Margaret turned her head. "Crispin," she said. "Meg." He made her a bow. "I trust I am not interrupting anything important?" "Not at all." Her heart was thumping so hard in her chest that it deafened her despite the loudness of the music and of voices raised to converse above it. "My lord, do you have an acquaintance with Major Dew?
May I present the Earl of Sheringford, Crispin?" Crispin bowed again, and Lord Sheringford regarded him with raised eyebrows. "And this is the same Major Dew," he said, "with whom you once had an acquaintance, Maggie?" /Maggie/?
Oh, goodness! Margaret's vision was beginning to darken about the edges.
At the other extreme, she felt a quite inappropriate urge to burst into laughter. She must be on the verge of hysteria again. "We were neighbors," she said. "We grew up together." "Ah, yes," Lord Sheringford said. "That was it. I knew I had heard the name before. A pleasure, Major. I hope you have not come to solicit Maggie's hand for the next dance, though. I am not finished with that hand myself yet, and the present set, you will observe, is not quite over." "Meg?" Crispin said, virtually ignoring the earl apart from the fact that his nostrils flared slightly. "Are you ready to be escorted back to your /family/? I shall certainly claim a dance later in the evening if I may." There were certain moments upon which the whole of the future course of one's life might turn. And almost inevitably they popped out at one without any warning at all, leaving one with no time to consider or engage in a reasoned debate with oneself. One had to make a split-second decision, and much depended upon it. Perhaps everything.
This was such a moment, and Margaret knew it with agonized clarity as she closed her fan. She could get to her feet now and go with Crispin, or she could stay and tell Crispin the truth, or she could stay and do what the earl had suggested – and deal with the consequences tomorrow.
Margaret was /never/ rash, even when forced to act upon the spur of the moment. But this was a different type of moment altogether. "Thank you, Crispin," she said. "I will be delighted to dance with you later. For now, though, I will remain with Lord Sheringford. The Marquess of Allingham will be along soon, I daresay, to claim me for the next set." And then a deep breath and the rest of the decision was made. "Lord Sheringford is my betrothed." The ballroom suddenly seemed unnaturally hot and airless. But she doubted she had enough control over her hands to open her fan again.
Crispin looked from her to the earl, poker-faced, and it seemed to Margaret that he knew the man or at least knew /of/ him, and did not like what he knew. He had offered to escort her back to her /family/, with emphasis upon the one word. "Your /betrothed/, Meg?" he said. "But Nessie and the Duke of Moreland do not know anything of it." He had just been talking with them. They had all seen her with the Earl of Sheringford. Perhaps Crispin had volunteered to come and wrest her away from him and escort her to safety. What did they all know of the earl that she did not? It must be something quite unsavory. "I told you yesterday, Crispin, that the betrothal has not yet been made public," she said. "It will be very soon, however," the earl said, squeezing her shoulder. "We have decided to wed within the next fortnight. When one has discovered the partner with whom one wishes to spend the rest of one's life, why wait, after all? Many a prospective match comes to grief because the couple – or one member of it – waits too long." It occurred to Margaret that he really might be serious.
But how could he /possibly/ be? They had just met.
He could /surely/ not intend to marry her within two weeks.
She did not even know who the Earl of Sheringford /was/. Apart from being heir to the Marquess of Claverbrook, that was.
She felt one of the earl's knuckles brushing against her cheek and turned her head to look at him. His eyes, she could see now, were a very dark brown. Was it the color, almost indistinguishable from black, that gave the extraordinary impression that he could look inside her and see her very soul? "I must offer my felicitations, then," Crispin said, executing another bow. "I will seek you out for a dance later, Meg." "I shall look forward to it," she said.
He turned without another glance at the earl and strode away with stiff military bearing. "He is not pleased," the earl said. "Is the Spanish wife still alive?" "No," Margaret said. "He is a widower." "He was hoping, then," he said, "to rekindle an old flame with you. You have had a fortunate escape, however. He looks very dashing in his uniform, I daresay, but he has a weak chin." "He does not!" Margaret protested. "He does," the earl insisted. "If you are still in love with him, Maggie, you had better be careful not to allow yourself to be lured back to him. You would be wasting your sensibilities upon a weak man." "I do /not/ still love him," she said firmly. "His actions persuaded me long ago of the weakness of his character. And I do not recall granting you permission to use my given name, my lord. Especially a shortened form that no one has ever used before." "A new name for a new life," he said. "To me you will always be Maggie.
Who is the man to whom you expected to be betrothed tonight?" "The Marquess of Allingham," she said, and frowned. That information, at least, she might have withheld. "Allingham?" He raised his eyebrows. "Your next dancing partner? That is interesting. But you have had another fortunate escape. If he is as I remember him, he is a dull dog." "He is /not/," she protested. "He is charming and amiable and a polished conversationalist." "My point exactly," he said. "A dull dog. You will be far better off with me." She looked steadily at him, and he looked as steadily back.
Oh, dear God, she thought, he really /was/ serious.
The edges of her vision darkened again. But this was not the moment to faint. She picked up her fan and somehow found her hand steady enough to open it and waft it before her face once more. She drew in lungfuls of warm, heavily fragrant air. "Why?" she asked him. "Even if you can meet a complete stranger and be convinced after one glance that she is the one lady above all others whom you wish to marry, /why/ must you marry her within two weeks?" For the first time there was a slight curve to his lips that might almost be described as a smile. "If I am not wed within the next fourteen days," he told her, "I am going to be utterly penniless until my grand-father shuffles off this mortal coil, which may well not be for another twenty or thirty years.
Apart from some rheumatism, he appears to be in excellent health. He will be eighty in two weeks' time, and yesterday he summoned me into his presence and issued an ultimatum – marry before his birthday or be cut off from the rents and profits of the home where I grew up and from which the heirs traditionally draw their income. I was raised as a gentleman with expectations of wealth and therefore never expected to have to seek employment. I do believe I would make an abysmally inept coal miner even if I felt inclined to try my hand at it. I must marry, you see. And in almost indecent haste. My grandfather, I feel compelled to add, believes it will be impossible. He plans to turn Woodbine Park over to my cousin, his next heir after me, on his birthday unless I am respectably married before then." Margaret stared at him, speechless. He /was/ serious. "What have you done," she asked him, "to incur such wrath? The punishment seems unusually cruel if it is just that you have procrastinated in choosing a bride." "I chose a bride five years ago," he told her. "I was happy with my choice. I was head over ears in love with her. But the night before our wedding I eloped with her brother's wife and lived in sin with her – since the husband would not divorce her – until her death four months ago." Margaret stared at him, transfixed. Yes. Oh, yes, /that/ was it. Five years ago. It had happened just before she came to London for the first time with Stephen and her sisters, all of them new to Stephen's title and their life in the heart of the /ton/. The scandal was still being talked of. She had thought that the Earl of Sheringford must be the devil himself.