I shifted in my seat. “Father, I know I promised you that attending the Hickmores’ party would end in a proposal, but I can assure you the lack of one is not my fault. I was close, and I did try—”
“Margaret, I am not concerned with what occurred at the party. Indeed, I am content circumstances turned out as they have.”
“Yes, dear,” my mother said. “We have happy news.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Oh?” I asked tentatively. Neither of them seemed particularly overjoyed.
My mother glanced at my father. “Your father has found you a husband.”
I furrowed my brows. “I beg your pardon?”
“A very good match, too,” she continued. “He comes from an old, well-respected family. The estate is supposedly quite stunning.”
I shook my head. “Mother, you cannot be serious.”
Her lips thinned with dismay. She was very serious.
It was as though I had fallen into the lake, only it was winter and the water ice cold. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen. I was supposed to make my own match, carefully selecting the man to ensure the future I needed. “There must be some mistake.”
“Your father has arranged a marriage for you, Margaret. There has been no mistake.”
The dishes scattered across the table painted a picture of comfort and happiness that mocked me. I focused on my father. “To whom? Why have you done this?”
He faced me, his expression set. “You are desperate to marry, are you not?”
I shook my head. “Desperate isn’t quite how I’d put it. Determined, perhaps, but—”
My father cut in. “The nuances don’t matter. It is a good match. And we will finally be settled with this whole business.”
The air in the room vanished. My father blamed me. Not for Edward, of course, but for the rumors that kept Daniel from proposing. And for the time since the engagement, for not securing a husband on my own. But it had taken time to recover, time for me to understand what I needed.
“Father, I’m sorry for the way things have turned out. But surely we haven’t arrived at this point.”
Yet my father’s expression and my mother’s clasped hands testified that we had, indeed, arrived at this point.
I clamped down on my rising fear, desperate to push past it and this situation. Perhaps I could still work something out.
A movement outside the window demanded my attention. Daniel’s face appeared, out of view of my mother’s sharp eye but clearly visible to me, his nose pressed against the pane as he surveyed the room. His eyes met mine and I suddenly thought of Mr. Northam. He was the key to my release.
I refocused on my father. “Go back to this man. Inform him I am no longer available. I didn’t tell you last night—it was so late. But I found someone while at the Hickmores’, a Mr. Fredrick Northam. He is perfect. You’ll think so, too, I promise. He is coming here to ask your permission. He will most likely visit this week—maybe even today. I am certain it will be soon. He is quite the gentleman, with a large estate. So you see? This match is unnecessary. I shall be married before year’s end.”
“What?” My mother started forward in her chair, then muttered, “Oh, my.” She leaned back and closed her eyes. “Colin—”
“No, Eloise,” my father interrupted. “I am sorry, Margaret. But it is already done.”
I flinched back in my seat. “The settlement has been arranged? The contract is drawn up?”
“The circumstances are very much in our favor. I believe you will be happy.” He said the last part quietly, as though it were more of a hope than an expectation.
I could never be happy if I wasn’t safe. How was I to ensure I would be safe?
“Margaret, don’t look at me like that. It’s a good match.” My father stepped toward me as though to comfort me.
I scrambled out of my chair, sending it wobbling. Grabbing the chair to steady it, I slid behind it and dug my nails into the floral relief etched along its rim. “Please, do not do this. Not while there’s still a chance to make things right.”
My mother sighed and stood. “I wish we had known—” She glanced at my father and stopped. Taking a breath, she continued, “I am so very sorry. But it really is too late. He arrives tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” They hadn’t even given me time to get used to the idea, to make a plan.
My mother nodded. As I looked from her to my father, they suddenly appeared unfamiliar, as people I should have known but didn’t.
The room grew smaller, the walls inching toward me, compressing the air so tightly I thought I would drown. Too many things could go wrong; there were too many unknowns in marrying like this. I couldn’t go through what I’d gone through with Edward again. But what could I do? “I understand,” I whispered, and I rushed from the room.
Seven
I stopped at the back lawn and stared at the sky, trying to ignore how my heart thumped in my head. I needed to escape, to go someplace that would expunge all I had just heard. I longed for the solitude of the lake, just visible through the trees, certain its verdant surroundings would feel more familiar at the moment than my own home. But even it could not undo my parents’ actions.
I turned my back on its sparkling surface and strode the path skirting the yard, tracing the edge of the woods.
From out of nowhere, Daniel stepped before me and grasped my arms. “Margaret, what is it? What happened?”
I struggled against his hold. “Let me go. Please.”
“I saw you from the window. You were white. You still are. And your eyes—are you going to cry? You never cry. What—”
I wrenched myself from his grasp and turned away. “Leave me alone.”
He put a hand on my arm, stopping me. “Margaret, tell me what is going on.”
“Where’s Alice?”
“I sent her down the path to that old fort we put together. Do you remember it?”
“The one with the tree swing John hung for us?”
Daniel nodded.
“She shouldn’t be alone, Daniel.”
“I’m joining her. Just as soon as you tell me what is going on.”
I forced a smile. “You’ve gotten your wish. Any man but Mr. Northam. Isn’t that what you said?”
Daniel’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Father has found me a husband. He arrives tomorrow.”
“He found you a husband? Who is it?”
“Does it matter?”
The pity in his look made me grit my teeth. I turned away, continuing down the path. Daniel was soon by my side.
“I cannot believe they would do this,” he said.
I thought hearing disbelief in his voice would make me feel better, his incredulity a validation for my dismay, but it didn’t. It only made the void within me grow.
“After all my efforts to reestablish myself, to make people forget. . . . Everyone will say they aren’t surprised this is the only way I could get a husband.”
“Well, you haven’t married. So, in a way they would be correct.”
“Daniel!”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”