Page 19 of The Tartan Trap

Margaret decided to be the bigger person and ignore her. This was not the first time one of her sisters had commented on her height. She supposed it was nothing compared to the superiority they could have claimed.

“Is this truly the best you think you can do?” Beatrice cocked her chin and stared at Margaret.

Margaret lifted a shoulder and flushed. She didn’t care for their piercing gazes. Rachel stared at her until Margaret was tempted to fiddle with the lace edging her sleeves.

“Unacceptable,” Rachel finally said, crumpling the parchment in her fist and only relinquishing it to the floor once it was a compact ball. “We will start again.”

Margaret rolled her eyes. “We’ve already been through this. You think my list is preposterously dull, and I find yours simply preposterous.”

Beatrice frowned at each of them in turn. “Have you been making lists without me, then?”

“We can make yours next,” Rachel said, picking up a pen. “But Margaret is in more dire need of assistance than you at the moment.” As she wrote, she announced, “Again, at the top of the list is the Duke of Ettrick.”

Margaret made a sort of disgusted noise in her throat. “Don’t bother,” she muttered.

“You haven’t met the gentleman,” Rachel said, “so there’s no use arguing that he won’t be interested until you do.”

“I haven’t met him, but I’ve seen him.”

“Oh?” Beatrice arched an eyebrow. “When was this? You didn’t say anything.”

Margaret sighed. “I saw him on the street yesterday.”

Beatrice came round the sofa and plopped down next to Margaret, her eyes bright. “And?”

“And he’s every bit as handsome as they say,” Margaret admitted begrudgingly.

“That’s certainly hard to believe,” Rachel said, still jotting names down on the parchment. “They say quite a bit.”

“Tell me all about him,” Beatrice said.

Margaret waved her fingers through the air dismissively and said, “He’s tall, he’s handsome. But even that was not enough to admire, as I don’t care for the company he keeps. He was walking with Daisy Knope.”

Beatrice made a retching sound. “What a terrible waste that is. And how on earth does she keep getting these gentlemen’s attention? First a marquess and now a duke!”

“I don’t know the story,” Rachel said, looking between the sisters for explanation.

Margaret was thankful when Beatrice replied. It was a topic that had been discussed nearly to death, and she felt it too much effort and a waste of breath to repeat it once more.

“Daisy was engaged to the Marquess Beaufort,” Beatrice started.

“A coup for a social-climbing female like herself,” Margaret interjected quickly. Apparently she had the energy for the conversation, after all.

Beatrice nodded. “They went on a holiday to the countryside with a group of young people, and all anyone knows is that once they returned, he called off the engagement.”

“Some say she’d been discovered coming from one of the other gentlemen’s rooms,” Margaret said. “But I don’t believe it.”

“Quite. Despite her faults, Daisy isn’t so foolish as to seek another’s attention when she had a marquess upon the hook.”

“Yes,” Margaret said, huffing a laugh. “Other ladies might have their head turned by charm or a handsome face, but I firmly believe that an esteemed title is all the warmth Daisy will ever need in a relationship.”

“So what do you think happened?” Rachel asked.

“I think the marquess truly got to know his bride-to-be and was disinclined to spend the next thirty years with the talons of a discordant vulture sunk into him,” Beatrice said.

“That seems like a harsh assessment.” Rachel frowned.

“Hardly,” Margaret grumbled.