At Last Comes Love (11 page)

The last time he asked she had wanted quite literally to die because she had loved him so very dearly but had been unable to accept his proposal, because he was going away to war and she had to stay home to bring up her brother and sisters.

And now?

Could a love of that magnitude die? If it was true love, could it ever die? Was there such a thing as true love? Life was very sad if there were not—and unbearably so if one's experience with romantic love turned one into an incurable cynic.

She did not love Crispin any longer. She did not
want
to love him again. Things could never be the same between them. Was love conditional, then? Was she determined not to love him because he had been faithless once and caused her years of heartache?

Whoever could possibly deserve love if it was conditional upon perfect behavior?

Did
he
love
her
? He had said he adored her. But did he also
love
her?

Had he
ever
? But if he had, how could he have married someone else?

Had he loved his wife—Teresa?

Oh, she was horribly upset again. She had thought Crispin could never again have this power over her.

Margaret sighed and shook her head and turned determinedly to the door. She would go and make that call on Vanessa. She would see the children and restore her spirits. Never mind that silly gossip last evening or the even sillier paragraph in this morning's paper. And never mind Crispin Dew. Or the Earl of Sheringford, who had to marry within the next two weeks or lose everything until after his grandfather died. Why should she care about that? And never mind the Marquess of Allingham and his pretty Miss Milfort.

Life could be unutterably depressing at times, but it went on. There was no point in giving in to depression.

There was a tap on the door and it opened before she could reach it.

“There is a Mrs. Pennethorne to see you, Miss Huxtable,” the butler informed her. “Will you receive her?”

Mrs. Pennethorne? Margaret frowned, trying to think who the lady could be. The name sounded familiar. But why would she be calling in the morning when most social calls were made in the afternoon?

Mrs.
Pennethorne
. Her eyes widened slightly. Had not the Earl of Sheringford introduced himself as Duncan Pennethorne? Who
was
this lady? His
mother
?

Was this whole foolish business
never
to end?

“Show her in, by all means,” she said.

Mrs. Pennethorne was probably younger than she was, Margaret decided as soon as the lady stepped into the room. She was fashionably clad in a pale green carriage dress with a poke bonnet to match, and she was small and slender and blond and exquisitely lovely in a fragile sort of way.

Not his mother, then, Margaret thought. His sister? But she was
Mrs

. Pennethorne.

“Miss Huxtable?” The lady curtsied and regarded Margaret with slightly slanted eyes, which were as green as her dress.

Margaret inclined her head.

“We have not met,” the lady said, her voice sweet and breathless,

“but I felt compelled to call upon you as soon as I heard. You
must
not marry Lord Sheringford, Miss Huxtable. You
really
must not. He is the very devil and will bring you nothing but misery and ostracism from society. Do please forgive this impertinence from a complete stranger, but I had to take the risk of coming and warning you.”

Margaret rejected her first impulse, which was to offer the lady a seat. She clasped her hands at her waist and raised her eyebrows. Yes, this
was
an impertinence.

“Mrs. Pennethorne?” she said. “You are a relative of the Earl of Sheringford?”

“It pains me to have to admit it,” the lady said, flushing, “though fortunately he is a relative only by marriage. He is my dear husband's second cousin.”

Margaret kept her eyebrows raised. She did not know what to say.

“You may know
of
me,” Mrs. Pennethorne said. “My maiden name was Turner. I came within a few hours of making the most dreadful mistake of my life. I almost married the Earl of Sheringford myself five years ago. Instead, I married my dear Mr. Pennethorne shortly after and have been blissfully happy with him ever since.”

Oh, goodness. This was the abandoned bride, the sister-in-law of the infamous Mrs. Turner, who had run off with the earl.

“Yes,” Margaret said, “I
have
heard of you, of course. But—”

But this was none of her business. She had no wish to listen to the whole sordid story—or any part of it, for that matter.

“I do not have an acquaintance with you,” Mrs. Pennethorne said.

Clearly she had come to talk, not to listen. “But I
do
know you by reputation. You are very well respected as the eldest sister of the Earl of Merton and the Duchess of Moreland and Baroness Montford. I daresay it is irksome to you still to be unmarried when your younger sisters have made such brilliant matches, but believe me, Miss Huxtable, the answer does not lie in marrying Lord Sheringford. My brother was the happiest of men before Laura was seduced away by that
monster
. He would have taken her back and forgiven her at any time after she left. He would not divorce her, as everyone who knew him advised. He never lost hope that she would return home and beg his forgiveness—which he would freely have given. He was devastated by the news of her death.
That man
, Miss Huxtable, has ruined my brother's life for all time, and he would have ruined mine too if my dear Mr. Pennethorne had not been kind and honorable enough to marry me himself.”

Margaret gazed at her in pure astonishment.

“I must thank you for your visit and your concern,” she said. “Will you forgive me if I do not offer you refreshments? I am about to go out. My sister is expecting me.”

She had decided very recently, she remembered, that she would never tell a lie again.

“Of course,” the lady said. “I will not delay you. And I do beg you to forgive me, Miss Huxtable. It has been almost unbearably painful, you must understand, to know that
that man
has had the effrontery to return toLondon . My brother suffers dreadfully from the knowledge, as do I. My dear Mr. Pennethorne is chagrined beyond words, since he must bear the shame of sharing a name with Lord Sheringford. It has been our fervent hope that we would neither see nor hear from him until we leave town at the end of the Season. We certainly had no wish to be embroiled in his business. But when I learned this morning that he had snared yet another innocent, respectable lady into his net, I found the knowledge
truly
unbearable.

I knew I had no choice but to come to warn you, to
beg
you to break off the betrothal before it is too late. Promise me that you will, Miss Huxtable.”

“I appreciate your concern for my happiness,” Margaret said, crossing the room with firm steps to open the door. “And I thank you for coming. You will excuse me now?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Pennethorne said, waiting until Margaret held the door open for her. “I felt it my duty to come.”

Margaret inclined her head and stood in the doorway to watch her visitor leave.

She was still all astonishment. What had
that
been all about? It was perfectly understandable, of course, that the lady would hate the Earl of Sheringford, both on her own account and on that of her brother.

But why would she feel it necessary to call upon the woman who was supposedly betrothed to the earl? It could not possibly be
jealousy
, could it? Did she secretly still
love
Lord Sheringford?

That was surely impossible.

This, Margaret thought, was all very bewildering indeed. For the sake of a moment's triumphant satisfaction in telling Crispin that she was betrothed to someone else, she had set in motion all these ridiculous consequences.

Perhaps instead of going to call upon Vanessa, she should remain here and give orders for her bags to be packed. She suddenly longed for the peace and sanity of Warren Hall.

That was what she would do, in fact.

But before she could leave the doorway of the visitors’ parlor, there was yet another knock at the outer door, and a footman opened it to admit Vanessa and Katherine, come together to call upon her.

“Oh, well,” Margaret said without even trying to disguise the irritability from her voice, “you had better come in here, the both of you, and join your voices to the choir.”

“The choir?” Vanessa said after they had stepped into the parlor and the footman had closed the door from the outside.

“Of those urging me to put an end to a nonexistent betrothal,”

Margaret said. “First Crispin, then Mrs. Pennethorne, and now presumably you. Whoever will be next, I wonder?”

It was a rhetorical question. But it was answered almost immediately.

There was a tap at the parlor door even before they had all sat down, and it opened to admitConstantine .

“Ah,” Margaret said, throwing both hands in the air.

“I will not ask if that gesture demonstrates delight at seeing me or displeasure,” he said cheerfully as he crossed the room toward her and took one of her hands in both his own before releasing it again. “But I hope it is the former. I have just come from a vigorous sparring bout atJackson 's and am hoping you will offer me tea or coffee.”

Stephen and Elliott arrived together before the tea tray was brought in.

Jasper followed them in before Margaret had finished pouring the tea.

Margaret wondered if she had ever felt more foolish in her life and decided that it was not possible.

And talk about storms in teacups!

She was also angry but had not decided with whom she was most annoyed. Herself, perhaps?

Crispin had told her she was stubborn and always had been. The accusation had irritated her. But he must have been right, she concluded after a few minutes.

The choir sang in perfect unison. There was not one dissenting voice. Vanessa and Katherine were incredulous and aghast that she would even
think
of marrying a man she had met for the first time last evening—without even a formal introduction. Normally their reason would have been that she could not possibly know a thing about him on such short acquaintance. But on this occasion just the opposite was the case. She knew
everything
about him—he had even admitted it all himself—and none of it was good. And
that
was a massive understatement.

Stephen, with Elliott's concurrence, had agreed to allow the Earl of Sheringford to pay a formal call at the house during the afternoon.

He could hardly have refused when Margaret had introduced him to Crispin Dew last evening as her betrothed. Both men agreed, though, that he should be allowed to proceed no farther into the house than the library and to see no one there but Stephen. Meg must give him leave to inform the earl that she would not receive him, today or any other day.

“After all,” Stephen said, “you are not embroiled in any real
scandal
, Meg, only a great deal of silly gossip. If you are never seen with the man again, and if nothing more is said about any betrothal between you, it will be concluded soon enough that there never was any truth in the story—as is the case with most rumors.”

“Very true, Stephen,” Katherine said.

“And very sensible,” Vanessa agreed.

“And everyone knows you as the soul of propriety, Margaret,” Elliott added.

Which was perhaps a bit of a mistake on his part. Being the soul of propriety sounded to Margaret like a very dull thing to be. Did she want
that
written on her epitaph?

“Sherry was a friend of mine at one time,”Constantine said. “He still is, I suppose. We sparred with each other atJackson 's this morning and then walked to White's together. But it would be extremely unwise to ally yourself to him, Margaret. He has an undeniably wicked past, and you would not want a deservedly spotless reputation sullied by association with him.”

A deservedly spotless reputation. That would look good too on her headstone. Future generations would yawn as they read.

“Rakes would be doomed to eternal infamy if some decent lady did not fall in love with them and take a chance on them,” Jasper said, grinning at Margaret and threatening the choir's harmony for the moment. He ought to know the truth of what he said. He had been one ofLondon 's most infamous rakes when Kate had taken a chance on him—nudged on her way, it was true, by the eruption of scandal.

“However, Sherry is not exactly a rake, is he? Justly or otherwise, he is seen as the blackest-hearted of villains. Certainly no one can deny that he did something pretty villainous five years ago—two things, actually. You would not be able to handle him, Meg—or he you, for that matter. You have lived a righteous life and deserve better.”

“Oh, that is
exactly
what we have all been trying to say,” Katherine said, laying a hand on his sleeve. “We want someone perfect for you, Meg. We want you to be
happy
. You deserve the very best life has to offer.”

You would not be able to handle him …

You have lived a righteous life …

These were the people who loved her most in the world. The people who loved her so dearly that they wanted only the very best for her that life had to offer. To them she was the soul of propriety, a woman with a spotless reputation who had lived a virtuous, righteous life.

They wanted someone perfect for her—someone equally proper, blameless, virtuous, righteous … A very dull man, in fact.

He sounded a little like the Marquess of Allingham. Was
that
why she had hesitated so long about accepting his marriage offers? It seemed disloyal. He was all those things, and she had always liked him. She had always considered him a friend.

Friend, not lover.

The Earl of Sheringford had called him a dull dog.

She had been horribly disconcerted by the marquess's announcement last evening. But had she also been
upset
? Did she feel heartbroken today? In light of everything else that had happened, she had spared him scarcely a thought.