Page 56 of Lady for a Season
Maggie had embroidered slippers for the Duchess and Edwardhad bought her perfume from Floris, but both gifts had gone with her to her brother’s house.
“My gift for you, Maggie,” said Edward, passing her a small wooden box, elegantly carved.
She opened it to find a string of coral beads, a fashionable item for young women to wear with white muslin dresses in the summers.
“Thank you, Edward, it is very pretty.”
He stood to fasten it about her neck, his fingers warm against her skin.
“These are for you.” She had embroidered half a dozen handkerchiefs for him, not only with his initials but with trailing ivy stems and tiny, barely-there frogs, all in white silk, so that they could only be seen up close.
He laughed at the tiny frogs, tracing their shapes with one fingertip. “What fine needlework. Thank you.”
The servants’ ball took Maggie by surprise. The ballroom was radiant with boughs of greenery and red ribbons, tables groaned with food in the adjacent dining room and over two hundred men and women, dressed in their best, were unrecognisable from their daily roles. Maggie wore a green silk dress and she and Edward entered the ballroom to a round of applause, after which Edward made his way to the housekeeper Mrs Russ and bowed, and Maggie curtseyed to Jenkins the butler, the two couples leading the first dance. They danced another four dances until they were exhausted, for these were no stately dances, but hand-clapping whirling country dances, which left Maggie panting and holding her side.
“And now we will leave you, so that you canreallyenjoy the evening,” announced Edward after proposing a toast to them all.
“Three cheers for His Grace!” called out Joseph and the cheersrang out loudly as they waved goodbye and left the ballroom, making their way back to the main house.
“Wait, Maggie.”
She turned on the stairs to find Edward following her. “Yes?”
“I have something for you.” He held out a little package, wrapped in paper.
“You already gave me a gift.”
“This was the one I really wanted to give you, but I thought Mother might not approve.”
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
She unfolded the paper and found a gold locket. She opened it and gazed in wonder at the miniature of Edward inside. The painter had caught the vivid blue of his eyes and his gentle expression, even on such a tiny scale. “Edward. It is… it is lovely.”
“I wanted to give you something to remember me by.”
Her throat tightened. “I will never forget you, Edward,” she said, her voice low. “I do not need a portrait of you for that. I gave you those handkerchiefs to remind you of Ivy Cottage. Should you ever find yourself there again, know that I would come to you at once, if you found a way to send me word, wherever I may be. But I will treasure this. Thank you.”
He nodded. It seemed as though he might be about to say something more, but then only nodded again and went back down the stairs, disappearing into the drawing room while Maggie stood and watched him, the gold locket clasped in her hand. Once in her room she put it carefully away in the tiny drawer of thenecessaire.
The Duchess was delayed at her brother’s for a further two weeks due to the heavy snowfall and they passed their days mostly indoors, singing, reading to one another, occasionally trampingdown to the stables through the thick snow to pat the horses and feed them apples.
“If only life could always be like this,” said Edward one day, when Maggie was in the middle of reading aloud to him.
She glanced up from the book. “Like what?”
He gestured at the room, the two of them. “This. We are free to do as we wish, we are happy. I have not had a nightmare for three weeks, have you noticed?’
She had. “Your lifecanbe like this, Edward,” she said, closing the book and leaning forward.
“Not with my mother and Doctor Morrison waiting for me to fail.”
“You are the Duke of Buckingham,” she reminded him. “Your mother could move into the Dower House and leave you to manage things as you saw fit.” She tried not to think of what she had overheard, that the doctor might consider locking Edward in the Dower House.
“She will only do that if I marry.”
“You will find a good wife,” she said, trying to sound as though there were no doubt in the matter. “I am sure of it.”
