She set the flowers down on a step and held up her arms to him, smiling and tearing up at the same time.
He dismounted in one fluid motion and wrapped her in his arms. He held her tightly and wordlessly. "Meg," he murmured as he released her, and they both stepped aside to allow the carriage to come up and stop at the foot of the steps.
And then in no time at all Margaret was hugging her sister joyfully and turning to hug Elliott too.
And only gradually noticing something.
Nobody was smiling. Nobody was talking either except to say her name.
Something was wrong.
Kate! One of the children. The children were not with Nessie and Elliott. They never went anywhere without the children.
Margaret stepped back and looked fearfully from one to the other of them. She could feel the color draining from her face. "We had to come as fast as we could to warn you," Stephen said, looking from her to Duncan. "Tur – " "Stephen!" Vanessa said sharply. "The child!" "Oh," Margaret said, looking down at Toby, who was clinging to one of Duncan's legs, half hidden behind it. Oh, of course. She had not told them about him. Although Duncan had reluctantly agreed to let their neighbors know who he was, he had not wanted the rest of the world to know – including their families. "This is Tobias," she said, smiling at him. "Toby. He is … He is Duncan's son." "Hello, Toby," Vanessa said, smiling at him. "I am very pleased to meet you." Toby stayed half hidden. "I think," Duncan said, his hand on the child's head, "we had better step into the house. Maggie will take you all up to the drawing room while rooms are being prepared for you. I will join you after I have settled Toby in the nursery." He looked grim.
They all looked grim.
Margaret gathered up her flowers again and led the way up the steps. She handed them to a footman in the hall and led the way up to the drawing room. And incredibly, when they were there, they all conversed politely for ten minutes, until Duncan came to join them. Margaret asked about the children and Vanessa answered. Margaret asked about the journey and Elliott answered. She asked about Stephen's plans for the summer and he answered.
Just as if they were not all perfectly well aware that disaster loomed.
It was not about Kate, Margaret realized, or about any of the children.
They would have told her immediately.
She was pouring the tea when Duncan came into the drawing room and the door closed quietly behind him.
Margaret set down the teapot though she still had one more cup to pour.
Nobody got up to hand around the cups that had already been poured. "We came to warn you," Stephen said after a few moments of silence. "Fortunately we three were still in London, though Monty and Kate had already gone back to the country. Word is going around, Sheringford, that you are harboring a child here." "My son is living with me here, yes," Duncan said, advancing a little farther into the room, though he did not sit down. None of the men were sitting, in fact. Elliott was standing by the sideboard, Stephen by the window. "Maggie knew about him before we married and refused to allow him to be hidden away somewhere." "I love him," Margaret said, "as if he were my own." There was a slight buzzing in her ears. "Oh, Meg," Vanessa said in a rush, "it is being said that Toby is not Duncan's child but Randolph Turner's. And indeed he seems to be the right age, and he does have the look of Mr. Turner." "Laura was blond and delicate," Duncan said, his voice curiously flat. "I never knew her," Vanessa said. "But of course you are right. You would not have run off with another man's son. I know you would not, Duncan. But – " "But Turner himself believes that the child is his," Elliott said, one hand playing with the brandy decanter though he did not pour himself a glass. "So does Mrs. Pennethorne. Norman Pennethorne is beside himself with fury. It is being said that they are all coming here, Sheringford.
To take the child away." "Toby is mine," Duncan said. "No one is taking him anywhere." "Perhaps he /is/ yours, Sheringford," Stephen said. "I would not call you a liar, and I cannot think why you would want to keep the child if indeed he were not yours. Not now that the mother is dead, anyway." "Oh, Stephen," Vanessa cried, "you know nothing about parental feelings.
Just you wait." "That is all beside the point, Vanessa," Elliott said. "The point is that the child, whoever his father actually is, was born to Turner's wife – within nine months of her elopement with Sheringford. The boy is legally his. No court of law in England would rule against him." "No one," Duncan said again, "is taking Toby away from this house. I invite anyone to try." Margaret sat mute, her hands cupped in her lap.
It had happened, then. It was happening. She had no decision to make. It had been taken out of her hands. Toby was going to be taken away from them. As was only right.
She thought for a moment that she was going to faint. Or vomit.
She understood something suddenly – something that perhaps her mind had deliberately blocked during the past week. She understood those elusive flashes of recognition she had felt sometimes when looking at Toby. It had not been a likeness to Duncan she had been seeing, but a likeness to Randolph Turner. /His father/.
Her question was answered now. There could be no more doubt.
Toby was a legitimate child. He was the only son – and heir – of a wealthy, prominent member of the /ton/. Who had very possibly never beaten his wife in his life. Who had possibly loved her and been cruelly cuckolded.
Duncan had robbed a man of his son for almost five years.
He had robbed – or tried to rob – Toby of his birthright.
Why he had eloped with Laura Turner she did not know. Perhaps there /had/ been some abuse. But it all did not matter now. Toby was Randolph Turner's. "Excuse me," she said, and she got to her feet, pushing the tea tray back as she did so, and hurried from the room and down the stairs and out of the house. She was halfway along the avenue to the summer house before she slowed her steps. No one was coming after her.
Her family must know that for the moment there was no comfort they could offer.
And Duncan would not come.
She did not want him to come.
She never wanted to see him again.
That child. Oh, that poor child.
Duncan would have wasted considerable time going to the lake, but fortunately he had the presence of mind to ask a groom, who was in the stable yard rubbing down Merton's horse, if Lady Sheringford had passed that way.
She had not.
Duncan's second guess was the summer house, and he saw as he approached it along the avenue that he was right. She was sitting inside, not watching his approach, though she must have been aware of it.
He had not wanted to come. He wanted to be at the house, his arms tight about Toby. He had asked the three members of Maggie's family to protect him – should all the forces of the law arrive on his doorstep while he was gone, he supposed. "Of course we will," the duchess had said, tears swimming in her eyes. "Yes, of course," Merton and Moreland had said, almost in unison. "Go to Meg," the duchess had added.
He did not even want to be doing this, he thought as he neared the summer house. He had been angry with her all week – and more hurt than he had been willing to admit. He had thought she was coming to love him.
Yet she had not trusted him enough even to listen to what he had to say in answer to her questions, which she had answered herself.
Of course, the fault was at least half his. He ought not to have waited so long before telling her something she had every right to know.
He stepped inside the summer house and leaned back against the doorjamb.