Page 30 of Snowy and the Seven Doves
Aunt Aurelia and Martin were sitting with their heads together, talking quietly. When Margaret and Pauline entered the room, Aunt Aurelia started back, guilt written all over her face.
Martin leapt to his feet and advanced with both hands out, a broad grin on his face. “Margaret! Darling! You look wonderful! I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you,” he exclaimed.
Margaret ignored his outstretched hands, putting her hands behind her back and steeled her tone of voice. “Major Lord Hungerford-Fox. What a surprise.”
His smile faltered at her cold tone, then came back even broader. “Ah. You are rightly angry with me, my dear love. Just so. Yet I meant my disappearance for the best, Margaret.”
She raised an eyebrow but did not give the man the satisfaction of a response, though the words were a tumult in her brain.
Grief was what she had felt at first, when her seducer had taken her father’s offer of half her dowry to leave England and keep his mouth shut about what he had done. Grief and shame, reinforced by her father and his aunt who blamed her for the whole.
Anger came later, when she began to realize how well a cunning man had played on the emotions of a lonely, neglected girl whose mother was dying during his assault on her virtue.
She had wondered, from time to time, which of those emotions would be uppermost should she ever come face to face with Martin again. She had not expected to feel only contempt.
“The good major left for your own sake, Margaret,” Aunt Aurelia proclaimed. “He could not take a gently bred woman into a war, to live on nothing more than a captain’s pittance.”
Others had.
Martin extended his hands again, his smile coaxing. “It is true, dearest love. It broke my heart to leave you, but I am back again now, and there are no further impediments to our union.”
“Except that I would not have you if you were the only man left living upon the face of the earth, Major Lord Hungerford-Fox,” Margaret told him. After all the violent emotions of the past six years, with those words she at last sailed free into the calm beyond the storm.
“You do not mean that, Margaret,” Martin told her, his voice kindly.
Aunt Aurelia had her own mite to add. “Don’t be a fool, girl. You’ve already given him your virtue. You owe him your hand.”
Margaret ignored her aunt and addressed Martin. “You are not welcome here, sir. You will leave now, and do not return.”
“Margaret!” His tone was a masterpiece of amused affront. As if she were a child. But she was not and never would be again the foolish girl he’d left behind. She was a strong woman of independent means now, with a character forged like steel in the flames of misguided passion.
“Shall I fetch the footmen to escort this person to the door, Margaret?” Pauline asked.
Martin, who had taken no notice of Pauline since she entered the room, looked at her, incredulous. “Who is this female?” At the same moment, Aunt Aurelia snapped, “You forget your place, Miss Turner.”
Margaret ignored them both, as two footmen entered the room, Bowen behind them. He must have been listening. “The officer is leaving. Please ensure he is not permitted into this house again. I am never at home to him.”
“It is my house, too,” Aunt Aurelia ejected. “I will always be at home to Major Lord Hungerford-Fox.”
Martin smirked.
“You will not be living here, Aunt Aurelia,” Margaret told her. “I have made arrangements for you to retire to the dower house.”
Aunt Aurelia lifted her chin. “I have no intention of retiring to the dower house. And leave you here alone? I know my duty, however unpleasant you make it.”
Margaret glared at Martin. “Out, major. Now. Aunt Aurelia, we will continue this conversation when we no longer have an audience.”
The two footmen stepped one each side of Martin and the butler came up behind him, hustling him out of the house.
“I am going up to my room,” Aunt Aurelia declared.
“No.” Margaret stepped in front of her, and Pauline came up to her side. “Not until I have had my say, Aunt. You have disrespected me in my own house for the last time.”
Aunt Aurelia tried to speak, but Margaret spoke over her. “I will no longer pay for you to live in my house, abusing me to my face and speaking ill of me behind it. You leave this house tomorrow morning. Where you go is your choice, but I have ordered the dower house to be prepared for you, and my solicitor has been instructed to pay you a quarterly allowance. If you chose to go elsewhere, you will still receive the allowance, but I will not fund your housing. Do I make myself clear?”
“Ungrateful, unnatural girl. You were a disappointment to your father, with your sluttish ways and your meagre looks. And now you would turn me out after all I have done for you?”
Margaret ignored her to speak to her dresser, who had come into the room while Aunt Aurelia was speaking. “Miss Denning is leaving my house tomorrow morning. Please make certain her things are packed. Anything she does not wish to take with her can be forwarded once she gives me an address to send them to.”
