by Anne Gracie
“Grateful? For unwarranted and unasked-for interference?” George was ready to explode. The insults stung; there was no denying there was some truth in them, but she would never let Aunt Agatha get the better of her.
“You cannot expect your uncle and his wife to care indefinitely for his late brother’s unwanted and unacknowledged offspring—especially a gel who’s more trouble than she’s worth. A charitable gesture is one thing, an embarrassing millstone quite another.”
Emm sat up angrily. “George is not a millstone, Aunt Agatha! Nor is she an embarrassment. She’s a dear sweet girl and a beloved member of our family and as far as I am concerned she can live with us until . . . until she’s a hundred years old!” She reached out a hand to Cal and he took it, a silent gesture of support.
Aunt Agatha gave a dismissive wave. “That is your condition speaking, Emmaline. Breeding women are notoriously hysterical.” She turned to Cal. “You see? Yet again Georgiana is causing your wife distress. And endangering The Heir.”
“I’m not the one upsetting people,” George muttered.
“Now look here, Aunt Agatha,” Cal began.
“Oh, don’t worry, Cal,” George said. “I know better than to mind the spiteful outpourings of an interfering, officious, presumptuous old b—”
“George,” Emm said in a warning tone. George glanced at her and bit off the remainder of the insults she had stored away. She would cross swords with Aunt Agatha any day, but upsetting Emm was another matter.
Aunt Agatha drew herself up, an outraged silver-haired praying mantis. “Abominable gel! Never in my life have I been subjected to such disgraceful incivility from a chit not yet in her majority. And from a member of my own family!”
“If the cap fits, wear it,” George said sweetly. “In any case, I won’t be on Cal and Emm’s hands forever. The minute I turn twenty-five and get my inheritance, I’ll be out of here and nobody need bother about me at all.”
Aunt Agatha primmed her lips. “More than five years to wait, then. A young married couple should not have to endure the company of—”
“I’ve asked and asked Cal to arrange for an allowance to be paid to me, an advance on my inheritance. He always refuses, but if I had it, I’d be gone and out of their hair in an instant.”
“Precisely why I won’t do it,” Cal said firmly. “There’s no question of enduring anything or anyone, Aunt Agatha. Emm and I are very fond of George and, as Emm said, she’s welcome to live with us as long as she likes.”
“Exactly! We love you, George, and there’s no question of your being in the way,” Emm said. “Now, please, let us all enjoy our tea and stop squabbling.”
At the word tea George’s dog, Finn, rose and sat down beside Cal, fixing the half-eaten biscuit in Cal’s hand with a mournful gaze.
George frowned and said in a low voice, “I do cause you trouble. You can’t deny it, Cal.”
Cal exchanged a glance with his wife and smiled a slow smile. “Let us say, rather, that you enliven an otherwise relatively humdrum existence.” Then as Finn nudged him, he added, “You and your enormous hound, I meant. And, no, Finn, this is my biscuit and is not for dogs.” He finished it in two crunches. Finn slid to the floor with a dejected sigh.
Emm nodded. “The house is going to feel so empty with both Lily and Rose gone. We couldn’t do without you, George.”
George glanced at the mound of Emm’s belly. The house wouldn’t be empty for long. Or dull. The baby would take up all Emm’s time and attention then. “I will leave when I’m twenty-five.”
“We’ll talk about that when the time comes,” Cal said. “Nobody is going to force you into matrimony, George, but I don’t want you living alone.”
“Why not? I did for most of my life.” Except for her faithful Martha.
“A situation I deeply regret,” Cal said grimly. “Henry should have been shot for his lack of care for you. And for keeping your existence a secret from us all for so long. But you are part of this family now, and so you will remain.”
“I can never decide which I like better, the plum tarts or the strawberry ones,” Aunt Dottie said into the silence that followed. “Of course the marmalade ones are very nice, but I always think red jam is such a happy flavor, don’t you agree?”
The tense atmosphere eased.
Aunt Agatha set down her teacup with a clatter. “Pshaw! If that’s your attitude, I wash my hands of you.”
“But the red jam is the sweetest, Aggie dear. There’s no need to get upset about it,” Aunt Dottie said. She winked at George.
“I’m not talking about the jam, as you very well know, Dorothea. Marriage is the only option for a gel of our order.” She trained her lorgnette on her sister. “We’ve already got one failure in the family, we don’t need another.”
“Aunt Dottie is not a failure—” Emm and George began at the same time.
Aunt Dottie chuckled. “Don’t worry, my dears, Aggie always takes a swipe at someone when she’s thwarted or put out in any way. It doesn’t bother me in the least.” She offered her sister the plate of tarts. “Try one of these, Aggie; they really are very good. They might even sweeten your tongue.”
Aunt Agatha waved them away. “You eat too many of those things. No wonder you’re so fat!”
“She’s not fat,” George said hotly. Aunt Dottie was plump and cuddly and George couldn’t imagine her any other way. Wouldn’t want her any other way.
“See?” Aunt Dottie twinkled at George. “She’s annoyed, so she takes it out on the nearest person, usually me. Just like a wasp, poor thing. It’s been like that ever since we were children in the nursery. I take no notice of her crotchets and you shouldn’t either.” She pored over a small dish of sweetmeats and selected one carefully. “Life is to be enjoyed, Aggie, and I enjoy every bit of mine. Do you?” She popped the sweet in her mouth and placidly resumed knitting.
There was a short silence, broken only by the sound of teaspoons clinking against teacups and the sound of crunching from behind the sofa. Emm raised her brow at George, who shook her head and looked at Cal, who tried to look innocent.
Avoiding his wife’s eye, he said, “Well, Aunt Agatha, don’t keep us in suspense—how did the duke respond to your proposal?”
George swallowed, feeling suddenly hollow. He couldn’t possibly have agreed to it—could he? She hadn’t given any thought to the duke’s reaction—she was only thinking of her aunt’s interference.
“He refused, of course, in no uncertain terms. No gentleman,” she added with thinly disguised satisfaction, “would want an ill-trained, boyish, impertinent hoyden for a wife.”
“Did he say that?” George flashed indignantly. “In so many words?”
Aunt Agatha arched a sardonic eyebrow. “What did you expect? That he wouldn’t notice your many inadequacies? I did my best, but . . .” She shook out her skirt, took hold of her ebony cane and rose. “I have other calls to make. Good day to you all. Ashendon . . .”
Cal rose and escorted his aunt from the room.
An ill-trained, boyish, impertinent hoyden. “How dare he! How dare she!” George jumped up and began to pace around the room. She didn’t know who she was angriest with—Aunt Agatha or the Duke of Everingham. She could happily shoot them both.
The knowledge that Aunt Agatha had offered her to him—and that he’d rejected her—even though she emphatically didn’t want him!—made her squirm with humiliation.
“It’s not for him to reject me! It’s for me to reject him.” The thought that she hadn’t had the chance to, that he had rejected her, unasked, was both mortifying and infuriating.
“He’s rather handsome, though, isn’t he?” Aunt Dottie had only seen him at the church, at his aborted wedding to Rose. “I do rather like a tall, dark, moody-looking man.”
“Handsome, perhaps,” George said. “And moody is right. He’s also
cold, haughty, rude and arrogant. He looks down that long, aristocratic nose of his as if we’re all worms, beneath his notice.”
She’d only met him a handful of times, while his marriage to Rose was being arranged—and what a lucky escape for Rose that had been!—but she’d disliked him on sight.
“His friends—and he doesn’t seem to have many of them—call him Hart—his surname is Hartley—but he’s known in the ton as Heartless, and doesn’t that tell you something? Rose made a lucky escape, and I’m dam—” She broke off and glanced at Emm. “I’m blowed if I’ll be the sacrificial lamb in her place.” She clenched her fists. “Aunt Agatha had no right!”
“No, she didn’t,” Emm agreed. “And nobody will force you into marriage, dear, if you don’t want it.”
“No. But Aggie means well,” Aunt Dottie said, and at George’s look of surprise, she added, “Oh, I know she’s bossy and interfering and thinks she knows better than anyone what needs to be done and that we’re all sheep who need to be herded. But she does mean it for the best.”
George’s jaw dropped. “How can you say that?”
“To Aggie, marriage is the be-all and end-all. And she thinks it is for everyone. But . . .” Aunt Dottie sighed. “She made three marriages and not one of them brought her happiness. Wealth, yes, but happiness?” She shook her head.
Emm touched her belly. “You mean because she never had children?”
Again Aunt Dottie shook her head. “Children are a blessing, of course, but happiness is another matter entirely. I never married and never had children, but my life has been—and still is—a happy one. The trick, George dear, is to know your own heart and decide accordingly. I made my own choices in life, and have no regrets.”
And seeing her tranquil face and serene smile, George could believe it.
But she wasn’t Aunt Dottie and didn’t have her gentle, accepting temperament. Aunt Agatha’s interference made George want to scream. Or to hit someone—preferably the duke who’d so smugly rejected her—when she’d never wanted him in the first place! She was as tense as an overwound clock. She needed to get out, to escape from this smothering attention and breathe.
But the afternoon’s obligations stretched ahead of her. Morning calls, endless and unbearable, with coy questions about male attentions, and about Rose’s husband’s incredible return from the dead—that seven-day scandal still wasn’t over—and delicate and less-than-delicate inquiries about how the poor duke was taking it. A duke, pipped at the altar by some scruffy nobody—so scandalously delicious.
And then there were the gentlemen pursuing George . . . Cal dealt with the obvious fortune hunters pretty swiftly, but still, there were several gentlemen who, like Aunt Agatha, refused to believe she was serious about not marrying.
At the best of times George found morning calls difficult. Today they would be unbearable.
“I need to go out,” she said abruptly. “I want to take Sultan for a ride.” To get away.
“You already rode this morning,” Cal said, reentering the room.
“I need a longer ride.” She glanced at Emm. “As long as you don’t need me for anything, Emm.”
“No, you go and ride the tension away, George dear. Everything’s under control here; the last responses to the invitations are dribbling in, Burton has all the arrangements for the ball under control—he’s in his element, I suspect—and Rose is fully occupied getting the new house ready to move into—”
“Harrying hapless workmen,” Cal said with lazy amusement.
“And Lily’s off with her husband, I know not where,” Emm concluded. “You are free to do whatever you want.”
“As long as Kirk goes with you,” Cal added, naming the dour Scottish groom he employed to keep an eye on the girls when they rode out.
“Yes,” Emm said. “Because Cal is about to accompany me on a short walk in the sunshine, while it lasts.”
Cal blinked. “I am?”
“Yes, across the park to Gunter’s.” She dimpled. “The baby desires some more of that delicious pistachio ice cream they make.”
“Oh, the baby does, does it? Well, in that case . . .” Cal rose and helped his wife to her feet.
At the door, Emm turned back to George. “And after my walk I plan to have a nap, so go on, my dear, escape the irritations of polite society, take your dog and your horse—”
“And Kirk,” Cal reminded her.
“And run wild for a time,” Emm finished. Dear Emm. She always understood.
“But not too wild,” Cal added.
Chapter Two
He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather coldhearted, and rather selfish, is to be ill-disposed . . .
—JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
“Of course the old harridan was trying to play me—she’s my mother’s godmother, and I wouldn’t put anything past the two of them. Expecting me to believe that the girl has no interest in marriage.” Hart snorted. Would need to be dragged to the altar indeed! He hadn’t included that bit when he’d told his friend Sinc the story. It was all rubbish, of course, and Sinc was a good fellow, but his tongue tended to be rather loose, especially after a few drinks. Hart wasn’t going to have that little morsel spread around the ton.
His friend Sinc—Johnny Sinclair—had called in shortly after Lady Salter’s departure, on his way to Jackson’s boxing saloon, and had stayed for a spot of lunch instead. “Lady George, eh? Splendid girl. The sort of girl a fellow can feel comfortable with.”
“Comfortable?” The ice in his voice took Hart by surprise.
Sinc was oblivious. “Yes, no pretense about her at all. Says exactly what she thinks, so a fellow knows exactly where he stands. Not on the hunt for a husband. Makes no secret of it. Plans never to marry. Wants to live in the country and raise horses and dogs—well, can’t argue with that, can you?”
Hart could, actually. “So she’s an eccentric.”
Sinc shook his head. “Wouldn’t go that far. She’s marriage shy, that’s all. According to m’sister, who knows her family quite well, her father abandoned her and her mother when she was a baby. Mother died, Lady George left to grow up alone and in poverty. Disgraceful business—daughter of an earl and she didn’t even know it! Left to starve in a cottage.” He drained his glass and held it out for a refill. “Didn’t even know she had any living family until Ashendon discovered her and brought her to London and launched her along with his half sisters.”
“Very affecting tale,” Hart said dryly. He didn’t believe a word of it.
“It is, it is.” Sinc nodded. “No wonder the gel’s wary of the bit and bridle. Still, it makes a pleasant change to dance with a pretty young thing and know she’s not secretly plotting how to hook you.”
Hart shifted impatiently. “Don’t be naive, Sinc, of course she is. Her tactics are a little more subtle than usual, that’s all.”
“So speaks the eternal cynic. Well, if she’s so keen to hook a husband, why has she knocked back half a dozen fellows that I know of?”
Hart frowned. “Half a dozen?”
“At least. There’s Porter, Yeovil, Trent”—he counted them off on his fingers—“Towsett, Belmore and who else? Oh, yes, Morcombe—and they’re just the ones I know of.”
“Towsett? You mean the earl of?” They’d been to school with Towsett. The dullest boy he’d ever met had grown into the most pompous man.
Sinc nodded. “The same. He’s mad for her by all account. Won’t take no for an answer. Been refused several times, but determined to wear the girl down.” He chuckled. “It’s the joke of the clubs—such a stuffed shirt full of self-consequence, utterly desperate for such a lively, unconventional filly.”
Hart swirled his wine thoughtfully. Towsett was a more than eligible match for any girl in the ton: titled, wealthy and . . . solid—if you liked that kind of thing.
<
br /> “My money’s on Lady George.”
Hart looked up sharply. “You’re betting on her?”
Sinc grinned. “Lord, yes, the odds are irresistible. Most of them are backing Towsett—well, you have to admit he’s very eligible. All the matchmaking mamas are in hot pursuit—any one of their daughters would snap him up in a heartbeat—but he won’t look at anyone except Lady George. But the others don’t know her like I do. She’s not like those other girls—she’s an original. Prefers her independence.”
“So you hope.”
Sinc grinned and raised his glass. “Oh, I’ll win, all right. She doesn’t want a bar of him—of marriage at all—and there’s the joke, you see. Hardly anyone believes her, least of all Towsett. He can’t imagine anyone turning him down, let alone a girl like Lady George.”
Hart shrugged. “There’s your answer then—she’s aiming higher.” For a dukedom, apparently.
“Cynic. Well, time will prove which of us is correct. Now, tomorrow night—what do you think about dropping into the opera? Dine at the club beforehand, of course.”
Hart raised a brow. “The opera?” It was the last place he would have imagined Sinc. “Whatever for?”
“Monty has his eye on one of the dancers, and the little minx has been leading him a right merry dance. She hinted that she’d give him her answer tomorrow night, so a few of us are going along with him in case the poor fellow needs consolation. Monty’s mama has a box. So, are you coming or not? Should be quite entertaining—not the caterwauling, of course, but watching Monty trying to corral the little filly.”
Hart shrugged. “I’ll dine with you at the club, but that’s all.” He was not fond of the opera, and was indifferent to Monty’s success or otherwise with the opera dancer. He knew it would be a purely financial transaction—if Monty offered the girl enough, she’d accept his attentions; if not she’d be looking for another protector.
