Page 25 of Much Ado About Margaret
Given the lingering scent of tobacco, an unidentifiable but pleasant musk, and the lack of bonnets and ribbons, this was a chamber for a male guest. On the bed beside the young servant was a familiar blue mask with moons and a veil.
“These confounded knots!” Mr. Darrow was shouting. “Only a drunk could achieve this kind of muddle.”
“Let me try,” said Lane, kneeling on the bed behind the young woman.
The servant spotted Maggie snooping from the doorway and wailed, “Miss! Miss, please, you must go to my mistress, she must know I never meant for this to happen. Please! Don’t turn me out, please…” She dissolved into blubbery tears while Lane and Mr. Darrow struggled to release her.
Maggie charged over to them, placing a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. Her eyes drifted to the veiled mask. Well. That was one question answered.
“Christ,” Mr. Darrow swore, throwing himself across the room. He opened a cupboard on the writing desk, fetching asmall knife for letters, and returned to the girl, slicing through the bindings with quick, decisive strokes.
Freed, Ann’s lady’s maid slithered onto the floor, hugging herself and crying.
“There, there,” said Lane, straightening his waistcoat and jacket as he stood. He gave Maggie a helpless look, and she tended to the girl, kneeling beside her and taking the poor creature’s hand.
“Forgive me, forgive me,” the girl, Fanny, was repeating. “I should never have let Mr. Darrow entice me here, ’twas foolishness, all foolishness…”
At that, Maggie glared up at Darrow. “Mr. Darrow?”
“Notme,” he muttered, palming the knife with a growl. “My worthless swindler of a brother. It is he who is meant to be bound up in this room, not the girl. Now he is God knows where, and I would bet my last farthing this evening’s mayhem is his doing.”
A dark shadow fell swiftly over Darrow’s face. Another figure appeared in the doorway, this one belonging to Lane’s devoted, gray-haired valet. He was out of breath, pale, and bowed so quickly he nearly fell flat on his face. “Pardon the interruption, sir, I was trying to locate Fanny on Mrs. Richmond’s behalf. It appears your wife has fallen ill and—”
“Ill?” Lane bounded across the chamber. “Then I must go to her, man, and now.” He cast a glance over his shoulder at Maggie and Darrow, but he was already halfway out the door. His care for Ann in the midst of the great confusion touched Maggie; their reconciliation was not a lost cause.
“Look after Fanny,” Lane was saying, off and away before Maggie could stop him and soothe his anxieties. He and his valet disappeared, leaving her cradling Fanny’s hand on the ground while the maid sobbed quietly and Mr. Darrow stared down at them. Maggie snapped her eyes shut, realizing she had failed to give Lane the note from Ann.
“How quickly did this sickness come upon her?” he asked, tearing her out of her frustration, the high arch of one brow suggesting deep suspicion.
Maggie stood, taking him aside and lowering her tone. “It is a lie I concocted to keep my aunt from turning Ann out of the house.”
“Margaret,” he chided, hard, forgetting himself. “Miss Arden,rather. Is that not a risky gambit, given the circumstances?”
Maggie drew back from him, cool. “Someone had to take her side.” Her gaze swiveled to the bed, the cut bindings, and the blue-and-gold mask. “And I’m glad I did, for it is becoming more and more apparent that there is mischief afoot, mischief meant to slander and demean her. Where, sir, is your brother?”
11
For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, Scene 2
“How the devil should I know?” Bridger stalked away from Miss Arden to the window. He opened it ferociously, nearly breaking the latch, then drank greedily of the sobering night air. Forget a punch, forget restraints, if Pimm was really the one trying to sabotage his friend’s happiness then he would kill the idiot himself.
Not kill, just…maim? Ship to America? He had failed to keep his temper in check, and it couldn’t happen again. Bridger compromised by slamming his fist down on the sill, startling the girl on the floor by the bed. She wailed again. Perhaps Ann’s cruel headache was going around, because now it had come for him. He pinched the top of his nose and closed his eyes.
“He’s a beast, and wherever he has gone, he won’t keep quiet for long,” he added. Miss Arden’s soft footstepsapproached, swishing across the rug. “We need to question the girl. Something is not right here.”
“Then you believe me?” Miss Arden pressed. Her eyes were glittering when he chanced to look at her. The minx. Perhaps she had every reason to be smug. He had been quick to assume the worst of Ann, and now it seemed someone had concocted a plan to embarrass her. His own brother, no less.
“You believe that she would never hurt Lane this way?” she asked.
“I will make no statements of guilt or innocence where the lady is concerned,” he replied, turning to regard Fanny behind her. “But I will admit that my brother is almost certainly involved. The man on the balcony had his same brown hair and they are of similar height. He claimed to have no quarrels with Lane, but your cousin recently denied him a sum of money, and knowing his temper and rotten disposition, this sort of retaliation is not beyond him.”
“His temper,” she repeated quietly, thinking. “A trait you apparently share.”
Bridger grimaced and walked by her, their shoulders brushing. “Surely you can see now why I struck him.”
“Perhaps you did not swing hard enough,” she said, following. He allowed her a dry laugh. She wasn’t wrong. “Do you think he could still be in the house?”
