Page 7 of The Dravenhearst Brides
And yet…and yet for the briefest of moments last night—the moment when his eyes unflinchingly met her own while Alastair blustered around them—she’d thought perhaps…perhaps…just maybe…
Margaret did quite a lot of pacing. Quite a bit of feigned eating and distracted window-watching as well. She watchedand waited until the sun cast long shadows across the sidewalk. Until dusk settled, yawning its jaws in a quiet gasp over Louisville.
That’s it then.She rose from her seat.He’s not coming.Whyever dare dream he might? A man like that…
The laudanum was right there on her bedside table, ready and waiting. As familiar and comforting as a best friend, more so even. Margaret hadn’t received any real friends at the Louisville townhouse in years. There was shame in that. Shame in knowing when her darkest hour had struck, no one showed up for her. She wasn’t worth showing up for.
Even still, today, in the deepest, darkest, most vulnerable corner of her damaged heart, she had, perhaps,hoped…
Hope. A thing more dangerous than all the burning coal in Kentucky. A flash of Dravenhearst’s amber eyes flared in her memory, the warmth of his hand on her knee.
Margaret winced at her longing. She should have known better.
The phantom grip of the noose slithered around her neck again, cinching tight. The laudanum winked from the table. She need only take two steps and reach for it.
She knew she would in the end. She always did. She was, after all, her mother’s daughter. After Elijah’s accident at their country manor in the Bluegrass, Vivian Greenbrier hadn’t wasted any time pretending; she reached and drank, reached and drank.
Margaret didn’t reach. She buried her face in her hands, shoulders arched forward like the broken wings of a fledgling bird.
“We’re a pair of blue jays!”
Child Margaret’s shoulders shook with giggles, grown-up Margaret’s shook with restrained sobs.
“Margot, catch me!”
The thunderous pound of hoofbeats in her mind was replaced by a distant but solid sound of knocking. Her head snapped up, tears drying in their tracks, hand flying to her mouth.
Flying.
“Margot, are we flying?”
She shook her head to silence Eli’s ghostly memory as a second knock, loud as cannon fire, reverberated. The boom echoed through the silent tomb that was the Louisville townhouse, rattling her very bones. Hinges whined as the front door opened.
Margaret couldn’t help herself. She dropped to her knees and, like a child, crawled into the upstairs hallway. She inched forward until she could poke her head through the balusters of the banistered mezzanine overlooking the entry hall.
She made it just in time to spy a dark-haired, broad-shouldered gentleman cross the foyer before disappearing down a hallway. The one to her father’s office.
Dravenhearst.
Her heart stopped, disbelief and anticipation warring in her mind.
“Why, Miss Margaret, whatever are you doing?”
The voice came from behind her. Margaret knew it well—Brigita, one of two maids employed by her father. Her arms were full of linens, her brow furrowed as she gazed at Margaret on hands and knees, rear end in the air like a bobber at the end of a fishing line.
Brigita clicked her tongue. “What in tarnation are you doing on the floor? Have you taken ill?”
Margaret could nearly hear the “again” Brigita so clearly longed to tack on the end of her question.
“No, er…it’s only…” Heat rose in her cheeks. “I’ve lost an earring.”
Yes, that would do. She combed her fingers across the carpet, pretending to search.
“But, Miss…” The divot between Brigita’s brows etched deeper. “Both earrings are already in your ears, safe and secure.”
“I’ll be jiggered…are they really?” Margaret moved a hand to her right ear, smiling with feigned relief while tugging the pearl. “Oh, Brigita, you’ve found it! You’re simply brilliant.” She rose to her feet and squeezed the maid’s arm in gratitude. Brigita tensed beneath her touch and withdrew, a wary look in her eye.
Crazy Margaret. Cuckoo Margaret. Mad Margaret. She’d heard it all before. Brigita didn’t need to say a single word.
