Maggie by M.C. Beaton Page A

drank quite a lot of wine. She was very silent, and soon the earl stopped trying to make conversation.
    “Now, Maggie,” said the earl when the silent meal was finished and Roshie had retired to the kitchens with a tray of dishes. “Come and I will show you to your room.”
    He was surprised by a look of disgust on her face, quickly masked. Nonetheless, she followed him quietly up the narrow staircase with its beautiful thin curving mahogany banister. He pushed open a door. A large four-poster bed dominated the room and a small fire crackled brightly on the hearth.
    The earl stood looking down at her. He knew she was frightened and distressed and wanted to say some words of comfort, but he could not begin to guess what she felt. Her drawn, tired face had a tight, withdrawn look.
    “Goodnight, Maggie,” he said finally. “I shall see you at breakfast.”
    Her wide brown eyes stared up into his blue ones. Her gaze then flicked from the bed and back to his face and her eyes filled with tears.
    “Oh, thank you,” she said. “
Thank you!
” And, throwing her arms around his neck, she kissed him on the cheek.
    He patted her clumsily on the shoulder and said again that he would see her in the morning. He half turned in the doorway and looked curiously back at her. How incredibly beautiful she looked with her huge peaty eyes shining with gratitude and her midnight-black curls rioting about thecreamy pallor of her face and neck!
    He raised his hand in a sort of salute and gently closed the door behind him.
    Why had she suddenly been so grateful? he mused, as he removed his clothes in the privacy of his room.
    All at once he realized she had been afraid that he wished to seduce her. He smiled ruefully as he climbed into bed.
    Meanwhile, Maggie undressed in front of the fire. She would need to sleep in her petticoat. Miss Meikle had offered to return from Park Terrace with a suitcase but Mr. Byles had pointed out that she would undoubtedly be followed, and so Maggie had had to board the train without a change of clothes.
    There was a tall chest of drawers in one of the shadowy corners of the room, and, after some hesitation, she softly drew open the top drawer.
    It contained a few scarves and gloves, smelling faintly of musk. She opened one of the long drawers underneath. There was underwear, yellow with age, wrapped in tissue paper, the lace as fine as cobwebs. She would be able to change her underthings after all, the previous wearer having been as slight as herself.
    She selected a nightdress, wondering who had last worn it and how old it was.
    She climbed into bed, shutting out thoughts of the trial, of the earl, of her dead husband, firmly from her mind. She could not think of anything. Not yet.
    Or she might go mad.
    Another train, this time to Oxford.
    Maggie, again silent, sat opposite the earl, her face a closed mask.
    She had hardly said a thing, except ‘yes’ or ‘no’. He wondered if she had murdered her husband. Of course, he could simply ask her, but the sight of her withdrawn facestopped him. Why was it she had seemed so innocent in the court? Why should he have these terrible doubts now?
    As the flat fields of Oxfordshire began to roll past, he decided it was because he did not know her at all. She was a stranger, her very Highland-ness making her foreign to him. Her silence seemed unnatural.
    By the time the train steamed into Oxford, he decided her reticence was downright sinister.
    As the carriage that they had hired in Oxford took them out towards the village of Beaton Malden, the earl explained that his maiden aunt, a Miss Sarah Rochester, might not still be alive. He had not seen her in ten years. She lived in a large house on the outskirts of the village. And Maggie listened to all this information with apparent indifference.
    The carriage at last stopped in front of an old iron gate bearing the legend,
The Laurels.
A short drive led up to the house which was a sprawling, rambling affair of mellow