She shook her head. “Actually, I don’t care for poetry. Just tell her how you feel. Tell her the truth.”
He nodded, thinking of all he should have said.
“Well?” she asked, brows arched high.
Nathaniel hesitated. “Well, what?”
Helen chucked a pillow at him. “Go and tell her!”
Dodging it, Nathaniel turned toward the door.
“Oh,” Helen began, “and tell her I need her to . . .”
Nathaniel paused, hand on the latch.
Helen sighed. “I suppose I shall have to give her up in that regard. Such a pity. My hair has never looked so good.”
She winked and shooed him from the room.
Nathaniel first went downstairs and looked in the public rooms where Margaret usually worked that time of day but did not see her. So he mounted the taboo back stairs to the attic once more. If she wasn’t there, he would have to brave the servants’ hall.
Reaching her room, he knocked, but no one answered. The door creaked open from the pressure of his knuckles. She’d left it unlatched.
He gingerly pushed the door wide. “Margaret? It’s me.”
Silence.
He stepped inside and his heart plummeted. The bed had been stripped bare. No hand towel hung on the washstand, no spare apron on its peg. The room was empty. Lifeless.
She was gone.
He trudged back downstairs, then increased his pace, hoping he might yet catch her belowstairs.
Hudson hailed him as he crossed the passage toward the servery, his face lined with concern. “I was just coming to find you, sir. I have a note for you. From Nora.”
Hudson handed Nathaniel the sealed paper. “It was inside her letter to Mrs. Budgeon and me. Giving notice.”
“Dash it,” Nathaniel muttered and squeezed his eyes shut. He took the letter into the library to read it in private.
Dear Mr. Upchurch,
I hereby give you notice that I am leaving Fairbourne Hall and returning to London. I know this may confuse you after our recent conversations, but I hope, should you hear news of me that surprises you, that you will not think the worst of me.
I want to thank you for allowing me to stay under your roof even after you knew I had no business being there. I learned a great deal from the experience. I learned that my long list of faults includes the tendency to judge people by first appearances and to judge wrongly. I learned much more as well. I learned to love your sister and understand your brother and, dare I say it, to admire you. It was a foolish, shallow girl who turned down your offer two years ago, and a wiser young woman who has learned the meaning of regret. There is nothing to be done about that mistake, nor that regret now, but I did want you to know.
I wish the best of health and happiness to all your family.
M.E.M.
P.S. Your Mr. Hudson is a gem. I hope you will give him and Miss Helen your blessing.
His heart beat hard. Erratic. What had she gone and done? What had he done, in not making his feelings and hopes clear? In not promising to do all in his power to help her, so she would not think she had to face Sterling Benton on her own?
He felt someone’s scrutiny and glanced up to find Robert Hudson hovering on the threshold, eyeing him cautiously.
Hudson held a second letter in his hand. He raised it as though he were bidding at an auction. “In her letter to me, she wrote that Betty Tidy deserves a rise in wages.” He glanced down at the lines. “And that I should hire a Joan Hurdle from Hayfield to replace her.” Hudson looked up at him once more. “What did she tell you?”
Nathaniel blinked. “That I ought to allow you to marry my sister.”
Hudson’s eyebrows rose high. “Did she indeed?”
“Indeed.”
Nathaniel wanted nothing more than to call for his horse and give chase immediately, but he could not leave. Not yet.
Lord, please protect her from Benton. And don’t let her do anything foolish before I can get there.
He who is not a good servant
will not be a good master.
—Plato
Chapter 33
Taking the first wages she had earned in her life, Nora Garret walked into Maidstone’s Star Hotel and purchased coach fare for London. In the small women’s lounge off the hotel’s dining parlor, she shed her apron, wig, and cap, and carefully tucked her father’s spectacles into her carpetbag.
Several minutes later, Margaret Elinor Macy emerged in a plain but serviceable blue dress, shawl, bonnet, and gloves, her blond hair pinned simply to the crown of her head. How light and free she felt without the wig and cap. How strangely vulnerable.
Soon her coach was called and Margaret went out to meet it. The guard handed her in, and she settled herself on the bench opposite an old cleric and his wife. She smiled politely but then closed her eyes to avoid conversation. She needed to think.
She spent the trip in catnaps and self debate, wondering if she had done the right thing in leaving Fairbourne Hall, and if she had any hope of preventing Caroline’s nuptials. She was determined to offer Sterling the majority of her inheritance if he would forbid Marcus to marry Caroline. If he refused, she would even offer to marry the mongrel herself, in her sister’s stead, hopefully with a reasonable marriage settlement. Though she prayed it would not come to that.
When the stagecoach reached London several hours later, the route ended at an inn some distance from Berkeley Square.
Margaret hired a hack to take her to Emily Lathrop’s house first. She wondered if the runner she had met—or someone like him—would be loitering about the place, watching for her. But all was quiet. She might have thought Sterling had given up, if not for that recent engagement announcement. Paying runners had likely grown too expensive and he had simply changed his methods.
The Lathrops’ footman admitted her, but before he could even announce her, Emily ran out into the hall.
“Margaret, what a relief! I despaired of ever seeing you again.” Emily embraced her warmly and led her into the drawing room. “I was so glad to receive your letter. I shared it with your family as well. I had no choice, really. Father mentioned it to Sterling, and he insisted on seeing it.”
“I suppose he denied everything?”
“Yes.” Her friend hesitated. “And considering recent events . . .”
“Recent events” meaning Marcus’s engagement to her sister, no doubt. So much for the man’s “desperate” determination to marry Margaret, as she had described in her letter.
Margaret didn’t stay long—only long enough to assure her old friend she was well and to assure herself that someone knew she was returning to Berkeley Square. As irrational as the thought might be, she didn’t want Sterling to be tempted to make her “disappear” all over again, this time permanently, to get his hands on her inheritance at last.
Emily offered to go with her. Margaret thanked her but refused. She felt she must face him alone.
“Well, I insist on sending you the rest of the way in our carriage, at least.” Emily said, asking the footman to alert the groom and coachman.
While they waited, Emily took Margaret’s hand and asked cautiously, “So . . . you have heard the news about Marcus Benton?”
Margaret nodded.
“Good. I was afraid you had changed your mind and come back for him.”
Margaret shook her head. “No.” She had not come back for him. Not in that sense. Though she did hope to end his engagement to Caroline. But that sounded too incredible to say out loud, and she hadn’t the energy for long explanations. She simply squeezed her friend’s hand and took her leave.
When Margaret arrived at Berkeley Square, the butler opened the door, his normally implacable expression cracking with surprise.
“Miss Macy! You’re . . . We were not expecting you. Uh . . . welcome. Welcome home.”
It still wasn’t home. Never would be. But she smiled at the man. “Thank you, Murdoch.”
She felt the weariness creeping into her bones, leaching her strength. She thought facetiously, My inheritance for a bath and a full night’s sleep . . .
Murdoch took her shawl and bonnet.
She asked, “Is my mother at home?”
“No, miss. She’s gone out. Only the master is in at present. Shall I announce you?”
“Not just yet, please. I’d like to change first. Is there someone who might help me?”
“Of course, miss. Right away.”
The footman, Theo, who once made a nuisance of himself following her whenever she dared leave Berkeley Square, now became a godsend as he brought in the tub and carried up pail after pail of hot water with the help of a new housemaid.
Miss Durand, her mother’s lady’s maid, bustled in, praising God in rapid-fire French for Margaret’s safe return and lamenting the state of her hair, complexion, and hands. She added rose-scented bath salts to the water and helped Margaret undress, unpin her hair, and step into the tub. Margaret was too tired to object.
Miss Durand scrubbed her back and washed Margaret’s hair. Heavenly. Her scalp felt tingly clean, her skin warm and soft. She began to feel like her old self again. Is that a good thing? she wondered.
Miss Durand helped her into clean underthings, traditional long stays, which took her breath away, and an evening gown of pink and cream silk. Then she curled and dressed her hair. As the lady’s maid powdered Margaret’s nose, she lamented the slight pink tone. “Mademoiselle has been in ze sun, n’est-ce pas? On ze continent were you? Or ze coast?”