Page 2 of Much Ado About Margaret
“We have,” said Maggie.
“And? Your impressions?”
The Burtons’ elegant townhouse in Mayfair was packed wall to wall, but on Auntie’s arm, the crush was navigated with ease and grace. Less busy functions were perhaps more fashionable, but their aunt enjoyed showing off just how eager society was to attend her music and poetry salons.
“He’s quite…” Maggie flailed for a word, not because she didn’t have any, but because any misstep would be reported to her mother. In fact, Maggie’s season had been recalled in moment-by-moment, excruciating detail to her mother in a letter that, in Maggie’s opinion, somewhat overused words like “disaster” and “catastrophe.”
The bachelors are put off by her scrutinizing opinions, which are far too much for a young lady desirous of matrimony. One suggested to me that Miss Margaret made him feel like “a caged lion at Vauxhall, helplessly observed.” Something must be done, sister, to curb her unruly appetite for expression. I remember you said she was serious and restrained, but that is not my experience so far. What changed in her?
It was not a flattering letter. Shedidask who had contributed the lion at Vauxhall line, because she judged that promising and perceptive. Maybe all the eligible rich men in London were not dullards after all. Her aunt had declined to name names.
“He’s quite something,” Margaret finished. “I like his hair?”
“Really, niece, for such a lover of words, you reveal yourself.”
“He has an interesting odor.”
“With five thousand a year, he can provide you with any number of nosegays.”
“One is forced to wonder if he could also afford a physician.”
Aunt Eliza sighed, leading them through an archway to a black-and-white gallery exploding with plants and richly hung with portraits. It was less populated, and Maggie was grateful for the rush of cooler air. “One is also forced to wonder what it is you’re hiding under your arm, dear. Yes, I saw it. If you are going to make a scene at my salon, I would appreciate forewarning.”
Maggie clutched the swaddled manuscript closer to her side. “It’s…” She tried to remember the warm, charitable feelings her aunt often inspired in her, and all the ways in which they owed this woman their continued comfort and safety. “It’s my book.”
“And why are you carrying it like a stolen infant through my house?”
“Because I would like to present it to Mr. Darrow, if you would introduce us.”
Aunt Eliza paused, swiveling to hold Maggie at arm’s length. The light in the hall was serene, beautiful, but now tinged with foreboding as a shadow flickered over her aunt’s face. “That would be the Mr. Bridger Darrow of publisher Dockarty and Company, who Violet so insistently pressured me to invite to this event?”
“The very same.” Maggie tried smiling but felt insane, and instead let her shoulders sag with frustration. “Please, you know how much this means to me.”
“Sometimes, my dear girl, I must do what is in your best interest, and right now that means refusing, even if it makes you angry.” She shook her head and touched Maggie’s chin lightly. “I should have intervened sooner and moved you here to be with me in town. Your parents were always too permissive, too fanciful.” Aunt Eliza pressed the fingertips of her right hand to her heart. “I was like you—faced with a difficult choice—yet I saw my position not as a burden but as an opportunity to make my family proud. I wasn’t the eldest daughter, but I had to act like one.”
“And I feel the same way,” Maggie replied. “I simply want to provide for them with my work.”
Aunt Eliza coughed with laughter. “No young woman of quality seeks employment, dear.”
At that moment, a great commotion erupted from the way they had come. The words “girl” and “fainted” began reaching them. Whether it was Winny or Violet, and whether it was intentional or accidental, Maggie chose to see it as divine intervention. Their aunt scowled and hurried away, then remembered herself, turned, and pointed an accusatory finger at Maggie. “You. Stay. Right. There.”
This window of opportunity would not remain open long.
While the hall emptied out, guests rushing past to inspectthe chaos in the adjoining room, it occurred to Maggie that she didn’t know what Mr. Darrow looked like. She needn’t have worried, for it quickly became obvious that there were precious few candidates left behind. Her attention shifted to two men at the far end of the corridor, their heads bent together in low conversation while they stood sandwiched between a pair of arcing ferns. Some sour-faced ancestors glowered down at the men from their portrait, as if disapproving of the overheard subject matter.
Maggie felt like her throat had filled with nettles. This was beyond impropriety, but she hadn’t lugged the manuscript around all night just to turn chicken now. Papa liked to read to her fromJulius Caesar,even though her mother disapproved of the treachery and violence. Her father had been a navy man, and he always made the gory parts feel real and terrifying.
Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.
That was perhaps a bit dramatic, given she was just a writer facing down an awkward social interaction, not armed senators waiting to ambush her with knives, but the grandiosity spurred her on. What were we but the players in our own dramatizations, amusing an ever-shifting audience of family, friends, and strangers? Maggie charged forward, arriving just as the two men finished speaking. One had been whispering, a short, round man with a friendly face and tiny spectacles perched on his nose. He had a scholarly appearance, and so Maggie dredged up her courage, Caesar-style, and shot out in front of him.
“Mr. Darrow?” she asked, voice bright with hope.
“Me? Oh, heavens, no,” the man said with a laugh, and as he went on his way, tapped the other fellow on the shoulder. “Darrow? There’s a lady here for you.”
That little tap seemed to pull Mr. Darrow back from worlds away. He spun toward her, hair mussed, intensely dark eyessnapping to her with alarm. One hand was tucked under his chin, and there was a faint smudge of ink on the bare flash of skin between glove and sleeve, not unlike the ink staining Maggie’s fingers beneath her gloves. Maggie’s nervousness vanished, a new, unfamiliar emotion replacing the last: desire.
She had desired things in her life before—a secure future for her family, longevity for her parents, to see her book in the hands of readers across England—but never had she wanted a specific person. The heroes she had imagined for her stories paled in comparison, for they were concocted of words and punctuation, and this man before her was real, warm. It radiated from him, an intoxicating heat, and those searching, powerful eyes of his fell on her with genuine curiosity. If she had felt hot in the other room, now she felt fit to explode.
