Wentworth Hall (10 page)

Therese sighed deeply. “They want me to start teaching the girls French in addition to my nanny duties,” she revealed. “I know how to speak French, of course, but I’m not sure I can teach someone else to speak the language. I was hired to take care of the baby, not to be a teacher. What if I fail? I will have to return to Paris.”

Something about Therese’s response didn’t ring true to Nora. Therese was clearly bothered by something. But what? “Why did you want to leave France?’ Nora asked, hoping she would learn some scandalous secret. Was there a ruined love affair? A crime?

“My mother,” Therese replied. “She died last year and Paris holds too many memories of her. Everything reminded me of our happy times together. I thought time would ease those memories. But I needed distance, too. And then I got the offer from Lady Darlington and it seemed perfect.”

Nora probed further. “What about your father? Where is he?”

“I never knew my father,” Therese revealed. “As I’ve mentioned, my mother worked at Lord Darlington’s sister’s estate. She never revealed to anyone who my father was. She just felt lucky that Lady Daphne let her keep her job despite her condition.”

“What a scandal!” Nora said, pleased to have unearthed a juicy detail. “Was everyone shocked?”

“The French are not as easily shocked as the English,” Therese commented. “And Lady Daphne was always kind to her. And to me. When Lady Darlington arrived from Nice with James, Lady Daphne acted as my reference.”

Nora patted Therese’s hand. “So, you’re a penniless orphan like me, poor thing.”

“Yes, but I hope to make money working here,” Therese said.

“Ha!” Nora barked with laughter. “Good luck.”

“You’re not earning very much, are you?” Michael asked.

“I have no expenses,” Therese said with a shrug. “Still, Wentworth Hall is not what I expected. I thought I would start a new life here… but I do not see any way for it to begin.”

“We know how you feel,” Michael commiserated.

Therese yawned, covering her mouth. “I should check on James,” she decided. “He wakes in the night and her ladyship does not hear him. She is a sound sleeper.”

Getting up, Therese bid them good night and departed.

“Nice girl,” Michael remarked after Therese was gone.

“Hmm,” Nora responded.

“What? Don’t you think so?”

“Do you believe that story about Paris having too many memories of her mother?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Michael asked.

Nora gave him a look, getting up to bring her teacup to the sink. “If she has such happy memories of her mother, why wouldn’t she want to be near them? Has she no friends or family in Paris that she’d want to stay close to?”

Michael laughed out loud. “Your mind certainly runs overtime, Nora. Forget your tea shop, you should set up as a private detective.”

“Not a bad idea, Michael. Maybe you and I could be partners.”

Michael stretched and pushed his chair back. “Not a chance, Nora. The less I know about people and their dirty little secrets, the happier I am.”

“You’re wrong there,” Nora disagreed, returning her washed cup to the cupboard. “Knowledge is power.”

Nora said good night to Michael and headed back up the servants’ staircase. The tea and conversation had made her feel more alert instead of ready to sleep. She decided to work on some sewing but, arriving in her room, she realized she’d left her mending basket in one of the second-floor guest rooms. No one ever used this one—due to excessive water stains on the ceiling plaster, which made the room an excellent place to escape to when things were quiet.

Heading for the room, Nora was struck by how immense and quiet the estate seemed at night. Moonlight beamed through the high arched and mullioned windows,
lighting her way down the high-ceilinged corridors with their gleaming marble floors and bouncing its white glow off gilded mirrors and heavy crystal chandeliers. How grand this place must have been in its heyday! It was majestic with a decaying, kind of antique charm.

It was more like a palace than a home. As much as Nora dreamed of leaving the service, there were other moments when she was glad for the warmth and coziness of the downstairs kitchen and the low-ceilinged servants’ quarters. To inhabit Wentworth Hall was like living in a vast impersonal museum, full of artifacts but lacking any sense of hominess.

As Nora neared the guest room door, she was shocked to see that light was emanating from the space at the bottom of another guest room door. At this hour? Who could be in there?

Approaching noiselessly and with caution, Nora crept to the door and listened. She recognized the voices immediately: Maggie and Teddy Fitzhugh were engaged in an impassioned argument.

“If that’s how you feel, why then did you agree to meet me for a tryst in the middle of the night?” Teddy asked in a
voice bristling with anger and wounded pride.

“I’ve told you!” Maggie cried, exasperated. Nora could picture the girl throwing her arms wide. “I thought I could force myself to have feelings for you. I’ve tried! But I simply can’t feel what I don’t feel.”

“And can you force yourself to entertain feelings with a doddering duke more than twice your age?” Teddy came back at her angrily.

Maggie was silent, then said softly, “I don’t know.”

“I have as much money, probably more, than he has. And I’m a great deal younger. How can you compare the two of us? There’s not even a contest.”

“This is not a competition! I don’t want him, either. I don’t even know him and he doesn’t know me. It’s absurd. Father is only entertaining the idea because he wants to make an advantageous connection with a wealthy man. He’s using me as a pawn and I don’t want that. It’s why I tried to love you, Teddy. I wish I could love you. For a while I thought I could.”

“You are a liar!” Teddy accused her. “You’ve been stringing me along for over a month now and you never returned my love.”

“I wasn’t toying with you. Honestly. I was trying my best to learn to love you,” Maggie explained.

“Because you saw it would be advantageous to love me?”

“Yes! It would suit everyone if I could return your affection—but I don’t. I have to be honest with myself and with you. I simply do not love you. It’s out of my control.”

“And am I so impossible to love?”

Nora cringed at the hurt in his voice. At the moment he was not the pompous peacock she’d become used to seeing strutting around the estate with an air of condescension. He was a lovesick pup who was having his dreams dashed.

“Someone will find you easy to love,” Maggie said, her voice growing kinder. “It’s just not me.”

“I wish you had told me all this a month ago before I made a fool of myself over you. My sister was right about you,” Teddy snarled, enraged.

“Jessica? What did she have to do with all this?”

“She cautioned me against you—not that I would listen. She even tried to parade your slip of a sister before me to distract my affections. To prove it was not love that I felt, but blind infatuation. But I was too besotted to see
what everyone else must have known all along.”

“I’m sorry, Teddy,” Maggie said, her voice cracking.

“Not as sorry as I am,” Teddy snapped back.

Nora jumped, flattening against the wall, as the door banged open and Teddy blew out of the smoking room, storming down the hall. Nora sank back into the shadows along the wall. “Nor as sorry as you will be, Maggie Darlington,” she heard him mutter.

Peering into the crack of the open door, Nora saw Maggie sink into the ripped leather couch, weeping.

Nora decided to let Maggie have her moment of grief in private. When she was sure that Teddy was gone, she scampered back down the dark, moonlit hall to her room.

Chapter Nine

M
AGGIE STOOD ON THE MEZZANINE FLOOR
, observing the stately dancers moving on the gleaming marble floor of the Duke of Cotswall’s ballroom below. A quadrille was really such an old-fashioned, formal type of dance. It had its own beauty, she supposed, but it wasn’t for her.

The women all wore the same off-the-shoulder kind of gown, nipped tightly at the waist with a wide flowing skirt below. Lady Darlington had insisted that Maggie take off the kimono-style dress with the flowing overdress and matching headpiece that she’d planned to wear. Now she tugged on the loathed taffeta corset she wore beneath her plum-colored, crepe de chine gown. It was cutting
under her breasts and squeezing her rib cage.

The men were dressed in black tails and trousers. With erect posture they stepped back and forth, promenading with their lady partners: hands held high, chins tipped up, smiles frozen in place.

Quaint and pleasant as the dancers were, Maggie’s eyes were not on them. Instead they were fixed on Teddy Fitzhugh, who had glued himself to her father’s side this evening. More worrisome than that was the expression on Teddy’s face whenever he laid eyes on her. At those times his expression glowed with triumphant mockery, his mouth twisting into a tight smile. Maggie didn’t like it. Some treachery was being enacted; if only she could figure out what he was up to.

Not that Teddy didn’t have a right to be upset with her. She hadn’t meant to lead him on the way she had. She had tried with her whole heart to love him. She just couldn’t do it. Even when she was trying to do right, it ended up so wrong.

She took another step back from the banister. For the moment, she seemed to be eluding her father’s gaze up here on the mezzanine tucked behind a mosaic-covered pillar. Maggie ducked back even farther as the Duke of
Cotswall joined Teddy and Lord Darlington. The sight of their wealthy next-door neighbor with his protruding ears, rotund belly, and double chins sent a chill through her. Was her father insane?! Did he really expect her to consider marrying this toad of a man?

In a heart-stopping gesture, Teddy pointed up to the mezzanine, pointing out Maggie’s whereabouts to the duke and Lord Darlington. Had he realized she was there all along? Pivoting swiftly, Maggie attempted to look as though she was gazing in another direction and completely unaware of their attention.

Maggie turned and hurried away in search of a new hiding spot. Spying a side door down a short flight of stairs, she headed for it and found herself suddenly sprung free into the sultry summer night. What a relief!

“Have you made a clean escape?”

Maggie’s head swung toward the familiar voice. “Michael!” she gasped before she could stop herself. In his groom’s uniform with its short military-style jacket and form-fitting pants over tall, well-polished boots, he was, by far, the most dashingly handsome man at Cotswall Manor that night.

“You’re looking very beautiful tonight,” Michael remarked, almost begrudgingly. With similar hesitation, he began walking toward her. The overhead outside gas lanterns shimmered on his dark hair and she felt again that familiar pang of longing he had elicited within her. When had their childhood camaraderie transformed into this other feeling? The truth was, she could no longer recall a time she hadn’t loved him. And why couldn’t she make this wanting stop, no matter how much she tried? Despite all that had happened…?

“It was a bore in there,” Maggie attempted to explain as he joined her.

“Then stay here with me.”

His green eyes fixed on her in a way that made her move toward him in an involuntary sway. When he was near, she felt like a plant inclining toward the sun. But those green eyes also served as a reminder… she had to stay strong. It was the only right thing to do now.

“Maggie, listen,” Michael spoke in a firm, gentle voice. “The other day didn’t go very well between us but I only want to understand why—”

“There you are!” Teddy called, coming through the
side door. “I thought I saw you leave through here.”

The duke and her father followed as Teddy came to her side. With a darting glance, she watched Michael walk off, disappearing into the darkness. As the two men drew close, she forced a smile to her lips.

“Teddy!” she cooed as though he were a welcome sight. “You’ve found me. I came out here for some air and to admire the lovely gardens.”

“Not as lovely as you, yourself,” Teddy said smoothly.

Oh, how she loathed him at this moment, so smug and pleased that he had her trapped. She’d been right not to take his claims of love seriously. How could he have really loved her so recently and resort to this now?