was no more point in arguing. He stood from his chair.
“Miss Steele will be at the ball this evening,” Allendale said. “You’ll secure the waltz with her, and the supper dance as well. Make it your particular priority. I want an heir by next year.”
“You leave little time for courtship.”
“Blast your courtship!” Allendale bellowed at St. Clare’s departing back. “Do your duty so I can die in peace!”
The Trumbles’ carriage rattled toward Green Street. Both Maggie and Jane sat silent within it. They’d uttered not a word between them since leaving Mr. Wroxham’s office in Fleet Street. What was there to say? The solicitor had made Maggie’s situation plain enough.
She stared out the carriage window, her thoughts drifting, as they often did, toward Beasley Park. To the household servants she’d grown up with, and the tenants she’d come to look on as her own family. She had a responsibility toward all of them. They were her people.
“You’re not too dreadfully disappointed, are you?” Jane asked.
Maggie turned to look at her friend seated across from her in the carriage. “I am, rather. Not but that I didn’t expect—”
“It’s my fault. It was I who gave you reason to hope.”
“Hush. You did only what a friend would do. A very dear friend.”
Jane sighed. Clad in a slate-colored carriage dress and plumed bonnet, she appeared the very picture of an elegant and sensible lady. One who was accustomed to addressing problems with efficiency. “I do think that Mr. Wroxham might have found some way to extricate you from the restrictions of your father’s will. It’s an injustice if I’ve ever seen one. And the law is supposed to concern itself with fundamentals of fairness, is it not?”
Maggie smoothed the skirts of her pale blue pelisse. It was fitted tight through the bodice, with a decorative belt fastened high at her waist, and military-style braiding trimming the collar and sleeves. The sort of garment one wore when embarking on a campaign. She’d felt guardedly optimistic when she’d put it on this morning. As if she might conquer the problem of her father’s will as readily as a general conquered a foe on the battlefield.
More fool her.
“Fundamental fairness for men, perhaps. But not for ladies.”
“No, indeed,” Jane said. “We must seek justice elsewhere, it seems.”
“Where?”
“By petitioning other men, I suppose. Powerful men who might argue on our behalf.”
“Why would any of them trouble themselves over me? I made no allies during my younger days in town. Quite the reverse. I daresay there are many gentlemen who would be glad to see Fred take me in hand.”
“Oh dear. I hadn’t considered that. You were much talked about. And when you refused every offer of marriage—”
“You know why I did—”
“Yes, yes. I know. At the time, I thought it rather romantic.”
“It was headstrong and foolish is what it was. What I wouldn’t give to go back and do it over again, knowing what I know now.”
“You would have accepted one of them?”
A knot formed in Maggie’s stomach as she recalled her previous suitors. Perhaps she should have chosen one of them. A gentleman who would have been kind. Someone she could have managed, who would have allowed her to run Beasley Park as she saw fit. It needn’t have been a romance. It needn’t have been him.
Nicholas.
Viscount St. Clare.
Shadowed images of the two men intermingled in her mind. She couldn’t think of one without seeing the other. And yet, St. Clare still refused to acknowledge the truth of his identity.
Maggie was beginning to wonder if maybe she’d got it all wrong.
What if St. Clare was telling her the truth? What if her long illness and dual periods of mourning—all those months of darkness and solitude—had addled her wits? Had left her longing for Nicholas so keenly that she was seeing him in a man who was nothing but a stranger to her? An attractive, dashing stranger, but a stranger nonetheless.
“Margaret?” Jane prompted.
Maggie exhaled a deep breath. “No. I wouldn’t have married any of them.”
“And you won’t marry Fred, will you?”
“I want to say no.”
“Then say it.”
“I can’t. Not if it means relinquishing my estate.” Maggie clasped her gloved hands tightly in her lap. “Beasley Park means everything to me, Jane. I won’t allow Fred to take it from me.”
“He’ll take it anyway,” Jane said. “He’s not going to become more manageable once you’re wed. He’ll become worse. Men like him always do. Odious men who would use the law to oppress the ladies in their care. Oh,