The Colonel announced his intention to give a private ball, on the eve of his wedding, and they were all to attend, much to Georgiana’s dismay. She did not feel her spirits equal to dancing and revelry and felt it out of her power to carry on a civil conversation with her mother’s pitying and condescending friends. She was deeply gratified however, by the Colonel’s kind insistence that her friend, Mrs Hailsham, and her husband should attend, and she wrote immediately to convey the Colonel’s invitation. To have Lilly present would be a welcome addition indeed!
Most women, upon finding themselves engaged, are transformed by that joy and tranquillity which they must experience upon finding all their financial cares taken over, and the pleasure of managing their own establishment their only burden. So it was with Elizabeth, who, now that she bore the status of an engaged lady, was all gracious generosity and amiable kindness wherever she might bestow it. To be mistress of her own establishment, to become Mrs Walker of Lidcombe, imparted to her a new glow, and a happy willingness to play hostess for her husband to be.
The ball was to be given at Lidcombe, of course, and under Elizabeth’s transforming hand, the house was changed from a masculine, austere, bachelor’s dwelling, into a welcoming home, complete with all the touches of a tasteful, feminine hand. The large formal drawing room doors, opened up, noted Eliza as she led her sister though the house the day before the ball, would lead into the dining room to make space for dancing and supper, and the windows were quite wide enough to allow the feeling of space and light required to bring an air of the outside to the affair.
Georgiana, applied to several times by the Colonel to give her advice, eventually found the affair diverting enough to distract her from her more melancholy thoughts, and by the morning of the ball, she was half looking forward to it, after all.
But the want of a dress gave her pause, for she had given it no thought until now, so occupied she had been with decorating and cutting flowers at her sister’s direction. She now went through her gowns, and eventually decided upon a white-on-white muslin, with a little gold thread run through, which her aunt had gifted her last year, and which she had thought far too fine for everyday use at Loweston. Now she put it aside with some little soft shoes, and thought it would do very well, since she did not intend to dance. The dress was the kind which flowed about her person in such a manner as water over a stone, all slippery softness, and brought out all the grace of her figure, with the added advantage of drawing attention away from her limp, her aunt had assured her.
She determined she would not dance. Henry was not yet returned to his father’s house, and she would have no other partner. A memory, dear to her, of Captain Brandt at her side in the summer, sweeping her down the dance, holding her firmly, came unbidden and she pushed it aside. It would not do to recollect such things! She chastened herself.
When she looked at herself in the glass that evening, she was somewhat surprised. Staring back at her was not the familiar face of a young, innocent girl with large dark eyes and a slim figure. The dark eyes and slim figure were still hers, but the air of the creature in the mirror was more of a wise woman than a young lady. The dark glint of her bright eye seemed somehow to say, ‘I know how things stand, I know more of the world than I once did, and I am the wiser for it’.
She stood surveying herself a little longer than usual, for she was not used to seeing herself in very fine dress. Her skin looked very white against her dark hair, and the little gold threads shot through the fabric glinted in the candle light. She tucked a stray hair, which tumbled with some others over her forehead and neck, behind her ear, and tried a bright smile. She would, for the sake of her sister, be merry tonight.
Thirty
Colonel Walker had every reason to be a proud man. Beside him, curtsying and smiling, Elizabeth greeted their guests, glowing in a gold satin gown trimmed with Parisian lace in the latest mode. The room was lit up with a myriad of candles and decorated with roses and spring wreathes. The evening air drifting through the windows of Lidcombe was cool and soft.
Mrs Hall, watching resentfully from across the crowded room, looked, thought Georgiana, as though she knew not whether to be aggrieved at the Colonel’s having slighted her, or to bask in as much attention as she could garner from her status as the bride’s mother. Observing her mama from the safety of a sofa onto which Colonel Walker had earlier deposited her, Georgiana decided her mother was much too wise to hold a grudge against Eliza for capturing the Colonel after all, since she could still boast to her friends of a daughter married!
She almost wished Henry were returned early from abroad, so that she could tease him that she had been right about her mama and the Colonel the whole time! But alas, Henry was not due at his father’s house for two more days, and so she must find her amusement and diversion in Mrs Hailsham, who was just now standing with her new husband, looking very well in a pretty russet silk, and entering most earnestly into a conversation which Charles Hailsham was having with a fellow officer.
Shortly, however, Lilly excused herself and moved towards her friend. She sat gracefully beside her. ‘You are in very good looks tonight, Georgie; I don’t believe I have seen that gown before. How pretty it is!’
‘I’m afraid you are an imperfect judge, for you always say I look well in anything, even my oldest, dullest morning dress!’ laughed Georgiana. ‘But you look very pretty yourself, tonight. I think married life, and impending motherhood, may suit you!’
‘I flatter myself that it does,’ laughed Lilly in return. ‘But, I must own that your sister quite outshines everyone in the room, apart from you of course! I am so happy for myself, that I can afford to be generous with my happiness for her! I cannot find it in my heart to hold a grudge, when everything has turned out so well!’
Although she could not enter entirely into her friend’s feelings, Georgiana allowed that marital bliss, and children on the way, must be allowed to hold an influencing power over one’s feelings, and was grateful that her friend could be so forgiving of Elizabeth’s wrongdoing. ‘I think she has made a very good choice in the Colonel,’ she admitted. ‘He will be a steadying influence on her, I hope.’
‘The Colonel seems a very good man, and I ought to know, for I have chosen similarly myself!’ Mrs Hailsham caught her husband’s eye and he returned her gaze with a delighted smile. ‘My Charles is so amiable, so kind, oh, everything wonderful! I could not have born it if Papa had forbidden the match! I think I would have died of a broken heart!’
‘Dying of a broken heart is not as romantic as it is generally supposed,’ replied Georgiana drily. ‘However, I am glad you did not have to suffer long!’
‘No, indeed, a mere three months!’ rejoined her friend, laughing. ‘Enough to make my heart even surer than ever, much to Mama’s chagrin, I suspect! Still, she relented at the last. I am sure it was really Papa’s working on her; she would do anything for him, you know, she hates to see him unhappy. But I am relieved Charles and I did not have to contend with a more permanent disapproval.’
Georgiana, perhaps over-sensitive to her own situation, turned the conversation away from broken hearts, and urged her friend to join her husband, who was now coming to take her to the dance floor. The music had stuck up, and was beginning a cotillion.
Lilly stood up as Charles approached. ‘But shall you not dance, Georgie? What a pity your cousin is not here!’
‘Yes, indeed, a great pity, but I have not the inclination to dance, tonight, Lilly. I feel rather tired; and I shall have the pleasure of watching you, which is enough for me!’
‘Oh, but I am sure – I am sure that soon, you shall not be in want of a partner,’ her friend responded with a mysterious smile as she moved away. ‘Perhaps you shall dance tonight, after all!’
Georgiana had not long to ponder this remark. As she sat on the sofa, which was in the corner of the room facing the open double doors, several guests had turned to notice a gentleman who stood in the doorway, and the low hum of talk ove
r the orchestra stopped momentarily. In that gentleman, she spied, so distinctly that she gasped aloud, the scarred and mottled face of none other than Captain Brandt!
She turned her face away, lest he should see her, and tried to still the agitation, the very great agitation in her bosom. What was the object of his coming here? Her face was quite pale, she felt faint! She must leave the room, but how would she get from it without his noticing her? It could not be done, but it must! She saw nothing, heard nothing, in that moment, all confusion and panic. She made herself breathe deeply; the effects of astonishment had passed; she was able to be rational. The room resumed its hum, the orchestra its dance. She reached for her walking stick, determined to walk from the room, unnoticed in the throng.
‘Good evening, Miss Hall.’
The sound of him struck her still, and her heart pounded. She found her voice, and looked up, meeting his eyes. They told her nothing. ‘Good evening, Captain.’ There was a moment’s pause. ‘I— I did not expect— Forgive me, but I was not aware that you were a guest tonight.’
‘I have come at the invitation of the Colonel. Although I rather suspect your friend Mrs Hailsham had something to do with it.’
‘Oh! I see.’ She did not see; she was lost, bewildered at his presence here, in this room, beside her! ‘But, have you come, all this way, to see the Colonel? I— I did not know you were acquainted. He is dancing, there, with my sister you see; you may have heard, he is recently engaged to my sister, Elizabeth.’
‘I have not come to see the Colonel.’
Her heart fluttered like a small bird against the bars of its cage. ‘Oh!’ Confusion overran her, she was unable to speak. Retentive feelings, feelings which she had hoped banished by the absence of time, came forcefully, to distress her. ‘Who— is there anybody I might summon for you, Captain? Shall I fetch Lieutenant Hailsham?’
‘No, I thank you. I have only come on an errand of my own making. I have an urgent matter to attend.’
‘Then I must not keep you, Sir.’
‘Do you not wish to know whom it is I have come to see, Georgiana?’ His voice was very low, very soft.
Then she raised her face, and met his gaze. Her dark eyes were a question, a pleading, a yearning. He sat beside her, not dropping her gaze. He looked at her quizzically, then at the room.
‘I feel the need for some air, Miss Hall. Perhaps you will show me the way to the garden?’
As if in a dream, she rose with him, and taking his arm, her cane in the other hand, they made their way through the crowd to the door, and then to the French doors which opened onto Colonel Walker’s garden. If eyes followed them, some speculative, some shocked, she did not perceive it.
Then they were alone. Arm in arm, they walked a little way, until the music was a faint thread over the evening air, and finally paused. The full moon hung overhead, tracing silvery fingers over the lawn.
She turned to face him. ‘I thought you indifferent to me.’ Her voice trembled.
‘I thought you indifferent to me.’
She looked at him in wonder. ‘How could you think that?’
‘I thought you attached to your cousin, at first.’
She had the grace to blush at this, but, a smile in her voice, she accused him in return, ‘Even while you protected him from Mr Laidlaw’s pistol?’
‘Do you suppose I did that for his sake?’
Her heart pounded. She shook her head slowly. ‘That was when I guessed. That you might feel something for me. I did not think you were quite so fond of my cousin.’ She smiled a little.
‘I thought, that day, your concern was for him.’
She tilted her head to look at him. ‘When Tom pointed his pistol at you, I almost ran to protect you. Besides, you knew there never was an understanding.’
‘Yes. But you let me believe it for a time. I convinced myself it was because you wished to protect yourself from my advances.’
She looked away, ashamed. ‘I own that I did allow you to think me attached to Henry. I was convinced you sported with me, that you were merely using me. I couldn’t bear it.’
‘And yet all this time, you cared for me? You never gave me a reason to think it— not even after that, when I came to you at your aunt’s house, and not that day when we walked along the shore at Whitecliffe.’
‘I thought it was duty that brought you to my aunt’s house. I waited, that day, for you to address me, to give me some sign that you felt something for me, but I waited in vain.’
‘I still could not be certain of you. I couldn’t endure another refusal. I thought you despised my face, that you could not even being yourself to look at me. I lost hope.’
She considered. ‘But that day, by the sea, when we walked together – why did you not tell me then, that you felt something for me?’
‘I thought you truly indifferent, that you despised me for my behaviour that night at Thornleigh, and that you could not bear to look at my face.’
‘How could you think me so— so unkind? When I myself have a deformity?’
‘You refused my first offer, on that same basis.’
‘Oh, Asher, it was never that!’ She looked away. ‘I didn’t want to be a mere convenience. I wanted to marry for love. And then, after I had come to feel— well, I wasn’t sure of you. I thought you harboured a grudge against me, for refusing you, in town. That you saw me as a cripple, someone who had no other options, who would accept you as a first and only offer, out of desperation.’
He shook his head. ‘I have never considered you a “cripple”, Georgiana. After all, we share a disfigurement in common; it is what, in some ways, has brought us together. But I own that it was despicable, and utterly ill-bred of me, to address you in the manner I did in town. I was only afraid to lose Rose. Will you forgive me?’ His voice was rough.
Her eyes spoke what her lips could not. ‘At Thornleigh, I thought you merely sported with me, or that you thought to seduce me, if you could not gain me by other means.’
He raised a finger to trace her cheek and she leaned imperceptibly into the caress. He turned her face to meet his eyes. ‘How could you think that?’ he echoed, smiling.
‘So, that dreadful, no— that wonderful night, at Thornleigh, you— you—’
‘Almost made love to you? Yes.’
She blushed. ‘You were not indifferent to me, then? I thought—’ She touched the tips of her fingers to his, briefly, a feather light caress, hesitant, then drew away, shy. ‘I felt something between us, a friendship—’
‘An affinity, yes.’
‘And then, that night—’
‘Yes. I, too, had felt a like-mindedness, and I was drawn to it, and to you. You were so beautiful, standing there in the candle light, playing the harp. At that moment, I could not help myself.’ He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it tenderly. ‘I almost made love to you, yes. It was in that moment, Georgiana, that I realised I loved you.’
She raised the hand he had just kissed, and traced his scar with her finger, beginning at his forehead, and ending at the corner of his lip. ‘I love you, Asher.’
‘I know, my love.’
‘But, how did you know? How did you know to come here tonight?’
He laughed. ‘Have you not guessed? You have a very good friend, indeed, in Mrs Hailsham. She takes prodigious care of you.’
Georgiana shook her head. ‘I had no idea of her guessing my secret, but then, she did become quite mysterious last week, and quoted Cowper at me – something about “the bud will have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower”. Oh, Asher, the flower is sweet, indeed! It was worth waiting for you, although I was anxious you would never come!’ She touched his scar again, wonderingly. ‘It seems like a dream, that you are here. Do you really love me, Asher?’
He caught at her hand, and imprisoned it in his, against the scarred side of his face. ‘I love you, and I want you at my side, at Thornleigh, with or without Rose.’
‘Yes! Please!’
&n
bsp; ‘But I must warn you, I cannot live up to an ideal. I am flawed. I do not refer to my face, but to my character. I have feet of clay, just as all men do. I could not bear to disappoint you. I am no hero, Georgiana.’
She smiled in the moonlight. ‘I have long understood the folly of putting those we love on a pedestal, Asher. It is the integrity of a man which makes him a hero, despite his flaws. And you are a hero to me. Why, you saved Henry from Laidlaw’s gun, for me, and put your life in danger nursing my uncle many years ago. To me, you are a hero.’
‘But I hope you do not put me on a pedestal for it. I could not bear to disappoint you.’
‘You can never disappoint me, because I see your flaws, just as you see mine, and accept them. You are the true hero of my heart.’
‘Then, that is enough for me, my love.’
She indicated the house, where candle light flickered in the windows, beckoning them to return. Strains of music floated on the evening air.
She took his arm again. ‘Will you dance with me?’
‘Always, and forever.’
He bent his head to hers, and the moonlight played over them both.
THE END
I hope that you’ve enjoyed this book!
After the About the Author section you’ll find a preview of
A Bath Affair
About the Author
Kate Westwood is the author’s pseudonym. Kate has a background in academic writing and holds a Master’s degree in English Literature. Having had a life-long dream to write, she finally turned her pen to regency romance when she turned fifty.
Kate is a huge fan of Austen and her contemporaries, and strives to recreate an authentic ‘regency’ experience for the reader.
Beauty and the Beast of Thornleigh Page 23
