Chapter 23

23

A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.

Love's Labour's Lost, Act 5, Scene 2

Bridger did not return the next day, or the next. By the fourth day, Maggie began living in a perpetual fog of anxiety.

Where was he?

A persistent rain had begun to fall, ugly and gray. Most of the wedding guests departed as soon as the storm lifted, but others tarried, put off by the weather. Maybe the roads had become too dangerous to travel. Maggie consoled herself with that possibility and held it as truth.

It had been decided after all that Ruby would return to India, and until then, she was to be sequestered in her bedchamber like Rapunzel. Each day, feeling sorry for her, even if she had behaved wildly, Maggie took a new stack of books and left them outside her door. She was in the midst of doing just that on the fourth day after their misadventure in Cray Arches, when the door abruptly opened, startling her.

Ruby's huge, doelike eyes stared at her through the narrow crack.

"You must stop bringing me books, Miss Arden," said Ruby softly. Something was wrong.

"It upsets you?"

"Yes, because I do not deserve it. I do not deserve your kindness."

Maggie drew the books against her stomach, standing. "If Ann forgives you then so do I. You're very young, Ruby. We all make our mistakes. I don't say that to condescend, only to assure you that you are not alone in folly. We ladies are often condemned for the smallest of mistakes, and men celebrated for the same actions. One misstep should not define your life."

Without warning, the girl burst into tears. "I fear I have made another!"

Maggie heard soft footsteps approaching her from behind. She did not yet turn to look, her gaze fixed on the open door. "Ruby—"

"Only—no, no! You must forgive me, Miss Arden! They are sending me away, and I know it is because you and Ann told Mrs. Richmond I must go. And I thought…" She heaved through her sobs, tears dampening the lace of her high collar. "I thought that if I cannot have my husband, then neither can you."

Maggie's hands went numb. She struggled to keep hold of the books. "What did you say, Ruby? What did you tell my aunt?"

"Everything," she whispered, sliding down to the floor. "Everything. Oh, you must forgive me. It just tumbled out, it just…"

"Miss Arden?" It was Fanny that had come down the hall toward them. She sounded impatient. Maggie slowly turned to face her. Ann's maid was an uncommonly pretty girl, but she looked like a ghost as she stood there in the middle of the wide, swallowing corridor.

"Beg your pardon, Miss Arden, but Mrs. Richmond and Mrs. Burton wish to see you in the Sapphire Library."

Trembling, Maggie lowered to the floor and left the pile of books near Ruby's closing door. She didn't want anything in her hands, afraid she might hurl The History of Tom Jones at one of her aunts and make everything worse. It was a doomed march. As they reached the junction of corridors and the grand stairs, she heard shrieks from down the hall. No coincidence. Their guest chamber was that way, and she distinctly noted Violet's and Winny's voices as they argued with some unseen person.

"I haven't given you permission to pack that!" Violet's cry carried down the hall.

Fanny softly cleared her throat. "Mrs. Burton has decided you are all to leave Pressmore by midmorning. Ahem. Today."

"Oh," said Maggie, feeling as if someone had punched her in the stomach. She was dizzy by the time they reached the Sapphire Library. Its grand doors were thrown open, revealing the aisle between two tall bookcases and at the end of it, her aunts standing in the window alcove, almost exactly where they had been when she and Mr. Darrow overheard them from the cupboard. Fanny curtsied and stared at the floor, an implicit apology in her bleak, joyless smile.

Maggie went in. She stood still. She listened, but only half heard as her aunts took turns expressing their shock, horror, and disappointment. Moment by moment, her heart sank lower and lower, until it was buried even beneath the floorboards.

"And to think," said Aunt Eliza, reaching the fever pitch of her tirade, "I thought we understood each other. I thought you had abandoned the selfish tendencies that would hinder your improvement. But no, you have set fire to your future happiness and the happiness of your family, and all for Mr. Darrow. I am sure there is a lady fit for him somewhere, but she is not in my bloodline! You self-indulgent, reckless, thoughtless girl! I was entrusted with your safety, and what will your mother say to me now?" Aunt Eliza threw her hands in the air. Her sister moved to comfort her, taking a little fan to cool Eliza's gleaming red face. "And now who will have you?" she further screeched. "Not Mr. Gibson, I assure you! Not he! For Mr. Gibson has quit Pressmore quite in an uproar, and who can blame him? Mrs. Applethwaite and I had recommended you to him so passionately, so genuinely, that he thought himself in love with you already. He gave up all notion of this imagined lady from a pretend place for you, Margaret, and we impressed upon him your many qualities while you were off debasing yourself with Mr. Darrow. Now…now who will have you?"

Maggie lifted her chin just a little. "Mr. Darrow," she ventured. "We have an understanding."

"You have nothing," Mrs. Richmond assured her, scoffing.

"Quite right, quite right. There is nothing between you," Aunt Eliza raged on, out of breath. She nearly collapsed back against the padded alcove bench behind her. Fluttering Mrs. Richmond's fan out of her face, she paced in a tight line in front of Maggie. She had never seen her aunt so beside herself. "You will not speak his name again to me if you would like to continue living in my cottage."

Maggie's mouth dropped open. She started to defend herself, but Eliza wouldn't hear it.

"Oh, yes, Miss Margaret, I have quite made up my mind about that." Aunt Eliza snatched the fan out of her sister's hand and used it to point at Maggie's nose. "I should have done this long ago, but I did not understand the urgency of the situation. There will be no more talk of Mr. Darrow and no more talk of books. Speak of either in my presence, or generally, or ever, and I will turn you, your mother, and your sisters out of Mosely Cottage. That is no idle threat but a promise, and when I make a promise, young lady, I keep it."

There is no Margaret Arden without books.

And now that she had sampled his kisses, his affection, perhaps there was no Maggie without Bridger either. She couldn't speak, couldn't think, her thoughts unraveling at such a painful speed she could only grip the nearest bookcase for support. Even that wounded her deeper, remembering that she must abandon The Killbride and any hope of seeing it published.

And she must abandon Bridger, too.

She must, she thought, gasping wretchedly for air, abandon herself.

Where was he? Why had he not returned?

"I must…I must say goodbye to Lane and Ann," Maggie managed. If she could speak to them, then perhaps they could pass on a message to Bridger. She couldn't live with herself if he returned to find she had vanished without so much as a word of explanation.

"I think not," said Aunt Eliza, sweeping forward to take Maggie by the arm. "You and your sisters will leave this place with me at once, and we will see what can be done to salvage your reputation. And unless your mother has any real objections, I think the best place for a wayward girl is where she can be supervised. My townhouse in Mayfair will serve until a suitable husband can be found for you."

Mrs. Richmond approached, and her expression was markedly softer. Gently, she touched Maggie under the chin. "With all love, I will give your goodbyes to my son and his wife. Take heart, my dear niece, you are not ruined yet. Your Aunt Eliza and I will not allow it."

Her misfortunes did not end there. Outside the library, the first face to greet her was Miss Applethwaite's. Judging by her wide-eyed, stunned expression, Regina had heard some or all of Aunt Eliza's meting out of punishment.

"You must be pleased," said Maggie, hoarse. "I cannot even say his name now."

Regina faltered. At last, she withdrew a small, folded page from her beaded reticule and smoothed it out, then handed it to Maggie. It was the first page of The Killbride, the only one containing her name.

"I saw him drop this the night of the masquerade," said Regina. "I promise, Miss Arden, that this is all for the best. Perhaps you cannot see it now, but I know you can do better than a man with no respect for your cleverness or talent."

Aunt Eliza was hovering. She even seemed displeased that Regina had returned the lost page. Maggie tore it in half and let it fall from her hands as she was escorted back to their guest chambers, where Violet and Winny were losing the battle against Mrs. Richmond's diligent staff.

And so, Aunt Eliza had her way. Upon their return to Mosely, there were but weak objections from Maggie's mother, who, depressed, still lost in mourning, and who never argued well against the far stronger Mrs. Eliza Burton, agreed that Maggie had behaved outrageously. Dependent upon Mrs. Burton's charity, how could Emmeline Arden rightly deprive her sister of Margaret's company?