<strong>Caught Red Handed &amp; Taken to Task</strong><br/><br/><div class="floatleft">(http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll4/ElusiveGypsyRose/1%20-%20Characters/Lady%201.jpg)<div align="center"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>Abigail Meghan<br/>O'Hourihane<br/>aka Meg Haney</strong></span></div></div><div class="floatleft">(http://)</div><br/>The situation was uncomfortable all around.  Meg supposed that if she had been conventional, she would have preferred to remain ignorant.  If she had been conventional, she would likely have been dead upon the road, her body swelling beneath murky, muck saturated waters at the swamp's edge.<br/><br/>The thought cut through her like a knife, drawing her ramrod straight in the chair as if she had been unexpectedly dealt a blow.  Her eyes, however, were distant, focused on some point that neither man could see, unless the culprit was a small watercolor of mediocre talent hung with perfect straightness upon the wall.<br/><br/><em>"What?"  </em>That Asher had spoken drug her from the past back to the present, and Meg gave herself a little shake to shed it and re-orient.<em>"Oh.  Of course.  Didn't I say so?"<br/></em><br/>It was, perhaps, a little too abrupt, a little too casual for what the situation demanded.  She had not meant to be, but her tongue sometimes ran ahead of her thoughts.  Her brother would be so much better at diplomatically managing things, but he was not here.  She would simply have to do the best that she could, and hope not to mess things up too badly.<br/><br/><em>"It is a shame that comfort over where one's affections have been given is the concern of those to whom it can make no real difference, but the world is as it is, not as we would have it."</em><br/><br/>There was sincerity in her voice, and certainly no hesitation in the slightly formal speech, but also a note of something else not easy to define, even to herself.  Perhaps it was that they had each other, while she now had no-one that she could fully confide in, confess her worries to, and lighten her own burden by making a clean breast of her doubts, her anger, her feelings of helplessness.  They were helping her, certainly, but that spoke to the kind of men they were.  They would have helped any they came across in dire need, as she had been, and still was, of that she was certain.  Yet, that, too, was a ... a curtain pulled across the window, a barrier to anything that might threaten that need.<br/><em><br/>"Lord Ellery, even if I did not need your help so desperately, I would not repay your kindness with betrayal of your ... of that which would not be well received by society, whether or not society has any true cause to concern itself." </em>His comments stung a bit, though she had developed enough of an impression of him to the contrary to believe that he had not intended to question her character.<br/><br/>It was certainly easy enough to understand his position.  It was fear, not of condemnation, exactly, but of the hurt it would cause to one he cared for, and the obstacles that might prove to great to overcome.  Could she tell him that she understood that better than she should, she would have ... but his next words closed off the confession before it was more than a half-formed thought.<br/><br/>In fact, it sounded very much like the words her father had used, some of the last he had spoken to her before his final departure.  Words that did not invite sharing, but rather closed the door, and just as she had then, she did not fight or even protest that closing ... not then ... even as part of her was more aware of the consequence and potential cost.<br/><br/>Opportunities lost once could all too easily become lost forever, without warning.<br/><br/>Her lips snapped shut, and she bowed her head in acknowledgement of his demand, silent, ungracious perhaps, but not defiant, and waited for what would be, if it followed the expected form, dismissal.  Her eyes did not reach those of Lord Graham's, but rather remained at shoulder level, and her posture was not the stiffness brought about by memory, but forced all the same, her hands held unmoving, folded in her lap.<br/><br/>However much she did not care for society's demands in the main, there were times when mimicking its expectations brought some measure of safety, or at least reprieve.