Page 20 of Much Ado About Margaret
“You found it,” she gasped, elated, reaching for the page.
Bridger, much taller, kept it easily out of her reach.
“Please, may I have it?” She didn’t quite pout, but almost. “It is mine, after all.”
“You may have it, Artemis of the Hunt, for a price.”
Margaret took a step back, studying him. “Name your price, Gorgon slayer.”
“I simply want to read the novel in its entirety,” said Bridger, bowing.
She scoffed. “Ha! I believe you already had your chance, Mr. Darrow—”
“Gorgon slayer, please.”
“Perseus.”She spat it. Her mood shifted abruptly, her arms draping around her waist as if to guard herself from him. From somewhere inside, a bell tolled. It had a high, crystal quality, but it seemed unsettling to him; it had a fateful element that he did not trust. Bridger watched as guests began pouring out of the house, including Margaret’s family, Regina Applethwaite, Lane, Emilia, and so on, everyone laughing and enjoying one another. Bridger felt like a buoy tossed by a storm as they flowed around him and Margaret.
“Come now, you two!” Lane called, gesturing for them to follow. “You must see the fireworks! Ann’s parents have sent them from Calcutta! ’Tis a shame Ann has gone up to bed with a headache, she is going to miss all the fun.”
He didn’t move; neither did Margaret.
Jostled this way and that, she continued to glare up at him. “Honestly, I don’t know why you are suddenly so keen on this novel of mine, for I have heard that you regard writers of my sex as undeserving of your notice, and that such women are of low character. Beneath you.”
That warm, protective surge from before turned hot, angry. “What have you heard?” he demanded, perhaps a bit strongly. His eyes followed the stream of guests parading down to the water, finding Regina among them. He knew it. Regina had taken Miss Arden aside and poisoned her against him. And why wouldn’t she? He had treated her badly, and yes, repeated his father’s feelings that a lady too taken in by novels and with a low dowry was not desirable enough to tempt him.
Margaret ignored his question, jutting out her chin. “Pray,what are your thoughts onPride and Prejudice? I must have them.”
Ah. And so, he had, in a letter, described the characters in that novel as being drawn a bit broadly, and Jane Bennet to be almost painfully insipid, opinions that had greatly offended Regina, on top of all the other blundering things he said. He had actually admired the passionate riposte, to the point that he agreed with and adopted some of her feelings on the novel, but the damage was already done.
In all of that, he couldn’t remember expressing a general indictment against lady novelists, but it had been a bleak time in his life, and youthful opinions were never meant to be etched in stone.
Bridger looked down at the ground between them, flustered into a place between disappointment and indignation. “I see you have been enjoying Miss Applethwaite’s company. I should not be shocked that she has tried to sway you against me, and her intent is plain. Perhaps we did not dissolve things amicably, but I’ve never wished her ill, and, indeed, there are many fine writers of your sex that I have been known to read and praise, so even there she paints me with the wrong colors.”
Even to his own ears, he sounded defensive. Bridger flinched.
Margaret, however, did not. “Many, is it? Name them.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Which writers specifically, sir? I would like you to name them.”
Bridger groaned and turned away. Was she serious? The procession left the main house behind, passed the stone cottage on the right, and dipped down toward a bowl of a valley and the wide pond at the base of it. To the east, that pond narrowed into a river that disappeared into the dense woods hugging all sides of the property. There was a commotion down on the water’s edge, a collection of crates and metal stands, and men stripped down to their shirtsleeves, hard at work.
“If they are so plentiful and you respect them so much, itshould not be difficult,” she added, clearly enjoying his reaction. Regina was wrong about him—the old him, not the current him—but he felt his mind reel and blank at the first pop of sound. He didn’t have time to answer her or think, for down over the water, noise and color blazed, and all was briefly chaos. Pinwheels of light exploded near the water’s edge, the reflection a blur of silver suns. Each boom was followed by a brief delay, then the stunning flowers of white and gold would bloom in the sky and weep down toward the water before twinkling into nothingness.
“Isn’t it marvelous?” a voice inside the house cried. “Isn’t it magical?”
His stomach soured from the reek of the gunpowder, and with the sunbursts mounted near the pond giving their last sizzling twirls, he discovered the stones of the veranda beneath his sweat-dampened gloves. He must have collapsed, though he didn’t remember the tumble. The sounds. The smells. It had all transported him back to the war, and to the ugliness that lurked in memories he had tried doggedly to forget.
Someone was kneeling beside him, touching his shoulder carefully.
Bridger twisted to the side, discovering Margaret there with him. She had taken off her mask, and the care and concern in her face broke through the jolt of terror that had brought him crashing to the ground. Her lips were gently parted as she searched his mask for answers. Answers. A question. She had asked a question before the noise tore him from reality.
“You,” he said in a whisper.
“Me?” She blinked.
“You,” he repeated, forgetting all about her questioning.
