The pervading silence suggested that hers was a minority view It was not an entirely unilateral one, though. 'Miss Huxtable,' Turner said, fixing his eyes on her. 'I presume that is who you are, ma'am, though I regret never having been introduced to you.
You are quite right. Mrs. Henry's home is /not/ the place for such a distasteful confrontation. And it has never been my belief that violence settles anything. Besides – forgive me, ma'am – I do not believe the Earl of Sheringford worthy of the honor of a duel. He has chosen his path to hell and will be allowed to tread it to the end as far as I am concerned. I feel no compulsion to speed him on his way.' Now /both/ young ladies were gazing worshipfully at him. Someone in the library stifled a sob. Someone else sniffed quite audibly.
Duncan smiled, his eyes fixed on Turner's. 'It has never been your belief that violence settles anything,' he said softly. 'One can only admire and respect such pacifist views. If you should change your mind, you know where to find me, I do not doubt, though I must caution you that Sir Graham Carling may not be overly delighted to have his home invaded by two belligerent gentlemen – an aggrieved husband and a man who is his relative, though not his brother.' Turner's eyes bored back into his own. /Yes, of course I know/, Duncan told him silently. /Did you comfort yourself for one moment in the last five years with the possibility that I did not/? 'Randolph,' Norman said sharply, 'think of your poor late wife if you will. Think of your sister.' Duncan looked down at Margaret Huxtable. 'Shall we go in pursuit of that lemonade?' he suggested. 'A drink would be very welcome indeed,' she said, and they proceeded into the dining room after Turner and his entourage had stepped smartly out of the way.
It was clear that the occupants of the dining room had been following the encounter as avidly as those in the library. There was a loud silence as everyone gawked at them, and then everyone turned away and rushed back into merry conversation with one another. 'Well,' Duncan said, 'I hope you are enjoying your public wooing, Miss Huxtable.' 'If a duel is ever fought,' she said, her voice trembling with emotion, 'and if one drop of blood is shed on either side, I shall personally kill you.' 'That,' he said, 'is mildly illogical, is it not? But I did not realize you cared so deeply.' She looked into his eyes and kept her voice low, though it still throbbed with feeling. 'That poor man,' she said. 'Tomorrow, Lord Sheringford, you must call upon him – /if/ he will receive you – and apologize. Most humbly and most sincerely. You wronged him, and while you cannot change the past or expect forgiveness for it, you can at least acknowledge that what you did was very wrong, that the suffering you caused was inexcusable. You will apologize, Lord Sheringford.' He raised his eyebrows. 'Or else?' 'Oh,' she said, 'do there have to be ultimatums before you will do what is right? You /must/ apologize.' 'You advocate lies, Maggie?' he asked her. 'Lies?' She frowned. 'No, I do not, though I have told some of my own in the past few days – none of which has done me a great deal of good.' 'And yet,' he said, 'you would have /me/ lie?' She continued to frown. 'I am not sorry,' he said. 'If I apologize, I will be lying.' She closed her eyes for a moment and her shoulders slumped. 'Oh, you foolish man,' she said. 'You must have loved her a great deal.
But love ought not to cause dishonor. Or pain.' 'Can you have lived to the age of thirty and still be so naive?' he asked her.
Her eyes snapped open. 'Let me fetch you some lemonade,' he suggested.
The Earl of Sheringford was taking an empty plate from her hand and returning it to one of the tables before Margaret realized that she must have eaten something – she could not remember what. And her glass was empty. Lemonade? Yes, she could still taste it.
She was smiling. Lady Carling was coming toward her like a ship in full sail, both hands outstretched in front of her. 'The Deans invited us to dinner ages ago,' she said, kissing Margaret's cheek, '/long/ before Agatha set the date for her soiree. We have only now been able to get away and come here. And thus we have missed all the excitement. Margaret, my dear, you must be a saint to have borne it all and still be standing at Duncan's side. I understand Randolph Turner declined to challenge him to a duel, which is surprising really and even slightly shameful, though I am vastly glad he did. My nerves would never have recovered from the strain. Duncan, my love, you have no choice now but to eat a great deal of humble pie and apologize. You ought to have done it long ago.' 'He says he will not,' Margaret told her. 'He says he is not sorry.' His mother clucked her tongue. 'Laura Turner was a very fortunate woman, then,' she said. 'Duncan, you may fetch me some ratafia.' Another half hour or so passed, most of it in company with Lady Carling and some of her friends, before Lord Sheringford suggested again that he escort Margaret home. She had never been more glad of anything in her life, though she would have died rather than ask to be taken. She felt exhausted.
Whatever had she got herself into? But whatever it was, she had no one to blame but herself.
Ought she to inform him when he took her back to Merton House that she had made a definite decision not to marry him, that she did not wish to see him again? He would still have time to find someone else. And really and realistically – how could she ever agree to marry a man who apparently had no conscience?
But who else would have him if she did not?
That was /definitely/ not her concern.
Stephen was in the drawing room, part of a large group of young people who seemed all to be talking and laughing at once. He detached himself from the group when he saw them come in from the music room. 'You are leaving, Meg?' he said. 'May I escort you?' 'No, thank you, Stephen,' she said. 'Lord Sheringford will do that.' 'Let me at least call the carriage, then,' he said. 'No.' She smiled at him. 'It is a lovely evening – or was the last time I looked out a window.' The earl did not own a carriage, and she had rejected his offer to hire one for the occasion. They had walked the short distance to the soiree.
They took their leave of Mrs. Henry, who shook her head at her nephew, kissed his cheek, and told him that he had made her so famous that simply everyone would clamor to attend her next entertainment. 'Everyone who refused an invitation to this one will bitterly regret it,' she said.
13
A FEW minutes later they were out on the pavement, Margaret shivering slightly beneath her shawl. The air seemed loud with the silence.
Lord Sheringford offered his arm and she took it. 'What are your thoughts?' he asked her after they had walked for a little while without talking. 'I scarcely know,' she said. 'I feel as if my whole life has been turned upside down.' 'Would you rather,' he said, 'that I ceased courting you? Your reputation would recover very quickly and leave you quite unscathed.
Gossip soon dies when there is nothing to feed it.' 'I think,' she said, 'that what I /would/ rather, Lord Sheringford, is an explanation of why you are not sorry, or why you refuse to apologize to that poor man. Is it just stubbornness? Or is it really love? Was Mrs. Turner the great passion of your life, worth everything you gave up, including your character and honor? And worth your refusal to do the right thing and admit that you caused irreparable suffering to her husband?' She shivered again. Her shawl had slipped off her shoulders and exposed them to the cool air of late evening.
He stopped walking and lifted her shawl, wrapping it more closely about her and keeping one arm about her shoulders to hold it in place. He was looking very directly into her eyes, though she could scarcely see him in the darkness. She could smell the wine he had been drinking. 'The great passion of my life?' he said. 'It would be a terrible insult to you if I were to continue to woo you and allow you to believe that to be a possibility. I did not love Laura at all, Maggie – not in any romantic sense, anyway.' She gazed at him, baffled. They were beneath a straight row of trees that had been planted along the edge of the pavement, she realized suddenly. That was why it was so dark despite the fact that the sky was bright with moon and stars. The street was deserted. There was not even a night watchman in sight. 'Then it is only stubbornness?' she said. 'An un willingness to admit that a fleeting passion ruined lives, including your own? And you think other people, including me, will respect you for your steadfast stubbornness? You believe it to be unmanly to admit that you did something so dreadfully wrong, its effects quite irreversible? Admitting you were wrong, asking pardon, is the only decent, manly course of action remaining to you – surely?' He sighed. 'I ought to have apologized profusely to you when we collided in Lady Tindell's ballroom,' he said, 'and allowed you to hurry on your way to wherever it was you were going. I ought to have chosen someone with far less firm opinions to save me from penury. Maggie, there are many kinds of decency. Snatching a married lady from her husband and running off with her is sometimes the most decent thing a man can think of to do.
Even when he is forced to leave behind a bride of his own, almost literally waiting at the altar for him –
