First Comes Scandal

by Julia Quinn

  It would have hit Anthony in the face if Georgie had not tried to intervene.

  Anthony gasped with pure schadenfreude as it slopped down on Georgie’s shoulder. “Oh, Benedict,” he breathed. “You are going to be in so much trouble.”

  “Benedict!” Nicholas said sternly.

  “I didn’t mean to!” Benedict cried. “I was aiming for Anthony.”

  Nicholas took him by the upper arm, pulling him a step back for a scolding. “That does not make it any better.”

  And then Georgie—honestly, she could not say what came over her. She would never know what mad devil plucked her hand from her side. It was like she’d been attacked by malevolent marionette strings.

  She scooped the mud from her shoulder and let fly.

  Right into Nicholas’s neck.

  “I was aiming for Benedict,” she said sweetly.

  Then she made the mistake of looking at the boys. They were staring at her with identical expressions—eyes wide, mouths wider—and then Benedict said in almost reverent tones, “Aunt Georgie, you are going to be in so much trouble.”

  Nicholas—damn him—swooped in to save the day. “Boys,” he said with deceptive calm, “I think your aunt isn’t feeling well.”

  Georgie would have snapped, “I’m fine,” except that she wasn’t fine, and she wanted this to be over more than she wanted to prove him wrong.

  “Run along home,” Nicholas said to the boys. “We will be right behind you.”

  “Is Benedict in trouble?” Anthony asked hopefully.

  “No one is in trouble.”

  “Is Aunt Georgie in trouble?”

  “Home,” Nicholas said sharply.

  They took one look at his face and started to run.

  Georgie grit her teeth. “I’m sorry about the mud.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “You’re right. I’m not.”

  His brows rose. “That was a refreshingly quick capitulation.”

  “I’m not a good liar.”

  “Neither am I,” he said with a shrug.

  “Yes, I know.”

  Then his mouth started to twitch, and by God, that was the final straw.

  “Don’t laugh,” she practically growled.

  “I’m not.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  Nicholas looked like he might throw his hands in the air. “I’m not! Believe me, I find no humor here.”

  “I think you should—”

  “Although I am flattered that Edmund has granted me uncle status.”

  He wanted to laugh. She was sure of it.

  “Stop looking so self-righteous,” Nicholas said testily. “We’re both covered in mud.”

  She gave him one long stare and then marched away.

  “Georgie, stop!” He caught up instantly. “We are not finished.”

  “I am,” she ground out. She was done. “You can tell your father,” she said, each syllable more clipped than the last, “that you have done your duty and asked me to marry you. And then you can tell him that I said no.”

  “You’re not thinking.”

  “Don’t you dare.” She stepped forward, jabbing her finger toward him. She poked it through the air, and then she poked him right in the chest. “Don’t you ever tell me I don’t know my own mind. Do you hear me?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Again! Do you hear yourself? If you have to say ‘that’s not what I meant’ three times in a single conversation, perhaps you should consider the inclarity of your words.”

  “Inclarity?” he repeated.

  Now he was correcting her grammar? Georgie wanted to scream. “I think you should go,” she said, trying for a hushed tone. The boys weren’t that far ahead of them on the path.

  “At least let me—”

  She thrust one of her arms out, vaguely in the direction of Crake. “Go!”

  Nicholas crossed his arms and looked her hard and square in the eye. “No.”

  She drew back. “What?”

  “No,” he said again. “I’m not going to go. Not until I am convinced that you have actually heard what I’ve had to say.”

  “Will. You. Marry. Me,” she said, ticking the words off on her fingers. “I heard you quite clearly.”

  “Don’t be deliberately obtuse, Georgiana. It does not become you.”

  She stepped forward. “When did you become so condescending?”

  He stepped forward. “When did you become so short-sighted and full of pride?”

  At this point they were nearly nose to nose, and Georgie was seething. “A gentleman would accept a lady’s refusal with grace.”

  He countered with, “A lady would consider the proposal before rejecting it out of hand.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “I am not asking you to marry me because I pity you,” he said in a furiously tight voice. “I am asking because I have known you for as long as I have known my own memory. I like you, Georgiana. You are a good person, and you do not deserve to spend the rest of your life in isolation because of the misguided actions of a jackass.”

  Her comeback died in her throat. Because now she felt like a jackass.

  A jackass who had no idea what to say.

  She swallowed, hating that the lump in her throat tasted like tears. Hating that he didn’t understand why she was so angry. And hating that he was actually a good person and he still didn’t understand.

  But most of all, she hated that she’d fallen into this awful position where someone could make a kind gesture, born of nothing but care and good intentions, and all she wanted to do was scream.

  “Thank you, Nicholas,” she said, picking through her words with careful cadence. “It was very thoughtful of you to ask.”

  “Thoughtful,” he repeated, and she got the feeling that he was startled by the milkish, nondescript word.

  “The answer is still no,” she said. “You don’t need to save me.”

  He bristled. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  He stared at her for a moment before capitulating. “Yes, fine, I suppose it is, but it’s you, Georgie.”

  “Me?”

  “You must know I wouldn’t do it for anyone else.”

  Her heart pricked. She wanted to cry. She wanted to cry so hard and she didn’t know why. Or maybe it was that there were simply too many reasons and the prospect of sifting through them made her want to cry the hardest of all.

  She shook her head. “Did it ever occur to you that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling grateful?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It wouldn’t be like that.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  He didn’t quite roll his eyes, but she could tell he wanted to. “You can’t know the opposite,” he said.

  She took a steadying breath. “I can’t be your sacrifice.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s absurd.” Her voice turned to steel. “Kindly do me the honor of not disparaging my every word.”

  He gaped at her. “You know—”

  Georgie waited, breath held, as he turned on his heel and took a step away from her. Every line of his body was rigid with frustration—or maybe fury—even as he whirled back around. “Forget I said anything,” he said hotly. “Forget I tried to be a friend. Forget you’re in a difficult spot. Forget I tried to give you a way out.”

  He started to walk away, but she could not bear to see him leave in such a temper, so she called out, “Don’t be like that, Nicholas. It’s not about you.”

  He turned around. “What did you just say?” he asked, his voice chillingly soft.

  She blinked with confusion. “I said it’s not about you,” she repeated.

  And then he just laughed. He laughed so uproariously that Georgie couldn’t think of a thing to say. She just stood there like an idiot, wondering what on earth had led to this moment.

  “Do you know
,” he said, wiping his eyes, “that is exactly what my father said.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “No. Neither did he.” He stopped and bowed; they had reached the spot where the path broke in two. One way to the house, the other to the stables, where she presumed he had left his mount. “I bid you good day.”

  Good day, indeed.

  Chapter 8

  Well, that went well.

  Funny how it had never occurred to Nicholas that she might say no.

  “It’s a relief,” he said to himself as he handed his mount over to the grooms at Crake’s stables. “I didn’t want to marry her anyway.”

  “I’ve done my duty,” he announced to the empty lawn as he marched over to the house. “I asked, she refused. There is nothing more to be done.”

  And finally, when he yanked open Crake’s massive front door and stamped into the hall, he muttered, “It was a cock-up of an idea, anyway. Good God, what was I thinking? Georgiana Bridgerton.”

  “Sir?”

  It was Wheelock, materializing from thin air, as was his habit. Nicholas nearly jumped a foot.

  “My apologies if I surprised you, sir.”

  Nicholas could not begin to count the number of times Wheelock had uttered this exact sentence. It was approximately equal to the number of times he had not meant it. Wheelock lived to sneak up on Rokesbys.

  “I went out for a ride,” Nicholas said. It wasn’t a lie. He had gone for a ride. To Aubrey Hall, where he’d asked a woman to marry him, been hit in the neck with a pile of mud, and been turned down, although not strictly in that order.

  Wheelock eyed Nicholas’s muddy sleeve, the one he’d used to wipe his neck.

  “What?” Nicholas snapped. He’d regret it later, talking to Wheelock with such incivility, but he could not manage anything else just now.

  Wheelock paused before replying, for the exact amount of time necessary to make it clear that one of them was the epitome of serenity and calm and one of them was not. “I merely wished to inquire if I should call for refreshment,” he said.

  “Yes,” Nicholas said. “No.” Gad, he didn’t want to see anyone. But he was hungry. “Yes, but have it sent to my room.”

  “As you wish, sir, but might I add—”

  “Not now, Wheelock.”

  “You will want to be aware that—”

  “A bath,” Nicholas announced. “I’m going upstairs, taking a bath, having a drink, and going to bed.”

  “At half eleven in the morning?”

  “Is that what time it is?”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  Nicholas bowed with a flourish. “Then I bid you farewell.”

  Wheelock looked at him as if he’d gone mad. Hell, he probably had.

  But Nicholas made it only three steps before Wheelock called out again. “Master Nicholas!”

  Nicholas groaned. “Sir” he might have been able to ignore. “Master Nicholas” threw him right back into childhood, when Wheelock’s word was law. He turned slowly around. “Yes, Mr. Wheelock?”

  “Your father is waiting in his study.”

  “My father is always waiting in his study.”

  “A most astute observation, sir, but this time he is waiting for you.”

  Nicholas groaned again, this time with purposeful volume.

  “Shall I divert your refreshments to Lord Manston’s study, then?” Wheelock asked.

  “No. To my room, please. I won’t be there long enough to eat.”

  Wheelock looked dubious, but he nodded.

  “You’re going to send them to my father’s study, aren’t you?” Nicholas asked.

  “To both locations, sir.”

  Nicholas should have seen that coming. “Good God, you’re impressive.”

  Wheelock nodded graciously. “I do my best, sir.”

  Nicholas shook his head. “If butlers ruled the world . . .”

  “We can only dream of such a utopia.”

  Nicholas smiled, despite his hideous mood, and took himself to his father’s study. The door was open, so he gave the wall a little knock and went inside.

  “Ah,” Lord Manston said, looking up from his desk. “You’re back.”

  “As you can see.”

  His father’s brow wrinkled as he tipped his head toward Nicholas’s shoulder. “What happened to you?”

  As Nicholas had no intention of telling the truth he merely said, “It’s muddy.”

  His father glanced toward the window. It looked as if it might rain, but they both knew it had been dry all morning. “I see,” he murmured.

  “I was down by the lake,” Nicholas said.

  His father nodded, fixing a placid smile to his face.

  Nicholas let out an exhale and waited. He knew why he was here. Three, two, one . . .

  “Did you ask her?”

  There it was.

  “Not yet,” he lied. He wasn’t sure why. Probably because he felt like a fool. A rejected fool.

  “Isn’t that why you went to Aubrey Hall?”

  “She was minding Anthony and Benedict. It was hardly an ideal moment.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Lord Manston chuckled. “Edmund wasn’t joking when he called them right little terrors. Were they running her ragged?”

  “Not really. She seemed to have them well in hand.”

  Lord Manston’s eyes moved pointedly to the mud.

  “It was an accident,” Nicholas said. He certainly wasn’t about to tell his father that Georgiana had thrown it.

  His father gave a little shrug. “These things happen.”

  “Indeed they do.” Nicholas wondered how long they could keep up such an utterly inconsequential conversation.

  “She’ll be a good mother.”

  “She probably will,” Nicholas replied. For some other man’s children. Not his.

  She’d said no.

  No.

  That was all there was to it. He could go back to Scotland tomorrow. Or at least as soon as he told his father that Georgie had rejected his proposal.

  But first, a bath. “If that is all, sir—”

  “My man is back from London with the special license,” his father said.

  Nicholas nearly groaned. “How expedient.”

  “The archbishop owed me a favor.”

  “The archbishop owes you a favor,” Nicholas repeated. It was not often one heard those words said in that order.

  “Owed,” his father corrected. “We are even now.”

  Nicholas could not imagine a series of events that had led to the Archbishop of Canterbury owing his father a favor. “I hope you have not wasted your indulgence.”

  His father gave him a look. “You yourself told me you need to get back to Edinburgh. Do you really want to wait for three weeks of banns?”

  Nicholas took a breath. “Has it occurred to you that she might not accept?”

  “Don’t be daft. Georgiana is a sensible girl. She knows how the world works.”

  “I thought I knew how the world worked,” Nicholas muttered.

  “What was that?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “Nothing.”

  And then to himself: “Absolutely nothing at all.”

  It took Georgie precisely one hour to realize that she was being an idiot.

  Two hours after that, she decided she had to do something about it.

  She was sitting in the drawing room with her mother, as was her habit most afternoons. Her mother was working on her embroidery. Georgie was doing the same, which was not her habit most afternoons. She always had her basket at her side; she had to give the impression that she was at least thinking of attacking the embroidery, but she usually ended up staring out the window or reading a book.

  Today, however, she’d been inspired to work on her stitches. Needle up, needle down. Needle up, needle down.

  Nothing fancy or floral, just a neat, straight line of stitches. Needle up, needle down. She felt almost mechanical. It was oddly satisfyin
g.

  Her conversation with Nicholas at dinner the night before had reminded her how impressed she’d been by the doctor’s work on Anthony’s hand. The stitches had been as even and tidy as any she’d ever seen in an embroidery hoop. And on a howling, squirming child to boot.

  She wondered how much training it took to reach that level of proficiency.

  Needle up, needle down.

  Georgie frowned. Would her work be good enough to stitch a wound? Probably not. Her line was straight and even, but fabric was not skin. If she were stitching an actual wound, she wouldn’t be able to reach underneath, as she could with muslin stretched across an embroidery hoop.

  “My goodness, Georgiana,” her mother said. “I have never seen you so focused on your embroidery. What are you working on?”

  Georgie had no choice but to show her the row of stitches, neat and tidy and forming nothing more interesting than a straight line.

  Her mother looked perplexed, but Georgie did not think she was feigning interest when she asked, “Er, what is that meant to be?”

  “Nothing,” Georgie admitted. “I thought I would challenge myself to see how many identical stitches I could do in a row.”

  “Oh. Well, that seems an admirable goal. One must master the basics before moving on to the more creative aspects of needlework.”

  Georgie tried to peer over at her mother’s hoop. “What are you working on?”

  “Just a few flowers.” Lady Bridgerton held her work up. Just a few flowers indeed. It was nothing short of a masterpiece. Pink peonies, purple irises, delicate white somethings—all interwoven with leaves of every possible shade of green.

  It was clear where Benedict got his artistic talent.

  “That is gorgeous,” Georgie said.

  Her mother flushed with pleasure. “Thank you, dear. I spent several days designing it on paper before working on the fabric. I used to try to be more spontaneous, but I’ve realized I must plan things out.”

  “You get a lot of joy out of your needlework, don’t you?”

  “I do. I really do.”

  Something in her mother’s tone piqued Georgie’s curiosity. “You sound almost surprised.”

  “Not surprised . . .” Lady Bridgerton’s brow furrowed and a faraway look settled onto her face, the sort one got when one was deep in one’s own mind. “I suppose I never really thought about it,” she said, “but there is great satisfaction to be had in creation.”