Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T he door to the dining room opened and Margaret jerked her chin up. It was dinner time. It was the part of the day where she usually ate alone as Theodore once again retreated to his study to hide from her.

Yet tonight was different for some reason.

He had opened the door wide and walked in, sitting down at the head of the table beside her.

Margaret’s hand hesitated over the glass of wine beside her in surprise. Even Mrs. Lancaster was so shocked, she did not move at once. It was a full minute before she managed to rally two footmen to come and set the place in front of Theodore.

Once more candles had been lit to offer some comfort and the staff had retreated from the room, Margaret dared to speak.

“Are you well, Theo?” she murmured. A slow smile pulled at his lips.

“Do you presume that is the only reason I would come and share my dinner with you?”

“Feeling out of sorts is the only explanation I can give to myself at this moment in time for your presence here,” she said thoughtfully.

Something twitched in her stomach with excitement. Was it possible that Theo wanted to come and sit with her? Perhaps he missed her company as she missed his when he was away? Perhaps just like her, he rather longed for moments spent together?

“There is something I wished to speak to you about,” he said somberly as he began to eat.

Perhaps not.

She clamped down on the excitement in her gut and set her focus on her plate instead.

“What is that?”

“The ball last night has got me thinking.” He twiddled his wine glass between his fingers, deep in thought. “Gabriel is very right in one particular regard. To hold such balls, you go up in the eyes of the ton.”

“You on a hunt for more respect from the likes of the ton?” Margaret knitted her eyebrows together. “I thought you wanted respect in business, not from ladies who think more of the colors of the bows in their hair than they do business.”

“You’re right. I want to be respected in business, but businessmen have lives outside of their companies. They read the scandal sheets all the same, and no doubt, attending a gentleman’s house for a ball is a good step towards trusting his business acumen.” He looked around the room. “Especially now the house is being improved. It will offer… a good impression.”

“Was that a compliment towards my changes in this house?” Margaret jerked forward in surprise, her food quite forgotten now.

He was avoiding her gaze and seemed rather intent on refusing to smile.

“A little one,” he admitted quietly.

“Oh, come, you cannot get away with such scant praise. Pray, do tell me in what ways I have managed to please you?”

“Please me?” he spluttered with a laugh, his gaze darting to meet hers at last.

“Do I not annoy you so much now?”

“I never said that.” His eyes glittered with humor, and she suddenly found herself laughing. They chuckled together, the quiet eventually falling between them a few seconds later.

“You can be really rather good company, you know?” she whispered. “When you let your walls down.”

He inhaled sharply. With that movement, the smile vanished.

Those walls are back up again.

“So, you wish to hold a ball, do you?” She returned to her food and tried to move the conversation on. Though he had lowered those walls for a few seconds, it plainly was not going to last.

“Yes, let us hold a ball.” He nodded firmly. “You can do anything you like with the ball, I will simply add a few names to the list. Do not concern yourself with the costs, for I will cover it all.”

Margaret hesitated, the fork part way lifted to her lips.

“Yes, I will cover all costs,” he said calmly, clearly sensing her hesitation.

“It’s the suggestion I could do anything I liked with the ball.” She lowered her fork down again and looked at him seriously. “Do you not wish to check the costs? Surely you wish to know your new wife isn’t being too extravagant.”

“Maggie, you come from a family where money has been few and far between. That is not a concern here, and I will not have it continue to be a concern for you. You understand?” His voice softened more towards the end of the sentence as he peered at her over his wine glass.

“But… practicalities dictate –”

“If I was worried about money, I would tell you so. Even in a marriage of convenience, there are some things I would share.”

His words made her fidget uncomfortably. Being reminded of the bare convenience of their marriage was no kind or warming thing at that moment. Somehow, it made their dance at Evelina’s ball feel more distant, as if the intimacy between them there had been nothing but a work of her imagination.

Was it all an act from him? Did he make the decision to look like a true married couple in the eyes of the ton?

She shifted and made her chair creak when she realized just how convincing he was. The way he had held her as they had danced had truly made her believe for a minute that she mattered more to him, but it was not the case. Still, she was just the woman on his arm with a titled family and what the ton would call ‘good breeding’ behind her.

What a ridiculous phrase that is.

“What is worrying you now?” he said, his voice a little tense.

“Nothing,” she lied, brushing it off and returning to her eating with vigor. She tried to shake off her disappointment the way that a dog might shed itself of water, being rid of it at once. “Well, I shall be pleased to do something useful at last. Any requests for the ball?”

“Do as you like.” He waved a hand at her encouragingly. “It is your home now. Invite who you like, have the food you want, the musicians you admire. It is your event.”

Margaret blinked. She had never been given such creative freedom before. It made the sadness she had felt melt away, replaced by utter excitement.

“Very well.” She reached for her glass and sipped in a much happier spirit now. “May I ask what business acquaintances you are trying to impress?”

“I have investments in trade in the east, mostly spices,” Theo explained slowly. “Yet there are some parties in that part of business who are… reluctant to talk to me about future deals.”

“Why is that?”

Theo was now the one to shift in his seat awkwardly. He reached for the carafe and topped up his glass. He seemed so distracted with his own thoughts that he nearly dropped the carafe.

“Something is wrong,” she mused, watching him.

“You have no doubt read of my business reputation in the scandal sheets. Others must have mentioned it to you, Maggie.”

His nickname for her made that warmth spread through her gut once again, but she shut it down. This was not the moment to become distracted.

“I may have read some things,” she acknowledged with a nod. “There was some suspicion that the deals you have entered into in the past have not been entirely…”

“Legal.” He finished the sentence for her when her nerves grew too much, and she nodded.

“That is because…” He shifted even more in his seat now, so much so that the chair creaked ominously beneath them.

“Maybe we need some new chairs for this room,” she whispered, trying to lighten the stiff air between them. His lips barely lifted into a smile, but he inclined his head in acknowledgement of her effort.

“My father may not have been the most honorable of men.” The confession looked difficult for him. The muscles in his neck had become strained, and he chose to look down at his wine glass rather than her at all. “Old sins cast long shadows. His have cast shadows over me.” He jerked his chin up at last and inhaled sharply, that stiffness still present though he plainly made the effort to shift it. “I will not be that kind of businessman.”

“I see.” She watched him with interest.

It all made sense. It was why he had wanted to marry a woman with a family who had been in the ton for as long as anyone could remember. Her father’s fall from financial grace hardly mattered when all he was after was a good reputational name.

“But you have never –”

“Never.” He cut her off sharply. “I wouldn’t bend the law, let alone break it.” Though his manner was so dark and his tone so much a warning, that she was hardly surprised people found the claims easy to believe.

His manners does not help dispel the rumors.

“Let us leave the discussion at that.” He downed what was left in his wine glass.

“This is ridiculous,” Theodore muttered to himself as he paced his study. He had left Margaret’s side at dinner some time ago once they had finished their food and retreated to this room, but he had been unable to sit since he had returned.

Something nagged at him, this feeling that he was being incredibly rude indeed by hiding in here all the time.

The door to the study opened and Yates entered, carrying the usual brandy decanter on a tray with a small glass.

“Your Grace…?” Yates hesitated. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing, I just…” Theodore marched the other way. “Where is my wife, Yates?”

“She is in the sitting room. Mrs. Lancaster has just served her a port. She is playing cards.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. She asked if Betsy would sit and play with her, but Betsy has too much to do.”

She’s lonely.

Then, as if he had always meant to make the decision in the first place, Theodore took the tray from Yates.

“Thank you.” He strode back toward the door.

“Where are you going, Your Grace?”

“To the sitting room,” he grumbled, not bothering to add an explanation why, though he was fairly certain he caught a little mischievous smile appearing on Yates’ face.

He swiftly left the room and walked down the corridor, entering the sitting room with the same firm pace he had entered the dining room earlier that evening. Maggie was so shocked that she dropped one of the playing cards she was toying with at the games table. She nearly elbowed her port glass too, though she managed to narrowly avoid it as she whirled around to face him in surprise.

“Are you sure you’re quite well?” she asked when he came to a sudden stop in the middle of the sitting room.

“Perfectly,” he said tightly, laying down the tray and picking up his brandy glass. He tried sitting in a nearby chair, but found his gaze repeatedly drawn to her.

Why can I not stop staring at her?

She shifted under his gaze and rather slowly returned to playing her cards.

“Did you wish for company?” she asked, rather knowingly in his opinion.

“Maybe I am just tired of my study.”

Maybe I desired your company.

Though it was not something he would have admitted aloud, not even if a large sum of money was promised to him for it.

When he found he still could not stop staring at her, for he was busy admiring the curve of her neck as she bent over the cards, and the way a loose lock of her hair teased her cheek, he stood again. Holding himself back from pacing, he moved to her side and peered over her shoulder.

The cards were not the only thing on the green games table. There was also a strip of paper where she had made some notes in pencil.

“What is this? For the ball?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

To his surprise, he saw that she was trying to keep costs down. Each thing she had suggested they buy for the event, she had allocated a budget beside the note.

“Why are you doing this?” he said softly, pointing at the notes she had made.

“You may be happy to spend money wildly, but I am not. Have I not spent enough of your money recently on changing this house?”

“You’ve spent a little, that does not matter.”

“I just think there are other things we could be doing with the money.”

“What things?” he said impatiently.

Many people would have flinched at his suddenly harsh tone. He would not have blamed her for it. Anyone who met him flinched at some point or another under his gaze and sharp words.

When he had grown older and his mother had begun to flinch, too, at the tone he could command, he knew she was right about him after all.

The image of my father. Yes, that is what I am.

“I…” She hesitated, turning pink in the face as she abandoned her game and swiveled in her seat to look up at him. “I’d like to send some money to my father, please. If you can afford it. If you can spare the money…” She swallowed, the movement obvious in her nerves. “That is what I’d like to do.” She held his gaze.

He stared back. By now, most people would have looked away from meeting his eye.

She never has been afraid of me, has she?

The realization made him want to reach out and take her hand, to indulge in a simple intimacy that was not something he frequently experienced. He wondered if she would mind him taking her hand to his lips again, kissing the back? The mere thought alone had an excitement passing through him.

“I wish to help him,” she said softly.

“No, you don’t.” His sense came back to him. “Surely, you are trying to help your sisters, not him.”

“Well, yes!” she said with vigor. “Yet I know not else how to do it. He is asking me for money. It can help them.”

“Ah, Maggie.” Theodore sighed. “Do you think your sisters would see a shilling of what you give him?”

Her mouth opened and closed. Whatever she had been thinking of saying, she clearly thought the better of it and chose to stay silent.

“You still wish to try, don’t you? For their sake.” At his words, she nodded slowly.

“Very well.” Theodore picked up the pencil she had discarded on the gaming table. “Here is what you can send to him.” He wrote down a figure.

Margaret really did drop her playing cards this time.

“You would give him that?”

“I will. On this occasion, but it is a one-time thing, Maggie. Let us see if your father uses it for your sisters, or if he is as selfish with it as I fear he will be.”

He turned away, knocking back his brandy. His weakness came back to him though and as he walked toward the fire to poke it and stir it to life, his head angled around so he could stare at Margaret again.

She looked completely stunned, staring at the piece of paper.

Something must be done about, James. He will destroy her sisters’ future if not.