Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“ W hat is going on?” Theodore asked, putting down the book he had been reading on the dining table.

Mrs. Lancaster jumped in surprise as Betsy ran from the room. Yates looked calmly back at him.

“Something wrong, Your Grace?”

“Enough of your smiles, Yates,” Theodore pleaded, but Yates had known him too long to be put off by his sour moods. When Yates had first come to work at the house, he had indeed flinched at Theodore’s outbursts, but that was a long time ago. “Where is she?”

Theodore gestured to the empty space beside him at the dinner table.

“Two nights this week I have come to dinner, and where is my wife?”

“Ah, is this a new habit now, Your Grace?” Yates asked. “Are you to dine with your wife every day?”

“Yates!” Theodore muttered sharply. Mrs. Lancaster even tapped the footman on the arm in reprimand. “Where is she?” He gestured once more to the empty seat beside him.

“The duchess is enjoying her preparations for your ball, Your Grace,” Mrs. Lancaster answered kindly in a soft tone.

Theodore had not missed this tactic over the years. Clearly, Mrs. Lancaster thought the best way to deal with him was to placate him with gentle words.

“She is in the great hall and is enjoying putting together some decorations.”

“Is she?” Theodore fidgeted in thought. “Did she make luncheon? Because she was barely at breakfast before she ran off, the guest list in her hand.”

Most of their breakfasts he had enjoyed, though he had never admitted it aloud to Maggie. That morning though, he had sat down so they could look through the newspaper together again, as they so often did, when he noticed she was racing through her breakfast. In fact, she had barely touched anything on her plate before she had raced out of the room.

“She ate a little for luncheon,” Mrs. Lancaster said slowly.

“Does that mean anything or not?” Theodore asked, turning his attention to Yates.

“She ate a little,” Mrs. Lancaster insisted again as she topped up his wine. Behind her, Yates shook his head and mouthed the word, no. “She is a little distracted, is all,” Mrs. Lancaster went on. “I think she enjoys having something to preoccupy her time in this house.”

“Very well.” Theodore stood and threw down his napkin onto the table. He couldn’t explain why it angered him so much that Margaret was missing this meal. After all, they had only agreed to share one meal together each day, but he was now making the effort to come to the dining room, so why couldn’t she?

As he strode out and down the corridor, Betsy – who was hiding in the shadows – flinched again. Theodore gave her a wide berth, not wanting to frighten her anymore as he marched toward the great ballroom.

Opening the door wide, he jerked his head back and forth in search of her.

The ball was now three days away, but from the transformation, he surely would have been forgiven for believing it was going to be held the next day.

Just as autumn had firmly taken hold of the earth beyond the windows, it seemed to have taken hold within the room as well. The decorations were suitably autumnal, with dried flowers and boughs of autumnal leaves and evergreen boughs hanging from the ceilings and pillars.

White tablecloths had been stretched across long tables, where the food and glasses would be prepared. In the middle of this time was an ornate punch bowl, the golden sheen matching the autumnal flowers perfectly.

Theodore tripped over his own feet as he walked further into the room, scarcely keeping himself standing as he jerked his head back and forth to look at as much as he could.

His parents didn’t often hold balls. In fact, he couldn’t even remember ever seeing the ballroom decorated for one. He suspected his father had no inclination for such events, and he equally suspected that his mother didn’t want to have to play the loving wife in public in front of all her friends and acquaintances.

I know this room to be a darker place. It always has been.

A memory flitted across his mind. It was of the first time he had ever been in this room. He was running, sprinting through the corridors as he took cover from his mother. The pain in his back was obvious, though he didn’t dare reach around in case he touched the blood on his skin. He just wanted to hide as best as he could, pretend that this had never happened.

The ballroom had usually been locked tight, but that particular night, he found it unlocked. He’d pushed open the door, his short body barely able to reach the tall door handles above him. Running across the room as he was lit by the moonlight streaming through the windows, he had taken cover beneath a table.

He was fairly certain he had slept all night under the table. It wasn’t until the morning that Mrs. Lancaster had found him. With some difficulty, she had begged him to come out from hiding under the table. By then, the blood had dried.

The white moonlight and the darkness that had been in this room that night were a far cry from how it appeared now. It was warm and golden, the soft red and chestnut browns like a comforting embrace.

Theodore turned his head back and forth, searching for Margaret, when he eventually found her.

She was standing at the top of a ladder, where it precariously leaned against a marble pillar. She was wrapping a string of dried flowers all around the pillar, giving it a delicate but warm appearance.

“Maggie?” Theodore’s voice was much harsher than he had intended it to be.

He wasn’t sure what had made his tone so sharp. Was it the fact that Maggie would rather be here than sit with him at dinner? Or was it the memories in this room bleeding into him?

“Yes?” She jerked her head sharply to look at him.

She was as pale as a newborn white lamb. She cricked her neck, her eyelids fluttering shut for a second.

“Maggie?” Theodore said, jolting forward. “What is it?”

“Just a little dizzy.” She hung her head toward the pillar, her hands slipping from the dried flowers to the top rung, her body crumpling forward.

“Maggie!” Theodore didn’t think twice. He sprinted across the room toward her as she fell backwards, her weight tipping her away from the pillar.

How he managed not to be clobbered by the ladder as he caught her, he didn’t know. It landed at his feet as he somehow got his arms under her, stopping her head from hitting the floor and bending his knees to absorb the impact.

Her eyes were wide now, the fear palpable as her breathing quickened.

Theodore’s hold tightened on her as he fumbled, shifting her high in his arms with one arm under her back and the other under her legs.

“What do you think you were doing?” The impatience and frustration bubbled out of him.

“I was just… I got a little dizzy.”

“Probably because you haven’t eaten anything today! And you decide to clamber up a ladder?”

“Theo, I didn’t know I was going to get dizzy, did I?” Her tone was much quieter than his, but it didn’t help to soften his frustration.

Fear. That is what this is. She could have been hurt!

“Yates!” Theodore barked as he carried Margaret out of the room.

“Theo, I’m fine now,” she insisted, sitting taller in his arms. She now aided their position, her arms reaching up around their neck.

Theodore tried not to think of how close she was, how he could hear her breathing, how it would have been so easy to close the distance between them in a kiss.

“No, you’re not. You could have had a serious injury. Yates!” he barked once again, moving swiftly down the corridor toward his study.

Yates appeared at the other end of the corridor.

“Bring some food, at once, please,” Theodore added quickly. “And some brandy too for the shock.”

“What has happened?” Mrs. Lancaster appeared behind Yates in panic.

“A fainting spell,” Theodore called. “She has not eaten.”

“Do not worry yourself, Mrs. Lancaster,” Maggie called. “I am quite recovered. Theo, you really don’t need to – careful!”

Theodore nearly knocked his own head on the doorframe of the study in his attempt to get her into the room. He reset their position then carried her into the room. He avoided the desk and the formal chairs entirely, carrying her instead to the rococo settee, where he sat down and pulled her firmly into his lap.

Her cheeks went from alabaster white to pleasant pink in an instant.

Do not think on it!

It was far too pleasant a distraction.

“Why have you not eaten?” he asked, the protectiveness plain even to his own ears.

Yates appeared a few seconds later. He was carrying a food tray that he placed down onto a table that Theodore pushed into place.

“I was busy,” Maggie explained, her eyes doing that fluttering thing again which told him she was fighting off her dizziness. “I was enjoying myself.”

“And that’s a reason to make yourself ill?” he asked impatiently, taking the plate from the table. “Eat something. It’s hardly a wonder you’d feel faint when you haven’t eaten all day.”

“Theo, please calm yourself,” she said, reaching for the plate yet still making no effort to eat.

It rankled him even further, though she rested the plate in her lap.

At least she is making no effort to get off my lap.

His arms wrapped around her waist, that same protective feeling now palpable in his chest.

“I am perfectly well. Thanks to you.” She added the latter part swiftly and smiled at him. “Thank you, for catching me.”

“God knows how bad your injury could have been if I wasn’t there.”

“I was turning to look at you. That is what made me dizzy.”

“Are you hoping to blame me for this?” he said tightly as Yates and Mrs. Lancaster returned to the room, fussing with a carafe of brandy between them and a glass.

“No.” Though Margaret’s face took on an amused smile. It lightened the fear in him a little. “Thank you,” she whispered softly, leaning toward him. “That was quite some catch.”

“I wasn’t going to let you fall,” he said seriously, holding her gaze. “Now, will you eat something? Please?” He even picked up the fork and shoveled food onto it before passing it to her.

She took a bite then handed the fork back to him, apparently uninterested.

“My appetite may return once the feeling has passed,” she tried to explain to him.

“Eat and you will have strength to eat more,” he pleaded.

“I was just trying to make the ballroom nice,” she said softly. “You understand that, don’t you? I know it’s important to you to impress these business acquaintances of yours.”

“Not at the expense of what could have been a nasty head injury for you!” He shook his head, though the moment the sharp words left his lips, he felt the wind go out of him a little and he sighed.

She is doing all this… to please me?

Seeing that Mrs. Lancaster and Yates were distracted as they poured out the brandy, he took the opportunity to whisper to her.

“Please don’t hurt yourself in the effort to please me,” he begged softly. Maggie smiled, though it was a rather sad smile.

“It was not my intent to hurt myself, but is it so bad that I wish to please you?” Her soft words made something tight constrict in his chest.

His hands itched to have a tighter hold of her, but he held himself back.

“You could have just pleased me by coming to dinner.”

“That would have pleased you?” She blinked in surprise.

He chose not to answer as Yates now walked over carrying a glass of brandy that was promptly passed to Maggie. She took the smallest of sips though under Theodore’s watchful gaze, she smiled with humor and took a second sip.

“Shall we arrange a dessert?” Mrs. Lancaster said, making her way to the door.

“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” Maggie began.

“It will be necessary and yes please,” Theodore called to her as she hurried off and Yates followed behind her. “You need to look after yourself,” he insisted.

“I am perfectly well.”

“Course you are,” he said with thick sarcasm, pushing the fork back into the fish stew and passing it to Maggie again. She took the fork and the second bite.

The moment her lips closed around the fork, Theodore felt he had been struck by lightning.

What am I doing?

He was sitting here in his study, on the settee, with Margaret on his lap. Not only that, he was feeding her. As if she were a baby under his care, that was how protective he had become of her.

When did she get such a hold over me?

Feeling cold all over, Theodore moved sharply. He practically picked Maggie up again as he lifted himself up and tipped her off his lap and onto the settee.

“Oomph!” she exclaimed in surprise, somehow managing to hold onto the plate and fork, and not send them flying. “What was that about?”

“I…” He backed up from her. He collided with the table he had put down for the food tray, tripping over it. Grabbing the arm of the settee, he managed to keep himself standing and flicked himself around to facing her again.

“Theo, what is wrong?” she asked, sitting at an uncomfortable angle on the settee. She balanced the plate in her lap, staring up at him in bemusement.

At least there is color in her cheeks now.

“Eat,” he pleaded, gesturing to the plate. “I just…” Yet he had no words. There was no possible way to describe how much she had just worried him, how alien a feeling that was to him, how no one had ever wormed their way under his skin so much that he would actually carry them through his house and protect them fiercely, guarding them in his lap.

“Theo?” she whispered, her voice soft.

He didn’t have any words at all. With nothing to say, he turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

I have to get away from her. I have to stop this feeling, but how?