Page 80 of His Mad Duchess
“Miss Fortune?” Her voice cracked, raw with urgency. “Miss Fortune!”
Her throat burned. She could not breathe properly due to the tightness in her chest. The room seemed to close in upon her as the silence was unbearable.
Beatrice stepped in at that moment. “Margaret?” She crossed quickly to her side, alarm in her eyes. “What has happened? You look…” She faltered, seeing Margaret kneeling on the carpet, skirts pooled around her, peering beneath the table as if the creature might be hiding in the shadows. “What are you looking for?”
“My cat,” Margaret gasped. Her hands trembled as she pushed aside a chair. “She was here this morning. Oh, Beatrice, what if she has slipped out? What if she is lost?”
Beatrice dropped down beside her, taking Margaret’s shaking hands into her own. Her voice was calm and steady, a rock against the fear. “Dearest, hush. We shall find her. Cats do not vanish into thin air. Come, let us look together.”
They searched the corridor, the parlor, even beneath the stairs, calling the little creature’s name until the sound grew hoarse on Margaret’s tongue. Still, no answering patter of paws, no soft mewl.
Margaret stumbled into the drawing room, her back against the wall. She pressed her palms hard over her eyes as though she could blot out the terror. A sob broke loose, raw and ungovernable, and another tumbled after until she was shuddering with them, her whole frame bent under the weight. “Miss Fortune. Oh, please…” Her voice fractured, barely sounded at all.
At last, Beatrice straightened, her patience thinning. “Margaret, it is only a cat. I’m sure she’s somewhere around. Do not make yourself ill over this.”
But Margaret shook her head violently, heart pounding in her ears. She could scarcely see for the blur of her tears. “You do not understand. If I lose her… she is all I have left…” The words broke, unbidden, before she could catch them back.
The door swung wide. Cecily appeared, cheeks flushed, her hair tumbling from its ribbon, and in her arms, supremely unconcerned, lounged Miss Fortune.
Margaret gave a strangled cry of relief, stumbling to her feet. She nearly tore the cat from Cecily’s grasp, clutching her so tightly the creature gave an indignant yowl. But Margaret pressed her face into the warm fur, her whole body shaking.
“Good heavens,” Cecily said, blinking at the scene before her. “What on earth has happened? You would think a highwayman had burst in.” Her brow furrowed, flicking between Margaret and the cat. “Is this all… because she chose my lap instead of yours?”
Margaret could not answer at once. She could only hold Miss Fortune closer, as though the cat’s soft purr might anchor her to the earth.
“Margaret.” Beatrice’s voice was gentle but probing. “This fear… it is more than for a cat, is it not?”
“No,” Margaret said quickly, too quickly. She pressed her cheek to Miss Fortune’s head as though the creature could shield her from further questions.
Beatrice studied her cousin for a long moment, her eyes clear with knowing. “It is Sebastian, is it not?”
Margaret stiffened. “No.” The word came sharp, hot. “No, Beatrice. It is nothing of the sort.”
Cecily arched a brow, folding her arms. “Then why speak as though you had lost the last living soul who cared for you?”
The words struck like a dart. Margaret’s throat closed, but she forced her lips together, refusing to yield.
Beatrice spoke first, soft as a sigh. “He cared for you, Margaret. We have all seen it.”
“Yes,” Cecily added gently. “And you cared for him. Deny it if you must, but we are not blind.”
Margaret clutched Miss Fortune closer, burying her face in the silken fur to hide the sudden heat in her eyes. They could not know how those words cut, how they opened a wound she had tried to bind with silence.
Beatrice reached, laid a hand over her arm. “You left in pain, I know. But pain does not mean it has ended. Do not close the door so swiftly. He would come for you if you but let him.”
“Yes,” Cecily said, leaning forward, her tone almost pleading now. “Go back to him. Whatever storm has passed between you, it’s better to weather it together than to wither apart. Do not tell me you mean to live the rest of your life with only that cat for company.”
Margaret’s breath hitched, her composure wavering. She looked down at the creature in her arms, purring with indifferent contentment, and the weight of their words pressed so heavily she thought she might break beneath it.
At last, she lifted her chin, though her hands trembled where they clutched the cat. “My marriage…” Her throat closed on the word, and she pressed her lips together before forcing them open again. “It was a joke. That is the truth of it. I will not. I cannot return.”
The sound of it startled even her. So absolute. So cold. Yet inside, the words bled like an open wound.If I repeated them enough, perhaps they would harden into reality. Perhaps the echo of his voice, the memory of his touch, would quiet at last.
Cecily shook her head. “You cannot mean it. I have seen the way he looked at you. A man does not look so if all is lost.”
Margaret gave a brittle laugh, cracked almost into a sob. “You saw what you wished. What I saw is a life doomed from its first breath. Do you not understand? If I stay, I bring ruin with me. Madness does not keep to itself; it consumes. I will not tether him to such a fate. Better he be free of me than chained to my curse.”
Her gaze burned into the fire, though she hardly saw it.And better I be free of Ravenscourt, where shadows breed and the past whispers of blood.
