Page 50 of Much Ado About Margaret
Ann shrugged. The flowery, embroidered shawl she was wearing slipped down her shoulder. “It is not uncommon.Girls like me are sometimes sent to family in England, baptized, reimagined completely, declared English, and cut off from their mothers in India. A father’s love is fickle, Margaret, and depends on so much.”
“But what will become of Ruby?” Maggie asked.
“Mrs. Richmond has declared she must marry Paul Darrow. Lane and I are firmly against it.”
“What?” She nearly shouted it. Violet stirred. It was horrible to contemplate, and Maggie sank back, sitting heavily on the bed.
Ann continued gazing out the window, picking idly at the ends of her shawl. “Ruby will get what she wants after all and be Darrow’s, and we will all sigh and say the right thing was done, but done for whom? The conclusion will be that tragedy was averted. Attention will turn to the next bit of gossip, Ruby all forgot. Over the years, she will be ground down, as all unwanted women are ground down by their husbands, until the bright spark of her is dust, and the Ruby of this moment just a memory.” She paused and shook her head. “I gave everything to be English. Ruby will give far more, and in a blink, it could be utterly stripped away from her. Or me.”
“Is there nothing we can do?”
“My hope is that she can return to India. If she does, I will never see her again,” Ann replied. “I know it is unladylike to hope Paul will somehow marry someone else in a similarly hasty marriage before he can have Ruby, and yet…”
“And yet. Well! I will lend my voice to yours and try to persuade my aunt that Ruby is better off far, far away from Paul Darrow.” Ann rose and came to her, and Maggie offered a sisterly embrace, asking, “Is all well with Lane?”
“Not yet,” she replied, though without malice. She pulled back, holding Maggie at arm’s length. “But he intends to win me back.”
Maggie’s brows jumped in surprise. Knowing them, shehad assumed instant reconciliation. Noting her amazement, Ann continued, “My mother told me that Englishmen come to India, they fall in love and fear with the country, they covet its women, they think us subdued and mysterious. They lust after us, they marry us, and only then do they discover who is the general and who is the soldier.”
“And does your mother have any wisdom to provide where Ruby is concerned?”
Ann’s smile faded. “I think not. I fear there is little I can do to help her. Mrs. Richmond’s outrage is not abating, just shifting from me to my cousin. And I fear that same anger will come for you, too.”
Maggie looked down at the gap between them. “That is perhaps inevitable. When they look at me, they just see my mother, the woman that disappointed them both.”
“Is that what keeps you awake?”
“Partly,” said Maggie. She didn’t mention Bridger, protective of their budding love, and afraid of the information getting back to her aunts. Perhaps it was even an error to tell her sisters, for Violet was a known blabbermouth. “Stay awhile, at least we can be sleepless in good company.”
“You know,” Ann began, returning to the window. A pretty light suffused her face. It was the sort of glow that preceded the telling of a secret, and Maggie leaned toward her. “We haven’t spoken of anything but sorrow since the masquerade.” She unlatched the window, allowing in the chilled and fragrant night air, and breathed deep. “While I was confined in that room, my thoughts turned often to Lakhnau. I hadn’t missed it much until now.”
“What do you miss most of all?”
Ann’s gaze grew distant, and Maggie sensed she had gone somewhere far away. “Impossible to choose. Impossible. I was just a girl when I left, but I remember valleys filled with flowers, and rivers that seemed to wind on forever. And Iremember walking beneath the Rumi Darwaza and thinking it must be the gate to paradise! Mother loved the shrines within the Bara Imambara, and oh, Maggie, you have never seen anything so beautiful, stone worked to look like most delicate lace.” She laughed softly. “If I even start in on the food I shall certainly cry.”
“From the little I sampled at your feast I believe I know why.”
“You would love it there, though the heat can be challenging.” She grinned, and still, Maggie knew she was nowhere near England. “The air there holds you.”
They spoke long into the night, until they both grew too tired to go on. Ann drifted out the door sometime around dawn and Maggie stayed at the window bench, curling up there for the bright companionship of the moon. It was the same moon over Bridger, and that pleased her. But nothing would truly comfort her, for she could not have the one thing she wanted most. It was impossible not to want him, crave him. Impossible not to remember the full heat of his body as he crushed her into the mattress, the hard, demanding pressure of his lips against her neck, the way he had moved inside her with urgency.
Maggie sighed and closed her eyes, though her heart continued to beat too fast. Something was wrong. She could feel it, though she told herself it was nothing, that Bridger Darrow would return to her within three days’ time, and their love, no matter the protests, no matter the obstacles, would be strong enough to conquer anything.
22
Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay.
The worst is death and death will have his day.
Richard II, Act 3, Scene 2
Bridger’s father deteriorated rapidly in the night.
The doctor came to fetch him just after midnight, bleary-eyed and stammering. It was bad, very bad, and if he or Pimm had anything to say to their father while he was still somewhat lucid, now was the time to do it. Bridger received this information with a chill. For a moment he couldn’t move, certain he had misheard the doctor.
“Now?” he asked, stupidly perhaps, but he was still half asleep.
The doctor grimaced, his mouth hanging open.
