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was Richard I fell in love with six years ago,” she said.
    “But I do not understand,” Charlotte said. “Did he not love you? But why has he married you now?”
    “He did not know who I was,” Margaret said with a sigh. “It was really all very foolish. And I do not know why I am telling you all this after so long.” She proceeded to give Charlotte an edited version of what had happened that night at the Hetheringtons’ masquerade ball.
    “I think it was a great foolishness not to take off your mask when he begged you to,” Charlotte commented. “Then he would have known you and he would have called on you as he said he would, and you would have been married years ago and it would have been a lovely marriage, full of love and romance.”
    “Perhaps,” Margaret smiled sadly.
    “But this is all foolishness,” Charlotte exclaimed, leaping to her feet and pacing restlessly around the room. “You must tell him the truth.”
    Margaret laughed. “Do you suggest, my love, that I say to him at the breakfast table, ‘Oh, by the by, Richard, do you remember the little girl dressed as Marie Antoinette at a masquerade party six years ago? The one you kissed in the garden and called your angel? That was me!’ He would think I had taken leave of my senses, Lottie. He would not even recollect the incident.”
    “Phooey! I do see your point about not being able to broach the topic, though, Meg.” Charlotte’s brow puckered with concentration. “I am going to return to my room and think. We need a plan! I think it might be necessary to resurrect Marie Antoinette.” And she skipped lightly from the room, closing the door behind her.
    Margaret let her hands relax in her lap, her embroidery forgotten. Why had she told Charlotte? She was not sure. Some compulsion, perhaps, to share her pain. Or was it that Charlotte’s come-out had reminded her so strongly of her own?
    Despite what Charlotte had said, Margaret was not actively unhappy. After that first traumatic night of her honeymoon, she had gradually picked up the pieces of her dignity and retreated behind her usual facade of quiet serenity. Her husband was neither cruel nor neglectful. For the two weeks of their honeymoon, she had spent much time alone or with the housekeeper. But she had also spent more time with her husband than she had expected. He had taken pains to show her his estate and to introduce her to all his tenants, as well as to his neighbors, the Northcotts.
    Margaret had drawn a secret pleasure from the fact that he always introduced her not just as the countess, but as “my wife, the Countess of Brampton.”
    She found it very hard to adjust to her bitter disappointment over their sexual relations. Each night was an exact repetition of the first, except that there was never again the pain and that he never again made the almost tender gesture of touching her cheek. He never kissed her, never talked to her, never caressed any part of her, never lingered longer than one minute after his business had been completed.
    She had to convince herself that most wives probably had little more than she had. Her mother, in fact, in a speech of advice on her wedding morning, had warned that marriage would be very pleasant if she were a dutiful wife. She must learn, in exchange for all the contentment, to endure her husband’s “attentions” at night “for a few minutes only, my love.” Margaret admitted that, had she behaved with propriety at the masquerade ball, she would not even know that physical contact with a man might be exciting.
    She trained herself to enjoy those few minutes for what they were worth. For that short span of time each night, her husband was all hers. Sometimes, if he was later than usual coming to her room, she would find her body aroused from just thinking of what was about to happen. And then his arrival was an agony. She had to keep every physical sign of her arousal strictly concealed and she had to endure the terrible