Page 63 of His Mad Duchess
At length, a soft thump drew their notice. Miss Fortune had leaped gracefully onto a nearby chair, her tail curling like a plume. Cecily seized upon the diversion at once.
“Good heavens, Margaret,” she exclaimed, reaching out to stroke the cat’s ears. “She follows the turn of our voices so intently. I almost believe she understands us.”
Beatrice turned at last, drawn not by their voices but by the cat’s steady, regal stare. Something in her gaze faltered; she crossed the room slowly, then, without a word, sank to her knees.
“Your letters did not do her justice,” she whispered, her hand hovering before daring to touch the silken fur. “She looks… content. Safe. I wonder what that feels like.”
The confession slipped free like a secret. Margaret’s heart ached at the rawness of it. She reached out, laying a gentle hand on Beatrice’s shoulder.
“You are not failing,” she murmured. “We are each pressed in ways no one sees. Mine differ from yours, but the weight can feel the same.”
Beatrice’s hand stilled in the cat’s fur. For a moment, her eyes darkened, her lips twitching with the start of a scowl—but it faltered. “I have been cruel to you. Harsh, when you least deserved it. Forgive me. My temper is no armor, though I wield it as one.”
Margaret touched her sleeve. “We are all more brittle than we wish to appear.”
Beatrice gave a hollow laugh, low and bitter. “Brittle, yes. That is what I am. A brittle shell that must always gleam as if untouched. I smile, I laugh, I nod in all the right places… and every day it grows heavier. They tell me I am fortunate, that I ought to be content with so much comfort and so many opportunities. But what does it avail me when none of it leads where it ought?”
Cecily had grown restless halfway through the conversation and slipped out, trailing after the cat who had padded disdainfully toward the corridor. Margaret scarcely noticed her departure, too intent on Beatrice’s strained voice and the glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes.
Beatrice’s fingers twisted the velvet cushion as though wringing out her own thoughts. “I am nineteen, Margaret. Do you know how the matrons speak of that age? How they look at me as though I were fruit too long left upon the branch?”
Margaret said nothing, and Beatrice’s voice sharpened in the silence. “For a time, I even believed it was you who spoiled things. That cursed shadow that clings to you… I thought, perhaps, it infected me too. No offence, Margaret. But then you left… and would you believe? Matters grew worse. I am watched more closely than ever. It is as though your absence has left me naked to their judgment.”
She lowered her eyes, voice trembling. “Even Cecily… Cecily, who is but seventeen, already has admirers putting in good words with Mama.” Her chest rose and fell with a sigh. “And I… I have none.”
Margaret’s heart ached at the tremor in her cousin’s voice, but she stayed quiet, letting Beatrice spill what had long festered.
Her throat worked as she swallowed, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I am tired, Margaret. Tired of trying to be perfect, tired of fearing I am failing, tired of believing that perhaps I am simply not wanted.”
Margaret’s chest ached. She slid closer, gathering her cousin’s hand between both of hers. “Beatrice,” she said softly, “you are wanted. Perhaps not in the way society demands, perhaps not yet in the way you dream, but you are not invisible nor unloved.If they cannot see your worth, it is their blindness, not your failure.”
The words startled her as they left her mouth, for in truth, she hardly believed them herself. Nothing good ever lasted for her. And yet—when she looked at Beatrice, pale and undone beside her, she found she wanted to believe it, if only for her sister’s sake.
Beatrice gave a shaky breath, tears slipping down her cheeks. “You sound so certain.”
“I am not certain of anything,” Margaret admitted with a faint, rueful smile. “Except that you are more than enough, whether the world chooses to acknowledge it or not.”
For a moment, silence lingered between them, softened by the rhythm of their breathing. Then the door creaked, and Cecily tumbled in with the cat in her arms, the poor creature hanging like a fur muff, legs splayed in every direction.
“Look,” Cecily announced triumphantly, “she loves me best. Miss Fortune of Brighton loves me.” The cat gave a miserable yowl of protest.
Both sisters stared—and then, quite against their will, a laugh broke from Margaret, joined almost instantly by Beatrice’s. The sound, wet with tears yet bright all the same, filled the chamber until even Cecily giggled, oblivious to the heaviness she had disrupted.
CHAPTER 21
Margaret had never known a room to be so alive and yet so oppressively still. The breakfast parlor in Sebastian’s London townhouse seemed to hum with color and noise, with sunlight pouring recklessly across the damask curtains, setting the embroidered vines aflame while the ticking of the ormolu clock above the mantel kept impatient count of every moment she sat across from him. Even the silver dishes gave off a faint, mischievous glimmer, as if conspiring to betray her discomfort.
He had chosen a seat opposite her, deliberately—or perhaps not deliberately at all, which was somehow worse. His sleeve brushed the edge of the table as he reached for the toast rack, his movements perfectly untroubled. Margaret lowered her eyes at once to the neat pattern her spoon was making in her chocolate, lest she be caught staring.
Margaret forced herself to attend to the marmalade jar, lifting the lid as though her entire happiness depended upon its neat replacement.
“More toast?” His voice was casual, infuriatingly so.
“No, thank you,” she managed, hoping it sounded cooler than she felt.
The silence stretched once more, broken only by the soft scrape of his knife across bread.
When she reached for the toast rack at the same instant he did, their hands met squarely across the silver. Margaret froze. His fingers were warm, steady, entirely unhurried in withdrawing.
