Page 59 of Much Ado About Margaret
“What could you possibly mean by that?” Aunt Eliza stormed past her guests, quickly surmising what lay in Maggie’s hands. “Give that here, Margaret. You know our understanding! Wait, I see it now—have these two sirens come to tempt you toward more misadventure?”
Maggie made up her mind quickly. And really, Aunt Eliza made the mistake of forcing the issue. She lunged for the book, surprisingly agile, eluding Violet long enough to make an earnest grab for the gift. The spell was broken. Maggie crashed back into her body with a cry of alarm, spinning before her aunt could reach her. She used the momentum of the turn, racing for the doors and stumbling through them before the footmen could stop her.
“Take my carriage!” she heard Ann shout from within and over Eliza’s squawks of protest. “My driver knows the way!”
27
To thine own self be true.
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3
Bridger had given up on work for the day. He sometimes slept in his office, having made a crafty little nook behind the largest bookcase in the back corner. There had been a good deal of shame when Bastian unearthed it, but he could only afford to keep a cook and one maid, and sometimes the threadbare dreariness of his London townhouse was too oppressive even for a war-hardened man.
But it had cheered him tremendously to see Mrs. Ann Richmond and Miss Violet Arden. They had accepted his gift and letter for Margaret with something like wonder. At least, thank God, it wasn’t pity. He tidied his desk. Pimm had written; he and Harris were ramming horns over the estate finances. It was nothing new, but Bridger was beginning to wonder how long Harris would put up with it all. He was happy to be away from Fletcher, though the occasional stab ofguilt arrived with Pimm’s letters, a feeling that he was somehow still abdicating or running away.
Will you come for Christmas?his brother wrote. The tone was impossible to discern. Was that a request or a fear? Bridger didn’t know, anyway. Bastian trundled in from the east door with a stack of pages for him to review. It could wait until after he ate, or perhaps until the next day.
“Finished for the afternoon, sir?” the boy asked, noticing the gloves Bridger had just pulled on.
“I believe so. ’Tis too fine a day to spend it all indoors.”
“Very good, sir.” Bastian, facing the window, glanced away from him at the sound of carriage wheels over cobbles. “Someone’s arrived, I think.”
“I’m not expecting anyone.” Bridger took in the somewhat scattered nature of his desk and sighed. “Am I?”
The boy didn’t answer, trotting out the office door and down the corridor. He loved appointments. Bastian enjoyed chatting away with printers and deliverymen, refining his English, and practically erupting with glee when he stumbled upon another German. It was a busy Friday, for in the Row it always was, and it was bloody hard to tell who was coming for their little slice of the publishing business or for another’s. He heard soft voices exchanged, a trickle of incoherent conversation traveling down the hall. The door to his office had been left open, shards of light thrown across the floor in the corridor outside, and the exterior somehow letting in a draft.
Bastian had found a German or something and wandered off.
“The door, boy!” he shouted, still poised over his brother’s letter, gloved fists pushing into the desk. “There’s a chill and these pages will scatter.”
“Allow me,” said a sweet, playful voice. A familiar voice. Bridger didn’t allow himself to hope. He slowly raised his eyes, finding Miss Margaret Arden outlined with golden autumnlight in the open doorway. “After all you have done, I owe you much.” She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “There.”
Bridger straightened, bowed. “Miss Arden. I…I trust you received my gift?”
“It is the most wonderful thing.” She held it out for him to see.
“I’m inclined to agree.”
“The woodcut is just right,” she said. His heart swelled. “You chose perfectly.”
“I only did so with the author in mind.”
She came forward a few steps and placed the book on his desk, removed her bonnet, and looked around. Seeing nowhere to put her hat, she held it at her side. “I have long wondered what Dockarty and Company is like.”
“And what is your estimation of it?” he asked, watching her. Hawkish. She was thinner than he remembered, and it wounded him to think she had suffered while they were apart. But if their hearts were aligned, then she had languished as he had, and there was no escaping that.
Margaret shied and glanced down at her bonnet, inhaling deeply. “I’m glad you ask me that. It is good that…that you still want my opinion. I thought…when I…when we…” She closed her mouth so firmly her teeth clacked. “I have a feeling you were writing to me. Were you?”
“All the time,” he assured her. Ducking down, he unlocked the drawer with her things and drew out the pile of letters. Maggie came to study them, gasping softly as if pricked or wounded.
“I knew it,” she whispered fiercely. A storm brewed in her eyes. It heartened him to see her look stronger, defiant. That was the Margaret he knew and loved. “I knew she was guarding the post.” Then something almost imperceptible, perhaps “the harpy.”
Bridger swallowed with difficulty. “I meant to return to Pressmore directly. In June, I mean, after we…” He laughed at himself, at his own stubborn embarrassment. He shook it off. “After that lovely night we spent together. I was detained, unfortunately. My father died.”
“I know,” said Margaret, shaking her head. “I heard at Almack’s.”
His hands fell to his sides. “I saw you there, accompanied by your aunt and her party, and I dared not make myself known, but…I saw you. And I confess it comforted me to see you without a gentleman on your arm. I, um, I take it Mrs. Burton’s attempts to match you have been unsuccessful?”
