A Christmas Scandal by Jane Goodger Page A

for long, I fear.” She looked down at her stomach and Maggie felt an unfamiliar twinge of jealousy. Elizabeth could never know how lucky she was—indeed how lucky she’d been her entire life. Maggie refused to blame her friend for being completely unaware of what real heartache felt like. No one, not even her own mother, knew the demons that plagued Maggie, the nightmares that visited her far too frequently, the dreams she still held even though there was no chance, none at all, that her dreams could come true.
    “What on earth do you have to be afraid of?” Lady Matilda asked, coming onto the veranda.
    Maggie turned, smiling, until she saw Lord Hollings following behind in her wake.
    “Losing my freedom,” Elizabeth explained. “When the baby comes. I think you have inspired me to be a more attentive mother, Lady Matilda.”
    Lady Matilda put on a look of horror. “My dear girl, please, I beg you, do not use me as a model of motherhood. It was frugality more than anything else, at least when I was younger, that had me forgo more conventional methods of child-rearing. Horace and I tried governesses,” she said with a laugh. “And tried and tried. Governesses are miserable creatures, you know, poor things. I don’t think most of them even like children.”
    Maggie flushed, because she’d been thinking that being a governess was one of her few options. Miserable creatures. Yes, that was about it, she thought. If she ever left here, being a governess was one of the few respectable options left to her. And did she like children? She truly didn’t know. She’d never been around any, not for any extended time anyway. What if she didn’t like children? Would she become one of those bitter, onerous creatures that she’d seen sometimes in Central Park walking about with their charges? Those unfortunate women from fallen families who would look at the privileged few around them with jealousy and longing?
    “I had a wonderful governess,” Elizabeth said. “Though I must say, I would never say she was a jolly person,” she added thoughtfully.
    “I expect when you have no choices, it is difficult to be happy,” Maggie said softly.
    “I’m certain it is the option of last resort,” Elizabeth said, and Maggie forced a laugh.
    “Oh, there are far worse things for a woman than to be a governess,” she said, sounding, she suddenly realized, like a bitter, hardened woman.
    “That is true,” Lady Matilda said with a light laugh. “But certainly not for us, thank God.”
    For a moment, the roaring in Maggie’s ears blocked out all sound as memories assaulted her. Only the piercing pain of her nail on her wrist saved her. That small discomfort allowed her to join in on the light laughter, to laugh at the joke that no woman of her class could think of a worse condition than that of being a governess.
    “Miss Pierce.”
    Despite her resolve to remain unaffected by the earl, Maggie stiffened when he said her name. “Yes, Lord Hollings?”
    “I wonder if you would care to walk the grounds with me.”
    Edward watched as Maggie stiffened and he wondered why she suddenly was so uncomfortable around him. Perhaps it was that he was nearly a stranger to her, a man she’d danced with, had kissed once, and was now embarrassed to be confronted by such memories. Despite her rather cool reaction to him, some mad part of his brain was making him walk with her, forcing him to fertilize the humiliating seeds of hope he’d planted when he’d heard she was coming to England.
    “Of course,” she said, putting down her teacup with what he thought was reluctance. “Lady Matilda, would you care to join us? I would love to hear about your travels in France. I do hope that Mama and I can go to Paris before we go home and I would like your advice on where to go and what to see.”
    Edward watched with disbelief as Maggie deftly brought up the one subject Matilda could talk with joy about for hours.
    “If you don’t mind, Edward,”