With regard to your latest letter, I am delighted to learn that Lady Julia has been so forthcoming with the charitable funds for your children’s book. As to your decision to write to your father—we promised always to be honest with each other, did we not? While I admire the sentiment that lies behind the approach, I confess that I think you are acting prematurely. I assumed that you were content at Powerscourt. I know that Lewis Wingfield’s visit gave you pause for thought, but Mervyn considers his brother to be a somewhat erratic and unreliable character. Is he the reason you are suddenly impatient for change? What would be the harm in waiting until October, for example, when you come of age? Writing directly to the duke, and not through the intermediary of your mother, also seems unnecessarily risky.

I will say no more on this for the present. Do not take this mild censure amiss, I beg of you. Please believe that I have, above all, your interests at heart. You say that you are indifferent to your father, but I fear you will discover, in his rejection or his silence, that you are mistaken. I know how deeply hurt you have been by his actions in the past. I only wish to spare you being hurt further.

With very best wishes always,

Donald

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Thursday, 10 October 1867

MARGARET SAT IN THE WINDOW seat of her bedchamber, her birthday letters spread out in front of her. Mama, Victoria, and Mary had all written to congratulate her on her coming of age.

There was nothing from Louise. Margaret had braced herself for this, for the two brief, bland missives she had written to Louise had remained unanswered or may never have been read. All the same, the continuing silence hurt. She and Louise had marked so many milestones in each other’s lives, she could not believe Louise had forgotten this one. Unless the fears she had expressed at Helena’s wedding had been realised? What exactly had she been afraid of? Frowning as she tried to recall the conversation, Margaret began to doubt her own assumptions. Had Louise been exaggerating the situation, or even made it up entirely, wishing in a perverse way to trump Margaret’s romance with one of her own? Despite the fact that she was younger, she always liked to think of herself as the more worldly, the more sophisticated of the two of them.