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I saved your family from squalor and from sending you to the workhouse.
Know your place, you stupid, useless girl. You’re my property.
That pedestal you think you’re upon is because I allow it.
He’d tolerated her accomplishments because having such an esteemed paragon for a wife had made him the envy of every peer in London.
“Shall we toast to the future once more, Honoria?” she hiccupped and said to her best friend, who gamely filled their brandy glasses to the brim.
“We shall have a devil of a headache in the morning, but at least it’ll be worth it. I always hated your father for practically selling you off to that man. The bride’s father should dower the groom, not the reverse.”
Margot swallowed. “It saved us from ruin.”
“Saved your papa’s gambling debts,” Honoria muttered.
“And I got Percival out of it so all wasn’t lost,” she added.
Honoria smiled with genuine fondness. “Where is that dear boy? Eton still?”
“He’s off at Cambridge,” Margot murmured. “And thriving with his peers.”
If it was one thing she was grateful for, it was that Percy had taken after her in spirit. He had the same wide-eyed delight she’d had at that age. Though unlike her, he lived life with avid exuberance, his impulsive nature not buried under a thousand layers of civility. Her son was a thrill-seeker with a brilliant mind who laughed long and often. She supposed it was easier for a man to be himself. As a woman, she’d had to carve space for herself within the rules of society.
Spontaneity became sensibility.
Excitement became thoughtful ennui.
Impetuousness became an abundance of caution.
She squirreled away power where she could, and out of hardship, the unassailable Marchioness of Waverly had been born.
Thankfully, Percival was nothing like Waverly, the cruel streak her husband had harbored hadn’t seen fit to replicate itself within their son. And Margot had shielded Percy as best as she could from the evidence of his father’s rages. It was a miracle Waverly hadn’t targeted his son, but hubris was a devil of a thing. A strapping, smart, and handsome heir to carry on the line was the desire of every peer. Margot huffed a dry laugh. At least she hadn’t failed in that duty or her life might have been infinitely worse.
She’d been raked over the coals for not producing a spare.
“I forgot!” Honoria shouted so loudly that Margot nearly spilled the contents of her glass. “I have a gift for you! A bugger-your-slag-of-a-dead-husband gift!”
“Honoria,” Margot chided with a horrified laugh. She might wish to be impulsive and free, but years of rigid comportment were hard to ignore. She accepted the small piece of cardstock plucked from Honoria’s reticule that only had an address in Covent Garden written upon it. “What is this?”
“A lesson in indecency.” The grin that curled her best friend’s lips was pure devilry. “A portrait by a celebrated new artist. Trust me, darling, you need this, and her work is to die for. Everything’s been paid, you only need to show up for the sitting.”
Honoria was famous for her support of the arts, especially in the demimonde. A widow herself, although Margot suspected Honoria’s husband had not expired from natural causes after a carriage ride gone tragically wrong, her friend did not give a whit about what the ton thought of her. She’d opened a private art gallery on New Bond Street, which had cost a fortune to build, and she enjoyed being perversely contrary to the Royal Academy of Arts with her flamboyant choice of artists, women especially.
“How do you do it?” Margot had asked her once, after her husband had passed. “Not care about the gossip?”
Honoria had been quiet, delivering her response with heartfelt ease. “No one has the power to control you, Margot. You are the only one who can give them that power.”
“But what if they…spurn me?”
Being relegated to nothing, when her husband had taken so much from her, was one of her greatest fears. That, and hurting Percy. Her reputation was tied to him, after all. Honoria’s expression had softened with something that looked too much like pity. “If it was a matter of my personal joy, does it honestly matter what anyone else thinks? If being part of some elite group makes you not true to yourself, then you have to consider whether that’s worth it.”
Honoria’s words had stuck with her. But when it came to doing anything that toyed with the lines of respectability, Margot had always leaned toward restraint.
She glanced down at the cardstock. This wasn’t too daring as far as gifts went, even if it was in the dubious West End of London. She flipped and squinted at the card, a bold name written in cursive on the back in flowery strokes: Ara Vaughn.
The slightest thrill slid through her blood.
What’s the worst that could happen?
