“Margaret, Margaret,” Beatrice cut in, crossing to her and taking hold of her hands. “Please, I understand it is tempting to become completely fraught, but you must not. You are going to be in very good hands. Kit will look after you now.”
The words tasted like bitterness on her tongue.
The idea that Margaret should have to go from one man looking after her to another—it felt like bitterest gall.
Was a lady always to put her fate into a man’s hands and hope he did not ruin her future?
What if Kit made some sort of error, as her uncle had done?
Beatrice was going to learn how to look after her own finances. She was going to demand that the duke teach her or have his advisors do so, because she was not going to have something like this happen to her again.
If she lost all her money, it would be her own bloody fault, not someone else’s.
She hesitated and looked her cousin in the eye. “I did not know if I should tell you,” Beatrice said, “but I did not feel I could keep the truth from you.”
Margaret nodded, blinking. She sucked in a sharp breath, closed her eyes, then snapped them back open.
Surprisingly, there were no tears in her eyes, no hysterics.
Instead, shoulders back, head high, Margaret walked away from Beatrice and looked out the window. “Are we to lose this house?”
Beatrice was silent for a long moment, but then she ventured, “I don’t know what will happen. But you and I will no longer be a financial strain upon him.”
“A strain,” Margaret repeated, lifting a hand to the glass pane.
And for the first time, Beatrice felt that room, the whole house was a pretty cage for herself and her cousin. They were trapped, with only the freedoms they could forge themselves.
“I never thought of myself as a strain before,” Margaret said softly. “But I don’t do anything for Papa, do I? I don’t bring money in. I don’t earn money. He simply must spend money on me to make me pretty for some man to purchase me like a bauble, I suppose.”
“Kit doesn’t think of you as a bauble,” Beatrice protested.
“Doesn’t he?” Margaret countered. “Just a bit. He thinks I’m terribly pretty, and he thinks I’m clever, it’s true. But I’m an ornament for him. I’m not like you, Beatrice. I think that your husband will see you as a partner. I’m not sure Kit will see me thus.”
“But he loves you,” Beatrice urged, at a loss at her cousin’s suddenly logical and blunt words. “Doesn’t that matter to you? You’ve always said love matters.”
“Of course he loves me, as best a man can love a girl like me,” Margaret said firmly, but there was no softness to her tone. “And I do love him, but it’s different for you, isn’t it?”
Beatrice did not know what to say. “Oh, dear, I am sorry I’ve ruined your happiness.”
“You cannot ruin my happiness, Beatrice.” Margaret turned toward her, and it seemed that the happy young girl of but a few hours before was gone, replaced by a woman who understood her role in the world was a precarious one. “You don’t have that power. I am the one in control of my happiness, and I shall decide now what I do with myself and my feelings.”
Beatrice reached out to her. “Please, Margaret, come here.”
Margaret crossed the room, forcing a smile. “I shall not be in dark spirits for your wedding, dear cousin. I have longed for the day that you would find your match despite all your protestations of being a spinster for the whole of your days. Somebody who would be equal and worthy, and you have found him. And I know you say that you do not love him, but—”
“No, no,” Beatrice rushed, lifting a hand to stop her. “Do not attempt to convince me I love him. I don’t. And it’s actually a condition of our arrangement that we stay out of love.”
“Out of love? Why?” Margaret demanded.
Beatrice cleared her throat, feeling a strange touch of defensiveness. “It’s very sensible, if you ask me. We shall be good friends, and that is all.”
“Good friends,” Margaret repeated. “You two?” Margaret began to laugh, a deep, amused sound. And she laughed so hard she wiped her eyes. “Oh Beatrice, that’s ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous at all. It’s logical.”
“You two are not a pair of Greek philosophers,” Margaret pointed out with an arched brow. “And I can attest to that because I caught you in the most astounding of embraces. Goodness, I had no idea such passion existed.”
Beatrice’s cheeks flamed. “You have not kissed Kit?”