Unveiled (Turner #1)(85)

Elaine looked at her. “What a very curious thing for you to say.”

Yes. She’d changed. Before, Margaret had been a quiet, pitiful creature—passive, waiting for her life to come to her. But then all the trappings of politeness had been swept away. And she’d discovered she wasn’t empty inside. She was magnificent. Even if nobody yet recognized it.

She inhaled and threw her head back. The pale sun touched her face; the wind caught at the ribbons on her bonnet and they flapped noisily.

But at that moment, Elaine reached over and grasped her wrist. “Margaret! Is that him?”

“Who? Lord Rawlings? You know perfectly well what Lord Rawlings looks— Oh.”

Margaret followed Elaine’s gaze, and her heart stopped. Two long months without seeing Ash suddenly disappeared.

Her hands actually fluttered, as if she were a debutante seeing her first duke. Her stomach trembled. Nothing had changed between them—nothing except that she’d learned precisely what it meant to wake up day after day without him near.

The space he’d once filled seemed an empty chasm. But seeing him didn’t fill her cavernous yearning. It deepened it.

“Yes,” she said softly. “That’s him.”

He was walking along the path in conversation with Lord Rawlings. He was dressed in black, his attire relieved from sobriety by a velvet waistcoat shot through with gold. It glittered in the sun. On another man, those colors might have seemed garish. On Ash, they illuminated. His hands were clasped behind his back; he walked slowly, as if he were marching to a funeral dirge. He looked vaguely weary.

“Oh.” Elaine let the word escape in a wistful puff of air. “A shame he won’t inherit the dukedom. He’s rather a fine-looking man, isn’t he?”

“Rather.” He was wearing a top hat, trimmed with a ribbon to match his waistcoat.

“He’d almost be worth it without the dukedom. With those shoulders.”

Margaret smiled ruefully. Coming from snobbish Elaine, that was the highest of compliments.

“Of course,” Elaine added loyally, “I should never do such a thing to you. I could never marry such a man.”

As if aware that he was the focus of their conversation, Ash looked up. He saw Margaret across the way. For one moment, he froze, just as she had. Then, he raised one hand, touching the brim of his hat in silent acknowledgement.

Elaine’s grip on Margaret’s wrist tightened. “He’s looking at us, Margaret. Oh, dear. What are we going to do?”

Maybe he’d forgotten her. Maybe he’d already discarded his vow to have her again.

Maybe Elaine’s anxiety had infected her with foolish doubts that meant nothing to her. She watched him across the lawn. He looked at her, as if waiting for her to make some move towards him.

If she simply picked up her skirts and ran, he would catch her.

But she’d made her choice, and no matter how it ate at her, she had to abide by it. But…doing nothing seemed too bare, too unkind. Not after everything he meant to her.

Margaret reached up and unlaced the ribbon holding her straw bonnet in place. She needed only tip her chin up to feel the sunlight against her lips—a warm kiss, laden with a mere hint of chill. Rare weather, for November. Then the wind did the rest—grabbing the straw brim and pulling it off, to go skirling away behind her.

Margaret smiled. It was a small act of defiance.

“Oh, Margaret!” Elaine said. “Your bonnet. And with that dreadful Mr. Turner looking on, too. Whatever are we to do?” She glanced behind her. “Must we chase after it?”

“We’ll let it go.” Margaret spoke, not even looking at her friend. Instead, she met Ash’s eyes across all that distance. She could not make out their color, their expression. But she could not possibly have imagined the smile that spread across his face. He turned to her and started forwards across the lawn, his long legs eating up the distance between them. Lord Rawlings scampered after him.

Elaine turned from contemplation of the absconding bonnet. “Margaret, he’s coming over here. My God. Must we cut him for your brothers’ sake?”

“No,” said Margaret, simply, and Elaine let out a sigh of relief.

He came to a stop before her. Rawlings trailed after him uselessly, and glanced at Margaret, uncertain of the etiquette of such a situation. Nobody knew. Everyone likely imagined that they hated each other. Rawlings shrugged, as if to say, I had nothing to do with this. Don’t blame me.

“Lord Rawlings.” Ash spoke the words, but his eyes were on Margaret, warm and filled with greeting.

“Y—yes?”

“Your party Thursday next.”

Rawlings swallowed and glanced at Margaret. He didn’t quite meet Margaret’s eyes; his gaze rose only as far as her breastbone and then slid away to contemplate a group of ducks. “There will be no…no unpleasantness, I assure you. None. You’ll have nothing to fear.” Rawlings looked away.

Ash raised his chin. “Invite her.”

That brought Rawlings’s head whipping around. “But you must know this is Margaret Dalrymple. Miss Margaret Dalrymple. If I invite her—”

“Invite Lady Margaret, and her brothers, too, if you must, to make it proper.”

“But the purpose of the event—”

Ash held up one hand and flicked Margaret a glance. “Shall I fetch your hat for you, my lady?”