A Loving Duke for the Shy Duchess Bonus Scene

Margaret stood, shaking the hand of her father's land agent with a sick feeling growing in her stomach. He'd always been her father's man and hadn't yet accepted her leadership.

"I hope I can see you making those changes by our next meeting in a fortnight," she said as confidently as she could manage.

The man, middle-aged and curt, pressed his lips together in mild annoyance. "I don't see that there's any need to make changes from the ground up," he said. "Your father never did any such thing, and his estate was well-managed."

Margaret wasn't so sure about that. Looking at the books, though she still didn't fully understand all the figures and explanations, she could see that the estate was hurting for money.

If she'd actually had to pay Jerome at any point, he would have taken everything, even the house and the country properties. She would have been ruined.

"I just heard some ideas from a friend of mine," she said, thinking of a recent conversation with Sarah and Augustus where they'd given her some advice about management. "I think some of these prospects are good. Sheep are coming in more and more now, and Augustus says—"

"With all due respect, my lady," the agent said, taking his hat in his hand, "Lord Whitehall is not the agent of this estate: I am."

"And I am the owner."

"My lady, may I ask you a frank question?"

Margaret wanted to say "no" and leave it at that, but she didn't have the gumption after an hour of arguing with the man. Instead, she nodded for the man to continue.

"My question," he went on, "is whether or not you, personally, have ever taken care of property. Have you ever gone out to see to your tenants, investigated the workings of livestock, or leased property to farmers who actually understand agriculture?"

Margaret bit her lip and shook her head.

"Then, until you do, I think it best if you leave such decisions to me." He stared at her for a long moment and then turned away. "I'll come back in a fortnight, but I will be giving you an update on the estate as it currently stands."

Margaret knew she should stand up for herself but, staring at the agent, she just couldn't bring herself to push him out of his set ways — not yet. She wanted to be so much braver than she was.

Margaret watched the man leave with a feeling of weariness settling over her. It was a familiar feeling, and she'd wondered ever since the excitement with Jerome and Samuel when the awful feeling of fear would leave her.

It still hung around her like a cloud, and it influenced her more than she cared to admit.

She felt alone in the great house; divided from even her close friends Sarah and Lucille, the secret she'd managed to keep from all but Lord and Lady Crowan acting like an invisible wall between her and other relationships.

After the front door had closed behind the agent, Margaret walked listlessly back into the study and sat down in her father's old chair by the desk, opening one of the enormous books of figures and finances that she remembered him scribbling in when she was a little girl.

She ran her fingers over the long lines of numbers, feeling like they were a different language entirely. Sitting in that massive chair, looking at all that she didn't understand, Margaret felt like she was a little girl again.

She suddenly had an urge to reach out and write a note to Edmund Lockridge. She didn't know why, exactly, but she felt as though he could untie all the confusing knots in her mind.

He'd grown so confident and sturdy as of late, handling his new role at the House of Lords and in the management of his estate with calm and confidence. Or at least, she thought he seemed to be handling it that way. It was hard to know — after everything went down with Lucille, Edmund had had very little to say to Margaret.

That night of excitement was the last night she'd actually had any sort of conversation with him, and she knew in her heart why. He had told her not to endanger his sister, and that's exactly what she'd done.

"My lady?" Margaret looked up and saw the butler in the doorway, his hands holding a letter on a tray. "A message came for you, marked 'urgent'."

Margaret liked the old man. In all the changes, he always seemed to be loyal to the person owning the estate. Unlike the agent, he took Margaret's leadership as a given and didn't argue with her position or ideas.

She smiled and stood, waving him in.

"Thank you, Thomas. Will dinner be served at the usual time this evening?"

"Unless your ladyship would prefer something different." The man paused after she took the letter as though he wanted to say something else and wasn't sure of his place.

"Yes, Thomas?"

"My lady, was that the land agent I passed in the hallway just now?"

"It was."

Thomas sighed and pressed his hands together. "I don't wish to speak out of turn, but I noticed he seemed rather self-satisfied and said something about your conversation to one of the servants as he left.

"I don't need to go into the details, but I want to encourage you that your father gave you the run of this estate. If you have an idea or a thought you wish to implement, just remember that he thought you were strong enough to handle things. You should believe the same about yourself."

Margaret felt the prick of sudden tears in her eyes, blessed that the man had taken the time, despite his restrained nature, to speak such kindness into her life.

"Thank you, Thomas. I will try to be more forceful."

"I believe you will take to the business soon enough," he said with a little smile, bowing and leaving the room.

Margaret turned the letter over in her hand. It was written in a handwriting she didn't recognise, which was always an alarming thing now that she'd endured Jerome Colbourne's blackmail, but she tried to banish the fear from her mind as she ripped it open.

As she started to read, however, the old icy tendrils of fear started creeping up her spine.

My dear Lady Margaret,

I hope you haven't missed these little notes during my friend Jerome Colbourne's time in trial and, subsequently, prison. Perhaps you even thought this matter of your ill birth and unsavoury childhood connections was over when your friend found that slip of paper Colbourne kept in his warehouse.

I'm sorry, my lady, but you are grossly mistaken.

Margaret didn't want to read any more. Her heart was pounding in her throat, and hot tears flooded her eyelids.

Now she understood that cold feeling of dread she'd been carrying ever since the end of the Jerome affair. Everyone else was acting as though their happy endings had come at last, and Margaret hadn't been able to believe it.

Now she knew that her cynicism was for good reason. She read on, forcing herself to study every word for some sort of clue.

I am a friend of Colbourne's; an acquaintance, if you're particular, and I have a copy of the blackmail material that your clumsy friend so carelessly burned.

Yes, I was there when it was destroyed. Tell him, if you have a chance, to check the dark corners before trusting his actions and conversation to the shadows.

Colbourne gave me the blackmail months ago. He was always a man with a back-up plan, as it were, and he also gave me strict instructions for how you can recover the blackmail if you desire to do so.

I have written a sum of money at the bottom of this page. Pay it, and I will consider destroying the blackmail. Secure Jerome's release and I will take my consideration into actions and reality.

If you fail to do these two things, then I will release the information I have on you, and you will no longer be just a young girl mismanaging her father's legacy.

You will be a ruined woman who has brought shame on your father's name once and for all.

At the bottom of the page was an enormous number, signalling the amount of money required, as well as brief directions on where to send her response.

There was no clue there. Responding involved giving a note to a small page boy outside the House of Lords — it was a common trick of kidnappers and blackmailers and wouldn't lead back to the culprit in any way.

Margaret fought the urge to sink down to the ground and start crying. She wanted to dissolve into panic, but she knew that she didn't have that option anymore.

An amount of money like this was impossible with the current state of the estate, and after everything that happened with Colbourne, Margaret wasn't about to endanger more lives by bringing Lucille back into her troubles.

No, she had to handle this by herself.

She knew that if Colbourne had one back-up plan, he might have thought of others as well. She felt like she was trying to stop up a dam that kept having little holes opening all over — once one problem was solved, another arose.

As nervous as it made her, Margaret knew what she needed to do. She couldn't make the money necessary in a quick enough time — she needed to find a husband, someone that was wealthy enough to handle such a sum without losing his own estate, and she needed to do it quickly.

Margaret had no idea if it was even possible to find a man who would be willing to overlook the kind of disastrous truth that the blackmail revealed and shoulder a burden that was not his own, but she had to try; she had to do something.

She pushed down a wave of panic and tried to think clearly.

"This is what it means to be an adult in control of your own estate," she said aloud to herself, pressing shaking fingers to her chest. "You have to make sacrifices."

Looking out the window, Margaret thought suddenly of Edmund Lockridge and his wide, serious eyes. Despite all the history that had passed between them, she had the feeling that he could help her.

She wasn't sure how, or when, but she felt like he was her only hope.

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