stared at him, and he was obliged to bid her an abrupt good morning and stride past her to let himself out of the room.
Margaret stood where she was, listening to his boot heels ringing on the marble floor of the hall and to the sounds of the outer door opening for him and then closing behind him. /He had asked her to marry him/.
The last time he asked she had wanted quite literally to die because she had loved him so very dearly but had been unable to accept his proposal, because he was going away to war and she had to stay home to bring up her brother and sisters.
And now?
Could a love of that magnitude die? If it was true love, could it ever die? Was there such a thing as true love? Life was very sad if there were not – and unbearably so if one's experience with romantic love turned one into an incurable cynic.
She did not love Crispin any longer. She did not /want/ to love him again. Things could never be the same between them. Was love conditional, then? Was she determined not to love him because he had been faithless once and caused her years of heartache?
Whoever could possibly deserve love if it was conditional upon perfect behavior?
Did /he/ love /her/? He had said he adored her. But did he also /love/ her? Had he /ever/? But if he had, how could he have married someone else?
Had he loved his wife – Teresa?
Oh, she was horribly upset again. She had thought Crispin could never again have this power over her.
Margaret sighed and shook her head and turned determinedly to the door.
She would go and make that call on Vanessa. She would see the children and restore her spirits. Never mind that silly gossip last evening or the even sillier paragraph in this morning's paper. And never mind Crispin Dew. Or the Earl of Sheringford, who had to marry within the next two weeks or lose everything until after his grandfather died. Why should she care about that? And never mind the Marquess of Allingham and his pretty Miss Milfort.
Life could be unutterably depressing at times, but it went on. There was no point in giving in to depression.
There was a tap on the door and it opened before she could reach it. 'There is a Mrs. Pennethorne to see you, Miss Huxtable,' the butler informed her. 'Will you receive her?' Mrs. Pennethorne? Margaret frowned, trying to think who the lady could be. The name sounded familiar. But why would she be calling in the morning when most social calls were made in the afternoon?
Mrs. /Pennethorne/. Her eyes widened slightly. Had not the Earl of Sheringford introduced himself as Duncan Pennethorne? Who /was/ this lady? His /mother/?
Was this whole foolish business /never/ to end? 'Show her in, by all means,' she said.
Mrs. Pennethorne was probably younger than she was, Margaret decided as soon as the lady stepped into the room. She was fashionably clad in a pale green carriage dress with a poke bonnet to match, and she was small and slender and blond and exquisitely lovely in a fragile sort of way.
Not his mother, then, Margaret thought. His sister? But she was /Mrs/.
Pennethorne. 'Miss Huxtable?' The lady curtsied and regarded Margaret with slightly slanted eyes, which were as green as her dress.
Margaret inclined her head. 'We have not met,' the lady said, her voice sweet and breathless, 'but I felt compelled to call upon you as soon as I heard. You /must/ not marry Lord Sheringford, Miss Huxtable. You /really/ must not. He is the very devil and will bring you nothing but misery and ostracism from society.
Do please forgive this impertinence from a complete stranger, but I had to take the risk of coming and warning you.' Margaret rejected her first impulse, which was to offer the lady a seat.
She clasped her hands at her waist and raised her eyebrows. Yes, this /was/ an impertinence. 'Mrs. Pennethorne?' she said. 'You are a relative of the Earl of Sheringford?' 'It pains me to have to admit it,' the lady said, flushing, 'though fortunately he is a relative only by marriage. He is my dear husband's second cousin.' Margaret kept her eyebrows raised. She did not know what to say. 'You may know /of/ me,' Mrs. Pennethorne said. 'My maiden name was Turner. I came within a few hours of making the most dreadful mistake of my life. I almost married the Earl of Sheringford myself five years ago.
Instead, I married my dear Mr. Pennethorne shortly after and have been blissfully happy with him ever since.' Oh, goodness. This was the abandoned bride, the sister-in-law of the infamous Mrs. Turner, who had run off with the earl. 'Yes,' Margaret said, 'I /have/ heard of you, of course. But – ' But this was none of her business. She had no wish to listen to the whole sordid story – or any part of it, for that matter. 'I do not have an acquaintance with you,' Mrs. Pennethorne said. Clearly she had come to talk, not to listen. 'But I /do/ know you by reputation.
You are very well respected as the eldest sister of the Earl of Merton and the Duchess of Moreland and Baroness Montford. I daresay it is irksome to you still to be unmarried when your younger sisters have made such brilliant matches, but believe me, Miss Huxtable, the answer does not lie in marrying Lord Sheringford. My brother was the happiest of men before Laura was seduced away by that /monster/. He would have taken her back and forgiven her at any time after she left. He would not divorce her, as everyone who knew him advised. He never lost hope that she would return home and beg his forgiveness – which he would freely have given. He was devastated by the news of her death. /That man/, Miss Huxtable, has ruined my brother's life for all time, and he would have ruined mine too if my dear Mr. Pennethorne had not been kind and honorable enough to marry me himself.' Margaret gazed at her in pure astonishment. 'I must thank you for your visit and your concern,' she said. 'Will you forgive me if I do not offer you refreshments? I am about to go out. My sister is expecting me.' She had decided very recently, she remembered, that she would never tell a lie again. 'Of course,' the lady said. 'I will not delay you. And I do beg you to forgive me, Miss Huxtable. It has been almost unbearably painful, you must understand, to know that /that man/ has had the effrontery to return to London. My brother suffers dreadfully from the knowledge, as do I. My dear Mr. Pennethorne is chagrined beyond words, since he must bear the shame of sharing a name with Lord Sheringford. It has been our fervent hope that we would neither see nor hear from him until we leave town at the end of the Season. We certainly had no wish to be embroiled in his business. But when I learned this morning that he had snared yet another innocent, respectable lady into his net, I found the knowledge /truly/ unbearable. I knew I had no choice but to come to warn you, to /beg/ you to break off the betrothal before it is too late. Promise me that you will, Miss Huxtable.' 'I appreciate your concern for my happiness,' Margaret said, crossing the room with firm steps to open the door. 'And I thank you for coming.
You will excuse me now?' 'Of course,' Mrs. Pennethorne said, waiting until Margaret held the door open for her. 'I felt it my duty to come.' Margaret inclined her head and stood in the doorway to watch her visitor leave.
She was still all astonishment. What had /that/ been all about? It was perfectly understandable, of course, that the lady would hate the Earl of Sheringford, both on her own account and on that of her brother. But why would she feel it necessary to call upon the woman who was supposedly betrothed to the earl? It could not possibly be /jealousy/, could it? Did she secretly still /love/ Lord Sheringford?
That was surely impossible. /This/, Margaret thought, was all very bewildering indeed. For the sake of a moment's triumphant satisfaction in telling Crispin that she was betrothed to someone else, she had set in motion all these ridiculous consequences.
Perhaps instead of going to call upon Vanessa, she should remain here and give orders for her bags to be packed. She suddenly longed for the peace and sanity of Warren Hall.
That was what she would do, in fact.
But before she could leave the doorway of the visitors' parlor, there was yet another knock at the outer door, and a footman opened it to admit Vanessa and Katherine, come together to call upon her. 'Oh, well,' Margaret said without even trying to disguise the irritability from her voice, 'you had better come in here, the both of you, and join your voices to the choir.' 'The choir?' Vanessa said after they had stepped into the parlor and the footman had closed the door from the outside. 'Of those urging me to put an end to a nonexistent betrothal,' Margaret said. 'First Crispin, then Mrs. Pennethorne, and now presumably you.
Whoever will be next, I wonder?' It was a rhetorical question. But it was answered almost immediately.
There was a tap at the parlor door even before they had all sat down, and it opened to admit Constantine.
