Marry in Scarlet

by Anne Gracie

Hart raised his brow.

  “What if foxhunting were banned on the estate you deed to George, and one other?”

  She said nothing. Her chin was braced in a stubborn line. Her folded arms tightened.

  “Come on, George,” Ashendon said in a coaxing voice. “Be reasonable. A man cannot be expected to give up all his pleasures.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Pleasures?”

  “Pastimes,” Ashendon corrected himself.

  “I would be prepared to do that,” Hart said. “And to agree that no foxhunt will be held on any of my properties while you are there—whether visiting or residing.” He had a hunting box in Leicestershire, and he doubted she’d ever visit it. He’d make sure she didn’t.

  “There you are, George,” Ashendon said. “It’s a handsome compromise. What do you say?”

  She considered it for a long moment, then gave a grudging nod. “Very well, as long as you know that I will continue to oppose the horrid practice in any way I see fit.”

  “Understood,” Hart said.

  “Now, is there anything else on your list?” Ashendon asked her.

  “No, that’s all,” she said, and sat back.

  He raised his brow. Her conditions had mostly been about animals. Was that all she wanted?

  She started to rise from her seat. “I have some conditions of my own,” Hart said. She stiffened and sat back down.

  “We’ll start with the allowance . . .” He named a sum that was triple the one she’d asked for. Her jaw dropped.

  “I am not marrying you for money,” she snapped.

  He had no idea why she’d agreed to marry him, but he wasn’t going to question it. “The amount you suggested is paltry,” he said coldly. “I won’t have my duchess scrimping and saving.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but before she could speak, he continued, “I must insist on the right to conjugal visits.”

  “Visits?” Ashendon queried with a frown. “You’re not planning to live together?”

  “Naturally we shall cohabit until my duchess is with child. And after that, whenever I choose.”

  “I reserve the right to refuse,” she said quickly.

  He gave her a long look. “As long as consent is not unreasonably withheld.”

  Ashendon raised a brow at that, but she gave a curt nod, and he wrote it down.

  “Anything else?” Ashendon asked.

  “Nothing specific,” Hart told him. “Take the rest of the details from the settlements we agreed on for Lady Rose. Have a copy of the final document sent to me and I’ll have my lawyer look it over.”

  “In that case . . .” Lady Georgiana rose to leave.

  “Just one last thing,” Hart said.

  She paused and turned toward him with narrowed eyes.

  “You do intend to go through with this wedding, don’t you, Lady Georgiana?”

  Her gray eyes turned to chips of ice. Her hands knotted into fists, crumpling her list in one hand. “I gave you my word, didn’t I?” Without waiting for his response, she swept from the room.

  Ashendon blotted the document he’d made his notes on. “Doesn’t do to challenge George on her word of honor, you know. As you can see, she’s a mite touchy about it.”

  Hart snorted. “I’ve never met a woman yet who has any real idea of honor—it’s all self-interest with them.”

  “Then your life is about to change.” Ashendon leaned back in his chair, amusement dancing in his eyes. “I foresee interesting times ahead for you, Everingham. Very interesting times.”

  Chapter Eleven

  There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.

  —JANE AUSTEN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

  After the settlements had been agreed on and signed by both parties, the next item to be negotiated was the date of the wedding. The duke had informed Cal he wanted it to be as soon as possible. But it was up to George and her family to make the final choice.

  George wasn’t sure what she wanted—in one way she’d be happy to wait for a year, but then there were those feelings, the hot, sweaty, restless, hungry-but-not-for-food feelings where she woke, enmeshed in lurid dreams of being naked in bed with the duke. A year of that would drive her mad—if indeed they lasted that long. But there was no way of telling.

  She wanted them to be over and done with. Once the duke had bedded her, she was sure the disturbing sensations would go away, and she’d be able to sleep peacefully in her bed once more.

  In the end they agreed on a date just over three weeks away, which gave time for the banns to be called in church. Aunt Agatha had given a flat veto to the duke’s plan for a special license. “Bad enough the scandal that forced this marriage in the first place,” she said. “If you rush the business through, you know what people will think. As it is, they will be counting back from the date your first child is born.”

  Her first child? George couldn’t imagine it. She glanced across at Emm, huge now with the imminent birth of her baby. How must that feel?

  “Yes,” Emm said. “And we need time to order clothes. George will need a wedding dress.”

  “And the rest,” Aunt Agatha added. “A trousseau fit for a duchess.”

  George didn’t like the sound of that.

  “I’ll speak to my dressmaker, Hortense—” Aunt Agatha continued.

  “No,” George said. She’d met Hortense once, and hadn’t liked her a bit. Toplofty, more snobbish even than Aunt Agatha, and her clothes might be very elegant but in George’s opinion they were old lady clothes. “I’ll get everything I need from Miss Chance.” Daisy Chance was nice, and George felt comfortable with her. And Daisy had a way of making clothes that exactly suited their wearer.

  When George had first come to London, she’d been still getting used to wearing dresses. The idea of ball dresses and morning dresses and carriage dresses and evening dresses and all the other kind of dresses was quite overwhelming to a girl who hadn’t even owned a dress until a few months before. But Miss Chance had understood, and had even made her some special breeches that George could wear under her dresses so that she didn’t feel so naked and exposed. Dresses were drafty.

  Aunt Agatha sniffed. “That common little Cockney can’t possibly outfit a duchess. She would have no idea where to start.”

  “She can practice on me, then—”

  “Don’t be ridic—”

  “Miss Chance has done very well by all of us,” Emm interjected calmly. “I see no reason why George should not continue to patronize her for her wedding dress and trousseau. So that’s settled.”

  Aunt Agatha looked as though she’d swallowed a lemon, but she didn’t argue. One didn’t argue with the woman about to give birth to the Ashendon Heir.

  Lord help Emm if she had a girl.

  “I’ll come with you to see Miss Chance, dear,” Aunt Dottie offered. “I have a mind to order some garments from her too. Something a little special. We’ll have fun together, won’t we, George?”

  George grinned. “Thanks, Aunt Dottie, that’d be lovely.”

  George could see Aunt Agatha was wrestling with herself. She’d rather sit in a puddle than be seen entering the House of Chance, but she also didn’t want to hand over the serious business of Clothing a Future Duchess to her frivolous younger sister. Anyone who would describe such an important task as “fun” was clearly not to be trusted.

  Emm settled it. “Thank you, Aunt Dottie. That will be perfect. It’s a shame that Lily and Rose are both out of town at the moment. I know they’d love to go shopping with you. I wish I could go myself, but . . .” She gestured to her swollen belly and sighed. “I hope it won’t be long now. I’m so sick of feeling like a caged elephant.”

  “Bite your tongue, Emmaline!” Aunt Agatha snapped. “Caged
elephant indeed! What is a little discomfort when you have the privilege of bearing the next Heir to the House of Ashendon.”

  Emm gave her a dry look. Aunt Agatha had never borne a child. Easy for her to say . . . But of course, Emm would never say so.

  George would, if Aunt Agatha ever spoke to her like that.

  * * *

  * * *

  The following night George attended a party, her first since the notice of her betrothal to the duke had been published. She was a little nervous, wondering what the reaction of the ton would be, and when she stepped into the room flanked by her two aunts, the sudden hush, followed by a buzz of low comment, confirmed her worst expectations.

  Aunt Agatha said, “Now, Georgiana, your best behavior, if you will. You have the Rutherford name to uphold. None of your barnyard antics here.”

  George gritted her teeth. Barnyard antics indeed! How she wished she had Rose and Lily with her. Or Emm.

  On her other side Aunt Dottie squeezed her arm gently and murmured, “Head up, my love, and smile. The worst will soon be over.”

  Her hostess came bustling up. “Lady Salter, Lady Dorothea, Lady Georgiana, so delighted you could come this evening. Congratulations on your betrothal, Lady Georgiana, so clever of you to catch our dear, elusive duke.”

  George blinked. Our duke, as if she’d stolen him? And was clever implying she’d trapped him? She itched to point out that he’d trapped her. But she didn’t. She thanked the woman politely and moved away as quickly as she could, looking for something to drink and a friendly face.

  One of the young men who’d courted her came toward her, his face full of reproach. “And to think I believed you when you said you never wanted to marry. You were so adamant that you wanted to live by yourself in the country with your dogs and horses. But it was just me you didn’t want to marry, wasn’t it?” His voice was raw with hurt. “You had your eyes on a much grander prize.”

  “I’m sorry.” George had no words to explain. She ached for the pain she’d caused, but there was no way to tell him that she’d been completely honest with him, and that nothing had changed, except her situation.

  Nobody had shoved her into the duke’s arms that evening. And nobody had made her return his kisses and climb him like a tree. That was her own fault. Or the fault of her runaway instincts.

  “Well, you tricked us all, didn’t you, Lady George,” said another man with a bitter laugh. “More fool me for believing you meant it.”

  The reproaches of men who’d courted her were bad enough. Other comments were blunter and more to the point. A tightly corseted dowager congratulated her thinly, then as she turned away added in an acid aside to her friend, “She’s lucky the duke is a man of honor. In my day gels who behaved like trollops were given a good whipping and sent away in disgrace.”

  Another said, within George’s hearing, “I suppose her uncle forced him into it. Ashendon is not a man to be taken lightly.”

  Several women asked her when the wedding was to be, and eyed her waistline searchingly.

  But the worst were the women who congratulated her for being clever, for entrapping the duke. Their congratulations made her feel soiled, dirty.

  “You sneaky thing. I’ve been trying to hook Everingham for the longest time. I heard how you did it. So clever, arranging to be caught like that, doing it at one of old Mrs. Gastonbury’s musical evenings. Must have made the old ladies’ wigs stand on end.”

  There was no way to explain, to put the story right. She had let the duke kiss her at Mrs. Gastonbury’s, and so she had to bear the consequences of her foolishness.

  And if people were determined to believe the betrothal was the result of some kind of devious stratagem on her part—and they were—well, she’d just have to grin and bear it.

  The congratulations, the barbed compliments went on and on until she wanted to scream. But she’d agreed to marry the duke, and this was just the start of her punishment. She gritted her teeth and smiled and smiled and smiled until her jaw was aching. And then she smiled some more.

  Lady Peplowe arrived with her daughter Penny, and George heaved a sigh of relief to see people she knew and liked. Lady Peplowe hugged her warmly and wished her all the very best, and such was her sincerity, George almost found herself a little bit teary.

  But Penny was frankly surprised and said so. “I thought you were never going to get married, George. And I thought you really disliked the duke.”

  George had mumbled something about changing her mind, but inside she was squirming. She wasn’t about to admit—not even to a close friend like Penny—what had really happened, how she’d more or less been forced into it, but she also wasn’t going to lie and pretend she and the duke were love’s young dream. It was all terribly awkward.

  Penny and Lady Peplowe drifted off, and George looked around to see what time it was. When could she decently go home?

  She caught sight of a clock and her heart sank. She’d been here barely forty minutes. She’d have to give it at least an hour more. Unless she pretended to have a headache. But that would be cowardly.

  * * *

  * * *

  Hart was playing piquet with his friend, Sinc. He’d decided to eat dinner at his club, and had run into Sinc. Afterward, with a brandy at their elbow, they’d played cards.

  “Something on your mind?” Sinc asked, after having won the last three tricks.

  “Hmm? No.” But it wasn’t true. Shortly before he’d left for his club, a note had been delivered from Lady Salter. It was a damned piece of cheek telling him—not suggesting, but virtually ordering him—to accompany Lady Georgiana to some wretched party. A party he had no interest in attending.

  He’d tossed the note in the fire and gone out.

  Sinc dealt the next round. And won the next two tricks. “Well, whatever it is, your mind’s not on the game.”

  Hart sipped his brandy and considered his hand.

  “Surprised you decided not to go to the Renwicks’.”

  Hart looked up. “Not you, as well.”

  “Not me what?”

  “Thinking I ought to attend the Renwick party. I never attend such insipid events, you know that.”

  “No, s’pose not.” Sinc made his discard. “Just thought . . . Oh, never mind.”

  “Never mind what?” Hart asked after a minute.

  “I suppose you know the harpies have been getting stuck into Lady George.”

  Hart frowned. “What do you mean? What harpies?”

  “Quite a few of ’em, from what m’sister says. Some nasty talk around. Lady George not exactly getting the benefit of the doubt.”

  “In what sense?”

  Sinc stared at him incredulously. “You think the fine ladies of the ton will universally heap blessings on Lady George’s glossy little head? After she’s claimed all season to be averse to the very idea of marriage? And then she walks off with the marriage prize of the season—you. After having been caught in public with your tongue wrapped around her tonsils? Oh, yes, they purely love her for it.”

  Hart stilled. So that was what Lady Salter’s note was about. “Damn!” He threw down his cards and left.

  * * *

  * * *

  George drained her glass of champagne and looked around for a footman. Her third glass in—she glanced at the clock—not quite an hour. She never drank more than one glass, usually. She didn’t actually like champagne. Trouble was she didn’t much like ratafia either. What she wouldn’t give for a nice cup of tea. But she’d have to wait until she got home.

  A woman hurried up to her, hands held out and a wide smile on her face. Mrs. Threadgood, the lady she’d last seen in the Peplowe conservatory.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Threadgood,” George said cautiously.

  The woman seized George’s hands in hers as if in warm congratulation, leaned forward and
in a low voice said, “You don’t deserve such a fine man, you little strumpet. Don’t think I don’t know what you were up to in that conservatory.” Smiling falsely, she dug her nails into George’s hands so hard that if George hadn’t been wearing gloves she was sure the woman would have drawn blood.

  She wrenched her hands out of the woman’s grip and, temper boiling, raised her hand—and found her wrist caught from behind in a firm grip.

  “Put the slap away,” a deep voice murmured in her ear. The duke, drat him.

  Ignoring his imprisonment of her hand she said in a clear voice, “I know what I was doing in that conservatory, Mrs. Threadgood. I’d spotted a rat, a big fat female one, with two friends, strumpeting on their own behalf. A rat who is now choking on her own sour grapes.” She bared her teeth in a parody of a smile.

  Mrs. Threadgood flushed an unlovely mottled purple. She glanced at the duke over George’s shoulder, muttered something unintelligible and flounced away.

  George turned to the duke and pulled her hand out of his grip. “I wish you hadn’t interfered. If ever a woman deserved to be slapped . . .”

  “I know. And it would have been very satisfying, I’m sure. But Lady Dorothea was looking quite wretchedly worried and so I stepped in.”

  George ran her hands down her dress. She was still itching to slap someone. “What are you doing here, duke? I didn’t think you would come to this kind of thing.”

  “I wouldn’t normally, but Lady Salter sent me a note telling me you were attending this party and that I owed you my support.”

  George was surprised. Aunt Agatha had done that? Really?

  The duke continued, “And it seems she was right, if that little exchange was any indication. Tell me, what did she say to you? I only heard your response—which was brilliant, by the way.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She could fight her own battles.

  He regarded her narrowly for a moment, then shrugged. “May I fetch you a drink?”

  “Yes, please.” As soon as the duke left, George pulled one of her gloves off and examined the marks Mrs. Threadgood’s nails had left. A series of red crescent indentations marked the back of her hand. She rubbed it. The wretched woman had claws.