“Your wife?” the Dowager Duchess’ voice was as sharp and as steely as her gray eyes. She glanced briefly at Margaret then back at her son, clearly waiting for him to make a formal introduction.
Margaret said nothing though. He was still, impervious to what she had said.
“Yes,” Margaret murmured. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace.”
Theo now looked sharply at Margaret. She must have said something wrong, for he ever so slightly shook his head at her.
“Mother,” Cedric now whispered to the other woman who stood behind the Dowager Duchess. “Did you invite her?”
His mother waved her hand in answer, clearly not thinking it worthy of words. Cedric, however, was shaking his head. He looked in despair, as animated as Theodore was as still as stone.
“To think this is how I would meet your new wife.” The Dowager Duchess still looked at Theodore, her eyes no longer blinking. It was as if she was drinking in the sight of her son, but with no pleasure.
Margaret shifted her gaze to Theo alone. He stared back at his mother, his posture rigid straight. His free hand adjusted his cravat ever so slightly, making it even neater than it already was.
Margaret shifted toward him, aware that his hand slipped even more around her waist, tugging her into his side.
What does he mean by this possessive touch?
“Well, let me look at you.” The Dowager Duchess turned to face Margaret so abruptly that she flinched. The gray eyes looked up and down Margaret, studying every part of her being. An eerie silence followed. She neither complimented nor insulted Margaret’s appearance, but just looked at her.
Is that a suspicious look? What does this awkward meeting mean?
Out of the corner of her eye, Margaret saw Theo look around the room. She followed his gaze, seeing that many people in the room were now looking at them. They were being watched like hawks.
“I must speak with you, Theodore.” The Dowager Duchess lifted her chin and spoke imperiously, the command plain as day. “We shall take a private room in Cedric’s house here for our discussion.”
“Will you now?” Cedric declared with thick sarcasm, clearly believing it to be a bold thing to demand without any hint of apolite request. Yet his mother waved her hand dismissively at him once again.
A sense of foreboding filled up Margaret’s stomach so much that it clenched tight. Despite the fact this was Theodore’s mother, it felt like a very ill idea indeed to let the two of them go to speak alone together. She reached out and laid a hand on the lapel of his jacket, about to plead with him not to go, but he had already loosened his hand from her waist.
Without a word, he gestured for his mother to lead the way out of the room.
The Dowager Duchess turned and walked away. Before Theodore could follow, Margaret reached out and took hold of his arm again.
“Theo –”
“I shall not be long,” he muttered. He didn’t even look at her as he said the words and walked away.
Margaret stared after them as Cedirc moved to her side, shaking his head.
“Mother,” he hissed at his own mother. “You know they cannot be in the same room together. Why would you invite her?”
“I do not need my son’s permission to invite my own sister.” With a flick of her head, Cedric’s mother walked away.
The door had closed soundlessly as Theodore and the Dowager Duchess had left the room. Those who had been staring now exchanged glances, whispering between them.
“What is it I do not know?” Margaret whispered to Cedric in a mad rush. “There is something happening here, is there not? Some… mystery.”
“It is not my secret to share.” Cedric stared at the door. “As pleased as I am for my cousin, Your Grace, that he has married and he has a companion in you at last, take heed in one regard…” He looked straight at her. “There is a part of him that Theodore will share with no one. I think it highly likely he would never share it with you either.”
Margaret felt she had been kicked in the gut. It was yet another pain, a reminder of the cold heart that Theodore had been insisting to her that he had.
That he has no capacity to love…
Yet for all of these warnings and dark words, something did not make sense. If he felt nothing, if Theodore was not capable of caring for her in any way, why had he gripped so tightly onto her waist in that possessive way?
There is more to this. Much more than either Theodore or Cedric will tell me.
