Nicola Cornick - Forbidden

Henry slanted a smile down at her and her wayward heart did another little skip. “That,” he said, “would be entirely delightful. Do you go walking often?”

“As often as I have an evening free and good weather,” Margery said.

“Alone?”

“Of course I go alone,” Margery said. “I am not going to sit inside on a beautiful evening because I lack a suitable escort.”

His lips twitched. “How very practical of you,” he murmured. “I hope that you are not troubled by importunate men when you are out alone.”

Margery looked at him. “Only tonight,” she said dryly.

His smile was rueful. “Touché.”

“It is not a problem because I do nothing to draw attention to myself,” Margery said. “A maidservant is nothing more than a fool if she does. Besides—” She stopped on the edge of further confession. It seemed fatally easy to confide in Mr. Henry Ward.

Henry looked down at her. “What is it?”

Margery blushed. “Oh, it is nothing.”

“You were going to say that no one notices you,” Henry said. “But I do. I see you.”

They had stopped walking. “How did you know?” she demanded. “How did you know I was going to say that?”

Henry smiled. He put his fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face up to his. Margery met his eyes and felt fear as well as excitement shimmer down her spine. There was something in his expression that was bright and hot and searing; it matched the expression he had worn that night in the brothel. She shivered.

“You are always trying to hide,” Henry said quietly, “but you cannot hide from me. I noticed you from the very first.”

Margery tried, she really tried this time, not to let his words go to her head. But it was hopeless. She was already half seduced. She felt her lips form a tiny “oh” sound that was a mixture of disbelief and pure longing. She felt her stomach clench with the echo of that desire. She saw Henry’s gaze slide along the curve of her cheek to her mouth. He brushed his thumb over the line of her jaw and her heart jumped almost out of her chest as she heard herself give a little gasp.

Are you mad, my girl? The man is a rake. You will be in his bed before you can say strumpet .

Once more, Granny Mallon’s acerbic words slid into Margery’s mind, wrenching her back to reality. It was impossible to lose her head over a handsome gentleman with Granny Mallon metaphorically sitting on her shoulder all the time, the voice of her virtue.

“I was not fishing for compliments,” she said. “And I am not looking for carte blanche, Mr. Ward.”

He stepped back, his hand falling slowly to his side. There was rueful amusement in his eyes. “I beg your pardon. I never imagined that you were, Miss Mallon, and I am sorry if I offended you.” He smiled at her and Margery felt her tension ease. Soon, she knew, they would have to turn back to Bedford Street. Darkness was falling and it would be beyond foolish for her to stay out with him at night. Her small adventure would end very soon.

Henry offered her his arm again and after a moment they resumed their walk, silently now as the sun sank behind the roofs of the town houses and the sunset turned red and gold.

There was a flower seller on the street corner with a cart that was empty but for a few bunches of delicate pink rosebuds. Margery looked at them and her heart ached. She loved flowers, from the huge hothouse arrangements that overflowed in Lady Grant’s ballroom to the tiny wild harebells that grew in profusion on the chalk lands where she had grown up.

Perhaps her longing was in her eyes, because Henry had turned to the flower girl. “I’d like to buy the rest of your stock, please,” he said, and the girl’s tired face lifted as she handed him the bouquets and took his coins. He presented them to Margery who buried her nose in the sweet-scented sprays.

“How lovely,” she said. She was trying to guard her heart against him but it was no good. She was so touched and happy. “No one has ever bought me flowers before.”

Henry smiled at her. “It is my pleasure.”

“My mother said I was named after two flowers,” Margery said. She was inhaling the scent of the roses with her eyes closed. When she opened them she saw that Henry was watching her.

“Marguerite and Rose,” she said. “Those are my names.”

She saw some expression cloud Henry’s eyes. Doubt clutched at her. Something was wrong but she had no idea what it was.

“It’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it,” she said uncertainly.

“Is that why you changed it to Margery?” Henry said.

“It seemed more practical,” Margery said. “For a lady’s maid.”

Henry nodded and smiled at her. “I would like to take you for supper,” he said. He took her hand. “Please. Allow me.”

Margery hesitated, hanging back, wary of him again. A walk in the evening was one thing, supper with its suggestion of intimacy and seduction, quite another.

“Why would you do that?” she asked cautiously.

“Because you look as though you are hungry,” Henry said.

Margery could not help her peal of laughter. “That was not what I meant.”

“I know,” Henry said. He was laughing, too. “But you do.”

“I had no dinner today.” Margery was surprised to realize it. “Lady Grant is attending a ball tonight so I dressed her and then came straight out.”

“Then you need to eat,” Henry said. He gave her hand a little tug. Still, she hesitated.

It can do no harm ….

Not Granny Mallon’s voice this time, but the voice of her own desires, dangerously persuasive.

She felt her heart sing with pleasure and anticipation that the evening was not to end yet and that she would always have something sweet to remember in the future.

“Thank you,” she said. “I should like that very much.”

From the broad, elegant spaces of Bedford Square, they turned southward toward the higgledy-piggledy jumble of cobbled streets that crowded near the Thames. The evening was cool and bright, the roads busy and noisy, but Margery did not notice the crowds. Her entire attention was wrapped up in Henry, in the brush of his body against hers as they walked, in his smile and in his touch. She wanted no more than this. She held the pink rosebuds carefully and breathed in their heady scent. She was very happy.

LADY EMILY TEMPLEMORE sat at the cherrywood table in the Red Saloon at Templemore House, her tarot cards spread out in a horseshoe shape before her. She had been in her teens when she first started to use the ancient wisdom of the tarot to foretell the future and to guide her. People had laughed at her for her credulity and her interest in the occult. She had been labeled an eccentric and a bluestocking but there had been a hint of fear in those who mocked her. She did not really care. No one understood her; they never had and they never would.

Tonight she had asked the cards a direct question and, as always, they had answered her. She had asked if Margery Mallon was the lost grandchild of her half brother the earl, and if so, what she should do. That was two questions, really, but the one went with the other. If the child had been found, then Lady Emily knew she could not keep quiet and wait for fate to catch up with her. She would need to take action.

Card one in the spread represented the past. It was Temperance, but it was reversed, speaking of quarrels and strife. A shiver shook Lady Emily’s narrow frame as the cruelty and guilt of the past reached out to touch her again. There certainly had been quarrels aplenty at Templemore.

Card two, representing the present, was the Eight of Swords. The card summed up her current emotions very accurately. She felt trapped and powerless and very afraid. She reached for her glass of ratafia and swallowed three quarters of the sweet liqueur in one gulp. A flush lit her sallow cheeks. She felt a little warmer. The neck of the bottle rattled against the glass as she topped it up. The fire hissed as a log settled deeper in the grate.