!” Aunt Margaret blared.
A pit formed in Marta’s stomach. Aunt Margaret clearly didn’t trust them, and she had good reason not to. However, it seemed she only suspected them and had no true facts to back up her claim. She clucked her tongue.
“Regardless,” she said, sensing that she’d drawn a ridge between the three of them, “It’s good to have you back. Dinner will be served within the hour. I requested that the Duke join us, and he has agreed.”
The pit in Marta’s stomach seemed to grow heavier and more pointed with each passing moment. She and Ewan exchanged glances.
“I suppose this means I had better change for the night,” Marta said. Her voice was flat, lacking in any sort of emotional drive.
“And I suppose that means I had better make an excuse to get out of it altogether,” Ewan affirmed.
“Do whatever you like, Ewan. I dare say your sarcasm isn’t welcome at the dinner table tonight. If you do decide to join us, I must ask you to remain committed to intellectual and civilised conversation,” Aunt Margaret said.
Within the hour, Marta, Ewan, Aunt Margaret, and Laura sat around the dinner table. Marta had donned a dark cranberry frock, one she knew her Aunt Margaret appreciated (for wasn’t the wearing only for her aunt, anyway?) and curled her hair once more. Despite her orchestrated beauty, she felt like a shadow of the afternoon version of herself. She only felt whole when in his company.
“My Lord, it’s terribly kind for you to join us once more,” Aunt Margaret said. She lifted her fork, on which only a slight bit of potato lay. When she took a bite, she looked surprised at her thoughtlessness. Her cheeks flashed pink.
“It’s kind of you to invite me,” Lord Remington returned. “You know that I’ll stop at nothing to spend a bit more time at the Thompson Estate.”
Aunt Margaret tittered. Marta and Ewan kept their eyes on their food. Laura, who’d advanced spectacularly in the English language in the previous week, said, “If you are a lord, do you also know the queen?”
Lord Remington burst into unkind laughter. Marta flashed him a horrid glare, one he didn’t recognise.
“I’m sorry, my dear, I don’t mean to laugh,” Lord Remington said. “I have never experienced such accented English.”
“She’s only just learnt,” Marta affirmed. “She came to this country without a single syllable of the English language, and now she is brave enough to ask you a question. I find that remarkable.”
Aunt Margaret furrowed her eyes. Marta knew she’d stepped far over the line of propriety in alerting the Duke of his lack of manners.
“I see,” the Duke returned. He blinked at Laura, interested. “She doesn’t seem to follow the conversation so well, does she?”
“She does,” Marta insisted. “And she doesn’t take kindly to being spoken about as though she’s not even here.”
The Duke guffawed. Aunt Margaret fluttered her hands and whispered, “Dear me.”
But Ewan blurted, “Marta has been the one to teach her. Marta, would you say there have been challenges in translating the languages you’ve known since birth to another?”
Marta was grateful for the intellectual question. It distracted her from the horrors before them. She pondered for a moment and said, “English is quite simple when compared to German. Some of the complexities in the grammar are lost in English. As such, Laura can snip off some of the wretched extra fluff of her mothertongue and build English sentences quite easily. Can’t you, Laura?”
“I find it to be a silly language,” Laura said. Her cadence remained strange, as though she tried out the words, tasted them, and then felt unsure if they were proper or in the right order.
“I suppose we never really think about our own language in this manner,” Ewan said.
Already, Lord Remington seemed bored with the conversation. He shrugged and said, “I thank the Lord every day for being born in England. It’s truly the greatest place in the world.”
