Page 30 of Much Ado About Margaret
“We’ll find Pimm,” Bridger promised him. “And the lady impersonating your wife.”
Lane nodded, absent. “Mother is furious, and I strove in earnest to bring her around to Ann’s qualities. Now this. Now this…”
Bridger repeated his vow and took leave of his friend. It was all he could do for the moment, but his friend’s despair hadleapt to him like a disease. He really ought to be leaving for London in the morning, but now he had to chase his idiot brother down. In his absence, work at the publishing firm would crawl to a stop, and he felt a choking sensation rise in his throat as he pictured again the ledgers from his family estate. It was as if Pimm couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop himself from making everything worse. He cleared his throat, but the tight feeling remained; lord, it felt like it was up to him to solve his family’s problems and Lane’s. Alone.
Maybe not alone. He half smiled at the thought of meeting up with Miss Arden in the morning to continue their search. Perhaps there was one advantage to delaying his return to town. That smile disappeared as quickly as it arrived, for he then remembered the savage dressing-down her aunts had given. Margaret Arden was not rich with a tempting dowry, and what Bridger needed more than anything at that moment was a solution to his financial problems. His throat itched and burned; it felt like the world was pressing down around him. If he was expecting to find anyone lying in wait near his guest chamber, ready to attempt another ambush, it was Pimm. Instead, he discovered Regina, hands folded primly by her waist, tarrying near the pastoral tapestry hung beside the door. He was already thoroughly exhausted and seeing her there, eyes bright with mischief, nearly crushed his patience into dust.
Not now. Curse her devilish timing.
Bridger opened his mouth to inquire what it was she wanted, but Regina launched in before he could make a sound.
“What are your intentions with the Arden girl?” she asked, subtly moving between him and the door. Regina, physically angelic in every respect, had retained her beauty in the years between their meetings, but there was a hardness to her cheeks and chin now that hadn’t been there before. It wasn’t gauntness exactly, but like she had been chiseled into a more severe iteration.
“My intentions are my own, madam,” Bridger replied, stiff. He regarded her down the length of his nose, eager to escape this confrontation and climb into bed. That burning feeling in his throat spread down to his chest, his heart beating faster. “We are little more than acquaintances these days, and I find the question impertinent.”
“Impertinent?” Regina laughed, heedless of the late hour. She came closer, narrowing her pale blue eyes. “You have no idea, do you? No idea what you did.”
His patience vanished. His temper, which he thankfully never lost toward a woman, emerged without warning.
“I beg your pardon?” Bridger shook his head, squeezed the edges of his eyebrows, and tried to dodge around her. Regina wouldn’t budge, even as she eyed him with increasing fear. “Right. I see you are determined to enlighten me.”
Regina’s mouth hung open for an instant, a rare chink in her otherwise flawless social decorum. Swiftly, she composed herself and moved aside, granting him access to his room. “Do you even remember how you addressed me in those letters? The belittling? The condescension? I didn’t write a word of my own for years, and it took me that long to recover the barest confidence!”
Her voice climbed to a frantic pitch. Bridger found it hard to look at her. Regina took a few steps forward, as if she meant to follow him. His temper soared again. “Back away,” he commanded, hostile enough to make her freeze. In a calmer tone, he continued, “I do remember our correspondence, Miss Applethwaite. At the time, there were questions…objections. My father insisted—”
“Those letters were written in your hand, Bridger,” she cut in, setting her jaw. “Yours, not your father’s.”
If he could rest a little, have time to think and gather his thoughts, he might offer a satisfactory explanation…But no. She insisted on pressing him on this subject. She didn’t havethe context, and she didn’t understand. Nobody but his brother, mother, and the staff at Fletcher knew what it was like to live with his father. He might be a sickly, frail man now, but not then, oh no, not then. It had taken years of military experience to dampen the terror he experienced in his father’s presence. Even home from France, even hardened, that fear lingered. “Youthful mistakes,” he muttered, waving her off. “Ancient history.”
Regina’s voice quavered as she pinned him with one last skewering look, vowing: “I won’t let you do it again, do you hear me? I won’t let you break her spirit the way you broke mine.”
Bridger took one step toward her, a new edge to his temper, a hard reaction from a soft place. “Is that a threat, Regina?”
She shrank from him and ran, and the minute he was alone, he felt the cold plunge of guilt.
13
I count myself in nothing else so happy
As in a soul remembering my good friends.
Richard II, Act 2, Scene 3
“Maggie! Dearest, where have you been?”
Once inside the dark sanctuary of Ann’s rooms, Winny’s face was the first to appear. Both of her sisters came running out of the shadows, throwing themselves around Maggie and sweeping her into a tight embrace. She sank into their arms, hearing footsteps from around the corner as Ann, Emilia, and Ruby came to investigate the commotion.
“We were worried sick and put about to all the staff and anyone who would listen that you should be summoned at once,” said Violet, pushing Winny to the side and holding Maggie at arm’s length. Violet’s inspection was thorough and completed through a beady glare. “Is something the matter with you? Your face is very strange. Did that Darrow man or his brother tie you up? We have heard the most conflicting and wild stories!”
Maggie gently removed Violet’s digging fingers from her shoulders, and carried herself, exhausted, to Ann. Poor Ann had been crying most of the evening, if the tear tracks and welts beneath her eyes were any indication. “I have not been tied up or anything of the sort,” Maggie reported to them all. They moved as a singular organism, around the corner, down the short hall, and into the low-lit, warm core of Ann’s bedchamber. The red curtains stirred gently around the balcony, honeysuckled air blown up from the gardens below. Fanny was there, dutifully laying out blankets and pillows for the sudden profusion of ladies crammed into Ann’s quarters.
She gave Maggie a quick, apologetic glance as she smoothed her hands across a heavy quilt.
As the women huddled on Ann’s bed, all eyes and ears were trained on Maggie. They were like a gaggle of wives waiting for news of the war, all clasped hands and mouths open in anticipation.
“I’m sure Fanny has told you what she knows,” said Maggie, looking her way once more.
“She has, and though she behaved badly indeed, we must not forget that a gentleman of Paul Darrow’s experience is horribly persuasive,” Ann replied. “Do you think he was the man in shadow on the balcony?”
