“My apologies, Miss Pembroke.” Alexander pressed his lips together, leaning back from her. The contours of her face were barely visible in the light of their candles, but she looked pained, and Alexander cursed himself. “You are a most maddening woman, and I am a weak man. I swore not to touch you, and in this moment, I have betrayed us both.”
“Luckily for you,” she said, “you have not touched but only brushed me.”
Margaret looked down, and he followed her gaze to where his hand hovered over her waist. He peeled his fingers back from her side, immediately missing the warmth of her under his palm. His heartbeat raced. No other woman had ever made him lose himself like this.
“The night has always made people behave strangely,” she provided by way of an excuse, as if she had read his thoughts. “It is a private and confusing time. I will not speak of this incident if you will not, Your Grace. We can pretend this never happened and carry on as before—to bed.”
Somehow, he believed her. Margaret was far from atondarling and had every reason to preserve what remained of her reputation. Revealing this indiscretion to anyone would only work against her. The secret was safe between them, for now.
“You have my utter confidence. But Miss Pembroke...” He wanted to offer an excuse for his behavior, but he couldn’t come up with anything beyond,You are so beautiful, and I was madly drawn by you, and the fire you ignited within me did not burn me painfully but sweetly.
He could not possibly tell her that without putting them both in danger. So it was safer to say nothing, to allow her to step back first, taking her candle with her as she left without another word. Alexander listened for her steps to retreat before he released the breath he had been holding. He turned from the empty void of the ballroom below to the sunny painting of Somerstead’s gardens as the storm abated outside and within.
Next morning, Alexander took his walk earlier than usual. The grounds welcomed him under a canopy of grey clouds, a mix of petrichor and dirt suffusing the air. The forest surrounding the estate had been battered by the storm, branches and debris blemishing the lawn as far as the eye could see. As he walked back toward the manor, the grass squelched under the soles of his boots. He paused to look back at the gardeners already hard at work, collecting the waste that had been blown in by the storm in wheelbarrows. Behind them, at the edge of the estate, the Avon River glittered faintly in the daylight.
“It is a marvelous sight, just like in the painting,” came a voice from behind him. “I am glad I got to see the grounds in the daylight before I left.”
Margaret stood behind him, a sight for sore eyes. Her dove-grey pelisse looked mostly intact, and she wore a clean day dress under her coat. The pelisse couldn’t possibly have dried fully overnight. But if Margaret was uncomfortable, she didn’t show it. In fact, she looked at him with so much indifference it made him wary, sporting the type of polite smile that usually contorted the faces of the Queen’s favorite ladies.
“The river, down there.” Margaret pointed toward it and approached. “You can see the other side from Pembroke House. But the view from this angle is much nicer. It curves so pleasantly round the valley.” She paused to smile. “I am leaving now, Your Grace, and I simply wished to bid you farewell.”
“I see,” Alexander replied. He climbed a few steps toward her. “Your affairs are all in order?”
She laughed softly, clasping her hands in front of her. “If you mean the few soiled things I brought with me, your staff has done what they could to save them. I have already extended them my fullest gratitude. I will leave what I am wearing now with Lady Jane when I return home to London, and she will see it returned to your estate in good time. She... knows to be discreet, though you would not think as much to look at her. No one will learn of my stay here from her.”
Alexander paused a few paces from her, surprised to find himself lingering after her goodbye, wondering what relative had died and left that dress for her. “And what of your man, Mr. Plim?”
“He is pacing the drive as we speak, talking the ear off your driver and footman, burying them in praise for saving him last night. He seems a little confused, and tired, but not physically impeded. I am confident that he will recover with proper rest. Lady Jane will not stand for any disobedience on that front. And while I remain in Wiltshire, neither will I.”
“Good. I am glad to hear it.”
“I am sorry I interrupted your walk. I wondered, perhaps, whether you had been hoping to avoid me by promenading so early, but your housekeeper assured me this is very much in your habit. I thought it would be a greater impropriety to forgo a goodbye than to disturb you. Was I right?”
Her theory was closer to the truth than he was willing to admit. What few hours of sleep he had been afforded had been plagued with dreams of her, and the thought of facing her again in the flesh had been disquieting to say the least. He nodded in response, hoping that would satisfy her.
What followed was an awkward silence as he looked at her, and she looked at him. He was suddenly compelled to take her in his arms again and ask her to stay. The unusual thought was immediately dismissed, as Alexander looked wearily up at the sky. A kite flew overhead in the direction of the wind, providing a momentary distraction, before disappearing through the trees, prompting him to speak again.
“Yet I hope you will find?—”
“I truly do appreciate?—”
Margaret shook her head, gesturing for him to continue.
“I only intended to wish you well in London,” Alexander said, mainly intending to be polite, but also uncharacteristically concerned about what awaited Miss Pembroke in this life. “This man you are set to marry, whomever he may be...”
“Lord Faversham.”
Alexander tensed, hoping he had misheard.
“Faversham is the man you are marrying?”
His concern seemed to take her by surprise. The perfect mask she had been wearing slipped for a moment as she narrowed her eyes, her ethereally pale face reflecting the grey sky. She tucked a loose ringlet of hair behind her ear, bashful.
“That seems to shock you,” Margaret said.
“Somewhat. But not entirely.” He considered his words carefully, recalling everything he knew about the man. “Baron Faversham is a known churl and is miserly to the core. It would be precisely in his nature to seek to profit from the ruin of your family by securing you as his wife, when no other young woman can stand to be in the same room as him. You said he has promised to finance the lives of your mother and sister? Thatseems as unlikely to me as your accepting to marry him, Miss Pembroke. I would have thought you had higher standards.”
When Margaret had described her would-be betrothed the night prior, he had imagined some man in his fifties who had contented himself with country living and accepted Margaret out of convenience, knowing she was young and in need. But never a man like Baron Faversham. He was everything they said her father was, had obviously made a perfect matching set in secret: money-hungry, crude, and immoral, who had treated his late wives and his daughters abysmally all throughout their lives.
