“Perhaps you can carry on my good work in Northumberland,” he went on, baiting her. “Happy endings shouldn’t be confined to Mockingbird Square. Not that you will ever be as accomplished at it as me, Miss Willoughby.”
Her lips thinned with disapproval. “You are a meddler and I am not. I prefer to let nature take its course. Or fate, if you like. If something is meant to be, then it will be.”
“Nature can be messy and inefficient,” he responded. “And sometimes fate needs a helping hand.”
Her green eyes narrowed, and although it was obvious she had more to say she didn’t respond. Margaret was being unusually reticent this evening, not herself at all.
“I will miss you.” He said it before he could stop himself. And then, when she looked startled, he tried to explain. “No one else disagrees with me quite like you do. You are always wrong, it goes without saying, but I find it … stimulating to refute your arguments.”
She hesitated as if she had had a speech prepared yet had forgotten the introduction. She cleared her throat.
“You once said you would save me.” Although there was no one close enough to hear them, she dropped her voice so that he had to bend his head to hear her.
“I should not have said it,” he responded. “That would be meddling, and I know how much you hate me to meddle.”
“No, you should not have said it,” she agreed, tucking one of the loose strands of hair behind her ear. She sounded almost angry.
He wanted to lean in even closer and run his tongue around the shell of her ear. He wanted to set his teeth gently into her flesh and then lick away the sting. Dominic knew he would not act on the impulse but the urge was there, and tonight it was disturbingly strong.
“And yet, I believe it was kindly meant, my lord,” she said. And then she spoilt it by adding, “As much as you are ever kind.”
He smiled but she was already rushing forward with her prepared speech—he was certain now that it was prepared. He imagined her in her room, scrawling words on a sheet of paper, only to tear them up and start again.
“You thought I was in a situation I could not escape and you wanted to help me. But sometimes as much as one would like to change one’s fate, it just isn’t possible. Your saving me isn’t possible.”
Margaret wasn’t looking at him but he suspected she was holding back tears. Again he had that urge to kiss her. To take her in his arms and carry her to his bedroom just as his rampaging ancestors had carried away any woman who appealed to them. He could lock her in until she saw sense, or he did. But that wasn’t going to happen, it was never going to happen, and he was old enough to know the difference between wishful thinking and cold, hard reality.
“Well, that just sounds sad,” he responded in a teasing voice. As if nothing she had said had done more than brush feebly against the hard shell of his heart.
Now she did look up, and there wasn’t even a spark of anger in those green eyes. She gave him a long, speculative stare. “And yet I think you have bowed to your fate, my lord.”
Ah, she was clever. He said nothing. What could he say? She was absolutely right.
She gave him a little rallying smile, but he didn’t have it in him to smile back. “I may be far away, but you may be sure I will think often of Mockingbird Square. I will miss all of my friends, even those who haven’t had their happy endings provided by the Earl of Monkstead.”
He knew she expected him to argue the point, or make fun of her words. He could have teased her into anger, but suddenly he was tired of their game. Margaret might disagree with him, but she was sincere and honest, and for once he would be the same.
“I will think of you often.”
She nodded, accepting his statement, and her green eyes lingered a moment longer on his. Then she turned away and left him standing in the midst of this room full of guests.
He was Dominic Frampton, the Earl of Monkstead, the owner of Mockingbird Square, wealthy and important, and yet right now he had never felt so empty or so alone.
Much later
Dominic heard the library door open a crack, and his sister’s face peered in. She smiled when she saw him in his favourite chair, a glass of brandy in his hand, glowering back at her.
“Ah, there you are. Sulking.”
“I am not sulking,” he began, before he could stop himself.
She laughed. “Then you are being miserable because your Miss Willoughby is leaving. Why don’t you stop her, Nic? You could if you wanted to.”
He thought about arguing with her, pointing out that Margaret wasn’t his, but it hardly seemed worth the effort. “And what could I offer her?” he asked instead. He held up his glass. “‘Dear Margaret, will you run off with me? We can spend our lives together, being shunned and ostracized.’ I’m sure she would agree.”
Sibylla studied him with interest. “Why don’t you ask her? You never know, being ruined by you might be more palatable than marrying a man chosen for her by her parents.”
“And you are such an expert on the subject, Sib,” Dominic mocked.