Page 23 of A Gentleman’s Offer

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Eventually, Meg was obliged to return home – or to her father’s house, which was after all not her home and had not been for five years. She had no desire to go back, but she was afraid that if she lingered too long she would be missed, by her aunt and by Hannah, if by no one else. Even more than that, she feared that if she didn’t pluck up the courage to tell Sir Dominic all she had discovered soon, she never would, and yet obviously she must, and without delay. She could see that the Duke’s household operated along such casual, ramshackle lines that another young lady residing there would make not a bit of difference to anybody but the overburdened servants, and to stay with Maria after their long, cruel separation was tempting – but she could not.

Her sister had given her permission to reveal her secret to Sir Dominic, since Meg herself was adamant that he could and must be trusted, but to nobody else, so the interview with her aunt that she was obliged to have when she returned to Grosvenor Square inevitably held some difficulties. Mrs Greystone was greatly relieved to hear that Maria was safe and well, but she still could not understand why she had fled, and was much inclined to call up the Nightingale carriage, go instantly to the ducal mansion and beg her, on bended knee if necessary, to return and continue with her interrupted engagement. Meg, she said, could not possibly have been persuasive enough in the representations she had made to her twin. Had she cried? Mrs Greystone engaged herself to cry a great deal, and otherwise exert every possible pressure on one who had – before this curious new start of hers – always been excessively biddable. Meg answered truthfully that she had indeed cried, and that Maria remained fixed in her determination not to marry Sir Dominic nonetheless.

She did not currently feel equal to revealing Maria’s rather startling solution to the problems they faced, fearing that her aunt would embrace it with enthusiasm and urge her to go through with it without complaint. So when that lady commenced wringing her hands and saying rather wildly that she had no idea what was to become of them all, Meg could only sigh in sympathy and leave Mrs Greystone alone to bathe her forehead in lavender water and lament the selfishness and wilfulness of modern youth in the shape of Miss Maria Nightingale. Did anybody imagine, she wailed, that she, Susan Nightingale, had actually wanted to marry Mr Greystone, who had been quite thirty years her senior and had resembled nothing so much as a creature that resided under a damp rock? No, she had not, but she had obeyed her parents! The fact that he had quite providentially died five years later was immaterial. And Sir Dominic, by contrast, was young, charming and handsome !

Meg would very much have liked to lock herself in her chamber and seek temporary relief in breaking things and stamping on them, but instead she sent Hannah to Sir Dominic with a letter asking for an urgent meeting, expressing herself in such emphatic terms that she was unsurprised to see his high-perch phaeton at the door a short while later. She was ready and waiting in a smart green pelisse and bonnet – it was astonishing how much of her time currently was spent dressing very finely in order to have extremely awkward conversations – and greeted him in a rather subdued fashion once she was handed up to sit beside him. ‘I collect,’ he said, looking down at her with a frown between his strongly marked brows, ‘that your mission was unsuccessful, since you appear somewhat downcast.’

Meg darted a glance at the impassive groom who stood perched behind them. ‘Oh, no,’ she responded. ‘I’ve found her. She was… where we suspected she might be. But I promise you, sir, we really can’t discuss the matter while you’re driving.’

It seemed to her that his careless response cost him some effort. ‘You dare to doubt my skill, Miss Nightingale?’ he said with forced lightness, avoiding a heavy dray wagon by a matter of inches as he spoke, as if to prove her wrong.

‘I doubt anybody’s skill to hear what I have to tell you without making some involuntary reaction to it,’ she said frankly. ‘I’d rather not test your prowess so severely this afternoon, if you don’t mind. I’ve had a very trying day already and I am in no mood to be overset. And also, we really do need to be private for this particular discussion.’

‘In that case, I believe there is a tree in the park with our names upon it,’ he replied with a wry little smile, and after that he said no more until they were alone, concentrating upon his driving for the next few minutes and leaving her prey to a conflicting turmoil of emotions. Telling him the first part would be hard enough, though she could not predict his reaction – but the rest of it… It would be so much easier if she were clear in her own mind as to exactly what she wanted.

Fishwick took the ribbons with his usual impassivity and drove away, leaving them to stroll for a few moments in silence, an electric awareness humming between them. It was a fine late afternoon and the park was busy enough, but they avoided the most frequented areas and Meg, her hand on Sir Dominic’s arm, had the odd sense once more that they inhabited a little bubble of their own. Last night, they’d kissed, caressed – her body still tingled at the thought. Could it all really be as easy as Maria asserted? The idea of marrying Sir Dominic herself was so unexpected and so extraordinary that she had not yet begun to take the measure of it. She said abruptly, ‘Maria is quite safe, and always has been. She has been with Lady Primrose all this while.’

‘And yet that lady told us nothing when we encountered her, and gave not the least sign that she realised who you were. She must have known that you were deeply anxious – frantic – about your sister’s disappearance and her wellbeing. Did she also know that I was aware of the substitution? I think she must have done. That is all… most curious.’

‘Maria had strictly enjoined her not to reveal anything to us, but merely to observe us and report back.’

‘Even more curious. You saw your sister?’

Meg smiled rather mistily. Whatever she might regret, however confused and uncertain she was, at least she could never regret the reunion with one she had missed so badly for so long. The pain of their separation had been like being torn in two, and now they were whole again, despite all their problems. ‘I spent several hours with her, talking. She admitted me fully into her confidence at last. And I have persuaded her that I must be allowed to share her secret with you. She could see that, after the way she has treated you – though indeed she could not help it – you are owed an explanation.’

‘And yet you hesitate to give it,’ he noted with brittle courtesy. ‘Please, I beg you, go on. If you fear to wound my self-esteem, you should not. Once I apprehended that a young woman has found the prospect of matrimony with me so hideous that she flees her home to avoid it, all further considerations of amour propre must be foolish self-indulgence.’

Meg stopped and turned to face him. This anxiety at least she could remove. ‘It’s nothing to do with you, nor anything you have done or said. Nothing at all, I promise. Not even a lack of trust in you, or not precisely. Her heart was not free to give to you, and if she could not give that…’

‘Your sister does love another man, then, though she has not gone so far as to elope with him?’ She could not tell from his voice whether he was glad or sorry at the thought. They were standing quite close together, the sounds of the park having receded to a distant hum in the intensity of their conversation, but in this moment his face was shuttered and she could not read him. She feared what he might say when he knew the truth. Perhaps she feared above all being sadly disappointed in him, if he reacted badly. Few people had had her unconventional upbringing, she must remember. But still she had no option but to tell him.

She took a deep breath, and said very low, though in truth there was not the least danger of their being overheard, ‘She loves another, Dominic, yes. Someone she wishes to spend her life with. But not a man. Gretna Green offers her no sort of solution to her predicament.’

He was silent for a moment, but his voice was surprisingly calm and level when he answered her. ‘Ah. I see.’ And then, ‘Is it Lady Primrose?’ Whatever he was feeling in reaction to this most unexpected news, at least he did not appear to be angry or disgusted, which was a huge relief. If she had put him on a pedestal, he had not fallen from it yet.

‘Yes. They hope – their plan is to set up house together, far from town, like the Ladies of Llangollen.’

‘She didn’t think to tell you all this before? To write to you?’ Now an edge of exasperation did enter his tone.

‘I asked her that, of course. She said she tried, but could not bring herself to set down the words on paper. There was so much of her life that she had not shared with me, so many important things, she simply did not know where to begin. You can surely see how hard it has been for her.’

He sighed. ‘I suppose I can. And that girl last night – Jenny…’

‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘This is no sudden start or moment of madness. It is her life, her true nature. I think you must understand, therefore, why Maria accepted your offer at first, and why she realised she could not go through with it after all.’

He seemed reflective, and perhaps a little sad. ‘It is all much clearer now. Indeed it is. And I cannot be surprised that she did not feel able to tell me, of all people. Such a dangerous secret is no small matter to entrust to another person, and that a virtual stranger. I must consider that it is very much for the best, for both of us, that this marriage does not happen, even supposing I had never set eyes on you, my dear Meg.’

‘It would have made you both deeply miserable, whatever else happened. I do not see how it could have been otherwise.’

‘It would,’ he acknowledged. ‘And more than just the two of us, I’m sure. Do not think for a moment that I am not sympathetic to her situation. But what was she about, leaving you to pick up the pieces without a word? I presume she foresaw that your aunt would call on you and that you would find yourself obliged to take her place? She planned all this, in short?’

‘She did.’ There was no point trying to deny it.

‘With what possible object in mind? Surely not just pure mischief and a selfish disregard for others?’

There was no dodging it. ‘Not that. She hopes that I will take her place. That was her object, in fact, in ensuring that I came here and met you, and all the rest. She wanted to… to force us into proximity, even intimacy, I suppose.’ She did not say, she thinks you perfect for me, and I for you; she could not put him the position of feeling obliged to say yes, or insulting her and saying no, or…

‘She did all this in the hope that you would marry me?’ His voice was very low and intimate, and she shivered, remembering last night. So tempting, so dangerous, to give in to the undeniable attraction that flared between them…

‘More than that. Much more than that, Dominic. She wants me to become Maria, and she will become Meg. An exchange of identities, unknown to anyone but those closest to us. She offers to split her fortune with me, so that she can live as she pleases with Lady Primrose, since nobody will care what the apparently penniless younger daughter does. She thinks that if you were happy enough to marry her without knowing her, it can make no matter to you if you marry me instead.’

‘“It can make no matter…”? That’s crazy.’

‘Is it? I don’t know,’ Meg said dully. ‘I feel I’ve lost the ability to judge. My head is simply whirling, and although it was my hope that a little time would allow me to make sense of it all, I cannot say that I feel any clearer in my mind than I did when I left the Duke’s house.’

Sir Dominic reached out and clasped Meg’s hand. ‘I would have you understand me properly,’ he murmured, his voice low and intense. ‘ My mind is clear, and has been for a while, despite the coil in which we find ourselves. The idea of marrying you instead of your sister is not at all crazy. On the contrary – it has taken possession of my mind and my heart, these last few days. It began that first evening I met you, and has grown stronger every day since. A fierce conviction that I have been offered a chance of happiness, beyond hope or expectation, that I would be very foolish to let slip from my grasp. For the first time in my life, I know what I want, and it is you. Will you marry me, Meg Nightingale?’