Page 70 of Taming the Heiress
But she could not stay and wait for him, and she might have no chance to return.
"I—should not have come," she blurted. "Please accept my apology. I am sorry for disturbing your evening." Turning toward the door, she pulled it open and ran down the steps.
She picked up her skirts and fled down the path, her shoes tapping on stone. Passing through the gate, she ran toward the waiting coach. The driver seemed to understand. Without hesitation, he opened the door and swept her inside, then leaped onto the cab. The two horses launched forward.
"Did you speak to Mr. Stewart so quickly?" Angela asked.
Meg settled her skirts and collected herself, breathless for a moment, and looked at her friends. Angela and Guy sat close together on the opposite bench seat, both watching her.
She pulled off her gloves anxiously. "He was not there," she said. "He is out, and they do not know when he will be back—oh!"
Looking down at her gloves, she realized that the little cream card that identified her as Lady Strathlin was gone.
She glanced around, over her wide black crinolined skirt and down at the coach floor. Gone.
Peering out the coach window back toward the MacBain house, she saw Connor MacBain step outside the house, watching her coach disappear. He bent to pick up something from the ground and stood looking at it, then tucked it into his vest pocket.
Meg sat back with a soft groan and leaned her head against squabbed leather. "I did not say who I was, but I suspect the entire household will know soon. I dropped my calling card as I left."
"Oh dear!" Angela said. "Well, they will tell Mr. Stewart when he returns, and no doubt he will seek you out at the soiree for an explanation."
"If he comes at all," Meg said.If I ever see him again.
She looked at Guy and Angela, and saw by their somber gazes and the close way that they sat together that they had been deep in conversation while she was gone. And she could tell, simply by the way that Guy regarded her, that now he knew the secret of her son, the thing she had fought so long to protect.
She trusted Guy implicitly, but she realized that little by little her secrets would unravel and be told. The feeling was one of extreme vulnerability.
"So you know," she said quietly.
He nodded silently, then leaned forward and took her hand. "My dear baroness," he murmured. "You could have told me long ago. I might have been a help to you in this."
"A help," she said.
"You have taken a great deal onto your shoulders," he said. "But there are others around you, friends willing to share the burden. Willing to love the child, and you, without judgment."
Tears pricked her eyes. Meg nodded silently, gratefully, and leaned back, gazing out the window as the coach conveyed them back to Charlotte Square.
If Dougal knew, she wondered, would he feel the same way? He would be angry with her for keeping the secret, but she knew unequivocally that he was capable of real love and compassion. And he had a right to know his son, to love his son.
But she could not tell him. If she did, Matheson would find out somehow. The man had a way of ferreting out, and learning what was hidden. Some deep instinct told her that Matheson would become a dangerous threat to Dougal if he ever knew the true identity of Iain's father.
Although she had to tell Dougal that she was the baroness, she must continue to protect the secret of their child. In that way, she could keep both Iain and Dougal from imminent danger. Her continued silence, over the years, would ensure their safety.
She watched as the rain began a steady, pelting downpour.
Chapter 18
"Now this," the seamstress said, as she knelt on the floor, arranging the overskirt of Meg's gown, "is why Monsieur Worth is so pleased with this gown—the tulle overskirt." She inserted another silver straight pin and fluffed out the silken netting until its soft veiling formed transparent clouds around the skirt of the gown.
"Oh! It's magical," Angela said as she walked around Meg in a wide circle. "Truly a masterpiece."
"I quite agree," Lenore Worth said. She was more than a mere seamstress, Meg had realized upon her arrival. Miss Worth was the couturier's niece, a capable young Englishwoman who worked with her uncle in his Paris shop. Arriving with the gown packed in a trunk amid layers of silk netting and lavender sachets, Miss Worth had a perceptive eye and a precise hand for sewing. Mere days after her arrival, the adjusted gown now fit like a glove and looked like a vision. The night of the soiree had finally arrived, and she would wear the gown at last.
Meg looked into the long, tilted mirror, which reflected back the shimmering gown. Of Lyons silk in a pale aqua, the low-cut bodice left her shoulders and upper breasts bared in a graceful sweeping line. A snug waist nipped her to an illusion of impossible slimness, and the wide skirt and graceful train poured fluidly over a lightweight crinoline that swayed in an airy, flexible bell. Over the simple but elegant gown, transparent silken netting in creamy white was caught with silver straight pins. The tulle fell in soft layers to give the impression of floating clouds. Sprinkled over the netting, snug bodice, and puffed elbow sleeves, tiny silver stars were embroidered in metallic thread.
Her hair, dressed by a maid following Miss Worth's suggestion, was pulled back gently to spill down her back in rippling golden waves, pinned with a few small pearls and a snood so delicate it was nearly invisible. Around her neck she wore only the gold and aquamarine pendant that Dougal had given her, threaded on a black silk cord, its extra length draped in sensuous loops beneath the mass of her hair and down her back. On her left wrist, over her white glove, she wore her golden locket as a bracelet, threaded on a black silk ribbon.
"Exquisite," Miss Worth said. "A perfect picture of grace and simplicity. The gown is divine, the jewelry is not overdone, and your hair is simply and beautifully arranged. Truly perfect."
