Page 36 of Much Ado About Margaret
“I feel it, too,” she replied, and the consensus bolstered him.
They turned sharply beneath the stairs. The structure was new, and this was his first time exploring it, but there must have been a back entrance the woman used. A small gardener’s hatch had been built into the far wall, and Bridger shouldered it open with a grunt, powdery dust falling on them both as they returned to daylight.
A discouraging sprinkling of rain made the cloaked lady’s progress across the lawn less noticeable as she disappeared into a break in the yew hedges along the eastern edge of the garden. The rain brought out the ripe, true quality of theplants surrounding them—roses immediately rosier, cedar bark upon the nose like the tingling of a shallow cut, a full and rounded lushness leaping out, giving the impression of being stuffed into a hothouse on a humid day. A few cries of alarm rose from the other side of the temple as the first raindrops fell on the picnic.
“Where do you suppose she is going?” asked Margaret as they followed the damp path through the grass left by the lady.
“You know the grounds better than I.”
“There’s a trail that leads through Worton Woods. It’s really only used for hunting. I wonder…Hmm, if you followed it east long enough, it might meet the road to Cray Arches. If your brother is trying to avoid the estate, he could find a room there at the Gull and Knave.”
They reached the dense row of yew hedges, and Margaret found a narrow gap between branches, scampering through. Bridger bashed a few of the branches until there was enough room for him to fit, then followed. Just as she had described, they stumbled out onto a rutted, faded path.
“That sounds like an establishment with liquor enough to interest Pimm,” Bridger muttered, fixing his eyes east. As he did, he caught sight of their quarry. They both melted back against the hedges and brush, silently following the woman within the shadow of that thorny wall. The lady half ran, making it difficult to keep pace with her quietly. Rain lashed them with the fickle rise and fall of the wind. Bridger went first, Margaret following, and for almost half an hour they managed to chase the lady unseen. But then the rain drove harder, and as he squinted through the misty drizzle, a horse and rider eased out onto the path ahead. It was hard to tell if the rider had come from down the road or a gap in the yew. The mystery lady reached up toward the male rider, who leaned down and easily pulled her onto the saddle, partially in his lap. Before they took off down the lane, the lady peered over her shoulder, and there was no doubt in his mind that she noticed them there, watching.
Margaret ran a few steps forward, but cursed under her breath as the rider dug his heels into the beast, and they sped off. She held her bonnet in place as a gust of wind tore at them, her gaze drifting back toward the way they had come.
“Should we go back? We will never catch them now.”
“I trust your assessment, Miss Arden—if the path will take us to Cray Arches, we might inquire at the inn for my brother. He’s hard to miss, and always making a nuisance of himself. The barkeep and patrons would remember such a fellow.”
The wind screamed up the path from behind them. Margaret shivered, underdressed for the weather, and he could see the hesitation in her eyes and huddled posture. “We’ve come this far, let’s proceed to Cray Arches.”
They walked a long way in silence, the trees growing denser and closer, hemming them in, Margaret’s bones practically clacking from the cold drizzle. Finally, Bridger couldn’t stand it and pulled off his tiered coat, heavy and wool, and settled it over her shoulders. During the coldest nights of the campaign, freezing in their tents, Bridger had distracted the men with riddles and questions, and it had always eased their suffering and made the time slip by. “It’s unusual for a lady to cultivate such an interest in writing. I imagine there is a story there.”
Margaret’s eyes remained fixed on the narrow road ahead. His coat swallowed her up, and the rain had made a droopy mess of the flowers and ribbons on her bonnet. Even bedraggled, she kept her chin high. Her teeth chattered less and less as she answered him. “Papa made the mistake of readingRomeo and Julietto me at a tender age. He…softened some of the more scandalizing parts. Even so, I despised the ending. Ten years old, and I needed them to live on, so I wrote it for myself. And thenHamlet,too, and thenTitus Andronicus.”
Barking with laughter, Bridger wiped the hair back from his forehead, finding it had become completely sodden fromthe steady rain. “You aren’t telling me you read that at ten years of age.”
“Papa didn’t keep things from me,” she replied with a shrug of his huge coat. “If he wanted a son instead, he never said as much. Maybe he should have been more delicate with my education—the governess thought so—but I delighted in stories. I don’t think he had the heart to curb my curiosity.” With a laugh, she paused and looked up at him. “You wouldn’t recognize that Margaret. She was soft-spoken and demure, but when Papa died something changed. I couldn’t see the point in anything, all the parts of me I was hiding tore loose, and, well, you heard my aunts. Now I’m nothing I’m supposed to be.”
There was a rumbling, clattering sound from the path behind them.
Bridger heard it, watched Margaret hear it, and stepped closer to her. The wheels bumping up the road must have drowned out his next words, for Margaret didn’t react to them. “Or perhaps you’re exactly what you were meant to be.”
“Hello there!” she called, waving to the cart as it appeared through the haze of rain and mist. “They’ve come from Pressmore,” Margaret told him, beaming with relief. “That’s Foster, he works on the grounds. Let us hope he is going to Cray Arches.”
She charged up to the driver as the cart slowed and came up alongside them.
“Miss Arden, this is no weather for a walk through the countryside!” cried Foster. He was gray-haired with a wide, friendly face and thick freckles clustered over his nose.
“I know it, Foster! Mr. Darrow and I were seeking more pages for Ann’s game and wandered too far from the picnic,” she said over the drumming of the rain. “I should know the grounds better, but now I fear we are hopelessly far afield. Are you going to Cray Arches by any chance?”
It was a clever enough story, and Foster nodded along,flicking his head toward the back of the covered cart. “Aye, miss, exactly I am! House ran low on duck eggs, and it’s all Mrs. Richmond will have for her breakfast. The vicar Mr. Corner keeps a few hens. Storm or fine, the mistress will have what she wants.”
Foster looped the reins around a knob on the box, jumped down with a splash, and went around to the back of the cart to pull the hinge and let down the barrier for them. Foster bowed his head respectfully as Miss Arden hurried to the back of the cart.
“You’re miraculous, Foster. My thanks!” she called.
“Storm is rolling in,” he told them as they both climbed into the dusty, hay-strewn belly of the wagon. “We’ll be lucky to make it back to Pressmore fore nightfall.”
When they were in, Foster secured the hinge and waddled back to the front of the cart. The horses whickered and jolted, and they clattered down the puddly path. They settled down onto the extra horse blankets in the back, side by side, and quietly stared out of the back of the cart, watching the trees sway and their branches droop low, drenched and darkened.
“Thank you for this,” said Margaret, crawling out of his coat.
“Keep it.”
She did, and they lapsed into silence once more. It was uneasy, for Bridger could all but hear her mind whistling like a kettle. If she was anything like him, her thoughts had returned to the temple, to the embrace, to their lips sealed together. His right hand lay flat on the blanket between them, Margaret’s left pinky nearly touching him.
