Page 10 of The Gentlewoman Apprentice

A pigeon among peacocks. An apt description for Meg, who felt half present in the restrained but glittering Halverton drawing room. Though aristocratic blood ran in her veins, the circumstances of her birth placed her far lower than any butcher’s daughter.

“You must accompany us to the festival.” Lady Halverton leaned forward and took Meg’s reluctant hand. “It’s my second time attending, and I can tell you it’s a fine diversion.”

Meg’s stays tightened. Her gown for the festival lay in pieces, a cunning puzzle she lacked the wits to solve. “I don’t think I will go.”

“Oh, but you must. It is great fun. So romantic. You may find your match.”

Meg blinked so as not to roll her eyes. A suitor ranked last among her needs.

“Come early and my maid will attend to your hair. We can ready ourselves together. Please, say yes.”

Meg fingered the lace cap covering her tresses, finding the inevitable tendrils escaping onto her neck, then comparing them to Lady Halverton’s stylish coiffure. The image appealed. The two of them in a sumptuous boudoir, laughing, each examining the other for a stray curl or loose pin. Lady Halverton seemed to offer warmth and uncomplicated acceptance. She insisted they were sisters while Meg guarded her affection, waiting for the day Lord and Lady Halverton lost interest in their poor relation. Yet each Sunday after services, she escaped the crowded churchyard for the crossroad where a Halverton-crested carriage awaited.

Meg straightened, drawing herself from the soft pillow she had reclined into. The parlor, replete with billowy cushions and gentle words, stirred memories of the fleeting comfort Meg had known at her mother’s side. As a courtesan, her mother had cycled from poverty to wealth year to year, sometimes month to month. However benevolent the Halvertons appeared, they would tire of their ill-begotten family members. No matter that the dowager countess had accepted the illegitimate offspring of her unfaithful husband with saintly charity, insisting Samuel call her Grandmama. Meg knew better than to trust kindness. She had come to see Samuel, the one person who actually needed her, and upon him she must focus.

“I cannot promise,” Meg said.

Footsteps clattered and voices echoed into the parlor. Meg stood and set her teacup on the table. Samuel had arrived. She stepped toward the door, stopped, and composed herself.

“Go to him,” Lady Halverton said. “You’ve not seen him in a week.”

Meg bounded through the door and followed the voices of her two half-brothers until she found them in Lord Halverton’s hunting room, examining a mounted boar’s head.

“Samuel.” She spread her arms.

He lunged into them, circling her waist in a tight hug. She cradled his head to her middle. “My darling, but it’s good to see you.” Tilting his face up, she examined it. Full cheeks. Good coloring. Empty spaces in his mouth. “Your letters never said you’d lost your teeth.”

“Surprise.” Samuel grinned.

“He grows into a proper young man,” Lord Halverton said.

Meg pushed the nonsensical stinging from her eyes. “Come, Lady Halverton also wants to see you, and there are cakes.” She spoke around the lump in her throat, briskly taking Samuel’s hand.

“Just a moment, Meg,” Lord Halverton said, and she let Samuel scamper off ahead. Her older brother offered her a stack of papers. “I wanted to review these documents with you before the end of your visit.”

“The trust?” Meg asked. She had an identical copy of the document stashed away in her home. Every month or so Lord Halverton would bring it back to her attention, asking her to review it again and reinforce her understanding. She excused herself from the task whenever she could.

“Don’t give me that look, Meg. You, one of the most intelligent women in England, are capable of grasping its complexity.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted. Perhaps later, after I’ve spent time with Samuel.” She hoped he would forget.

For the next half hour Meg watched, satisfied, as Samuel ate three slices of lemon cake, laughed at Lady Halverton’s teasing, and related school tales with confidence. There was barely a trace of the four-year-old she had nursed through illness.

Declining a fourth slice, Samuel swung his legs beneath his chair as the adults fell to conversation. His foot caught the tea cart, rattling crockery. Samuel’s gaze slid to Lord Halverton’s, and they shared a smile. Meg waited for the young blue eyes to seek hers. They did not.

Samuel received Lord Halverton’s permission to go outside and ask the groom to saddle a pony and the stallion. He slid from the room without acknowledging the sister who had raised him through any number of hardships, who had kept him for three years on her own, though she had been a child herself.

She watched him go, her heart trailing after him. “Enjoy yourself. And be careful,” she said to his retreating figure.

Perhaps Meg should accept Lady Halverton’s oft-repeated offer of a donkey and carriage and visit Samuel at school. But there was never time. She must work and save and learn so she might provide for him before he grew too accustomed to all this finery.

Meg pushed to her feet. “You will excuse me.” She would spend every remaining moment with her brother. Outside, frozen air sliced her lungs as she dashed toward the stables.

She paused, one hand against the house, not wishing Samuel to see the yearning that surely marked her face. A hollow ache opened inside her, a longing for the days when he looked to her for love and guidance, for food and shelter. Through her toil, those days would return, with more security and greater opportunity than before.

Meg drew a slow breath and refocused on the landscape. A magnificent stretch of land and forest, distant hills speckled with sheep, a blue winter sky, beautiful in her distress. In the gray haze of London, she’d forgotten the world looked like this. Small wonder the boy preferred such grandeur to what she could offer. His memories of their life together held more want than comfort.

Rounding the corner, she found Samuel standing on one leg for as long as he could before hopping to the other.