Free Quiet Meg by Sherry Lynn Ferguson

obstinacy.”
    Again the man swallowed.
    “You’ve been here for a week, man. Are you staying in
the village?” At that the intruder at last nodded. “Alone?”
    “Aye,” he said. “In the stables at the inn.”
    “Bertram, you’d best get on at once to Meakin at the inn.
Make certain no one else is lurking about and most of all
that no one departs without our knowledge. We don’t want
Sutcliffe to learn anything’s amiss. He’s apt to send reinforcements. And have that big fellow Finch come from the
stables to lend Nichols a hand”
    Bertie helped Nichols secure their captive, then quickly
mounted and raced away.
    “Now Cabot,” Sir Eustace said, turning back at last to
face them. “I thank you for a good morning’s work. I’ve no doubt Jefferies will deal with this fellow creditably. But I
must ask one more favor of you-that you join my family
for breakfast.”

    Cabot smiled as he bowed. Then he offered his arm to
escort Meg into the house.
    “Your father is enjoying this,” he said to her.
    “Yes” Meg was surprised to find she was trembling. “He
likes to arrange things.”
    “The magistrate will no doubt help reveal the man’s purpose,” Cabot said, as though to reassure her.
    “I know his purpose, Mr. Cabot” As she laid her gloves
and hat on the table in the hall her fingers were still unsteady. “What I do not understand is Lord Sutcliffe’s persistence. He has had years now … to forget. Yet he cannot
let me live as I wish. Even here at my home. Quietly..
    “Quietly?” Cabot repeated the word, with such disbelief
she was compelled to turn to him. “You cannot live quietly.
Even if Sutcliffe had never existed you could not have lived
quietly. The idea is preposterous” He eyed her impatiently,
as though frustrated by her incomprehension. “Perhaps it’s
time, before your departure for town, that you realize just
what you are. You were not put on this earth to live quietly,
Miss Lawrence. You were created to cause havoc. You
should heed those who recognize it, for there will always
be a Sutcliffe” His words were uncompromising, strangely
bitter, and struck Meg as entirely unwarranted. She would
have welcomed his comfort. But his attack seemed a betrayal.
    “You overstep, sir,” she said coldly, holding his grim
gaze. “What do you know of my situation, of my behavior?
And what can you possibly know of Lord Sutcliffe? I’m obliged to heed my father, out of affection and duty, but I
am not obliged to mind the presumptuous rants … of a
gardener.”

    “Margaret!” Her father’s unexpected roar chased her up
the stairs.

Lucy had accused her of woolgathering. For three
weeks-through the packing and removal to town, through
the first mad days of settling in at Aunt Pru’s town home, and
through Lucy’s ecstatic introduction to the modiste, the
milliner, the theater, museums, musicales, dinners, parties
and picnics-Meg’s mind had indeed been almost entirely
elsewhere. Even tonight, awaiting Lucy’s debut at Almack’s,
Meg found herself sitting alone in her darkening room.
    She had wanted to apologize. But at the last moment
her courage had failed her. And she had not seen Cabot
since.
    Meg had watched him, surreptitiously, for much of the
day following her outburst. She had watched him ride out
early to the lake, with one of his wagons of greenery. She
had watched him order the removal of the stakes in the
north lawn. And she had watched him at last out in the sun
with a crew of workmen, installing the path to the knoll. He had thrown himself into that labor as though he were one of
the menials, as eager as they to finish a rough and tiring
job. Indeed, he had removed his coat; Meg had even seen
him wielding a shovel, with a strong and practiced economy
and seeming resolution to flaunt his ability. Such disrespect
for his standing was not proper. It was not done. He had
known it was not done and had not cared. It was a