Page 40 of Much Ado About Margaret
A voice came through the door behind her.
“Warm brick for you, miss!”
The boy sounded strangled or like he was making fun of her. Maggie brushed it off and opened the door, finding a grown man on the other side, his eyes cruel as the clouds hanging low over the village. His teeth flashed, discolored, and she had just enough time to recognize Pimm Darrow before he shoved his way inside. There was no brick, just a knife sharp enough to glint with a kiss from the firelight.
“Not who you were expecting?” He laughed, brandishing the knife. “Scream and I scar that pretty face.”
The drums in Maggie’s head became a frantic, icy pounding. She clenched her teeth as Pimm spun her around and used a brutish grip to force her hands behind her back. “What do you want?” she asked, feeling the blunt side of the knife press between her shoulder blades.
“A witness, my good lady.” Pimm Darrow chuckled, breath rank, and maneuvered her out into the dark hall. “I’m getting married tonight, and you’re our guest of honor.”
16
She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed;
She is a woman, therefore to be won.
Henry VI, Part 1, Act 5, Scene 3
Bridger sat studying the puddle of wine on the table for as long as his pride allowed him to. It was shaped sort of like a badger, but from another angle, a longish dog. He rearranged the cups, and then his napkin, convinced that if he just kept his hands busy enough, it would somehow keep the self-loathing from consuming him whole.
He had called their kiss a mistake, when to him it was anything but. It had been the rightest possible thing in that moment, that moment when her eyes drew him in like a ship coaxed to harbor on a fair breeze. But damn her, damn Margaret Arden, she had turned him into an enemy spy with her relentless questions.
If he told her the extent of it, if he told her the truth—that he had allowed his rat bastard of a father to convince him Regina was beneath him, and that he had insulted her and playedthe villain until she cut off their correspondence—Margaret might hate him for it.
Instead, you chased her off, too, and here is your father’s legacy, likely your only inheritance—once more you are alone.
Alone with the half-finished bottle of wine, he pressed it to his lips and guzzled, propriety be damned. It was time to acknowledge his error, time to apologize and tell her openly about the humiliating depths of his bad behavior where Regina was concerned. And it was bad, so bad she had abandoned all pursuit of her writing, all passion for her interests, because of his nasty remarks. He had called her taste childish and even disparaged Maria Edgeworth andCastle Rackrent,which he knew to be excellent. Like a coward, he couldn’t simply tell Regina his father disapproved, and their engagement could not move forward, and instead forced her to be the one to withdraw.
No, like a coward you listened to your father at all.
Bridger thought of Margaret up in the room by herself and gathered the courage to go to her, fling open the door, and promise her that the kiss they had shared was not a mistake. And if he had his way, if he could turn things around, there would be many such kisses in their future, when he was a proper husband to a proper wife. As soon as he stood, the little blond boy, who had been sweeping and seeing to the rooms upstairs and suffering the proprietor’s abuse, appeared at his side. He had noticed a strange ring on the innkeeper’s hand, and now he saw a similar one wedged above the boy’s knuckle. It was too refined a piece of jewelry for a lad of his station, and though he was not one to care much for another man’s fashion, it seemed wrought for a lady’s finger.
“More wine, sir?” asked the boy. He had a noticeable fidget to him, peering around like a peevish hare.
“No, thank you, I should like to know which room is mine.”
“I could fetch you another bottle, sir, no cost to you, sir!”
“I’m not interested in more drink, lad,” Bridger replied sternly. The boy’s ring was a garnet, red as a glob of congealed blood. The brain itch that had bothered him when they first arrived returned, war-honed senses asserting something just wasn’t right. A similarly slithering feeling had assailed him before the ambush that had cost Lane his arm. Bridger pushed the boy aside and strode to the stairs, then climbed them quickly.
“Sir? Sir!” The boy called after him. Bridger ignored it.
He arrived in the upstairs corridor to find eight identical doors. The lad had scuttled up the steps behind him, and Bridger took him by the scruff, whirling him around and kneeling until they were nose to nose. “What is your name?”
“A-Alfred, sir, but I—”
“Alfred, which room is meant to be ours and what is waiting for me inside?”
“You weren’t supposed to come up so soon,” Alfred muttered, quaking. “The wine is all paid for, you’s welcome to it—”
“Which. Door.”
“That ’un, sir.” Alfred gingerly lifted a hand and pointed.
“The man who paid for the wine and told you to delay me, did he also give you that fine ring?” Bridger eased his grip on the boy, but just a little.
“N-no, that was the lady.”
