A Radical Arrangement Read online

  At the back door, their hostess met them with cloaks for the ladies. She did not speak again as they put them on and, one by one, stepped out into the mild July night. There was indeed a full moon, and it shed a surprising amount of silvery light, though the group also took three lanterns. Mr. Mayfield led the party through the garden and onto a gravel drive that led to the outbuildings. The squire strode happily along beside him, chatting about cattle breeding and seemingly oblivious to the violent emotions he had aroused in more than one of the females behind them.

  Margaret gradually dropped behind the others. She disliked cows and didn’t at all want to walk through the barns in her white satin gown. But neither did she want to attract any of her mother’s barely suppressed bad temper to herself by saying anything. She thought perhaps if she slipped away quietly and waited somewhere outside, she could rejoin the others later without comment. Had she dared, she would have returned to the house, but this seemed too much to venture.

  The group was walking rapidly, and in a few moments Margaret was alone on the gravel path, listening to their voices drift off ahead. She stopped and looked around for a bench she knew to be nearby. She would wait here for their return. But even as she saw it and started forward a movement caught her eye, and Sir Justin Keighley materialized out of the darkness to stand before her. “I saw you drop back,” he said, “and I suddenly found I hadn’t the slightest wish to see this fabulous cow.”

  Margaret had started violently at his appearance. Now she began to tremble as she had earlier under his magnetic gaze. How could she escape? He stood between her and the safety of the group.

  Keighley’s eyes twinkled, though his face remained impassive. A more experienced observer than Margaret might have suspected he was teasing her. “Has your garden other points of interest?” he asked. “Perhaps we could indulge in a moonlight stroll while the others are in the barns.” He raised one black brow and offered his arm. Margaret swallowed and tried to speak, but no words came out. She had never imagined in her worst nightmares that she would be left alone with the man her mother had characterized as “immoral, impious, and thoroughly untrustworthy.” One side of Keighley’s mouth jerked. “Surely there must be something worth seeing?” he added. “An ornamental pond in the moonlight? An avenue of limes? No? I can scarcely credit it. Let us explore and see what we can find.” He took Margaret’s hand and pulled her arm through his, causing her to tremble even more violently.

  “I c-can’t,” the girl finally managed. “I must g-go to Mama.”

  “Oh, they will be along in a moment,” answered Sir Justin. “They cannot linger long over a heifer. We will no doubt meet them returning.” With that, he guided Margaret into a side path that led back toward the bottom of the garden.

  They walked for a while in silence. Margaret was too frightened to speak, and Sir Justin was beginning to be bored. He had not believed that any young woman could be as bland and spiritless as Margaret Mayfield had appeared at the dinner table. But given the opportunity to exhibit some liveliness, she remained disgustingly insipid. He started to regret his impulse to tease her.

  “You were in London for the season, I believe, Miss Mayfield?” he said finally to break the silence.

  Margaret fleetingly raised huge blue eyes, then dropped them again, nodding.

  “Did you enjoy yourself?”

  These commonplace remarks, which might have set another girl more at ease, merely increased Margaret’s agitation. Why was this man talking to her so? What did he plan? It must be something horrible. Her mother had assured her that he was capable of nothing else.

  When she did not answer him, Keighley sighed. Miss Mayfield was, unbelievably, even more tedious than her parents. There was no sport in baiting such a creature. “Perhaps we should go back…” he started to say when, in his view, the girl abruptly went mad, clawing at his arm and gabbling hysterically.

  For Margaret had suddenly, so she thought, divined his purpose in luring her away from the others. Ahead of them, just around the bend in the path, was the old summerhouse, a slightly tumbledown, disused building that Mr. Mayfield had recently locked up because of some misconduct on the part of a footman and a chambermaid. Margaret did not precisely understand what their sin had been, but she knew it was heinous, and she did not doubt that Keighley had brought her here for the same purpose. “Let me go,” she gasped, tugging ineffectually at his arm.

  Astonished, Sir Justin did so.

  Margaret, by now beyond reason, pulled violently away from him, dislodging her cloak from her shoulders. She let it fall and started to run, thinking only of escape. But in her confusion she ran toward the summerhouse rather than away from it, and in a moment found herself backed against its door, desperate.

  “Miss Mayfield?” called Keighley. “What is the matter?” His voice held only bewilderment, but Margaret was incapable of noticing. As he rounded the curve in the path and confronted her, she could think of only one thing to do. If she could somehow open the summerhouse door and get inside, she could relock it and scream for help. Surely they would come for her before he could get in. She turned and scrabbled at the door. The lock was new, but it appeared that someone had been tampering with it, for after a moment something slipped and the door opened. Margaret gasped with relief. “Miss Mayfield?” said a deep voice just behind her. She gave a little shriek and thrust herself through the doorway, tearing the shoulder of her gown on the frame. But before she could slam the door again and lock it, the man was upon her. He put one hand on the door and said, “What is it? What is wrong? Are you ill?”

  “Leave me alone,” cried Margaret, stumbling back into the building. She caught her heel on an uneven floorboard and started to fall, her arms flailing about violently. The shoulder of her dress parted, and as she jerked to pull it closed again her head struck the corner of a small table behind her, and she crumpled, insensible, to the floor.

  Sir Justin bent over her, concerned and still bewildered. He felt her wrist for a pulse, then, hurriedly, her throat. There it was; she wasn’t dead, at least. Her skirts had tumbled above her knees in the fall, and the man started to smooth them when he was interrupted by a babble of voices outside. Before he could move, he was transfixed by the beam of a lantern, and the rest of the dinner party peered in at him.

  “My God,” shrieked Mrs. Mayfield. Maria Twitchel looked shocked to the core, and her husband’s prominent eyes nearly popped. Philip Manningham whitened and drew back a little while Squire Camden seemed to try to gather his wits.

  “Sir,” exclaimed Ralph Mayfield, who held the lantern. “What have you done to my daughter?”

  Sitting back on his heels, Sir Justin Keighley cursed vividly, drawing another shriek from his hostess and shocked glances from his fellow guests. Realizing that his hand still touched Margaret’s skirts, he removed it and stood, towering over the group at the door. “Absolutely nothing,’’ he replied, with a touch of hauteur.

  “Do you really expect me to believe that?” Mr. Mayfield looked apoplectic.

  Gazing from one to the other of his audience, Keighley almost sighed. “No,” he said. “I don’t suppose I do, really.”

  Two

  A half hour of complete chaos followed. Margaret was carried inside to her bedroom and revived, though she remained groggy and confused by her mother’s noisy lamentations. The dinner guests, except Sir Justin, were sent home, the Twitchels nearly bursting with furtive excitement. Philip Manningham, still very pale, retreated to his own chamber soon after, leaving Ralph Mayfield alone in the library with Keighley.

  Standing with his hands clasped behind him, his back to the empty fireplace, Mr. Mayfield looked distinctly nervous. But he summoned all his resolution and said, “Well, Sir Justin, what have you to say for yourself, eh?”

  “Just this.” And Keighley told him the whole story of his stroll with Margaret, omitting nothing.

  “Hah,” re
plied Mayfield when he had finished. He pondered a moment. “You expect me to believe that? That my daughter suddenly became hysterical for no reason and that the whole incident was her fault?”

  Keighley shrugged. “I have told you what happened. I don’t blame the girl. Perhaps I inadvertently said something to upset her. But I assure you I did not—”

  “You do not blame Margaret!” Mr. Mayfield’s uneasiness was forgotten in his anger. “Extraordinary! I find my daughter unconscious in the arms of a known rake, and he tells me he does not blame her. Well, sir, neither do I! I never dreamed of doing so. I hold you alone responsible, and I insist that you make amends for your scandalous attack on an innocent girl. I don’t know what you may be accustomed to, but Margaret is not an unprotected female.”

  Keighley raised one black brow. “Amends?”

  Mr. Mayfield glared at him.

  “Can you possibly mean…”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. You must marry my daughter as soon as possible, to stop the talk that has no doubt already begun. Maria Twitchel will lose no time in spreading the story of what she saw tonight. But if we immediately announce an engagement and a wedding date, perhaps…”

  Sir Justin’s face was stony. “Have I not seen a betrothal announcement for your daughter? Last month?”

  Mr. Mayfield made a despairing gesture. “That is at an end now, of course. Philip will not care to be married to a girl who has been publicly compromised.”

  “Will he not?” Keighley’s lip curled.

  “We could not expect it.” sighed the other. “But as Margaret must marry you, it is of no—”

  “Let me understand you. You consider me the sort of man who would violently assault a young gentlewoman, to the point of knocking her unconscious and tearing her clothes at an ordinary dinner party, and yet you insist that I marry your daughter?”

  Mayfield’s cheeks flushed slightly. “Much against my principles and inclination, I think it unavoidable, yes.”

  “You would sacrifice the girl without hesitation to some ridiculous notion of propriety?”

  “I do not consider the rules of society ridiculous, sir,” replied Ralph Mayfield stiffly. “Our moral code requires that—”

  “Your moral code,” echoed Sir Justin. “For my part, I flatly refuse.”

  His host gaped at him. “What?”

  “I refuse to go along with this ludicrous scheme. I haven’t the slightest desire to marry your daughter, nor she me if her behavior is any measure. I did not attack her, and I consider her honor unspotted as far as I am concerned. I won’t do it.” He rose, gazing down at the astounded Mayfield with a slight, ironic smile.

  “You…you will leave my daughter to be disgraced?” gasped the older man. “You will abandon her, her reputation ruined, her name a byword among—”

  “Oh, take a damper, Mayfield. If you and your wife had not made such a Cheltenham tragedy of this matter, we might have passed it off as the trifle it was. Did it occur to you to ask, ‘Did she fall?’ when you came upon us in your summerhouse? No, you immediately assumed the worst, as you supposedly ‘moral’ people always do, and cried, ‘Unhand my daughter.’ Well, your narrow-mindedness is simply not my responsibility. You will do as you please, of course, but if I were you, I would tell the gossips the truth. Miss Mayfield tripped and fell, and I was trying to help her.”

  “Only an idiot would believe that,” sputtered Mayfield.

  “Indeed?” Sir Justin eyed him with icy contempt. “From what I have seen of your friends, that should cause no difficulty. Good evening.” He turned on his heel and went out, leaving Ralph Mayfield speechless with shock and outrage.

  In the meantime, upstairs, Mrs. Mayfield had been talking somewhat incoherently to her daughter. Margaret was not feeling well. Her head hurt abominably, it was very late, and she wanted to sleep. And she was still emotionally shaken by her supposed ordeal in the garden. These things, combined with Mrs. Mayfield’s rambling monologue, prevented her from understanding what her mother was talking about for quite a time. At last, however, when she lamented, “To have to marry such a man,” for the fourth time, Margaret’s eyes widened.

  “What are you talking about, Mama?”

  Mrs. Mayfield wrung her hands. “About Sir Justin, dear. It pains me terribly to give you to such a man. I thought your future, such a different future, so admirably settled, and now this.”

  “I don’t understand.” Margaret tried to sit up straighter on her pillows but sank back with a moan, putting a hand to her injured head.

  Her mother looked surprised. “But what else have we been talking of this half hour? You must marry Sir Justin now, of course, after what happened. It is dreadful, but—”

  “M-marry,” Margaret gasped. She stared at her mother in horror.

  “I know you cannot like it, dear, but—”

  “Like it? I cannot do it. I never want to see him again as long as I live! He is horrible, despicable. I am afraid of him.”

  “He is certainly not the sort of man we would have chosen for you. But after what happened tonight, we have no choice. You are compromised, Margaret. You must marry him.”

  “Mama, I cannot. I…I hate him.”

  “I understand your feelings. He has acted in a way even I would not have expected. When you are married, however, he must treat you with that…”

  Despite the pain, Margaret struggled upright. “Mama, you cannot mean this. You are not serious. You could not make me marry that man, after what he did to me.”

  Mrs. Mayfield shook her head mournfully. “I wish I need not, Margaret. But you must understand that this incident has destroyed your reputation. To be seen in such a compromising position by a number of people, practically strangers. The story will be common property in a week. The only way to scotch it is with a marriage. Your father’s political position…”

  “His position? What about mine? How could I live as his wife?”

  “You might have thought of that before you slipped away alone with him,” retorted her mother, who was becoming incensed with Margaret’s unusual resistance. Her daughter had never before opposed her will.

  “Slipped away?” Margaret gazed at her in outrage.

  “Well, dear, you know that such behavior only encourages the kind of insult you received tonight. Sir Justin was in the wrong, of course, but he could not have, er, interfered with you if you had not given him the opportunity.”

  For an instant Margaret almost felt guilty for having dropped back from the group after dinner, then a quite unaccustomed rage rose in her docile breast. “That isn’t true!” she cried. “I did not give him any opportunities. I did nothing. And I will never marry him. I hate him.”

  “Margaret, do not talk to me in that tone.” Mrs. Mayfield was more startled than alarmed at her daughter’s defiance.

  “I won’t marry him. I won’t.” Margaret buried her head in her pillows.

  Her mother started to speak, then paused. “You are exhausted,” she answered finally. “Try to sleep. We will talk in the morning.”

  There was no reply. Margaret was fighting tears and a growing terror. Disobeying her parents’ wishes was nearly as frightening as what they wanted her to do. She was overcome by the strong emotions of this new dilemma.

  Mrs. Mayfield gazed at her muffled form for a moment, a spark of something like sympathy in her rather hard eyes, then left the room and walked downstairs to the library. There she found her husband alone. “Has Sir Justin gone already?” she asked. “I supposed I would find him still with you. Ralph, I’m afraid we have a problem. Margaret is insisting that she will not marry Keighley. We can bring her round, of course, but it may take a little—”

  “It doesn’t signify,” replied Mr. Mayfield wearily. “He categorically refuses to have her.”

  His wife’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

/>   “He won’t offer for her. Told me some rigmarole about Margaret’s running from him and falling, for no reason. Patently false, of course, but he says he won’t marry. He walked out on me.”

  “We must make him.”

  “How do you propose to do that? We have no influence with such a man. He doesn’t even like us.”

  Mrs. Mayfield drew herself up alarmingly. “I shall go and talk to him, first thing tomorrow. He can’t get away with this, not with my daughter.”

  Her husband shrugged. “You may try, certainly. But he won’t listen to you.”

  “He must.” The couple’s eyes met for a long moment. “What will we do if he does not, Ralph?”

  He shrugged again. “I suppose young Philip…”

  “Will withdraw, of course. What would you do?”

  Mr. Mayfield seemed uneasy about this question. “Perhaps we could find someone else to take her.”

  His wife laughed harshly. “A nobody? A tuft hunter satisfied with our consequence? No, it must be Keighley. It is his duty.”

  “He does not think so.”

  “I shall make him.”

  Mr. Mayfield looked skeptical, but he said only, “I hope you may, my dear.”

  Margaret did not fall asleep when her mother left her; she was far too upset. She tossed and turned in the bed like an animal caught in a trap and wondered what she could do. She knew she had not moved her mother. Tomorrow both her parents would exert their authority, and as she had never resisted it in her life before, she could not imagine doing so now. She would have to marry Sir Justin Keighley.

  This thought drew a small moan. She could not! She really did hate and fear the man. Her feelings toward him were stronger than any she had ever experienced. Indeed, he seemed, in one short evening, to have turned her whole life upside down. What she was feeling now was immeasurably more intense than anything she had known. Her anger at her mother, her obstinate certainty about what she did not want, her fear for the future—all were dauntingly exaggerated. Her mind whirled with the violence of her own reactions. What was happening to her?