The Unknowing Heiress

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

To have direction was such an exciting thing. Maggie had not realised just how motionless her life had become.

To an outsider she had everything. Her father was titled. Her family were very wealthy. She was the niece of the Duke of Ascot, a man whose fortune rivalled that of the Queen herself. She had endless connections to make a good marriage and her dowry was enormous.

But Maggie did not desire those things. While she knew she was very fortunate, she coveted simpler things. What she would give for a stranger to smile at her. How she desired a dance partner that was not related to her. It was as if men in ballrooms believed she’d walked into the wrong place. If they even noticed her, holding her hand, a hand so much darker than their own, would most definitely mean they would catch some sort of awful illness.

But this trip was direction. She had a destination, something to aim for. She had a plan. She was not merely floating about, wasting her youth on a society that would never accept her.

She would be going to the Lavelle Cotton Plantation as the master’s only child, the heiress. America was the New World after all.

Maggie was very curious about her father. How could she not be? She was not so naïve as to believe that they were to immediately have the perfect relationship, nor did she intend to replace Nate with Isaac Lavelle. Nate had saved her life all those years ago, but not even his love and devotion could quell the questions she had about a life she never knew. She had to know. She had to see for herself. In Maggie’s eyes, she did not have a choice.

Max would be there for her, like he always was. She knew she did not deserve a friend like Max. He was far too good to her. Although only a few months older than her, he was a wonderful older brother figure.

“Is it true?”

Maggie jumped, unaware that she was not alone in her bedchamber. She was sitting at her writing desk, and was in the middle of writing her aunt and uncle at Ascot to invite them to dinner that evening.

Both Georgie and Lizzie had entered her bedroom unannounced. Or perhaps they had knocked. Maggie had been so caught up in her own thoughts that she probably wouldn’t have heard them. Her sisters appeared very distressed.

“Is it true?” Georgie persisted. “Edward says you are going far away.”

Lizzie’s lower lip trembled as she ran across Maggie’s bedroom to throw herself in Maggie’s lap. Maggie placed a comforting hand on the back of her head. Georgie quickly followed suit and knelt down beside Lizzie.

Maggie was not going to lie to her sisters. While they were young, they deserved honesty. “I am going on a trip,” she confirmed, “with Max. We will be going on a ship and I will be away for a little while.”

Before Lizzie could start to cry, Georgie whispered, “It is alright, Lizzie, we shall go too.”

“You cannot come with me because Mama and Papa need you with them,” Maggie replied, smiling sympathetically as she pulled little Lizzie onto her lap. “What would they do without you?”

Lizzie snuggled into Maggie’s chest while Georgie wrapped her arms around her hips.

“I will write you as often as I can,” she promised, “but that means you must practice your reading with Papa.” Nate was patiently teaching the girls how to read as he had done with Maggie when she was young. So often in the evenings he would have them sitting on his knees reading The Sleeping Beauty, the first story that she had read when she’d first arrived in England. “I love you both dearly,” she said sincerely. She even loved her brother. She would explain her reasons to him at another time.