Page 4 of A Gentleman's Offer
‘How could I? I haven’t seen my sister since we were thirteen.’
‘I think you must explain. I feel as though I’ve entered a madhouse.’
‘There’s no time for all that! You need to help me find Maria,’ she said urgently. ‘I’ve thought a great deal about it, and now that I must accept that you’re not directly responsible for her flight, or at least if you are you don’t know that you are, I don’t see who else I can ask.’
‘It may be so. Of course I’m not refusing categorically to help you. But we can hardly leave the house together – we’ll have to go back to the guests soon, in any case, or there will be a great bustle about our absence. It really would be madness to start combing the streets of London at this hour. Apart from the scandal it would surely cause, where on earth would we begin such a task? I need more facts. You must see that this is true.’ He spoke gently, and Meg became aware of an odd lump in her throat. But she could perceive the sense in what he said, and sank into a sofa, unconsciously pleating and twisting the folds of Maria’s fine blue and white engagement gown as she did so, anxiety and a sense of utter helplessness overwhelming her once more.
He sat down beside her, reaching out and gently disengaging her fingers from their convulsive grip on the delicate fabric. His hand was warm where hers was cold, and he held her chilly digits in a reassuring grasp. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Make me understand your situation. You must realise we only have a few moments.’
She said dully, ‘Very well. My parents should never have married, you understand. It was an arranged match, his second – he is much older – and they turned out to be entirely ill suited, despite their separate intellectual achievements, or perhaps even because of them. Lord Nightingale has no time for clever women. For living women at all, in fact, or for normal human feelings. My mother said she first realised their incompatibility fully when he insisted, upon our birth, on naming us Maria Major and Maria Minor – as the Ancient Romans did, you know. He thought…’ Her voice cracked again, though this time with incipient tears rather than laughter. ‘He thought it would be easier. Since we were twins, and identical. He couldn’t understand how she could possibly have any rational objection.’
He was regarding her with a sort of fascinated horror. ‘I had heard he was eccentric, but good God… Please tell me that isn’t your name, you unfortunate girl. That sort of thing should surely be illegal.’
‘No, she did manage to persuade him, but not that he was wrong – he can’t ever be wrong, you must understand – merely that he should also commemorate his sister. Maria was his mother, you see, and Margaret his younger sister, and they both died prematurely. My mother said she thought it highly sensible of them, and that his older sister, my aunt Greystone, had often appeared to regret not following the same path. But possibly she exaggerates. She is a writer, you know, as I aspire to be, and is not always to be trusted to tell the literal truth, but rather favours what may make a good story.’
He seemed relieved, and not noticeably shocked by this revelation of authorial unreliability. ‘So you are Margaret, and she is Maria? That’s much more normal.’
‘Oh, no. She is Maria Margaret, and I am Margaret Maria. That way – he told Mama as she lay recovering in childbed, and this I am afraid I do believe – if one of us should soon die, or otherwise turn out to be unsatisfactory, he should still have commemorated both his mother and his sister. He was pleased, she said, because it is so efficient.’
‘Efficient.’
‘Yes. Do you begin to see what he is like?’
Sir Dominic sighed, perhaps in the realisation that he had entangled himself with a most peculiar family, with consequences for his own peace of mind that could not yet be guessed at. ‘I do, but I think,’ he said, ‘that we must go back now before we are missed. Can you not tell me everything else, quickly?’
‘She’s gone, and nobody has the least idea where. The rest is just details, don’t you think? We’re wasting time when we could be looking for her, sir!’
He was still holding her hand – she feared she might have been clinging to him – and he squeezed it comfortingly and went on, less reassuringly, ‘I know you’re worried about your sister, and concerned that she may be in some dire peril, and I share your concern. But you do understand that you cannot find her tonight. We know so little; it is not sensible to contemplate wandering about the streets calling her name. No, we must meet again tomorrow, and you will tell me all the rest, everything you can think of, without hurry. Would it be possible for you to ride with me early in the morning, do you think? Is there a groom you can trust to accompany you?’
‘There is,’ she replied, disappointed by his refusal to hare off immediately into the night with her, but reluctantly admitting that there was a great deal of cold good sense in what he said. But she’d also noticed that he hadn’t actually said that he would help her. Not explicitly. A true gentleman would never break a promise, it was claimed, which was no doubt why he hadn’t made her one. Yet. ‘The servants all know who I am – the older ones, at least – and Robert will be happy to accompany me and let me talk privately with you. They’re all most worried about Maria too.’
They left the room together and headed back into the salons, which had been made into one large space by the opening of a set of double doors. The party was still continuing, though some of the guests had already left and the room was decidedly thinner of company. Meg couldn’t deceive herself that their entry went unnoticed – she was hotly aware of curious looks shot in their direction, and a few knowing smirks. Lady De Lacy, who undoubtedly had observed her son’s absence along with that of his supposed fiancée, looked quite delighted. It was all too easy to divine what she, and the rest of those present, believed they had been about. A betrothed couple might be allowed just a little indulgence in such matters, she supposed, but in these most unusual circumstances the prurient attention could only be unwelcome.
On another occasion she might have recoiled with mortification at the commonplace minds of her father’s guests, but she had no time for that now. Her only concern must be to discover what had happened to her sister, and make sure she was safe and happy. Sir Dominic didn’t appear to be the monster of her wildest imaginings – if she was any judge at all, he’d been truthful when he’d told her that he’d had very little contact with Maria and no private speech with her – and so perhaps sharing her secret with him had been a wise decision. He seemed kind, at least. But she couldn’t yet say whether he was prepared to shoulder the burden of responsibility and help her. She was in desperate need of help, and so she must persuade him, and she would. It was too important a matter to let considerations of propriety or ladylike behaviour stand in her way. Not that they generally did, she was obliged to admit. If necessary, she would even cry, a feat she rarely attempted.
Meg Nightingale wasn’t of a nature easily discouraged or cast down, but the idea of scouring the crowded streets of London – a place she did not know her way about, home to well over a million people – for Maria, who could be absolutely anywhere and might not even be in the city any more, was undeniably daunting. It was to be hoped that Sir Dominic would be able to think of something, where she in her current panic could not. He was a man of the world and of some resource, plainly, even if he understandably didn’t know her sister at all well. Perhaps they’d devise some scheme together. She would know better tomorrow, and must be quite ruthless in making use of him, for her sister’s sake.
4
Meg met Sir Dominic, as they had arranged, a little way inside the gates of Hyde Park, by a stand of mature trees. She hadn’t been here, or anywhere else in London, for five years, of course, and her childhood memories of the place had inevitably faded, but his instructions had been clear and Robert had known exactly where he meant. It was still early – a cool, clear morning with the promise of heat to come, and though there were other riders about, mostly men, alone or in pairs, nobody seemed inclined to approach them, and so they had a certain measure of privacy. Robert kept a discreet distance, his face impassive, after he’d saluted Sir Dominic politely.
Their horses were restive on this fine day, and so they decided to ride a little before dismounting to talk. Sir Dominic was mounted on a glossy black stallion, and Meg on the well-mannered bay gelding that her sister generally rode. She’d brought few clothes to London in her haste and anxiety, and so was wearing Maria’s riding habit, which fitted her snugly enough; it was a dashing confection in her sister’s favourite blue, with a great deal of military lacing and a daring cap to match. She thought, from the warm expression in Sir Dominic’s eyes, that the ensemble must become her – but that was of no significance, of course. No doubt he had liked Maria as much, if he’d seen her in it.
He said, after they’d trotted together in silence for a while, ‘You must know that I have a great many questions.’
She shook her head in frustration. She had the perilous sense of time speeding by while she did nothing, as in a fever dream of running with desperate haste and getting nowhere. ‘I daresay you do. But are they relevant? I know my family is most odd, and I don’t mind telling you about it if you care to know, but can any of that really matter now?’
‘Perhaps not; it is too soon to say. You’ve been corresponding regularly with your sister, I take it, since you have been living apart?’ She nodded assent. ‘But you don’t have the least idea where she might be, or even why she’s gone, apart from the understandable assumption that she’s fled because the idea of marrying me is repugnant to her?’
Even in her preoccupation, she felt rather sorry for him. If he really had done nothing wrong, as seemed to be the case, this must all be a great shock. ‘She didn’t tell me so, you understand – or anybody else, as far as I know. She only said you’d offered for her, with our father’s approval, and that she’d accepted. She said you seemed very agreeable.’ Meg looked across at him, and found that his mouth was twisted into a wry smile; she could hardly wonder at it, so very faint was the praise. She’d written back, saying as much, asking if her sister was sure she wanted to do this serious and irrevocable thing: to commit herself for life to a man she found merely agreeable. Maria hadn’t answered her letter but had instead – run away. Which was an unequivocal answer in itself, she supposed.
‘Agreeable,’ he repeated, as though the word tasted ill in his mouth. ‘Well, obviously not all that agreeable, since the undeniable fact is that she’s gone. I suppose I should be grateful she didn’t wait a little longer and leave me at the altar – but I wish she’d talked to me, instead of this. I must blame myself, for not conveying to her the fact that she might repose her trust in me and tell me of her qualms. Her natural qualms at such a serious change in life. How could I expect her to know she might depend on me, otherwise?’
‘Might she?’ Might I? Meg wondered. He still remained uncommitted, as far as she could see, for all his fine words and his air of sympathetic understanding. ‘Why did you offer for her?’ she asked abruptly, looking across at him where he rode by her side. He didn’t look like a fortune hunter, he looked more like someone who’d be hunted – but what did she know? She must admit that most of her knowledge of the world came from books, and she could not help but recall how easily Miss Elizabeth Bennet, for example, like the heiress Miss Darcy before her, had been deceived by Captain Wickham’s plausible charm. Might this gentleman be another such? ‘Was it her portion that attracted you? Our grandmother left all her fortune to my father’s eldest daughter in her will, and I believe it to be very large. You might as well tell me, you know, if that’s the reason. I expect,’ she said kindly, ‘that you’re very expensive, so I can quite see why you might wish, or even need, to marry an heiress like Maria.’
He laughed, not offended, as Meg realised rather belatedly he might easily have been, but apparently genuinely amused. ‘I am indeed extremely expensive – do you imagine that looking as well as this comes cheaply? – but I assure you, I am perfectly able to sustain my outgoings, and to support a wife, for that matter. I am a wealthy man, Miss Margaret, and I promise you that I have not the least interest in your sister’s fortune. I don’t – didn’t – intend to touch a penny of it, in fact. It was to be put in trust for her, and for our future children. I could show you the written marriage settlements, if you don’t believe me.’
‘Oh,’ she said, rather at a loss. And then, ‘Your children, of course – I expect you need an heir. You are quite old, I suppose.’ And then she let go of the reins for a moment and clamped one gloved hand over her mouth. ‘I don’t know why I said that.’ If Meg had been writing such a scene, she would never have had her heroine blurt out such a shockingly gauche thing to any gentleman.
