Rolling over onto her stomach, she swatted at a piece of grass that threatened to tickle her nose and dropped her head onto one lanky arm. Overhead the summer sun beat down unmercifully and she wished she had not forgotten her bonnet. Now her freckles would be blatantly obvious, when before they had only shown in certain light, and her red hair would turn even redder – though how that was possible, she had no idea; she just knew it would because that is what her mother always said – and she would look like a heathen. A tall, freckle faced, red haired heathen.
“Oh who the bloody hell cares,” she grumbled, for it was true. No one but the servants saw her, and since they had not yet complained about her new habit of wearing boys clothing she highly doubted they would raise a fuss over a few freckles.
Since her wedding Margaret had been more or less stranded at Heathridge, a five hundred acre ramshackle estate that belonged to her new husband. She did not mind her isolated surroundings so much as she did the boredom that came with them. There was nothing to do, no one to talk to. No mischief to make. Her three closest friends had stayed for as long as they could after the wedding, but they all had their own lives to get back to. Catherine was busy raising three children and expecting her fourth, Josie was touring the continent with her lover, and Grace was preparing for her own wedding to the very ill suited – in Margaret’s opinion – Lord Melbourne.
“I could wither away and die here and no one would notice,” she sighed dramatically. Flopping over onto her back, she shaded her mismatched eyes against the sun and chewed down on her bottom lip. What she needed was a new adventure. Something to occupy the hours between breakfast and dinner. A new horse to train, perhaps.
For a moment Margaret’s entire face lit up, until she remembered her husband had run off with every cent of her rather extensive dowry right after dumping her at his rotting excuse of an estate. She still did not know if he had intentionally stranded her without a penny to her name, or if the thought had simply not occurred to him to set up an allowance for his new wife before he took off for the unknown, but either way the result was the same. Until he returned, or by some miracle her parents decided to come and rescue her, she was stuck. She couldn’t even escape if she wanted to, for the carriage house was devoid of a carriage and the barn held nothing but horses so old their backs sagged nearly to the ground.
She had attempted to hire someone to take her to London, but no one within a twenty mile radius would supply a service without money up front due to her husband’s unpaid debts.
“I am a poor Duchess,” Margaret sighed. Tipping her head to the side she arched an eyebrow at the sheep grazing next to her. “Have you ever heard of a poor Duchess? No? Well, me either. But no use crying over spilt milk, I suppose. Stiff upper lip, best foot forward and all that. Here we go.”
Springing to her feet she wiped her grass stained palms on the sides of the brown breeches one of the stable boys had given her and straightened out her white linen shirt. It belonged to her husband, the only thing she had of his, since he had forgotten to give her a ring, and was nearly three sizes too big. The long hem line helped distract from the fact that her breeches – while in otherwise good condition – ended just below her knees. Had it not been for her shock of fiery red hair that tumbled nearly to her waist and her narrow, pixie like face that could never be confused for anything but female, Margaret might have passed for a boy, something she would not have minded in the least.
It was an inescapable fact that men had better luck than women. Why, just look at her husband – eight months ago he had been broke and destitute; now he was rich as a lark and off traveling the world spending her dowry while she was stuck in his downtrodden estate. Not fair at all, that.
Giving the sheep an absent pat on its furry head, Margaret skipped down the side of the hill and half walked, half ran the rest of the way to Heathridge.
In better hands the fifty seven room estate must have been nothing short of magnificent, but time and neglect had taken its toll. Paint was peeling from the window trim. Large chunks of plaster were missing from the walls. Even the grass surrounding the estate was overgrown and filled with weeds after the gardener had quit and there had been no money to replace him. The inside of the mansion was no better than the outside, with dingy floors, dusty tapestries, and an overpowering smell of mold on rainy days.
Flushed and perspiring slightly, Margaret slowed to a more dignified walk just short of the front steps. They spiraled out from the main door, but even they were chipped on the edges and grass had begun to grow between the granite cracks.
Hastings, the butler/footman/occasional head cook met her just inside the door with a cool glass of lemon water. A portly man in his early fifties, he had loyally served the Heathridge family for thirty years and had not received a salary for the last five of them. Still he stayed on, mostly in part because he had no where else to go, and no family to speak of.
“Here you are, Lady Winter,” he said, extending the glass out to Margaret.
She took it and drank thirstily, hiccupped, and set the glass aside on a dusty table. “I have told you not to call me that,” she reminded him sternly.