her shoulders so that she could continue sleeping. Margaret was weary from the night before and her thoughts were still tangled around the memory of that dance with Nigel.
But she couldn’t sleep any more. She slipped out of bed and dressed in a simple brown day dress, pinning her hair into a loose bun at the back of her head, and then slipped downstairs with a shawl around her shoulders and a few whispered words of direction about Poppy.
In the parlour downstairs she had a little tea and then waited until she heard her father come down. She had prepared herself to continue the conversation they’d started the night before about Nigel’s place in her affections, but he left the house without stopping in the parlour. She knew he would be heading about his business for the day, and she was strangely grateful that the conversation had been avoided for the time-being.
Poppy came down later that morning to greet Margaret with a kiss and then skipped off to the breakfasting room. And then there came a visitor. Margaret heard the butler asking questions followed by the steady tread of steps leading to the parlour. The butler stepped into the room, his face composed.
“Lady Margaret, there is a man here to see you.” She noticed that he did not say “gentleman.”
Margaret stood and curtsied. “Please, show him in.”
The butler stepped aside and there in the doorway was Nigel, still in his sharp uniform, his curved hat held in his hands, a smile playing at his lips.
“Nigel!” she cried, coming forward and pulling him into the room, taking care not to notice the butler’s disapproval of her familiarity with the stranger. She turned to the butler with a smile. “Please fetch us a late morning tea.”
When he had gone, Nigel indicated his departure with a mischievous nod of his head. “I don’t think he likes me very much,” he said with a smile.
“He doesn’t like very many people,” Margaret answered with a shrug, “and he’s my father’s man – he would prefer to know of visitors for months beforehand to avoid any sort of surprise.”
Nigel stood for a moment, his eyes looking Margaret over with gentle appreciation. Margaret felt suddenly self-conscious and stepped back to her seat beside the fire.
“Please,” she said, “have a seat.”
He bowed his head and took a seat near her, but a respectful distance away. It reminded her of the night before, when he had been careful to hold himself aloof in the little alcove. She understood propriety as well as he did, and yet she missed the familiarity of their youth.
“I’m so glad you came,” she said at last, smiling to put him at ease. “I had hoped you would come at once and not delay – sometimes people linger over invitations, and we have never been that way.”
“I remember when we were children,” Nigel answered with a smile of his own, “and you would invite me to come and play with you in the gardens. Do you remember our method of communication?”
“The box on the hill,” she said with a little laugh. “You said that it was our own personal post, and you would leave things in it for me to find. I never left anything for you, but the time you left me a toad was hardly a display of friendship.”
“Perhaps not to you,” he said with a laugh. “But to a twelve-year-old boy it was a true treasure and I only wished to share that treasure with you.”
Margaret pursed her lips together. “So you claimed at the time, but I knew then – as I know now – that we had been friends long enough for you to know what a start a live toad would give me, and I believe you wanted to see me jump.”
“What if I did?” he asked archly, looking every bit the young boy again. “The imperious Lady Margaret, already embarking on a world of ladylike behaviour – perhaps I wanted to see you ruffle your skirts a bit.”
There was truth in the teasing, and it subdued Margaret somewhat. “Do you think I’ve changed so very much?” she asked quietly, looking at her hands. “I can feel it sometimes, you know. I haven’t been to the cliffs in years, or not the way we used to go – there have been picnics and functions and proper walks, but nothing real. I am so careful about the way I speak and the way I dress now…”
“My lady,” he said in