Margot came back from another day out with Geoffrey shining with happiness. The weather had been perfect and, while there were many beautiful places in the world, surely none surpassed the Cotswolds on a perfect late summer day. The sky was an unbroken blue and the rolling hills were bathed in light. Little villages, some of them a thousand years old, lay at peace in the warmth. The early gold of autumn had touched them.
They had spent all day just being happy. Geoffrey was funny when he wanted to be. He laughed easily. And yet, under the light surface, Margot knew there was a far more serious man. She would have liked him if it were not so, but she would never have loved him.
Of course, Wyndham Hall was not Geoffrey Baden’s home. It belonged to his sister, Griselda Wyndham, and was hers only by marriage. But this changed nothing for Geoffrey: He belonged to this land. He had lived in several homes in the area, and he had told Margot stories about almost every one of them, funny and sad and full of emotion. He even spoke occasionally of the friends he had lost during the war. Then he was suddenly silent, aware again of the grief never completely forgotten.
When he shared these stories, she did not interrupt him, except when, interspersed among his stories, she shared recollections about her own family. This was harder to do, because it meant going further back than a single generation, and she knew very little about her mother’s family. Her mother was American and came from city people. When Elena had gone to Washington, D.C., it had been with her parents, but Margot had been unable to join them. All Margot had seen was the grief on their faces when they returned. She had asked Elena for more information, but Elena had refused to tell her anything other than the bare facts. It had been one more situation where Margot felt distanced from her own family, as if they couldn’t trust her with their secrets. To this day, she had no idea what had happened, except that her grandfather had died suddenly of a heart attack only a few days after a murder had taken place in his home.
She thought of Lucas and Josephine Standish. Josephine was wonderful, and Margot could certainly introduce Geoffrey to both of them at the first opportunity that arose. Geoffrey’s face lit up when she told him so.
“Thank you. I look forward to that,” he said, smiling as he drove them back to Wyndham Hall. “It sounds as if you come from a very distinguished family. But you haven’t said a great deal about your father. Wait, perhaps that’s unfair. You did mention all the cities you lived in, and how you loved learning all their different ways. I’ve been to Paris and Berlin, of course, but never to Madrid. It sounds wonderful. And again, completely different.”
She was pleased by his eagerness. She loved sharing her impressions of the beauty and extraordinary variety of the land, from the mountains and forests of the north to the towering Pyrenees to the hot Mediterranean beaches of the south, with its rich Arab and Moorish history.
“Spain was a world power when Rome and Berlin were far less so,” she said. “I’m afraid its greatest days began to wane in 1492.”
“With the discovery of America?” He looked at her incredulously for a moment before he turned his attention back to the road.
“No!” She laughed before turning serious. “With the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and of course the Muslims, too. Half the wealth of the New World was wasted. Frittered away instead of used wisely. It was a Spanish historian who told me that. I thought she was joking, but she was absolutely serious. That was about the time of the Borgia popes, who were, of course, Spanish.”
“Was that such a disaster?” He was teasing her, and she knew it. It was a comfortable feeling, in a strange way familiar, as if they had known each other a long time. She did not bother to answer.
“You could be Spanish,” he commented after a few moments. “All that beautiful black hair. Will you take it down for me, one day soon? It’s almost like another woman undressing. It’s lovely, and you always keep it tied up so sleekly.”
“Of course I will.” She had no hesitation in the words, yet she felt as if it were a giant step toward an ultimate familiarity, even intimacy.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but it’s much more beautiful and mysterious than the blond hair of your sister. There are millions of blondes, and too many of them think that their hair is enough. No need for further effort.” He smiled. “I don’t find the obvious very attractive.”
She did not answer him, but she felt a warmth inside her. She had always been the striking one, the mysterious one, and Elena was the younger sister, forever a step or two behind, and it seemed particularly so now.
When they returned to Wyndham Hall, it was an hour and a half before dinner. Naturally, everyone was expected to attend and to dress appropriately.
Margot decided to stop off at Elena’s room and see what she planned to wear so they did not accidentally wear too-similar dresses. Not that Elena would look good in Margot’s style.
And she wished to share a little of her feeling of hope, as they had shared things with each other over the years: laughter and grief, adventures and joys. Elena was here because she wanted to share Margot’s happiness.
She knocked on the door and heard Elena’s voice inside inviting her in.
Elena was wearing only a slip. Clearly, she had not decided on a dress yet. Two of them were hanging in the wardrobe. One was a soft lilac silk. Margot had tried to warn Elena away from wearing blue, which was so predictable for a blonde. But this was not ordinary at all, or even blue. It was more the color of wild irises, and since it was silk, it would take shape from the body of the woman who wore it. An attempt to seduce Allenby? A bit obvious.
The other dress was red, with a full skirt. It was soft as well, the sort of cut that would move when one walked, and it was longer.
“They’re both nice.” Margot nodded approvingly. “I would keep that red for tomorrow, and the other one for…” She smiled. “This evening, it’s only family.”
“Who is coming tomorrow?” Elena wondered.
“Not sure…” Margot thought for only a moment. “Elena, are you in love with Allenby? I mean really, not just find him all right?”
Elena froze. It was seconds before she spoke, after her mind went racing for the right answer, the believable one. “I don’t know him very well yet. I met him in Washington, and I haven’t seen him since I came back.”
“How did you meet him?” Margot asked. “You never told me. Is he a friend of Grandmother and Grandfather?”
“He was at the party,” Elena replied. “So, I suppose in some way he must be. He was working for the British Embassy.”
“So, Father knew him?” Margot pressed the issue. If Elena was serious about him, she needed to know at least something.
Elena hesitated for no more than a second, maybe two. “Yes. Father knows all sorts of people, far more than we realize. Or, at least, more than I do.”
An explanation, Margot thought, but not a very satisfactory one. It was lukewarm. “Did Allenby look you up, contact you on your return?” she said, sounding as if she had a distaste for a man who could treat her sister casually. “Don’t give in too easily; make him work for it,” she instructed her. “I’m not sure whether I like him or not. He strikes me as a bit insensitive.”
“He’s not trying to earn your regard,” Elena snapped. “We shared a few adventures in Washington, and he was very kind. I’ve traveled since then, and I dare say he has as well.”
Margot was someone who was always frank. Her honesty could be unpleasant, but everyone understood that she did not lie. In her eyes, lies could do untold harm. And Margot had learned long ago that, when it came to facing the truth, her sister was a bit of a dreamer. “Why did you bring him here?” she asked. “Or is it more likely that he engineered an invitation? Oh, be careful, Elena, please! You could be hurt again!”
When Elena flushed, Margot knew that she had gone too far. But how could she undo it?
“No doubt I will be,” Elena muttered between her teeth. “Hurt, that is. But I’m not thinking of marrying him. And if I marry at all—which by your reckoning is unlikely—it will be because I love someone, and at least believe he loves me, even if I turn out to be wrong. And you can be sure I won’t marry anyone so that I’m invited to all the right parties!”
Margot felt her own face flame in embarrassment. “Well, this is one right party,” she retorted tartly. “Do you think you’ll be asked to leave if you don’t find someone very quickly? Like…before you come down to dinner? If so, I can arrange to have someone drive you to the nearest railway station.”
“And how will you explain that to your new friends?” Elena asked. But she looked very white, as if the ground had suddenly opened up in front of her. “I have been nothing but polite toward them. The worst I have done is outshine them with my gown on one occasion. Or is it you I outshone, and for the first time? The shoe has always been on the other foot! And I didn’t expect you to apologize for it. Do your damnedest, and I’ll keep up with you, or I won’t. Either way, I won’t blame you.”
“Get out, or I really will ask Griselda to suggest you leave,” Margot warned bitterly. She had painted herself into a corner, and she was furious. How had this escalated so quickly?
“This is my bedroom, you fool!” Elena spat back. “Everyone will wonder why I’ve left, and it will be you who will have to explain.”
Margot turned and flung the door open and stormed onto the landing. She almost ran into James Allenby.
He raised his eyebrows with a slight smile. “Am I likely to get hit if I go in?” he asked, amused, no fear in his voice at all.
Margot composed herself with a great effort. “Not if you tread carefully,” she said sharply, and walked straight on by him.
He remained standing there by himself…and laughing.
Margot returned to her own room. She had forgotten what she was going to say to Elena anyway. It had been something pleasant, so it was purposeless to say it now, since she would not mean it. For the first time, a shadow was cast over her happiness. By marrying Geoffrey Baden and more or less joining the Wyndham family, who had made her feel so welcome, was she going to lose her own family? Why? That was completely unfair. What was wrong with Elena? Was her jealousy really so deep?
Margot knew that jealousy was one of the most corrosive passions in life. It had driven all sorts of people apart: sisters and brothers, husbands and wives, parents and children. So what if she had loved and married Paul Driscoll and a week later lost him—did that mean there was no second chance at love? And while she was still young enough to have children?
And what was Elena doing now? Photography? All that rich university education in classics and fluency in languages, and she was relegated to taking pretty pictures of debutantes and brides in society.
What if Elena was in love with a man who clearly liked her, but was not in love with her?
Margot tried to push those thoughts away. She was at last on the brink of real happiness, but Elena had nothing. Well, nothing real. And it was not easy for the couple of million young women in Britain who would never marry because the young men who might have been their husbands had died on the battlefields of Europe. None of these young women were at fault for being single, or for being occasionally jealous of women who had the good fortune to marry.
Margot reminded herself that she had found two men who loved her, and Elena had found none. As this thought crossed her mind, she felt ashamed that she had let her anger make her so cruel. Thank God she had lashed out only in front of her sister and no one else, especially Geoffrey. This was a side of her she must never show again.
Margot turned her mind to what she would wear this evening. She already knew that Elena would not wear black again, which meant that she could wear black without being compared to her sister. Black was not considered a summer color, but it was almost autumn, and this gown suited her. She hoped Elena would wear the iris blue. It would suit her fair skin. And as long as she smiled, she would look lovely.
Thank goodness David Wyndham seemed to like Elena. He was an unusually nice man, charming without affectation, as if it was natural to him. At the same time, David’s wife, Griselda, clearly did not like Elena, as she had made plain to Margot. It was not what she had said as much as what she had not said. This was troubling.
Margot pushed that thought aside. Elena was a big girl; she could damn well take care of herself!