Page 14 of My Disastrous Duchess (The Untamed Ladies #2)

“I am just so very glad I did not listen to Eliza. While you were gone, she swore you would return with a handsome young husband from Salisbury – a prince, she said, who would save you from the dragon. Little girls and their imaginations... She is an incorrigible dreamer, so persuasive that I almost began to regret my invitation to Baron Faversham. But Wiltshire was entirely uneventful, wasn’t it? Just as I expected.”

Margaret puffed out her cheeks, her mind flashing with the duke’s serious face.

“Not entirely uneventful,” she said. “But there were certainly no interested princes.”

“How can you stand to eat those?” Margaret asked Eliza, nodding at her breakfast. “When I was your age, just the sight of deviled kidneys made me sick.”

Eliza frowned, pointing at Margaret’s plate. “You’re eating them now.”

“So observant.” Margaret pinched Eliza playfully under the table, and her sister squealed. “Now I am a grown woman, and my tastes have changed. And I cannot subsist on cake alone, as much as I might wish to.”

“Was there cake in Wiltshire?” Eliza asked, prodding her kidneys with her fork. Her blonde ringlets had been neatly organized with a pink ribbon to match her dress – the best she owned.

“There was always cake. Lady Jane has an insatiable sweet tooth. Her cook makes fresh pastries every morning for breakfast, and Lady Jane always takes sweetmeats with her tea, and then eats more cake before she retires to bed. She says it’s dire for one’s health to go to sleep on an empty stomach, and that eating a lot of sugar helps one’s humors immensely. ”

Margaret thought fondly back to her hostess, but it was another memory that rose to the surface, mingling with the rest as she reached for the butter dish.

“I had the most delicious spiced cake while I was there,” she continued. “You would have loved it, Liz. Cinnamon and cardamom, and marzipan on top, so moist it melted in your mouth...” She sighed wistfully as she buttered her bread roll. “I can still taste it.”

“Is Lady Jane allergic to cinnamon?” her mother asked from across the table.

She sipped leisurely at her tea, placing her teacup down with a damning clink .

The rings on her fingers glistened, heirlooms she had refused to give up when Margaret had started her budgeting.

“Yes, I could have sworn she was allergic. I served a spiced tea cake at one of my luncheons years ago and almost killed the woman. Well, that was what Lady Jane claimed – but the worst she seemed to suffer was a tickle in the throat.”

Margaret paused her buttering, suddenly remembering where she had tasted the cake. It had not been at teatime at Lady Jane’s, but for breakfast at Somerstead Hall.

“Oh...” The knife worked the butter slowly as Margaret tried to come up with an excuse. “Well, she is still quite allergic, I believe. But she asked her cook to make the cake especially for me and Helena and did not taste a crumb of it herself.”

The answer appeased Katherine, and Margaret breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She peered up from her plate as she set down her toast, watching Baron Faversham slice into his own breakfast, completely oblivious to the conversation happening around him.

Her mother had invited the baron over that morning to discuss wedding preparations.

It had only been a week since Margaret’s return from Wiltshire, but the hope was for them to marry as soon as possible.

The first banns would be read that Sunday at St. James’s Church.

In the meantime, her mother thought it was important for Margaret to learn to live with the baron – and that included mealtimes.

But the more time that passed, the more convinced Margaret became that the Duke of Langley’s warnings about Lord Faversham had been founded in truth.

The baron was a quiet man on the surface, looking much older than he was, liver spots decorating his forehead and the naked stretch of scalp between what remained of his hair.

His bushy grey brows were always turned down in a scowl, and he might have been tall once, but now walked with a pronounced stoop.

As for conversation, there hadn’t been enough to judge.

He mostly sat in silence, looking at the floor or reading newspapers, while the Pembroke women tried vainly to animate some sort of interest in him.

Not fit to be someone’s friend, Margaret thought, let alone someone’s husband.

Margaret had seen many handsome older gentlemen at soirees, men who exuded wisdom and kindness, or elegance and grace, who had obviously led happy lives and had much more life to live. Baron Faversham was not like those aged gentlemen in the slightest.

“What do you think of the cheese, My Lord?” Katherine asked him when there was a lull in the conversation, pointing her pinky finger at the cheese platter.

“I purchased them in Bloomsbury. There is the most fabulous cheesemaker’s there.

A little shop just off the square, owned by a Scotsman, if you can believe it.

My husband and I discovered it when Margaret was just a babe, and the place is still going. ”

The baron shrugged, wiping his mouth on his napkin. “Run of the mill cheddar and Stilton. What more is there do say?”

“Quite right. It was a silly question, My Lord.” Katherine smiled, her neck bobbing above the ruffled collar of her dress.

“While we are on the topic of food, I have ordered a sampler of chocolates from Fortnum and Mason for the wedding, thinking that we might serve chocolate to drink.” She looked over at her daughters. “Should we try some now?”

Eliza’s eyes lit up, and Margaret chuckled at the sight.

She was just about to endorse her mother’s plan when the butler arrived with the morning post. Margaret gasped in delight, having been hoping for a letter from her friend Anna, who was currently abroad with her husband.

Licking her fingers clean, she leaned forward in anticipation.

Mr. Rathbone had nothing to deliver but the morning papers, leaving Margaret to sink back into her chair in defeat.

“Hand me one of those,” ordered Baron Faversham, wiggling a bony finger at the butler.

Katherine took a paper as well and sped directly to the society sheets. They both began reading quietly. Margaret felt Eliza poke her in the ribs as Mr. Rathbone left.

“What about the chocolate?” Eliza whispered.

“Sadly, I don’t think Mama was speaking seriously,” Margaret whispered back, sipping her tea. “Sometimes people say things just to bridge a silence.”

Eliza glanced at Baron Faversham’s, pushing away her mostly empty plate. “Not everyone. Some people barely say anything at all... He's so boring.”

Margaret choked on her tea. Thankfully, the baron was still distracted.

“You’re right. Some people instead excel at silences.

” Margaret wiped her chin. “Some others excel at saying things that will get them into trouble. You needn’t stay if you’re bored, Liz.

I can excuse you from the table. Didn’t you want to finish your book today, so we go back to the lending library this afternoon? ”

A smile brightened Eliza’s face. She nodded and hopped down from her seat, placing a kiss on Margaret’s cheek before she left the drawing room. Their mother was so absorbed in The Morning Post that she didn’t even notice.

Now that Margaret was looking at her, something in Katherine’s expression gave her pause.

Usually, Katherine salivated over the scandal sheets.

But that morning, her face had blanched an unsightly shade of white.

Margaret licked her lips, leaning forward slightly to try to get a look at the paper.

What had Katherine read that provoked such a strong reaction from her? Something about Margaret’s father?

A second later, Katherine’s mouth dropped open, and Margaret reeled back. Katherine shook her head slowly back and forth as she tried to comprehend whatever she had read. Visibly panicked, she then looked over at Baron Faversham, who had just turned to the society sheets as well.

A dark sense of foreboding washed over Margaret, her heart thumping against her ribcage to the rhythm of a familiar name.

“Oh, Margaret...” Her mother swallowed, looking over at her. “Is this true? What they have written here about you and... I... I can scarcely believe my eyes.”

Margaret’s hands tightened around the arms of her chair. “What does it say?”

Katherine bared her teeth and shot out of her seat. She shoved the broadsheet in Margaret’s face, pointing at a column in the society pages. Between the engagement announcements and the obituaries was Margaret’s name printed in large bold letters.

Beside it was the Duke of Langley’s.

“I—I don’t know what this means,” Margaret lied, hands trembling around the broadsheet. There was no hope of reading the article as tears filled her eyes. “The duke and me? But nothing happened between us ever. I barely know the man!”

By that point, Baron Faversham was staring at her furiously. Margaret was mortified, trying vainly to blink away her tears so she could read the article.

“Whatever they have written cannot be true,” she protested, getting up so quickly she rocked the tableware, spilling the contents of her teacup over the table. “Whoever wrote this is just trying to cause trouble. I don’t know the Duke of Langley. I don’t know him at all!”

“That is not what these sheets suggest,” the baron argued, wrinkling his nose. “An assignation between you and the Duke of Langley? When did this transpire?”

A sob ripped from Margaret's throat, exposing her guilt.

But was she guilty? The duke had barely laid a hand on her.

And even though she had wished, in that moment, that he had kissed her and more, nothing improper had ever happened.

No crime had been committed – nothing worth writing about. An assignation? It was all lies.

Katherine slammed her hand down on the table as Margaret began to cry. “Enough! I won’t stand for such theatrics. What did you do, Margaret? What did you do with the duke?”

Before Katherine could continue her accusation, Mr. Rathbone reappeared at the door. Katherine looked ready to tear the head from his shoulders, but composed herself long enough to allow the man to speak.

“What now?” she shouted.

The butler turned from Katherine and addressed Margaret instead. She wiped her eyes, staring hopelessly toward him.

“My apologies, My Lady. There is a visitor for Miss Pembroke.”

“At this hour?” cried Baron Faversham, having finally found his voice. “Who the devil is it?”

Margaret clutched a hand over her chest.

“He has presented himself as the Duke of Langley, My Lord,” Mr. Rathbone replied. “And he says he has most pressing matters to discuss with Miss Pembroke.”