Page 17 of A Dash of Scot
“Perhaps I can distract her,” Anise offered.
“A distraction is a good idea. Do it during tea, Poppy?” Mama suggested. “Feign a headache and excuse yourself. She won’t be able to leave her guests to find you. And Anise, if she does try to follow Poppy, you should engage her somehow, perhaps with a question the other ladies might be interested in knowing. I’ll add on to it for good measure to keep her from leaving.”
“Good idea.” Poppy hadn’t wanted to go to tea anyway. The very idea of watching Mary parade around as if she were some sort of savior and they the lonely paupers who needed her charity was ridiculous. The entire situation was ludicrous and backwards, especially when Edward should rightfully be able to support his own mother. And more so, the dowries belonged to Poppy and Anise, and the house belonged to their mother. None of it was stamped with Mary’s name, as much as she was attempting to wrestle it away.
With their plan in place, Mama and Anise went down to tea at the given time. Poppy decided not to go at all, fearing that Mary, in all her machinations, would be able to bar her from leaving.
Even in her room, Poppy could hear the chatter of feminine voices. She was curious what kind of gossip they might be getting up to, but she remained as planned for at least the first quarter-hour in case Mary did decide to check on her or send her maid up.
Poppy thought perhaps she might have gleaned a bit of her sister’s pretend fortune-telling because approximately seven minutes after Poppy said she had a megrim and wouldn’t be coming to tea, there was a knock at the door, and Mary’s own maid came in with a tray of tea that smelled like an old lady’s hat.
Poppy lay in bed, the curtains drawn, the lights doused, pretending she was struck hard with an ache in her head.
The maid wasn’t there just to serve tea. She was also snooping, even going so far as to pretend to tuck her in to feel the temperature on her forehead. When she fussed about for another five minutes—including “tidying” Poppy’s writing desk, perhaps looking for evidence of some sort—Poppy worried that she had been sent to make sure Poppy didn’t leave her room, but the woman eventually did depart. And thankfully, it was thirty seconds before Poppy was going to demand she leave, which would have been even more suspicious.
Poppy waited another five minutes to be sure the woman wasn’t going to come back, and then she crept to her bedroom door and pulled it open, peering out, afraid of being caught. Afraid of seeing the snooping maid standing sentry, or perhaps even Mary to say, “Ah-ha! I knew you were faking.”
But the corridor was blessedly empty. Poppy slipped out of her room, shutting the door silently behind her. She remained still in case the maid popped out of some hidden place, but she was utterly alone.
At this time of day, her brother would either be in his study, or he would have sneaked off to his club—which, if it were the latter, she was out of luck. Please be in your study; please be in your study… She silently repeated the mantra the entire way.
Down the stairs she crept, terrified the whole time, heart pounding, afraid the nosey maid or one of the ladies would depart tea and see her, but she somehow made it outside her brother’s study, knocked, and he called for her to enter.
She pulled open the door, stepped through and only breathed when it shut behind her.
“Poppy.” He smiled, some of the tension in his features melting as he saw her.
And for just a moment, she remembered them as children playing chase. And the way he always tried to include her, even though his friends thought him odd for doing so.
“May I sit?” she asked, indicating the chair opposite him.
“Of course.” He closed the ledger he’d been working in and focused on her, and she wondered if he thought it odd that she was there instead of attending the tea. But he didn’t say anything to indicate that. Was it too much to hope that he still knew her well enough to understand she’d find a way out of having tea with Mary?
“What can I do for you?” he asked after she’d settled in the chair.
Poppy licked her lips, which felt suddenly dry, her fingers clasped tightly in her lap. “I wanted to speak with you about my dowry. And about Mama’s house.”
Edward’s features shuttered enough that it reinforced what their mother had thought she heard. Mary hadn’t been practicing her tirade. Those demands had been very, very real.
“I wanted to speak with you as well,” he said, all but confirming. “I think it best that you, Anise and your mother move to the dower house in the Highlands.”
Poppy stilled. Her mind was suddenly obliterated of all thought, as if lightning had somehow come through the roof and into the study, jolting her brain. He wasn’t going to sell Mama’s house, but her other fear of isolation appeared to be coming true.
“At the end of the season?” she prompted, hoping that was the case. That Edward was going to give them a fighting chance.
Edward shook his head and wouldn’t meet her eye, finding the items on his desk to be much more interesting. “Nay, I think now. As soon as possible.”
“But Edward, why?”
“Mary thinks it best for everyone. It’s time for Mother to go to the dower house my father left for her, and it would be best if you both accompanied her.”
At least he wasn’t denying that she was his mother, nor was he denying her what his father had left her. There was no mention of her and Anise’s dowries either. Perhaps moving them out now was his way of saving them from his wife. And himself from any more of Mary’s tantrums.
“How will we marry, Edward, being shut away from society?”
Her brother had the audacity to chuckle. “Certainly, there are men in Highlands. Do you think all those who live there were plopped from the sky?”
“We don’t live in medieval times, and we aren’t country people. We’re not farmers or what have you. Ladies and gentlemen go to their country estates in the Highlands for house parties and hunting parties. We don’t even know who they are. We’ll be lucky to get an invitation. You are locking us in a closet.”
