Chapter 1 - Margarette
Margarette had long ago discovered that there were advantages to being unnoticed.
She thought of this as she stood before the small looking glass in the maids’ quarters of Ashford Manor, gathering her hair at the nape of her neck.
Morning had only begun to find its way through the narrow window beside her bed, casting a pale stripe across the floorboards. The room she shared with her aunt was modest, furnished with little more than two narrow beds, a washstand, two small chests, and the looking glass that hung slightly crooked against the wall.
It was not home.
Not truly.
Home was Aunt Bea’s cottage some distance from the manor, where the floors creaked in winter and the windows rattled when the wind blew down from Mount Beaufort. There was a small garden behind it where Bea grew herbs, vegetables, and only as many flowers as she deemed sensible.
They returned there on weekends whenever their duties permitted and on special holidays when the Ashfords had no need of them.
During the working week, however, they stayed here.
It was practical. The servants’ quarters allowed them to be wherever they were needed within minutes, and Ashford Manor had a habit of needing people long before the sun had properly risen.
“Marga?”
Her aunt’s voice came from behind her.
“I’m awake, Aunt Bea.”
“I can see that.”
Margarette smiled at their reflections in the glass.
Aunt Bea was already dressed.
She was a woman upon whom age had settled with dignity rather than softness. Her dark hair, so similar in color to Margarette’s own, was threaded now with streaks of silver and gray and drawn neatly away from her face. Time had sharpened her features and placed fine lines around her eyes and mouth, giving her a sternness that often made younger servants nervous.
Margarette had never understood why.
She thought her aunt beautiful.
Not in the delicate way of Lady Eleanor Ashford, nor in the youthful way people insisted Margarette herself was beautiful. Bea possessed another sort entirely—one that seemed to have strengthened with age rather than diminished.
There was intelligence in her face.
It was especially evident in her eyes.
Aunt Bea had the look of a woman who understood things before other people finished explaining them.
Margarette had admired that look all her life.
She had also learned not to trust it completely.
Not because her aunt lied.
Bea rarely did.
But there were things hidden behind those clever eyes.
Margarette had known it since she was a child.
“Marga.”
Margarette realized she had been staring.
“Yes?”
“Your hair.”
Margarette looked back at the mirror.
One curl had escaped.
She frowned at it.
It sprang stubbornly against her cheek.
Her hair had always been an inconvenience—dark, thick, and naturally soft with curls that refused every attempt she made to impose order upon them.
She gathered them more tightly and reached for another pin.
Bea caught her wrist.
“Leave it.”
“It looks untidy.”
“It looks like hair.”
“Aunt Bea.”
“You pull it so tightly I wonder how you manage to think.”
Margarette gave her a look.
Bea raised one eyebrow.
Margarette surrendered.
She lowered the pin.
The face in the glass was one she had been told far too often was beautiful.
Margarette herself had never quite known what to do with this information.
Her features were soft, her eyes large and expressive enough that Aunt Bea frequently complained they revealed thoughts Margarette had been wise enough not to speak. Her lips possessed a natural shade of pink that made rouge unnecessary, even on the rare occasions when Olivia Ashford insisted she ought to try some.
Margarette never did.
Other young women added color to their lips.
She occasionally wished she could take some from hers.
People had remarked upon her appearance for as long as she could remember.
Such a pretty little thing.
She doesn’t look as though she belongs here.
What a waste.
And once, when Margarette had been perhaps twelve, she had overheard a woman speaking to Bea outside their cottage.
Had that girl been born into another house, Bea, she’d have lords and heirs at her door one day.
Margarette remembered the silence afterward more clearly than she remembered the woman.
Aunt Bea had gone still.
Then she had changed the subject.
Margarette had not understood why.
She understood even less now.
Beauty seemed to her a peculiar thing to praise someone for. She had done nothing to earn the color of her eyes or the shape of her mouth. And in her experience, being noticed for such things rarely made life simpler.
So she dressed plainly.
She pinned back her curls.
She left her lips untouched.
She did what she could to disappear into the background.
Unfortunately, her face did not always cooperate.
“Stop staring at yourself,” Bea said.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“I was thinking.”
“Dangerous habit this early in the morning.”
Margarette smiled.
There were very few people in the world around whom she smiled without first considering whether she ought to.
Aunt Bea was one of them.
Perhaps the only one.
Bea had raised her for as long as Margarette could remember.
Of her parents, Margarette knew almost nothing.
She could not remember her mother’s face.
She could not remember her father’s voice.
Whenever she had asked as a child, Aunt Bea’s answers had been brief.
They are gone.
Your mother loved you.
You were very young.
And eventually—
There is nothing more you need to know.
Margarette had persisted when she was little.
Children had a way of believing every question must possess an answer simply because they had thought to ask it.
But as she grew older, she began to recognize the change that came over Bea whenever the subject arose.
The tightening of her mouth.
The distance in her eyes.
The silence afterward.
So Margarette stopped asking.
Not because she had stopped wondering.
She simply came to understand that some doors remained closed because the person behind them was not ready to open them.
Perhaps one day Aunt Bea would be.
And perhaps, somewhere deep within Margarette’s heart, there was another truth she seldom admitted even to herself.
Perhaps she was not ready either.
So she waited.
In the meantime, she was grateful.
Because whatever Aunt Bea refused to tell her, she had given Margarette everything she could.
More, perhaps, than someone in their circumstances ought to have been able to give.
Bea had taught her to read before Margarette was old enough to understand that many girls like her were never taught at all.
Then came writing.
Arithmetic.
History.
Geography.
Literature.
Even a little French.
“Why must I learn all this?” Margarette had complained once as a child after spending an afternoon bent over a page of figures.
Bea had continued mending a sleeve without looking up.
“Because ignorance has never protected anyone.”
Margarette had never forgotten it.
But as she grew older, another question joined all the others she kept quietly to herself.
Where had Aunt Bea learned it?
They were poor.
There was no shame in that. It was simply a fact.
Their cottage was small. Their clothes were mended rather than replaced. Money was counted carefully, and nothing useful was ever thrown away.
Yet Bea could discuss history.
She understood figures.
She knew literature.
Her handwriting was elegant.
Her French, though rarely spoken, was considerably better than the little she had taught Margarette.
Sometimes Margarette would watch her aunt write and wonder.
Sometimes she would hear Bea correct something Margarette had read in a book and wonder even more.
But she never asked.
There was that look again.
That clever, guarded look.
Bea had a past.
Margarette knew that much.
Whatever it contained belonged to her aunt until Bea chose otherwise.
So Margarette accepted the education she had been given and considered herself fortunate for it.
Perhaps one day her questions would be answered.
When Aunt Bea was ready.
When Margarette was ready.
Until then, gratitude was enough.
At fifteen, Margarette had formally joined her aunt in service to the Ashford family.
Bea could not afford to send her to a proper school, and Margarette was old enough to contribute. Mrs. Bell had found a place for her among the younger maids, and before long the servants’ quarters of Ashford Manor became where she spent most of her nights.
Five years later, she knew the manor almost as intimately as she knew Aunt Bea’s cottage.
She knew which staircase creaked.
Which windows stuck during winter.
Which corridor caught the loveliest morning light.
Which doors one should never allow to slam when Mr. Ashford was working.
And she had learned something else.
How to move through the world without disturbing it.
Margarette was shy by nature. Crowded rooms made her uncomfortable, and strangers often left her searching for words she possessed perfectly well when she was alone.
But shyness accounted for only part of her silence.
The rest had been learned.
People did not always hear what was said to them.
They heard what they wanted to hear.
What pleased them.
What confirmed what they already believed.
Aunt Bea was different.
But most people were not Aunt Bea.
Margarette had learned that fewer words meant fewer mistakes.
Silence prevented arguments.
Being unnoticed prevented questions.
And both, more often than not, kept a person out of trouble.
Books were the exception.
Books asked nothing of her silence.
Within them she could cross oceans she would never see. She could wander cities whose names she had only ever whispered over maps. She could enter palaces through their front doors instead of their servants’ entrances.
She could disagree with kings.
Despise heroes.
Defend villains.
She could think as loudly as she pleased.
Books made her feel things ordinary life rarely allowed her to feel.
Adventure.
Courage.
Wonder.
Sometimes longing, though she never quite knew for what.
They carried her to places she could only imagine and allowed her, for a few precious hours, to become someone who never had to consider whether she possessed the right to speak.
For a common girl who expected to spend most of her life within a few miles of Alderwyn, Margarette considered that an extraordinary privilege.
More than enough.
At least, that was what she always told herself.
A bell sounded somewhere below.
Bea looked toward the door.
“There. The house is awake.”
Margarette fastened her apron around her waist.
Judging from the footsteps already echoing through the servants’ corridor, the house had awakened in a considerable hurry.
Then she remembered.
Today.
Alexander Ashford was coming home.
Ashford Manor had never been so restless.
By eight in the morning, servants hurried through the corridors carrying fresh linens and polished silver. Footmen crossed the entrance hall with crates from the cellar. Somewhere belowstairs, Agatha was shouting about onions.
Margarette stepped aside just in time to avoid a maid carrying an enormous arrangement of flowers.
All this for one man.
Of course, he was not simply a man.
He was Alexander Ashford.
The heir.
“Marga—”
Margarette turned automatically before Aunt Bea disappeared through a doorway carrying folded linens.
“Mrs. Bell wants you upstairs when you’re finished.”
“Thank you, Aunt.”
A voice came from the staircase.
“Margarette!”
Margarette turned again.
Olivia Ashford descended with one hand gathering her skirts, moving with considerably more speed than her mother would have approved.
At twenty, Olivia was very nearly Margarette’s age, though their lives could hardly have been more different. She had inherited Lady Eleanor’s beauty—the same graceful features and fine eyes—but very little of her reserve.
“Good morning, miss.”
Olivia stopped in front of her.
Then frowned.
“What have you done to your hair?”
Margarette blinked.
“Pinned it, miss.”
“I can see that.”
Margarette waited.
Olivia reached toward one of the curls that had escaped beside her cheek.
“Why must you always try so terribly hard to make yourself plain?”
Heat immediately crept into Margarette’s face.
“It keeps it out of the way, miss.”
“That was not what I asked.”
Margarette lowered her eyes, but not quickly enough to conceal her smile.
Olivia sighed dramatically.
“Hopeless.”
“Yes, miss.”
“And don’t ‘yes, miss’ me.”
Margarette’s smile deepened.
Olivia had always been surprisingly pleasant with her. Margarette had heard enough from servants in neighboring estates to know this was not always the case with young women of Olivia’s position.
“You remember what today is?” Olivia asked.
Margarette glanced around at the chaos.
“I believe the household has provided several clues.”
Olivia laughed.
“My brother is coming home.”
“So you have mentioned.”
“Have I?”
“Several times, miss.”
“Only several?”
Margarette wisely declined to answer.
Alexander Ashford.
She knew the name, naturally.
Everyone in Alderwyn did.
The eldest child and only son of Edmund and Eleanor Ashford. Twenty-five years old. Heir to the estate. Educated abroad at a university so prestigious that Margarette had once read about it and immediately understood it belonged to a world available only to people with extraordinary wealth and position.
She had never met him.
There were two portraits of him in the grand hallway.
In one, he was still a boy standing stiffly beside his father.
The other had been painted several years later. He looked perhaps nineteen or twenty, dark-haired and serious, one hand resting upon the back of a chair.
Margarette passed the portraits almost every day.
She had never given them much thought.
“You’ll finally meet him,” Olivia said.
“Will I?”
“Oh, certainly. He’ll be everywhere now.”
Margarette doubted Alexander Ashford would have much reason to concern himself with one of the maids, but she kept the thought to herself.
Olivia continued, “Mama is already planning the larger welcome dinner.”
“I thought tonight was the welcome dinner.”
“Tonight is family. Apparently one dinner is insufficient to announce the return of an Ashford.”
Margarette suppressed a laugh.
“Your mother may hear you.”
“Then I shall deny everything.”
Footsteps approached.
Olivia straightened immediately.
Lady Eleanor appeared at the end of the corridor.
Even in her early fifties, Eleanor Ashford possessed the sort of elegance Margarette imagined could not be learned. She never hurried, yet somehow no one was ever left waiting for her. She spoke softly enough that people leaned closer rather than forcing her to raise her voice.
Her gaze moved from Olivia to Margarette.
Observing.
Always observing.
“Olivia.”
“Mama.”
“Your father is looking for you.”
Olivia’s expression fell.
“Of course he is.”
She turned back toward Margarette.
“Later.”
“Yes, miss.”
Olivia disappeared toward her father’s study.
Lady Eleanor remained for half a moment longer.
Her eyes settled briefly upon Margarette.
“Good morning, Margarette.”
“Good morning, my lady.”
Then she continued on.
Margarette released a quiet breath.
There was nothing unkind about Lady Ashford.
But Margarette always had the curious sensation that Eleanor noticed considerably more than she said.
Her husband was different.
Edmund Ashford was a stern, matter-of-fact man who possessed little patience for unnecessary conversation. Servants straightened when he entered a room. Margarette did too.
Yet she did not believe him cruel.
She had seen small things over the years.
Medicine quietly sent to a tenant whose child had fallen ill.
A widow’s rent delayed after a poor harvest.
A servant retained months longer than necessary after an injury made his work difficult.
Mr. Ashford never spoke of such things.
Perhaps that was why Margarette noticed them.
Kindness, she had come to believe, did not always possess a gentle face.
Alexander Ashford’s rooms occupied the western end of the manor.
Margarette had always found this strange.
Most of the family chambers were situated in the east wing, yet Alexander’s rooms were separated from them by a long gallery and two smaller sitting rooms.
That morning was the first time Margarette entered them.
She understood immediately.
“Oh.”
The word escaped before she could stop it.
Another maid glanced at her.
Margarette pretended she had said nothing.
The chamber itself was enormous.
A large bed stood against the interior wall, its dark carved frame facing tall glass doors leading onto a private balcony. A fireplace occupied the opposite wall, with a deep leather chair and small table nearby.
One entire wall was lined with bookshelves.
Margarette’s eyes lingered there.
History.
Philosophy.
Poetry.
Political treatises.
Several volumes in French.
A large globe stood near the shelves, and a broad writing desk had been positioned beside the windows where daylight would fall across its surface.
Margarette crossed to the balcony doors and opened them.
Fresh air swept into the room.
And suddenly she understood everything.
The orchard spread below.
Rows upon rows of apple trees followed the rolling land, their leaves shimmering beneath the late-summer sun.
Beyond them, softened by distance, Mount Beaufort rose against the sky.
Margarette rested one hand against the balcony rail.
The orchard was her favorite place on the entire estate.
Apparently Alexander Ashford had good taste in views.
She wondered, briefly, whether he loved it too.
“Marga.”
Margarette startled.
Mrs. Bell stood in the doorway.
“Are we cleaning Mr. Ashford’s room or admiring it?”
“Cleaning, Mrs. Bell.”
“Good.”
Margarette immediately returned inside.
But as she helped change the linens and dust the furniture, her eyes occasionally wandered toward the bookshelves.
Perhaps Olivia had been right.
Her brother really did like books.
By noon, the kitchens were almost unbearable.
Heat rolled from the ovens. Copper pots crowded every available surface. The smell of roasting beef mingled with rosemary, onions, butter and fresh bread.
Agatha ruled over it all like a general commanding an army.
“No, no! The other dish! Have you all forgotten how to listen?”
Margarette slipped past carrying a bowl of peeled potatoes.
“Where would you like these?”
“There.”
Agatha pointed without looking.
Tonight’s meal appeared to contain nearly every dish Alexander Ashford had ever favored.
Leek and potato soup.
Roast beef with rosemary and garlic.
Roasted potatoes.
Buttered root vegetables.
A savory mushroom and onion tart.
Fresh bread.
And an apple tart with spiced cream that Agatha had already threatened three separate people over.
Margarette found the entire affair faintly amusing.
A man could apparently leave home for years and return to discover that an entire household still remembered how he preferred his potatoes.
Such must be the privilege of being an heir.
By late afternoon, Margarette escaped to the library.
The moment the door closed behind her, the manor seemed to exhale.
Silence.
Beautiful, blessed silence.
This was her favorite room inside Ashford Manor.
Mrs. Bell had placed the library under Margarette’s care two years earlier after discovering both her fondness for books and her almost unreasonable irritation whenever one was returned to the wrong shelf.
Margarette considered the responsibility an honor.
She walked slowly between the shelves, inspecting them.
Everything was ready.
Tables polished.
Curtains opened.
Correspondence desk cleared.
Shelves immaculate.
She had been warned that Mr. Ashford spent considerable time here whenever he was home—reading, answering letters and conducting estate business.
Margarette looked around once more.
Perfect.
Satisfied, she went to a shelf near the rear and pulled out the novel she had been reading.
She slipped it into the deep pocket of her apron.
It was not stealing.
Margarette had settled this matter with her conscience some years ago.
Stealing required an intention to keep something.
She always returned the books precisely where she found them.
Therefore, she was merely relocating them.
Temporarily.
Her conscience had accepted this arrangement.
Mostly.
She slipped out of the library and had nearly reached the courtyard when—
“Margarette!”
Agatha leaned from the kitchen doorway.
“Where are you going?”
“Outside.”
“I have eyes. Take a basket.”
Margarette brightened.
“For what?”
“Apples. I want fresh ones for breakfast tomorrow. And don’t bring me those sour little things you brought last time.”
“That was once.”
“It was enough.”
Margarette took the basket.
Outside, voices rose from the front of the estate.
Hooves struck gravel.
Carriage wheels rattled.
Men called to one another.
Margarette glanced toward the sound.
Perhaps Alexander Ashford had arrived.
For half a moment, curiosity tugged at her.
Then she looked toward the orchard.
The heir would still exist later.
Her book was waiting now.
The orchard was quiet.
Margarette preferred it that way.
She moved between the trees, examining each apple before twisting it from its branch. She knew precisely which trees produced Agatha’s favorites—sweet, crisp fruit with just enough sharpness.
Soon the basket was full.
Margarette carried it farther up the slope until she reached an old apple tree whose branches spread low and wide.
Her tree.
Not truly hers, of course.
Nothing on Ashford land belonged to Margarette.
But she had privately claimed this patch of shade years ago.
She settled beneath it, placed the basket beside her and pulled the book from her apron.
For a while, the world disappeared.
That was the miracle of books.
One moment she was Margarette, servant at Ashford Manor, sitting beneath an apple tree.
The next she was somewhere else entirely.
She had read perhaps ten pages when she heard hoofbeats.
At first, they were distant.
Margarette ignored them.
Another.
Then another.
Closer.
She lifted her head.
The orchard appeared empty.
The land beyond her tree rose sharply enough to conceal whatever approached from the opposite side.
The hoofbeats grew louder.
Margarette frowned and closed her book.
Then horse and rider crested the hill.
She froze.
Everything happened at once.
The rider pulled sharply upon the reins.
The horse gave a startled cry and veered sideways.
Margarette scrambled to her feet, but her shoe caught beneath her skirt.
She fell hard onto the grass.
Her basket overturned.
Apples scattered in every direction.
The book flew from her hand.
For one horrifying instant there were only hooves, earth and the violent pounding of her heart.
Then stillness.
Margarette lay face down in the grass.
Her skirt had ridden scandalously above her ankles.
Mortification overcame even fear.
She pulled it down at once and pushed herself upright.
“Are you hurt?”
A man’s voice.
Margarette looked up.
The rider had already dismounted.
He stood several paces away, one hand holding the reins. His horse shifted restlessly behind him, but the man’s attention was entirely upon her.
He stepped forward.
Margarette stood without taking the hand he offered.
“I didn’t see you beyond the rise,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Grass clung to her apron. Her palms stung. Her book lay several feet away with its pages pressed against the earth, and nearly every apple she had carefully chosen was now scattered down the hill.
Something hot rose inside her.
“Perhaps you ought not ride so quickly if you cannot see where you are going.”
The man’s expression changed slightly.
“I said I was sorry.”
“And I might have been beneath your horse.”
His jaw tightened.
“I am aware.”
Margarette brushed grass from her skirt with sharper movements than necessary.
“Then perhaps you should learn to ride it properly.”
For the first time, something broke through his reserved expression.
Offense.
“I assure you, I know perfectly well how to ride a horse.”
“Your horse very nearly rode over me.”
“Because you were sitting directly beyond a rise where neither of us could see you.”
Margarette stared at him.
“Is it customary, then, for riders to expect people on foot to see through hills?”
His mouth closed.
She knew she ought to stop.
She did not.
“You were riding far too quickly.”
“I have ridden through this orchard since I was a boy.”
There was irritation beneath his voice now, though his tone remained measured.
Margarette lifted her chin.
“Then you have had a great many years to learn where the hills are.”
Silence.
His eyes narrowed.
Margarette’s heart was still racing, but indignation had carried her far beyond good sense.
“If you know the land so well,” she continued, “you ought to know where you cannot see what lies ahead.”
“I know this land very well.”
“Apparently not well enough.”
His jaw tightened.
For a moment Margarette thought she had finally gone too far.
Then he exhaled through his nose.
“I believe nearly throwing myself from the saddle to avoid trampling you suggests I had already reached that conclusion.”
Margarette stopped.
There was no mockery in his voice.
No arrogance.
Only restrained irritation.
And beneath it—
Concern.
His gaze moved over her as though assuring himself she truly was unharmed.
“I am sorry,” he said again, more deliberately this time. “I should not have been riding so quickly over the rise.”
Margarette’s anger faltered.
It was difficult to continue arguing with a man who had admitted she was right.
She glanced at the scattered apples.
“You frightened me.”
The words came quieter than she intended.
Something in his expression softened.
“I know.”
Their eyes met.
And suddenly neither spoke.
Margarette became aware of how close he was.
Dark hair, slightly disordered from riding. A serious face. Straight shoulders beneath a dark riding coat.
There was something familiar about him.
She could not place it.
His gaze remained on hers.
Not rudely.
Not in the lingering manner of men whose attention had taught Margarette to make herself inconspicuous.
He simply looked at her.
And Margarette, inexplicably, looked back.
Seconds passed.
Perhaps only two or three.
They felt considerably longer.
The horse shifted.
Leather creaked.
The spell broke.
Margarette looked away.
Her gaze fell upon the saddle.
A crest had been pressed into the dark leather.
She knew that crest.
She saw it every day.
Ashford.
Her stomach dropped.
Slowly, she looked back at him.
Dark hair.
Straight nose.
Serious eyes.
The portrait.
Oh.
No.
Every clever response that had presented itself so readily moments earlier vanished.
“Mr. Ashford.”
Something flickered across his face.
Margarette could feel the blood leaving hers.
She had just informed Alexander Ashford—the heir to the estate upon which she lived, the son of the family she served—that after a lifetime of riding his own land, he apparently had yet to learn how to ride a horse.
She lowered her eyes.
“Forgive me, sir.”
A pause.
“For what?”
Margarette looked up uncertainly.
“I—I did not realize who you were.”
His expression became unreadable.
“And knowing who I am changes what happened?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you needn’t apologize for that.”
Margarette stared at him.
He glanced toward the scattered apples.
“I nearly rode you down. You were entitled to be angry.”
Her cheeks burned.
Perhaps she had been entitled to anger.
She was considerably less certain she had been entitled to tell the future master of Ashford Manor that he could not ride.
“I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way.”
“No,” he said.
Margarette’s eyes widened slightly.
His expression remained composed.
“Perhaps not.”
She lowered her gaze.
Then he added, after a pause,
“But you were not entirely wrong.”
Margarette looked up again.
Alexander had already bent to retrieve an apple.
“You needn’t do that, sir.”
“I am aware.”
He placed it into her basket.
Then picked up another.
Margarette stared at him.
He glanced toward her.
She immediately began gathering the others.
They worked in silence until most of the apples had been recovered.
Then Alexander stopped.
Margarette followed his gaze.
Her book.
He reached it before she could.
Her stomach dropped for the second time that afternoon.
He picked it up and brushed the grass from its cover.
“From the library?”
Margarette swallowed.
“Yes, sir.”
“I see.”
“I was going to return it.”
His eyes lifted.
“I hadn’t accused you of taking it.”
“No, sir.”
A pause.
“Though you appear to have accused yourself.”
Heat returned to her cheeks.
“I always return them.”
“Them?”
Margarette closed her eyes briefly.
Wonderful.
Alexander said nothing.
He merely held the book toward her.
She reached for it.
Their fingers touched.
Barely.
Margarette withdrew her hand more quickly than necessary and tucked the book against herself.
“Do you often read out here?” he asked.
“Sometimes.”
“In the orchard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
Margarette looked toward the trees.
“It’s quiet.”
Alexander glanced toward the manor in the distance.
“And the house isn’t?”
“Not today.”
For the briefest moment, she thought something in his expression almost changed.
Not quite a smile.
But close.
Margarette remembered herself.
“I should return, sir. Agatha will be waiting for these.”
She lifted the basket.
“Agatha?”
“The cook.”
“I remember Agatha.”
“Of course.”
Margarette wanted to bite her tongue.
She adjusted the basket against her hip and prepared to leave.
“Wait.”
She stopped.
Alexander regarded her.
“What is your name?”
“Margarette, sir.”
“Margarette.”
Something about hearing her name from him made her strangely conscious of it.
“Yes, sir.”
He seemed as though he might say something more.
He did not.
Margarette shifted the basket.
“Good evening, Mr. Ashford.”
“Good evening, Margarette.”
She turned.
The walk back toward the manor had never seemed so long.
She kept her eyes ahead.
She would not look back.
Absolutely not.
Behind her, Alexander remained beside his horse.
He watched her make her way between the rows of apple trees, basket balanced against her hip and a library book held securely beneath her other arm.
Margarette.
He had lived at Ashford Manor most of his life, and yet he could not remember seeing her before.
A movement near his boot caught his attention.
One apple had escaped their search.
Alexander bent and picked it up.
When he looked toward the path again, Margarette was gone.
