But he was suddenly grateful that he had not left the dance, when he’d finally recognized her. Nathaniel forgot about Tessa and all his soreness of heart had vanished.
They danced two dances and it was only by the end of the second that they saw the looks. Nathaniel did not care even a bit, but Margaret’s easiness began to falter. Nathaniel saw her looking about them, at the clusters of men and women who were starting to whisper.
As the song faded into silence, she slipped her hand out of his and put a little distance between them. “It’s alright,” he said to her, quietly, so that no one else would hear. “They don’t know who you are.”
They’d come here tonight with no intention of hiding what was between them, but seeing her rising concern, Nathaniel had thought it best to assure her.
He couldn’t bear to see her so fearful. And if hiding suited her, then they needn’t speak to anyone else. No one need know who Nathaniel was dancing with so closely.
Until Miss Wilde happened upon them.
“Your Grace!” She said, loudly and with true joy. “I am so pleased to see you. How is young Lord Ezra?”
It was more than enough information for those lurking around them. It was almost as if Nathaniel could see the rumor pass through the room, like a wave or a ripple. Just a few moments and everyone in attendance would know.
Nathaniel was sure that Margaret went pink beneath her mask, but young Miss Wilde was entirely oblivious. She was chatting about how the ball had been such a success, how she could scarcely believe it, how it touched her heart to see so many willing to give to such a cause.
Nathaniel didn’t hear Margaret speak a word, only nod and smile, but Miss Wilde didn’t seem to notice. She was much too happy.
When a gentleman asked her to dance, she looked so taken aback that she could scarcely get her words out. She was not accustomed to functions like this. Nor to being asked to dance by ranking gentleman.
“She would love to,” Nathaniel answered on her behalf and ushered her towards the man. With a thankful look at Nathaniel, she allowed herself to be led to dance.
“Well that rather gave us away.”
Margaret’s fingers were fidgeting with each other. She nodded jerkily, still looking about them, but tried to smile for him.
“That was our intention, was it not? To go public.” She said, seemingly more for herself than for him. “It is fine. Quite fine.” He did not think she truly believed it, but didn’t contradict her.
“Might I get you a drink?” He suggested.
***
Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe
“Please,” Margaret answered. She could do with a drink. Perhaps it would calm her nerves.
In his absence, short though it was, Margaret tried to make herself seem invisible. But she had not dressed the part of someone who faded into the background. She’d wanted Nathaniel to notice her, fool that she was.
“I thought it must be you,” a woman said. Her mask was so intricate that it diminished the rest of her. Margaret thought she might be familiar, but it was too difficult to tell.
“I am sorry,” she said. “Have we met?”
The woman didn’t answer. She only continued and said, “So nice of the Earl to pay you a little attention. You must be feeling terribly lonely. What a kind man he is.” She said in a sickly sweet voice, as she patted Margaret’s arm.
Then she simply left, as quickly as she’d come, before Nathaniel returned with the drinks.
“Margaret?” He said. She was staring ahead, at the lady disappearing into the crowd. When Nathaniel followed her gaze, the woman was already gone. Again, he said, “Margaret.”
Margaret whipped her face towards him and snapped out, in a hissed whisper, “Must you call me that?”
Nathaniel blinked like a child being scolded for something he didn’t understand. And why should he understand?
He’d called her Margaret ever since they’d first kissed. But didn’t he understand what they would think, hearing him call her that? They’d think them lovers.
Lovers, when she was a widowed duchess not yet out of her mourning period.
Lovers.
“Do you care nothing for scandal?” She remarked, stiffly. Yes, she knew that she was being unfair. But what that woman had said had entirely shaken her. Margaret wondered if she was right. If Nathaniel only pitied her.
Margaret could see by Nathaniel’s countenance that he was going to take a stand. He straightened and his expression levelled out. “Not in the least,” he said, with absolute calm. “Perhaps you should consider caring less.”
She stared at him, but not for long. There were so many whispers. So many. She could hear them loud and clear, as if they’d replaced the music. An incoherent hiss of scandal.
“I must get some air,” she said. The words fell from her in a tumble and she walked briskly towards the door. The room felt so hot. So unbearably hot, all of a sudden.
She felt Nathaniel following close behind, but for the first time she didn’t want him there. She didn’t want him to see her as she was now, so overcome by her feeling.
He didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand what it was like to have your name dragged through the dirt.
She walked into the cool evening air, into the thin grove of trees at the back of the estate. The chill cooled her skin, but not her nerves.
When she stopped and leaned up against a tree, with the sound of the music in the distance creating a soft hum in the air, Nathaniel passed through a curtain of willow vines and came into sight. “Do you run from me now?” He asked.
Margaret looked at the grass ahead of her. She would not look him in the eye.
“Your Grace,” he added, when she did not answer. Hearing him speak her title instead of her name made her features twist up, as though it caused her pain. But this is what she’d asked of him.
“I am not certain I can do this, Nathaniel.”
He stepped closer. “To yourself?”
At last, she looked up at him. His eyes sparkled in the darkness. “To you.”
“Think of yourself alone,” he said, with resolve. “And let me think of myself. My reputation is not your responsibility.”
“That may be true,” she countered. “But that will not halt my guilt.”
“What had brought this on?” He pressed, with a measure of desperation in his voice. “Were we not having fun?”
“We were,” Margaret conceded.
“Then what grieves you so? The whispers?”
She shook her head. “I could have born the whispers. It was something that was said to me.”
“When?”
“When you fetched the drinks.”
Nathaniel was close now. He put his hand against the bark beside her head. His body felt like the strongest shelter. “What was said?”
“A woman said that-” Her voice broke.
“Oh, my darling,” Nathaniel whispered to her, and brought his palm against her cheek.
His comfort was all she’d been craving and yet she’d pushed him away and run. It felt so silly now.
“She said that it was kind of you to keep a woman like myself company.” She pressed through the coming tears. “That I must b-be terribly lonely.”
He held her then, as she came apart, and she watered his tunic with her tears. She clutched at the lapels and allowed all that she had felt in the past few months to flood out of her. The pain of Joshua’s deception, his loss, the fear of losing Ezra too, the confusion that accompanied falling for a man she was not sure she could have.
He hushed her until she calmed, with his fingers moving softly through her hair.
“I do not pity you, Margaret,” he murmured into her hair. “I do not pity you. I want you. Scandal be damned. My name be damned.”
She leaned into him and listened, as her crying softened.
“Try to understand.” He spoke so softly and in time with the movement of his fingers through her hair. “Right now, the o
nly person stopping us from being together… is you. Because I don’t care what they think. What any of them think.”
She stopped crying, but did not lift her head from his chest. He went on. “In truth, you are the only thing I can seem to think of. Ever since the day we met, you’ve been on my mind.”
Margaret lifted her head, just slightly, so that she could peer up at him from beneath the fall of her damp lashes.
They glistened in the moonlight. “You are all I can think of too,” she whispered. And then, with her hand rising to the nape of his neck, she drew him down until their lips touched.
His lips were a fountain of comfort and she could have sipped from them endlessly.
They did not go back inside after that. Instead, Nathaniel rode home with her to see that she was well and happy. He said goodbye to her at the door, with a tender kiss pressed against her lips.
When he was gone, she leaned against the door and thought of him on the other side of it. The world on the other side. It was a mess. But a mess she suddenly felt willing to dive into.
If it meant she could have Nathaniel Sterling.
Chapter 20
Lord Nathaniel Sterling, Earl of Comptonshire
When Nathaniel arrived home, he was tired. The evening had drained him of all his energy. While there had been moments that he would cherish in his memory for the rest of his life, there had also been times where he’d felt truly devastated.
On and on, he fought for Margaret and it was taking its toll on him. But it was a fight he would never relinquish unless she forced him too, which at this time seemed extremely possible.
For the first time in many years, Nathaniel was afraid for himself. Afraid for his own heart. He hadn’t wanted to love again. Never again. But Margaret had blindsided him and he hadn’t had a choice but to love her.
As he thought this, he went very still in the entrance to his estate. Standing like a marble pillar or stone statue.
Did he love her?
It wasn’t a question he wanted to answer yet, not while things between them were so uncertain. “You left early,” came a voice from the drawing room.
He knew who it was before he stepped inside. Clark was lounging around, as usual, tasting Nathaniel’s finest whiskeys.
“This one is delightful,” he remarked, with the countenance of a connoisseur, though Nathaniel knew him only as an avid drinker. His tastes were not as fine as a connoisseur.
In fact, Nathaniel had once given him a glass of cheap whiskey and told him it was among the finest in England. And Clark had praised it to high heaven, as the most wonderful thing he’d ever tasted.
“I am sure it is,” Nathaniel muttered, as he took off his jacket.
“You did not answer.”
“You did not ask me anything.”
“I said that you left early.”
“That is not a question,” Nathaniel quipped.
“I have heard rumors,” Clark said. “Of you and the Duchess.”
“Word travels fast.” Nathaniel took a seat. He wanted to retire, but felt that Clark would not let him until he had said his peace. And there was certainly something he wanted to say. “Spit it out then.”
“Spit what out?”
“Whatever it is you want to say.”
Clark regarded him for a moment, with open scrutiny, before speaking again. “I will not reprimand you,” he said.
“I thank you for that,” Nathaniel answered, rather sarcastically.
“I will not reprimand you,” he said again. “But, I will tell you that you are walking a fine line.”
“You sound like my father.”
Clark expelled a slow breath and shook his head. “Your father is right sometimes.”
“He is not right about Margaret.”
“Margaret, is it? Not the Duchess?”
Nathaniel didn’t answer.
“Nathaniel, you have been my friend for many years. I do not want to see you drag your name through the dirt for nothing. There are things you should know about her.”
“I know all there is to know.”
Clark blinked and looked taken aback. “You cannot possibly. She-”
“I know about her husband, Clark. I know all.”
“How he was found?”
A muscle shifted in Nathaniel’s jaw as he clenched his teeth. “Yes.”
Clark was silent for a moment, before saying, “Then you are either a madman… or you are quite in love.”
Once again, Nathaniel didn’t answer. He only looked at his friend from across the room.
“Aha,” Clark murmured. “I see. Then I have nothing more to say.”
“You do not approve, I suppose?”
Clark stood, finished his whiskey, and shook his head. “I approve of anything that brings you happiness, my dear friend. I only wish that the road to happiness were an easier one.”
Nathaniel had approached this conversation with his walls up. He hadn’t wanted to hear Clark’s pessimism. It might well have broken what little hope he had left.
But to hear his words, he felt lighter for it. He felt that he had a comrade in all this chaos with Margaret, at last. Because Clark only wanted what was best for him.
He felt a hard pang in his heart. “I too wish it were easier,” he murmured.
Clark approached him and put his hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder. He squeezed sympathetically. “I know, my friend. I know.”
***
Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe
How awful she felt when morning came. So awful that she could scarcely muster the energy to get out of bed. Her mind had been an utter mess all night, with memories of how she’d behaved, what that woman had said to her, and what Margaret had said to Nathaniel. It would be a miracle if the man ever wanted to see her again, given how hot and cold she’d been.
“Mother?”
Margaret opened her eyes. Ezra was standing beside her bed in his pajamas. “Hello, my darling,” she murmured to him. It was chilly outside of the covers, so she lifted them and invited him inside.
It was these moments with him that she cherished more than anything else.
Moments when he was entirely a child, without worries or fears. He curled himself up into a ball against her chest and lay his cheek upon her forearm.
He played with a curl of her hair and said, “Will we see Nathaniel today, mother?”
She hoped so, but wondered if hope would do her any good. “I expect so, my love,” she said instead. Though she’d behaved like a madwoman the night before, she believed what Nathaniel had said.
He wanted her. Perhaps as terribly as she wanted him. And if that was so, if their affections were truly matched, then he would not stay away. She put as much faith in that notion as she could.
But when Miss White came to tell them that someone had arrived, later that morning, it was not Nathaniel. It was a woman Margaret had not seen in several years.
Her cousin, Lady Tessa Butterfield. They had not spent any time together since they were children and, in truth, Margaret knew very little about her.
Except that she had married Lord Craig Butterfield several years ago.
“Cousin, what a delightful surprise,” she said, and took her cousin by the hands. “What brings you to Comptonshire?”
“To see the good Duchess of Lowe, of course!” Tessa kissed Margaret upon each cheek, before being led into the drawing room where tea was brought for them. “How do you fare, my dear, since the Duke’s passing? I was so sad to hear of it. I tell you, I wept on your behalf.”
“I am as well as can be expected,” she answered.
“I had quite a bit of difficulty finding you,” Tessa admitted. “I had to pry information from your interim steward, who was extremely tight-lipped.”
Margaret smiled apologetically. “He is extremely loyal and, you see, I did not want to be found by those who would not wish me well. Though I am certainly pleased to see you, cousin.”
“I cannot ima
gine a soul unkind enough to wish you bad fortune.”
Margaret smiled again and thanked her for her kind words. It was peculiar to be seated with someone other than Nathaniel and William.
To be sat speaking with another woman. As they sat speaking for perhaps an hour, Margaret quickly realized that she had dearly missed female company.
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