by Edith Layton
“Don’t look so appalled,” he told Maggie with a small smile, “I’ve never been actually cruel to her, at least not to her face. She has my pity rather than my scorn, but it was jarring to think of her marrying my uncle. I hadn’t thought of it before but I suppose if she’d been young, silly and pretty, I’d have accepted it more easily. That is, admittedly, odd. But there it is. I respected her and one feels let down when someone one respects does something degrading, or desperate.”
“There’s no way either of you can talk to her,” Maggie said with conviction. “If my fiancé was killed, and I had to talk to you two, especially feeling as you do—and certainly looking as you do—I wouldn’t have two words to say to you either!”
“‘Looking as we do’?” Lucian asked with interest, one brow raised, as Will put his head to the side.
Maggie felt her color betraying her. But she’d been admiring the sight of them in her special room, idly reflecting on the novelty of it, beginning to notice more than their fine feathers. The longer they stayed in her lovely salon, the less they fit in, because they dominated it. She almost felt the power emanating from the pair of them. Spanish Will, secret, dark and smooth; the viscount, lean, suave, vibrating with quick and supple strength… She’d been struck by the intensity of the masculine magnetism they both projected, and had spoken without thinking. And was paying for it now.
Damn the blushes, she thought, and said, feebly even to her own ears, “I mean, you’re frightening. Well, you’re both large, aren’t you? And broad shouldered, and…Mr. Corby looks as though he’d enjoy pouncing on someone. And my lord looks as though he wouldn’t care if he did!”
“Pouncing, eh?” Will asked, looking at her with renewed interest, his dark eyes roving over her. He wore a wicked grin that made Maggie wonder if he could read minds. The viscount’s cool gaze now lingered on her too.
Maggie squirmed. She felt naked and hot. She strove for control. They were only men, after all. And it was her house. “I think she’d speak with a woman, though,” she said quickly—and the more she thought about what she’d only said to save herself embarrassment, the more sense it made to her.
“I mean, women can speak more freely to each other,” she went on eagerly, thinking out loud. “I wouldn’t want to confide in a runner. Who’d want to confide in someone who was looking to find a neck to stretch? And you, my lord, well, the truth is that if she has known you for a long time, and you’re still not friends, why should she imagine you have anything but disinterest—or worse—for her?
“No, you need to find a female to talk to her…Me!” she said in a burst of inspiration. “Yes! That would do it!”
“You? But you don’t know her, my dear,” Lucian said gently.
“Don’t try to spare my feelings,” she snapped. “I know exactly who I am, my lord. But the thing is—she don’t! See? Listen,” she said urgently. “I can speak as well as any lady if I wish to, for my mother was a lady’s maid. And I get on well with people. I do, ask anyone. If I were to dress in style—and I can, I assure you—and visit with her… If I were to pay a sympathy call! Yes. Why, I’ll wager I can find out more in a half hour than either of you in a day!”
Lucian’s eyes narrowed. He was intrigued. Gentlemen were mad for wagers, she knew, and couldn’t resist them anymore than a dog could pass up a bouncing ball.
“A sympathy call,” Will said, considering the notion too, “but why? How would you know her?”
“She’s lost her fiancé, a man much older than she is,” Maggie invented quickly, “and I have a late husband—who was much older than me!”
“A late husband,” Lucian said thoughtfully, “who knew Uncle…? No. Who corresponded with my uncle. Yes, better. That might do. Uncle had many far-flung correspondents. He was always sending off letters to journals, trying to correct them. But about what? Uncle lived for his books. Biology, botany…”
“Marine biology,” Will said, grinning. “One thing the late Mr. P. knew, it was fish.”
“Yes!” Maggie said excitedly. “I can say that. I can talk about that for hours. But I won’t,” she said quickly, “I’ll only use my late husband’s letters to her fiancé as an excuse, and then get around to discussing the crime. I can do it. I can dress like a lady, and act like one too. Oh, let me try!”
She sat on the edge of her seat, looking at them eagerly. The runner might be in it because it was his job, the viscount because it was his uncle, but she had pressing reasons of her own. It could free her of the runner’s suspicions forever. It would be so much better than trawling around the neighborhood, trying to scoop up bits of leftover gossip. And it was a way into a new world, if only for a day.
Lucian looked at the runner. The runner was looking at Maggie thoughtfully, but he turned and caught Lucian’s eye. The two men looked at each other. Slowly, they both began to nod.
Chapter Eight
“This way please, Madame,” the butler said.
Maggie Pushkin picked up her skirt in one hand, clutched her reticule with the other, and followed him from the narrow hallway into the lion’s den. Lioness’s den, she corrected herself. It was a small townhouse, only adequately furnished, in a neighborhood just this side of respectable, but still she was awed. It was a real lady’s home. The first she’d ever visited. She refused to tremble. She was a proper lady come to visit another, she told herself.
She looked the part. Even the viscount had said so, his eyes running down her gown and then up again as he circled her, quizzing glass to his eye, assessing her in a way that would have earned him a slap, nobleman or not, if things had been different. But they weren’t.
He came to inspect her before she went to visit Lady Louisa at her elderly aunt’s home. Maggie would pay her call alone, but the runner and the viscount had to approve her before they’d let her go. Spanish Will looked at her, and looked pleased, but his was only a man’s opinion. The viscount’s would be society’s. It rankled. But she badly wanted to go.
“Very good,” the viscount had finally said, “very, very good.”
She’d beamed. And then quickly dropped her smile, lifted her head and inclined it, sketching a tiny bow. Ladies didn’t beam at compliments. He’d smiled, as pleased with that as anything else about her today, and there was a lot to be pleased about in her humble opinion, she’d thought smugly.
Her gown was made of the finest wool, expensive as the pelt of some mythical beast, and got for a song on Petticoat Lane. It was black, as befitted a mourning call, and was fit to her frame by a master’s hand, because if Mrs. Blum in Jewry Court didn’t sew like an angel, no one did. A charming close-fitted little black bonnet covered most of her violently colored hair; there was no other way to make it look fashionable. Powder concealed most of her freckles, and black lace gloves made her work-worn hands look like they’d never known anything but rose water. Covered, perfumed and on her guard. “Mrs. Preston” rather than Mrs. Pushkin, so no one would ever guess her ruse. But whatever her name, a gentlewoman, if not born, then made. Carefully made.
“Mrs. Preston?” the tall young woman she’d called on asked, rising from her chair as Maggie was shown into the drawing room.
“My dear lady,” Maggie trilled, “please accept my sincerest sympathies. I hope this is not an intrusion? I thought to write a note, I thought to write a letter, but in the end nothing would do but I come call on you in person. My poor late husband, Bernard, would have wanted it so.”
The ladies curtsied to each other, and Louisa motioned Maggie to a chair. She was also dressed in black, but it didn’t suit her. She was plain and sad, Maggie thought, no amount of style could lift her looks out of the ordinary, and mourning only made her look duller. But she had a wistful smile, and her eyes needed laughter. I could like her, Maggie thought.
“Thank you,” Louisa said, as she sat again. “So kind of you to come. I’m afraid my dear Aunt is in bed with a chill; nothing serious, but I know she’d have wanted to meet you too. Your note said your la
te husband wrote to the baron about fish and marine animals? I’m sorry to admit I knew nothing about any of his correspondents, or much at all about his hobbies.”
“But that makes two of us,” Maggie said eagerly, “for I never understood dear Bernard’s passion for fish, myself.” That, she thought gloomily, was the biggest lie of all, so if she got through it without a stammer, the rest would be easy. Because Bernard’s greatest passion had been money, everyone knew it, and fish meant only that to him.
“He wrote to the baron so often,” Maggie went on, “and talked about him so much, that when I read of the baron’s untimely death I knew I couldn’t rest until I came to see you and offer my sympathies, and his. I expect you think that’s foolish of me, since Bernard’s been dead these seven years. But I wouldn’t have felt right otherwise.”
“You must have been very devoted to him,” Louisa said softly.
Maggie lowered her gaze. I felt like dancing when I didn’t feel so guilty about feeling so happy after he was gone, she thought, and made herself sigh. “But that’s past,” she said, looking up into Louisa’s sad and sympathetic eyes, “and now I’ve my own life to live, and that is what I’ve come to tell you! You see, I too was left alone when I least expected it, at an age when I scarcely knew how to cope alone, and yet I’ve thrived. You’re still young, your life lies ahead of you—”
Louisa turned her head away as though she’d been slapped. Maggie’s heart started beating faster, her mouth went dry. She could almost see Spanish Will and Maldon frowning. Or worse, laughing. She couldn’t fail, at least not so soon! She went on quickly. “I know that seems harsh, and premature, or unfeeling, but I didn’t mean it so. The reverse is true. Oh my dear lady, don’t bury your heart with him, because you’ve life left over and he wouldn’t want you to!”
“My dear Mrs. Preston…” Louisa said, and stopped, looking anguished.
“Maybe I ought to have come later, when my words wouldn’t sound so heartless and cruel,” Maggie said desperately, “but maybe that’s why I came so soon, to prevent you from suffering needlessly. I had no children. We’re of an age, I think, or as near as makes no difference, and I thought what I have learned about loss could be useful to you. I meant no disrespect, I didn’t mean to belittle your grief, please understand I only meant the best.”
“I do,” Louisa said in a stifled voice, rising to her feet, and making Maggie leap to hers. “That’s what makes it so difficult. Our cases are not the same, Mrs. Preston. You were married, you were obviously in love. I—I let my head decide my future; my heart was not involved in any way. It’s one thing to listen to his family’s sympathies,” she said almost to herself as she paced, sounding goaded and as desperate as Maggie felt, “because they’re either insincere or downright relieved. My own aunt genuinely mourns. But that’s because now I must remain here with her after all, and her means are as limited as my own. But my dear Mrs. Preston, you’re the only one who seems to genuinely care, and that I can’t bear.”
She swung around to face Maggie. “I didn’t love the baron, indeed, I didn’t look to marry him. My relatives arranged the whole. I was tired of being unnecessary. The baron needed me—or rather, what I could offer him. And there’s an end to it. In truth, you were the luckier, though you grieved more. Because all I’ve lost is my self-respect, because I cannot grieve. Do you see?”
“Oh,” Maggie said, and sat, because she wasn’t sure her legs could hold her. She took a deep breath. She wasn’t a gambler, but she knew she had to dare all or loose all, and now. “My lady,” she said simply, “I didn’t marry for love either. I married for safety, or so my parents believed when they married me off. I had that. And nothing else. And that,” she said, feeling her way and finding it easier as she got closer to the truth, “is part of what I came to tell you, truly.
“Bernard had his passions and they didn’t include me,” she said in all honesty. “He was more than twice my age, but that wasn’t why. He had his fish, I had his name—and there was the beginning and end of it. It’s how it would have been no matter what age he was. He died suddenly and left me well off. Better, in fact, than I’d ever been. But the guilt was terrible. So, you see, I do understand more than you know.”
Louisa looked at her, and slowly, smiled. “Mrs. Preston,” she said, “would you care for some tea?”
Louisa poured from a transparent china teapot Maggie coveted, but not half so much as she envied the smooth graceful white hands that served it. They chatted all through tea, and though Maggie had to watch her tongue and remember her role, she hadn’t had such a good time in years. Louisa was charming and friendly, and seemed even lonelier than she was. That astonished Maggie.
After all, Maggie’s friends from her youth were now matrons who could only talk babies and children and what to put on the table for their husbands of a night. Mrs. Gow and Mrs. Gudge were dears, but they couldn’t discuss novels, not even the trifling romantic kind it turned out both she and Louisa loved. Roger Bell and Flea were friends, but Roger would only discuss gossip and fashion, and Flea couldn’t talk about anything. Talking to her customers and her servants was pleasant, but it had been years since Maggie had a heart to heart with another woman as an equal. She liked Louisa, and had to keep reminding herself that she was here for more than that. But it was hard to bring death into their pleasant conversation.
She was trying to get around to it when the butler came into the room again. If her time was already up, Maggie thought unhappily, putting down her cup, she’d have to come back. She’d like that. But she’d bet Spanish Will and Maldon would sneer.
“Lieutenant Pascal has come to call, my lady,” the butler said.
“Show him in,” Louisa said on a sigh. A moment later, a dashing soldier entered the room on a gust of bracing air, looking jaunty and bright in his uniform, even in the cold winter light.
Louisa gave him her hand. He bowed low over it, and slid a glance at Maggie.
“Mrs. Preston,” Louisa said, “here is my cousin Lieutenant Pascal. Jonathan, this is my friend, Margaret Preston.”
“Cousin by marriage,” the dragoon said, bending over Maggie’s gloved hand. “Charmed. I came to ask if you’d like my company,” he told Louisa, “but I see you’re already occupied.”
“Quite,” Louisa said.
“Well, then,” he said, fidgeting, “I suppose I’ll be off, then?” He looked pointedly at the tray of tea and cakes.
“Mrs. Preston and I haven’t seen each other for ages, Jonathan, I do hope you understand,” Louisa said without regret.
“Well, then,” he said, gazing at Louisa hungrily, and Maggie would swear it wasn’t because of the cakes, “what do you think of a ride through the park later today then? I can hire a closed carriage. It’s cold, but brisk, and at least it’s stopped snowing.”
“I think not,” Louisa said.
“I see,” he said in a suffocated voice. “And yesterday you had the headache, and the day before, an appointment with your dressmaker, and the day before that, with some childhood friend. I’m never going to be forgiven, am I?”
Maggie was fascinated. It was as though he’d forgotten she was there.
“Good afternoon, Jonathan,” Louisa said.
He bowed. “I’ll be back, Louisa,” he said, never taking his eyes from her, “again and again. Before I’m off—perhaps for good. The war is still on, and I’m still a soldier, you know.”
“I know,” she said, “but I’m not responsible for that, am I, Jonathan?”
“More than you believe, obviously,” he muttered, then bowed and left.
Maggie didn’t know what to say. But it was too good an opportunity to pass up. “He wishes to be more than your cousin?” she dared ask, because the worst that could happen would be that she’d be ignored. But she was owed an explanation and she had the feeling Louisa needed someone to talk to.
She did.
*
“And so,” Maggie said breathlessly, seconds after she g
ot back in the carriage again, “the thing is, he courted her for years and years, but never actually asked the question. She waited for him. Lord knows what he was waiting for.”
“Someone with more money, probably,” Will said.
“Or more looks,” Lucian commented from the other side of the coach. “Military men fancy dashing wives and mistresses.”
“Anyway,” Maggie said excitedly, “Lieutenant Pascal was furious when she got engaged to the baron, and he sent her stacks of letters protesting it. She showed me. He was wounded and sent home, but still couldn’t get her to change her mind. And now the baron’s dead, he’s all over her again—I mean, he’d like to be.”
“But she rejects him?” Lucian asked.
“Absolutely. It seems once she made up her mind not to wait anymore she decided to never change it again. ‘But he seems to adore you,’ says I. ‘Indeed,’ she says, ‘the more so since he knows I will be observing a year of mourning for the baron, and so wouldn’t be able to marry him for yet another year.’”
The men exchanged smiles in the dim coach. Maggie’s voice had changed for each part of her narration, sounding like a fine lady for Louisa, becoming gruff and coarser for her part.
“He said he bought his colors and went to war because he didn’t have a fortune and wanted to establish himself for her sake,” Maggie went on, “but she says now she sees he could have saved himself the money and set up with her right away. It costs a near fortune to buy yourself into a good regiment, she says, and he chose the best. She didn’t want to marry and follow the drum, living on the edges of battlefields and dragging over the face of Europe with him. But she’d have done it, back then. He kept saying he didn’t want to put her through such, but when she turned thirty, she realized he never meant to marry her at all, and decided she had to see to her own future.”
