“Is it early?” she asked lightly. “I hadn’t noticed. I thought I’d go to the village and pay a call to Mrs. Munroe. I left my best gowns in Scotland and will need to replace them. You don’t mind, do you, Pappa? Oh, and I should like to send for Nell, if you please. I’m quite lost without her.”

Her father didn’t respond right away, so Margot glanced at him over her shoulder, still smiling. His gaze flicked over her, assessing. “As you wish.”

“Thank you.” She picked up a piece of toast and started for the door.

“Margot?”

She closed her eyes, took a breath, then turned back with her false smile. “Yes?”

“Have a footman accompany you to the village.”

His concern was maddening, given what he’d done to her. He certainly hadn’t cared about her when he’d discarded her husband. Margot very much would have liked to have said as much, too, but her soaring indignation was child’s play compared to what he’d done to Arran, and she had to keep her calm if she had any hope of helping him. “Of course. Good day, my lord.” She gave him a cheery wave and went out.

* * *

THE FOOTMAN STEPHEN was sent to accompany her. Margot brooded as he handled the team, slouching in her seat, her gaze fixed blindly on the passing countryside. When they reached the village, she sat up and composed herself. She turned to Stephen and said, “I mean to call on Mrs. Munroe.”

“Yes, milady.”

“And in the meantime, I should like you to give over the reins to one of the boys there,” she said, nodding at the boys from the mews. “Have them mind the team, and then you may go around to the butcher and buy a ham. I am of a mind for ham.”

Stephen looked up the high street. “We’ve ham at Norwood Park. They were butchering—”

“I want this ham,” she said a bit curtly to ward off any further arguing the footman thought he ought to do on behalf of the Norwood Park hogs. She reached into her reticule and retrieved two shillings. “For the boy,” she said, and hopped down from the carriage before Stephen could come round to help her. “Very well, Stephen, go now and see about that ham.”

“Yes, milady,” he said uncertainly. But he started up High Street all the same.

Good man, she thought. Obedient. Just as she’d been all her life. A mouse of a thing, always doing as her father and brothers instructed. Oh, but that girl was dead now, never to be resurrected.

Margot strolled along until she was certain Stephen couldn’t see her, then reversed course and hurried down High Street toward the Ramshorn Inn at the bottom of the road.