She so wanted to hear him talk. She’d give anything to hear his voice sounding happy again.
Margaret was about to turn away from the window before they spotted her, but she was too late. Nathaniel’s head turned and she fixed her stare with his through the glass.
Their eyes held for a moment, before he lifted his hand and gestured for her to come outside.
Like a fool, she looked behind her. She didn’t know who she expected to see. Anyone but her?
Her heart gave a solitary pound. When she looked back at Nathaniel’s face, he almost looked amused. He gestured again.
She swallowed, then nodded.
The sun was so bright. The green of the grass so vibrant. And it was warm. When had spring faded into summer? Had she been inside for so long?
Her skin warmed as she approached them.
When she was within earshot, Ezra called out to her. “Mother, did you know there are three new horses at the stable? Three! And a stallion among them.”
Hearing his voice was like drinking from the fountain of youth. “Then we must go and see them, my love.”
Ezra beamed and his smile was brighter than the sun. He patted the grass beside them for her to sit.
Margaret looked at Nathaniel. He was tying daisies together to form a chain. It was strange to see a grown man doing such a thing. It made the cold feelings she’d been harboring for him feel tender.
Perhaps this was truly the man he was. A kind man. But a man who enjoyed playing with hearts. Could she blame him for that when he’d come to Ezra’s rescue? Yes, he may have faults, but she was in no position to hate him.
Margaret lowered herself into the grass. As Ezra continued to chatter, she picked a few daisies and began tying them together.
Nathaniel looked at her hands, then at her eyes. They made eye contact, then shyly returned to their work.
They didn’t speak to one another. Just existed together, glued together by Ezra’s love of them. And for the first time in a long time, Margaret did feel loved by her son.
He wanted her there. When Nathaniel suggested that they visit the horses tomorrow, Ezra said, “Mother, you will come too, won’t you?”
Her eyes watered with happiness, but she held back the tears. She nodded in answer, with a smile, to keep him from hearing her voice wobble with emotion.
He wanted her.
He wanted them both.
And Nathaniel planned on coming again. Were her fears for Ezra over? Could she truly expect this man to give up so much of his time, for a random woman’s child? Indefinitely?
Nathaniel stayed for several hours, until Ezra was too tired to go on. His tiny body lay back in the grass and he basked in the sunlight, until the warmth sent him into a light sleep when the sun was beginning to set.
The moment his eyes closed, Margaret and Nathaniel looked at each other. They were both smiling. In that instant, she forgot their history.
Forgot that he wasn’t hers. And felt as she had when they’d gotten to know one another. Like she was falling in love all over again.
She caught herself and looked down at the chain of daisies in her hands. “I have been thinking,” she murmured, after several moments passed in silence. “That I would like to offer you my patronage.”
Nathaniel was surprised, but not pleasantly so. He looked as if he’d just received news he didn’t understand. “Why?” he answered, a bit abruptly.
Margaret looked at Ezra’s sleeping body, pointedly. “As thanks. You do mean to resume your visits, don’t you?”
Nathaniel didn’t answer for a second, as if he hadn’t entirely considered this. But it did not seem to be a difficult decision for him. With a resolved expression, he nodded and said, “I do. If you will have me.”
Margaret smiled a little sadly. “If I will have you? Do you not see how kind you are being, my Lord?”
“I am sure you are not too thrilled by the prospect of having me lurking around.” What a strange thing for him to say, in such a steely voice.
Did he not remember how she fawned over him, not so long ago? Was this his roundabout way of saying that he did not want to be here, but that Ezra’s condition left him no choice.
“Do not be callous,” she answered, softly. Her ego was still wounded. He needn’t rub salt in the wound.
Nathaniel frowned. “Callous? It is the truth, is it not?”
Margaret couldn’t understand him and her expression made that clear. She was flustered and had no idea what to say in response. She couldn’t very well accuse him when he’d come to her aid. What if she angered him and he left, never to return?
Margaret steeled her jaw and stood. “No, it is not true,” was all she said, in a calm but firm voice. She gathered Ezra into her arms and added. “Would you care to come inside for tea?”
Nathaniel balked at her response. He looked as if he might say something more, but he didn’t. He stood and followed her inside.
Margaret put Ezra to bed, leaving Nathaniel waiting in the drawing room. When she returned, there was a moment of strained silence between them.
“He has been so tired lately,” she remarked, shattering the quiet, as she started pouring the tea that her servants had put out for them.
Nathaniel knew that he shouldn’t push for answers, but bitterness sat heavy in his mouth, needing to be spat out.
Though she was clearly making a concerted effort to keep things civil, bile spilt out of him almost entirely unchecked. “Is he bored of your friend so soon? Or does he not entertain Ezra as I do?”
Margaret stopped pouring. She was holding a teacup in her hand, staring at him. “Excuse me?” she asked. He expected her to sound insulted, but she didn’t. She just sounded perplexed. She played the game well.
“Or is he feeling neglected? Perhaps his mother is spending too much time with her new companion.”
“Companion? Who the devil are you talking about?”
This made Nathaniel angry. “Don’t play games with me, Margaret.”
“I am not playing a game,” she retorted. “I do not know who you are speaking of.”
“You had me entirely fooled, you know.”
“I had you fooled?” She blinked rapidly in the face of his accusations, before her countenance turned to iron. “Your hypocrisy knows no bounds.”
“Hypocrisy?” Their voices were raised now, but they were still shy of shouting. “Tell me, what were your intentions? Keep me as a back-up until someone of better rank showed an interest.”
Margaret was starting to go red. She put the teacup down, so hard that he thought the china might crack. “My intentions!”
He’d had enough. He wasn’t getting any answers from her. She wouldn’t even acknowledge what she’d done to him. “I don’t want your damn patronage,” he concluded. “I want as little to do with you as possible. I will continue to see Ezra so long as he wants to see me, but you and I will be as strangers to one another. Am I clear on that?”
She looked at him as if he’d gone mad. As though he’d insulted her horribly. Her lips parted, but he cut her off before she could say anything. “I will take my leave. Have Ezra brought to the schoolhouse tomorrow.”
He turned towards the door and grabbed his coat. But Margaret was hot on his heels. “Nathaniel!” she called.
“I am a very busy man,” he reminded her as he opened the door to the estate. “I have some business to take care of at the school.”
This halted her in her tracks. She stood behind him, her muddled look twisting into something else. “To see Miss Wilde.”
Nathaniel stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. “Yes,” he answered, only because it had seemed an odd question to him.
“I am sure you have plenty of business to attend to with her. The nerve of you to come here and accuse me of having bad intentions, as you leave to see her.”
“You’re not making a bit of sense! What in God’s name is the matter with you?”
“Were you going to marry me and
keep your mistress on the side, like my husband did?”
Nathaniel took a step back as if she had struck him. This was a side of her he’d never seen before. This vindictive unreasonableness. Her desperation to save face when confronted with what she’d done.
It disgusted him, and he allowed that disgust to show in his countenance. Shaking his head, he stepped back once more, before turning and walking away.
Chapter 27
Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe
How dare he?
Margaret slammed the door behind him, bristling with rage. She’d never felt fury like this before. It settled deep in her bones and made her feel like she was on fire.
How could he be so insolent? So impudent? So callous?
She’d never been insulted so terribly. And for what? Did he hope to redeem himself by making false accusations of her? He had been speaking like a mad man, of things she knew nothing about. New friend?
What on earth had compelled him to say such a thing? Margaret had barely left the house for weeks on end. She hadn’t had visitors.
Lies. He was fabricating lies to make himself seem less of a villain. Was this what he did to women? Convince them that they were mad when they discovered his ways?
Well it would not work on her. She would not let it.
Margaret simmered in her anger for hours, but it could not last forever. Once it passed, she felt this hollow ache throughout her entire being.
She thought of that little flutter of hope she’d felt when Nathaniel had gestured for her to come outside with them.
That leap in her stomach when he’d first arrived. That tremble in her gut when she’d thrown her arms around him in relief.
Scoundrel or not, she missed him. And he wanted nothing to do with her.
***
Lord Nathaniel Sterling, Earl of Comptonshire
“I suppose it did not go well then,” Clark said, when Nathaniel stormed inside and slammed the door loudly behind him.
“That woman!” He shouted it, because he needed to release this rage before it burnt him up from the inside out.
Clark handed him a glass of whiskey, which he downed in a single gulp before slamming it down on the counter. The burn felt good. It suited his mood.
“What happened?”
“We argued.”
“Yes, I gathered that. But what about?”
It was a good question. Nathaniel parted his lips, but he didn’t say anything. The truth was, he didn’t know.
“Nathaniel? What did you argue about?”
Nathaniel grimaced in frustration. He tried to find the words, but still nothing came out. At last he said, “She…! She accused me!”
Clark frowned. “Of what?”
Again, he didn’t know. He was going red in the face just trying to figure it out. “Of having bad intentions!” he blurted.
Clark frowned harder. “How so?”
“I-” Damn it. “I don’t know!”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean it didn’t make a lick of sense. She said something about Miss Wilde. And something about keeping a mistress. But I tell you I haven’t the faintest idea where it’s all coming from.”
“And you didn’t think to ask?”
“Well, I-” He spluttered, but could think of nothing to really defend himself with. He tried nevertheless. “She was being unreasonable!”
“And you? What did you say?”
“I told her that she had misled me. That I knew all about her romance with the Baron and how she’d kept me dangling until she found a man of higher rank who took interest in her.”
“You said it in those words?”
“Well, no, but I-”
“How did you say it?” Clark interjected.
“What does it matter!” Nathaniel was losing his patience now.
“It matters a great deal. If you have come away with such little clarity, then perhaps she has too.”
“Are you defending her?”
“I am only playing the mitigator.”
“Well don’t! I’m tired of playing!”
Clark put his hands up in surrender. “Very well,” he said, in a stiffer voice. “Then I will not offer you my advice anymore.”
“Kindly do not!” he snapped. “I could do without it.”
Clark huffed a noise of derision and put his hands down. “I think you need some time alone.” he remarked, in a tight voice. Then, without saying goodbye, he left.
And Nathaniel was left alone with his own mind.
***
Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe
Dear William,
I know I promised I would not write. I promised to give you time. But I cannot keep that promise any longer. In the weeks since your departure, I have missed you awfully and I need a friend. Now more than ever.
I do not think I can stay in Comptonshire anymore, but I don’t know where else to go. It seems that the only place that might revive Ezra is London, but I’m not sure I could bear to stay at Lowe again.
Ezra has fallen into such a state as of late. And the only remedy to his pain in Comptonshire is a man who has become a stranger to me.
I need your counsel, dear friend. I feel that you are the only person I can trust in this world.
Yours faithfully,
Margaret
William’s reply came just days later. It read:
Dear Margaret,
It pains me to hear of your sorrow and of Ezra’s pain, though I am glad to hear from you. You must know that I have missed you awfully.
I feel that I must ask what has become of you and the Earl of Comptonshire? When last we saw one another, it had seemed that you and the Earl were equally fond of one another, as much as it hurts me to acknowledge it.
You know that above all, I want your happiness. Even if that happiness cannot be found with me. If you have found love with this gentleman, I am man enough to wish you all the best with him.
As for London, please stay at my townhouse in Trickelly. It will give Ezra the opportunity to see some of his young friends without you needing to visit Lowe. Hopefully, that will cheer him and, perhaps, even you.
My counsel is yours, forever.
Your own dearest friend,
William
In her reply, Margaret did not explain what had transpired between her and Nathaniel. She only expressed that it had come to nothing and that she had sworn off men.
She did, of course, consider the prospect of calling on William as she was writing the letter. But she did not, simply because she knew that he would say yes and leave France with haste.
And because, though she did not see a future for her and Nathaniel, William remained a dear friend and nothing more.
She couldn’t keep him dangling on a string, at her beck and call. She needed to give him space so that he could move on.
And she would do just that, as soon as she could. But right now, she needed his help.
There was a time when she might have considered William a viable husband. She loved him, truly, and he loved her – albeit, in a different way. He would have made her comfortable. Made her happy.
But she wasn’t in love with him, as he was in love with her. Nathaniel had taught her that.
She’d felt so fiercely for Nathaniel that she now knew what it was to love a man in an all-encompassing way.
Yes, she’d loved the Duke, in her own way, but no man had made her feel as Nathaniel did.
William deserved a woman who felt that way about him.
And Margaret deserved a man who she could feel that way about. She had found that man, but he hadn’t wanted her.
In her reply, Margaret thanked William for his offer and accepted it, which was difficult for her. With Ezra’s condition, she felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.
There were two options before her; she could trust in Nathaniel, who’d given her no reason to trust him as of late, and have faith that he woul
d continue to make time to see Ezra.
But with the anger between her and Nathaniel, she did not think it was likely that he would continue seeing her son, despite what he’d said.
Or, she could leave. Restart their life wherever they could. Spend some time in London at William’s townhouse, in an area that was familiar to Ezra, in the hopes that it might awaken some of his joy.
An Earl for the Broken-Hearted Duchess Page 22
