Page 31 of Much Ado About Margaret
“I do.” Maggie took her hands and sighed. “And his own brother believes him to be the culprit, too.”
Fanny cursed Paul Darrow softly, receiving an admonishing look from both Ruby and Winny.
“Recall, sisters, that we found a note beneath a vase on a bench in the gallery,” Maggie went on.
“Of course! And it must be related!” Violet exclaimed. “I was so distracted with our aunts that it utterly slipped my mind.”
Maggie briefly explained the note on the bench to Ann and the others, catching them up, finishing with “And it mentioneda meeting at midnight, a blue-and-gold place. Mr. Darrow—not the horrid one, the other one—and I thought it might mean the Sapphire Library or perhaps the new Grecian temple, but we could only choose the one to investigate. We went to the library at the appointed time, but we must have guessed wrong, for the couple did not appear.”
Which reminded her: Mildred and Eliza. She blanched and slithered toward the edge of the bed, tugging her sisters as she went. “We shouldn’t stay any longer, Ann. I think it would be best if we returned to our rooms, or Aunt Eliza will notice our absence and fret.”
And judge. And condemn.
“Absolutely not!” Violet tore her hand away, sulking. “Ann needs us.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Winny added softly. She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “If it is pleasing to Ann, and she wishes it, it would be better to surround her with the support she deserves.”
Ann touched both sisters on the shoulder gently. “Of course you should stay. There is a dangerous man on the loose, tying up ladies, terrorizing the house with his devilry. I would much prefer to know you are all safe here with me.”
Ruby giggled, kneeling at the foot of the bed. Her cousin Emilia elbowed her. “It isn’t funny,” she hissed.
Withdrawing, Ruby rubbed her arm. “But it is just like the scoundrels in your books—”
“How would you know? Your head is only ever in the clouds,” Emilia muttered.
“I read,” Ruby shot back, wrinkling her nose. She charged on defensively. “And everyone says my penmanship is unmatched, and it is only because I spend so much time copying out passages fromThe Romance of the Forest.”
“So that is where my books are going, it’s you that’s stealing them!”
“Borrowing!”
The girls went on, bickering harmlessly. In her heart, Maggie wanted to stay. It was warm there, and she was so very tired. But she couldn’t stop thinking about her aunts, and how cruelly they had described her. Before she could argue, Ann drew Maggie away from the others and the bed and toward the blousy curtains of the balcony. As she passed her cousin, she added, “Hush, Ruby, or my headache will return with claws!”
Ruby shrank and retreated to the corner, where she took up one of her ill-gotten books from Emilia and kept to herself. Giving a stilted curtsy, Fanny left them, latching the door behind her.
“Sweet as clotted cream but sometimes just as dense.” Ann sighed. “Now, Maggie, just as your sister noted, your expression has been wrong since you came in and I would know why. ’Tis my name on the line, yes? If there is something I should know…”
Maggie lowered her voice and took Ann’s hands in hers, squeezing. “When I was in the library with Mr. Darrow, we happened to overhear my aunts discussing some…distressing aspects of my character. My life. In short, Ann, they tore me to pieces. Wolves rend with more kindness.”
“Ah, and so you would whisk away your sisters to please your aunt?” Ann’s serious frown melted away.
“If shecanbe pleased.”
Ann’s eyes brightened and she pulled Maggie closer. “Exactly.”
“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” Maggie whispered, looking out the window and toward the sloping lawn. All the lanterns had been put out. The darkness there seemed to pulse, consuming, infiltrating the room with velvety black fingers. She shivered. “They want Mr. Gibson for me, and I have a mind to relent.”
“New South Wales?”
“The very same.”
Ann pushed her jaw forward, and she nodded slowly, rhythmically as she visibly combed through her feelings on the matter.
“All they think about is money. And the way they talk about my mother! I had no idea they resented her this deeply for marrying Papa. If only I could be free to pursue my book, see it published, that would be income for us, perhaps even enough to grant Violet a good dowry. But there is no time and no lenience, the world for us is what it is, and Aunt Eliza has a mind to turn us out of her cottage to punish me, teach me a lesson, and if Mr. Gibson is rich and willing…”
Softly, Ann laughed at her. It wasn’t mean-spirited, just pitying. “So then, you will marry Mr. Gibson and be as wealthy and embittered as your aunts.”
Maggie gasped. “Ann!”
