saw movement inside. She expected to be apprehended at any moment by the butler or the major. “I have not much time,” she said quickly. “Do you accept my idea?”
Sir Arthur looked at her with quiet respect. “My lady, it is well thought out. I will send a servant to follow the men and bring me back word of where they have gone for the standoff. I myself will follow with the unsuspecting magistrate. It is all very neat. However did you think of it?”
“We ladies sometimes have thoughts of our own.”
“Very well, Lady Margaret,” Sir Arthur said with a smile. “What is this information you have to share?”
***
On her way home, Margaret’s heart was still uneasy but her mind had a chance to rest. The thought of the duel still made her sick to the stomach, but Sir Arthur had heard her information and taken it to heart.
He had determined upon confirming it from another source, but said that he would intervene no matter what in the duel the next day. She was still afraid that things would go awry, but at least there was hope.
The light was dipping down over the horizon when she rode wearily into the Somerville courtyard and handed off her horse at last. She climbed the stairs with a heavy tread and slipped inside. The butler was elsewhere, but a footman hurried by with a bedpan as she passed.
“My lady,” he said, bowing. “You’ve returned. I’ll have your meal sent up to your room.”
Margaret nodded. “And little Penelope? Has the child eaten?”
“She has, I believe.”
“Where is she?”
“Your father called her down to meet with her an hour ago,” the footman said, innocently enough. Margaret felt a stab of fear. She had done her utmost to protect the child from her father’s dislike, but to this point that had primarily involved keeping the two separate. If her father was seeking the child out to cause mischief, or worse yet to prepare the girl to be sent away, then Margaret would have to begin keeping the child with her at all times. She rushed down the hallway, thinking her father was in his study, but slowed as she heard voices coming from within the parlour.
It was not only her father talking – Poppy was speaking as well, and though she couldn’t yet hear the words, the tone was certainly not alarmed or angry. She stopped just outside the door and looked in, letting the shadow of the doorframe hide her. The scene inside was not at all what she had expected. There, just before the fire, a little table had been pulled up. In the centre of it, a chessboard had been arranged.
Her father sat on one side of the board, giving some manner of instruction to Poppy, who was perched across from him with her little legs tucked beneath the stool upon which she sat. She was in her nightgown with a nightdress and cap snugly about her and was peering at the spectacle before her with apparent interest.
Margaret had never seen her do anything but play with the pieces of a chess set, but as she listened she heard her father’s instruction, calm and quiet. “The horses are the hardest,” he was saying. “They are the only ones that can jump.”
Poppy picked up a taller piece – Margaret could not see which, but knew it was not a knight – and hopped it across the board. “This one could jump if we let it,” she chirped hopefully.
“No,” her father countered, his voice strangely kind. Margaret had rarely seen him this patient as of late. “That is the queen. She is the most powerful piece on the board and very important. I will show you what she does later, but there is no need for her to jump.”
Poppy put the piece back at once, then took her knight from the board and laboriously counted out three spaces up and one space to the side before landing the piece down atop one of her opponent's pawns. She looked up, her face drawn in worry, waiting for correction. But Lord Somerville only looked at her with something that was almost like a smile and nodded acceptance.
“You have drawn first blood,” he said.
Margaret stepped into the room, and her father noticed her at once, standing quickly. Margaret smiled at him. “Do not stop on my account,” she said.
“We were quite done,” her father snapped. “I came upon the girl playing with a quite expensive set of chessmen, and