Unveiled (Turner, #1)

But there was one thing that Margaret carried with her from those enchanted weeks. They were words she held in her heart, words she repeated to herself every night, and again on waking. I matter. I am important. And I am not giving up.

Perhaps that was why, the fourth time she was faced with Lady Elaine’s butler, she reached forwards and placed a card on the salver the butler had not yet proffered.

“Newton,” Margaret said in her most commanding voice, “do tell Lady Elaine that Lady Anna Margaret Dalrymple has come to call.”

It was both a gamble and a brazen lie. She wasn’t Lady Anna Margaret any longer, even though her card proclaimed her as such in raised letters on thick, creamy stock.

From behind Newton, Margaret could hear scraps of conversation wafting to her. They came from inside the house—murmurs, and then a peal of feminine laughter. Margaret recognized that high-pitched nervous giggle, ending on a snort. Her friend’s laughs were legendary. Margaret could imagine everything about the conversation Lady Elaine must be engaged in now—everything from the length of the visit (always long) to the number of times she would poke her head out of the room and call for more biscuits (often).

The butler cleared his throat, forcibly reminding Margaret that she wasn’t in the front parlor, partaking of tea.

“Lady Elaine,” he stated inflexibly, “is not at home to visitors.”

From the sound of things, Lady Elaine was in fact at home. With visitors.

Margaret looked the man in the eye and shook her head in disappointment. He didn’t blush—a man as well-trained as he would never show so much emotion—but after a few seconds, his gaze cut away.

“Newton,” Margaret said quietly, “you will at least deliver my card, and allow Lady Elaine to refuse me entry personally.”

Newton didn’t blink. He didn’t sigh. And most important, he didn’t move from his post, blocking the door. But his shoulders shifted—a tiny amount, not so much as to hunch. For him, it was a clear declaration of regret.

“How many times have you escorted me to Lady Elaine’s parlor? How many years have you known me?”

“Ma’am,” he replied, “you’ll have to take your card back.”

“No, Newton. It’s my lady,” Margaret corrected softly. “If you are going to refuse me entry, you will at least do me the honor of calling me by the title I was born with.”

Newton let out a pained breath. “My lady. I am not sure if I mean this as a compliment. You are the most politely relentless individual I have ever turned away from my mistress’s doorstep. Refusal does not deter you. Embarrassment does not stop you. What will work?”

“I’ll tell you what might work,” Margaret mused. “Perhaps you might refuse me entry. And perhaps we might converse about it, politely, with me out here, standing harmlessly on the step. You can continue to valiantly refuse. I shan’t raise a fuss, but because we are both polite, I might simply stand here and discuss the terms of my potential entry.”

Newton’s lips tugged down, in a hint of a scowl. “Terms of your entry? But your entry has no terms. You aren’t entering.”

She had only to wait just long enough. “Of course not,” Margaret sued. “But how am I not entering? Might I come in through the servants’ entrance?”

“Naturally not!”

“I don’t suppose I could crawl in through a window, left obligingly open.”

“Never.”

The tenor of that half-heard feminine conversation shifted in front of her, from murmurs to rustles.

“I suppose I am also not entering through the back garden, then.”

“N—” Newton started, but as he spoke, the parlor door behind him opened, and Lady Elaine poked her head out.

“Newton,” said the woman, “could you be a dear and—oooh.” As she spoke, Lady Elaine’s pale eyes fell on Margaret. For days, the woman had refused to see her. Margaret had wagered that it was because her friend lacked the personal fortitude to cut her to her face. Lady Elaine was, after all, a good sort of person. A bit silly, yes, and more than a bit frivolous. But she was sweet by nature. That she was unmarried at the age of twenty-five had more to do with her lack of dowry—and her very unfortunate laugh—than anything else. She was pretty enough, in a plump, soft way, and her lips rounded at the sight of Margaret.

Confronted with the sight of her friend for the first time in months, Elaine’s hand flew to her pale ringlets. “Oooh,” she repeated. “Margaret. My father has ordered me not to say another word on your brother’s behalf. He has quite literally ordered it.”

Margaret could almost see her friend’s italics, hanging in the air.

“It’s lucky, then, that I don’t wish to speak to you on my brother’s behalf. I wish to speak to you on mine. May I come in?”

Newton didn’t budge, and Elaine shook her head.