Already finding his anger near boiling point, Theodore turned to look at his friend.
“What?” he muttered, knowing it was Gabriel’s way of saying he wished to speak.
“You surely would not use your staff to pass on messages to talk to your wife when you could talk to her yourself?”
“Of course, I wouldn’t do that,” Theodore snapped under his breath. He stepped forward, intent on going into the drawing room and asking exactly how much more Margaret did intend on changing in this house. He moved so far before he realized such a conversation would mean talking to her.
I’d have to talk to her outside of our usual breakfast conference.
He’d become accustomed to managing their breakfasts together throughout the week now. They were often spent quietly, with him reading the newspaper and Margaret reading a book. Once or twice, they talked about the news of the day or what she read, but that was about it.
He had avoided any sort of heated discussion or disagreement with her, well aware that the one morning she had become impassioned when she spoke, the day she had breakfasted in his study, he had been incredibly distracted. With Margaret’s bold behavior, her pinkened cheeks and the way she looked at him with challenge, she could be a much bigger distraction than he had banked on.
Turning on his heel, Theodore walked back past Yates and Gabriel.
“Changed your mind?” Gabriel said with a knowing smile.
“Yates, we’ll have tea in my study,” Theodore pleaded. “And you can stop with that mischievous smile.”
Such a task seemed so impossible for Yates to accomplish that he actually covered his mouth up.
“This is ridiculous,” Margaret muttered as she put down another of Louisa’s letters.
A week and a half she had been at the house, and she had written most days to invite her sisters to come to tea. Come what may though, there was always some excuse, some reason they were not coming.
Finally, in this last letter from Louisa, she had revealed a little more as to why they kept turning down the offer.
“… father thinks it important we do not disturb your honeymoon period just yet. We shall visit soon, in time…”
Margaret folded up the letter and discarded it as she poured herself a cup of tea and looked out of the garden room at the blooming flowers beyond the windows, bearing with the heavy rain. It seemed that her father was controlling her sisters’ answers, refusing to allow them to visit just yet.
Just how much use can I be to my sisters if he will not let them come?
A figure walking through the garden. They moved so suddenly that, in surprise, Margaret dropped the teacup.
“Ouch,” she muttered at the heat spreading down her lap, though distracted, she watched the figure.
It was Theodore. He seemed to notice her looking through the window. As he went off on another of his walks, as he seemed to do most days through the estate, he looked at her for a long time. In fact, the connection of their gazes stretched so long that it was more than a little… odd.
Then he was gone. Disappearing between hedges and flowers, Theodore vanished, and Margaret was much more acutely aware of the burning pain on her leg now. She dabbed at it with a handkerchief when Mrs. Lancaster appeared in the doorway.
“Your Grace, an accident? I’ll have Betsy arrange for a new dress for you.”
“That will not be necessary.” Margaret smiled, but didn’t want to put Betsy to such trouble. She also knew that she was running out of dresses.
Though Betsy and the other maids were quick with the laundry, Margaret had seen more than once how some of the maids pointed at her fraying gowns. Rather reluctant to ask Theodore for money for new clothes, she had decided to carry on as she was for now.
Besides, am I not spending enough money on the house and making it a home?
She would just have to go through all the fraying dresses she had.
“Mrs. Lancaster, where does the master go walking every day?” Margaret gestured beyond the window as she topped up her teacup, hoping this time to drink it instead of throw it down herself.
“I believe he takes different routes across the estate, but to go walking in all this rain.” Mrs. Lancaster shuddered, clearly in fear of the cold and damp. “He must be quite determined.”
“Yes, determined to escape the house,” Margaret muttered quietly. “Or me,” she muttered even quieter still, so only she could hear her own words. “Are there any rooms in this house he particularly likes? Apart from his study of course.”
“Likes?” Mrs. Lancaster looked around sharply. “I am not convinced he likes his study that much, Your Grace. It is somewhere he retreats to.” She pinkened, as if she had rather thought she revealed a secret, then hurried forward to clear away the tea-stained napkin that Margaret had discarded on the tray.
