Chapter Three
An hour later, Meg found herself in the supper room, seated across from Dougal. She tried not to worry that he might notice Pendleton was trying to throw them together. He ought to know better. Honestly, she had no dowry, and Dougal had the pick of the peerage.
Beside her was Lord Forsythe and his wife, and next to them Persephone’s grandmother, Lady Blackwell, as well as Tamsin and Henry. “Don’t we make for a merry party?” Lady Blackwell remarked cheerfully. Her wig was best suited to the drawing rooms of her youth, being at least two feet high, dyed a fanciful pale green, and ornamented with over a dozen silk butterflies.
Meg ate a quail’s egg off her plate slowly, trying not to stuff two in her mouth at once. She was famished, but ladies did not eat demonstrably in public. It wouldn’t do to appear hungry, even if Meg was always hungry. Her uncle restricted all of the food she ate, even tea. She mostly picked mint from the garden, or lemon balm for a tisane. Which was why she could drink a bathtub full of good strong tea when she was visiting Pendleton. Sometimes she lay awake with her blood pulsating with tea until dawn, only to start again with a pot of breakfast chocolate. If she told her friends, they would clamor to get her away from Henshaw Hall. Already, she knew Priya suspected. And if Priya suspected, it meant she was already digging for dirt.
Meg had considered confessing, to be honest. More than once. But traveling from friend to friend and being dependent on their goodwill, with no money of her own gave her pause. And more importantly, how could she help her family’s tenants if she wasn’t there? There was already so little she could do. She could barely protect herself from her uncle’s dodgy dealings, never mind the tenant farmers, but she could at least try. If nothing else, she knew of one little boy who would go mad for gold almonds.
She must have glanced at her reticule reflexively because Dougal smiled. “Care for a slice of almond cake, Miss Swift?”
She narrowed her eyes. “No, thank you, Your Grace,” she returned. “I don’t care for almonds.”
Tamsin leaned close, looking mischievous and delighted, as usual. “Meg Swift,” she said under her breath. “Are you flirting?”
“Of course not. I’m discussing almonds.”
Maybe also flirting a little bit.
The smallest bit.
Barely the size of an almond crumb.
Tamsin nearly crowed. “I knew it.”
Meg turned pointedly towards her friend. “You think everyone is flirting because you are flirting so hard with Henry that I’m afraid you might do yourself permanent injury,” she teased.
“I wouldn’t have to work so hard if he wasn’t so hardheaded,” she grumbled. “Captain Talbot, indeed.”
“I have every faith in you,” Meg assured her. Tamsin was a force to be reckoned with, from her bright curls to her collection of questionable severed body parts from folkloric history. She had no doubt Henry would see her shining like a torch in a dark room—just as soon as he remembered to open his eyes.
“Give him time,” Meg murmured. “I’ve yet to hear of a man back from the war who isn’t changed in some way.”
“True,” Tamsin grimaced. “But he was always hardheaded. He just used to be less obvious about it.”
She was right. They all knew Henry well, having visited the Pendleton estate every summer since infancy. He lived with his grandmother, the dowager countess Culpepper, just outside the village, near Persephone’s family. It was always a lively, troublesome reunion. Meg missed it in many ways, but there was no use looking back. Her parents had taught her that. Not on purpose, it had to be said. But a lesson was a lesson. It definitely made Meg stand out in their circle of history-obsessed antiquarians.
She ate another quail egg when she was certain no one was looking.
Fairly certain.
Had Dougal just winked at her?
Surely not. Dukes did not wink. Even newly-made dukes with no experience with the title.
The tiny, tiny smile fighting at the edge of her mouth told her differently.
“Miss Swift,” Lord Forsythe said from her right side. “I so enjoyed our conversation about turnips last time we met. I’ve been curious to know if you were successful.”
Turnips might have sounded like a tiresome subject to the rest of the company, in fact Lady Forsythe rolled her eyes, albeit fondly, behind her husband’s shoulder. But Meg welcomed the distraction and, in fact, the topic. They were both a great deal safer than Dougal Black, Duke of Thorncroft.
She smiled at Lord Forsythe. “The turnips were a success, my lord. The sheep ate the green tops as they grew, and we were still left with the root vegetable to feed the animals over the winter.”
“And they grew well?”
“Very well. The soil seems replenished.”
“Turnips were your second year?”