A Christmas Scandal by Jane Goodger

exactly how she’d felt about Arthur, that living with him would not have been awful, but certainly not wondrous, either.
    “Oh,” Elizabeth said, clearly disappointed. “Is it because of your…situation?”
    “It is that. And the matter that no one else has seemed even remotely interested in me,” Maggie said, laughing. “The only other man who paid any attention to me was Lord Hollings, and he was only pretending to be interested to keep all the other mamas away!”
    “I’m so sorry,” Elizabeth said, and to Maggie’s surprise her eyes glittered with tears.
    “For goodness’ sake, Elizabeth, it is not a great tragedy,” Maggie said, even as she remembered that what had truly happened to her was, indeed, fairly tragic. She almost gave in to hysterical laughter at that moment, the result of which made her appear to Elizabeth ecstatically unconcerned about her situation.
    “It’s just that to find a great love is so completely wonderful.” Maggie, who could count on one hand the times she’d rolled her eyes in disbelief, rolled her eyes. “It’s true,” Elizabeth said earnestly. “There is nothing better in the world than to love someone with all your heart and know, know,” she said, putting both hands over her heart, “that they love you as much or even more.”
    “Oh, Elizabeth,” Maggie said, amused and touched by her friend. “You truly are the luckiest girl.”
    Elizabeth beamed a smile, and Maggie prayed she wouldn’t bring up the topic of Arthur again, at least until she produced the fake letter from her fake fiancé.
     
    Two weeks later, Maggie and her mother received their first post from America. It was a letter from Aunt Catherine, which she’d apparently written a week before they’d even departed so it was considered rather miraculous that a post arrived so soon after their own arrival. The Pierce women had the same thought at the same time: they could use the aunt’s letter as a ruse and claim it was from Arthur, breaking off his engagement to Maggie.
    So when the letter was presented to Maggie, she picked it up, held it against her breast rather melodramatically, and raced to her private suite on the pretext of reading a love letter in private. Harriet followed discreetly behind, acting like the perfect, curious mama who is so thrilled she has found a husband for her only daughter.
    When her mother entered their sitting room, Maggie nearly succumbed to a bout of hysterical laughter and she handed over the letter to her mother.
    “This couldn’t be more perfect,” Harriet said, clapping her hands together. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glittering with excitement. “Now you shall have to cry. Or at least appear as if you have been crying.” Her mother tapped the unopened letter thoughtfully against her palm. “Onions ought to do the trick. The only question is how to get them here without anyone knowing.” Maggie watched in fascination as her mother considered the problem a bit more, then shook her head. It was almost like watching a farcical play; this could not be her real life, could it? “These servants are militant. The other day I asked one of them to light the fire in the grid and you might have thought I’d asked him to invent fire. Apparently only the maids are supposed to light fires. I shall never be able to retrieve an onion myself and I cannot think of a reason why I should ask for one.”
    “You might say you’re afraid of vampires,” Maggie said dryly.
    “That’s garlic, my dear.” Harriet squinted her eyes together as if doing so would give her an idea. “Can you cry?”
    “You’ve trained me not to.”
    Harriet pulled a face. “I don’t need your fresh mouth at the moment, Margaret. I need your tears. Certainly enough awful things have happened in the past six months that you can produce a few. Think about poor Papa in jail. He’s cold and alone. Or worse, there’s a positively awful man with him in his cell. He’s uneducated and…he