A Christmas Scandal. Jane Goodger

known it, believed it.

      “It’s our business. I know how that sounds. You cannot know how hard this is for me. How I fought…” He broke off, shaking his head miserably. “But my father can’t take the chance for his name to be associated with…with…”

      “Mine.”

      “Oh, Maggie, not yours. Your father’s. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said, trying desperately to hold it together and failing miserably. “I love you,” he cried, then pulled her to him and embraced her, kissing her hair in an almost frenzied way.

      Maggie stiffened, then pushed him gently, but firmly away. “It’s just as well, Arthur. I do believe that you love me, but you obviously don’t love me enough. And I don’t love you at all.” She shouldn’t have hurt him, she should not have lowered herself to such cruelty. But then, he didn’t know anything of what she’d gone through, of what she was going through. If losing her was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, then he had led a pathetically easy life. She should tell him just how awful life could get.

      “You don’t mean that,” he said, stricken.

      “It doesn’t matter,” she said dully. “Could you please go?”

      “How could you say such a thing? How?”

      “You hurt me. And I hurt you back. I’m sorry,” she said, sounding more like some sort of automaton than an anguished woman. “Please go,” she repeated.

      He bowed his head. “Of course.”

      He left the parlor, that ridiculous pink parlor, and Maggie was glad that the last thing he would remember was where she stood when he delivered the final blow to her already miserable life.

      Chapter 2

      Maggie sat at the dining table, waving a fan frantically at her face thinking that if she was wilting from the heat in New York, how would she feel in Savannah?

      “The heat never really bothered me,” Harriet said, lying through her teeth, Maggie suspected, for her cheeks were brightly flushed and her hairline damp from sweat.

      “I suppose one gets used to it,” she said, stopping the fan for a moment because her wrist was beginning to ache.

      “I don’t remember ever being hot as a child,” her mother said, slipping into her gentile southern drawl for affect, and Maggie smiled. Her mother had visited her sister several times over the years, but those visits were always carefully timed to miss the worst of the Northeast’s winters. “I daresay I won’t miss those horrid winters here. Your father would joke and tell me I’d never quite got rid of my southern blood.” Harriet frowned, then gave a little shudder, as if shaking away any sad thoughts.

      Maggie always liked winter, or at least the change of seasons. She could not imagine a Christmas without the biting cold or threat of snow. She adored her winter muffs, the way her cheeks would bloom with color. The taste of snow. And she would miss her brother and friends and the hope she’d had of ever having a normal life. Savannah meant more than heat, it meant she would either have to live off her relatives for life, find a husband quickly, or get a job. Though she hadn’t dared tell her mother yet, Maggie’s plan was to become a governess to some wealthy southern family. It would be a fair tragedy to her mother to have Maggie out working, but what other choice did she have? And being a governess was respectable.

      If she were a governess she could have the pleasure of being with children even though she would never have her own. It would be a wonderful compromise. She’d find a nice family, one with clean, polite children, hopefully in Savannah so she could be close to her mother, and she would teach those little scrubbed faces. She could become like a second mother to them. And she would have everything any woman could ever want.

      She would be old spinster Pierce, whom the children loved.

      And everyone else felt sorry for.

      Maggie gave herself a mental shake to rid herself of any thought that was the least bit upsetting. “Mama, I have made a decision.”

      Harriet gave her daughter an uncertain smile.

      “When we reach Savannah, I am going to find a position as a governess. I do not want to be dependent on Aunt Catherine and that would give me a bit of independence.”

      “You don’t even like children,” her mother pointed out.

      It was true. Maggie had never liked to be with them. She’d never actually spent more than a few minutes with a child, but simply accepted the fact that someday she would have one or two of them running about. Still, she decided to argue anyway. “What kind of person does not like children? Of course I like children.”

      “You find them messy and loud and rather silly. And I completely agree.”

      “Mother!”

      Harriet laughed. “The only children I have ever been able to tolerate were you and your brothers. You were always so quiet and well behaved. Most children are not like that. It is completely out of the question at any rate. I don’t believe I could stand any further humiliation.”

      “But what am I to do? I cannot live on the good charity of your sister forever. I must be independent.”

      “Why not simply work as a shop girl? Or better yet out in the cotton fields?” her mother asked with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “Haven’t I been through enough without having a daughter as a governess? My goodness, Maggie, it’s almost as if you are contriving to make me more miserable than I am.”

      Maggie looked down at her plate, hating to make her mother, who had been through so much, even more unhappy. “I’m sorry, Mama, it’s just that I don’t know what to do.”

      “You will get married, of course,” her mother said, instantly happy.

      Maggie only felt her dread grow. She could not marry, though she couldn’t tell her mother that. She told herself she would not allow her mother to win this fight, and had had her arguments for independence dancing in her head since the moment Arthur had left the house. Her first thought had been: what do I do now? Her options were woefully limited. She knew only one thing: children, whether she liked them or not, were safe.

      “I will not marry.”

      Her mother let out a long sigh. “I know right now your heart is broken and you feel as if you will never find another man to love, but you will.”

      “But I don’t want to get married. The only reason I was marrying Arthur was to protect us. But your sister…”

      “Do you think I want to live under my sister’s roof? To lie to her about your father? To come up with more lies and more lies to explain why we have no funds? As soon as you find a husband, our problems will be solved. Unless you believe a governess’s wages can house and clothe both of us.”

      Maggie felt her cheeks flush. Her mother had never spoken to her this way. In fact, she could hardly remember her ever raising her voice. “Of course I don’t believe that. I only wanted to relieve you of some of the burden.”

      “How on earth would I explain to my sister why you’ve become a governess?”

      Maggie lifted her chin. “You could tell her the truth.”

      Maggie watched as her mother’s face, already flushed from the heat of the day, turned livid. “I could never,” she said. “You don’t know your aunt as I do. She would pretend to be saddened by our circumstances, but I know she’d be secretly happy. I’m the one who made a good marriage. Your uncle is little more than a laborer. I have never made her feel bad about her decision to marry him, but I know she resents the life I’ve had. Nothing would make her happier than to see how far we’ve fallen. Oh, sometimes I wish your father were here so I could strangle him.”

      It was the first time in Maggie’s life that she’d ever heard her mother utter even a hint of criticism against her aunt or her father. Obviously