Grinning widely, Maitland held up both hands in surrender. ‘Pax! Pax!’ he cried. ‘I apologise, most humbly, and promise never again to mention your fall from grace!’
‘My fall from a boat, you mean,’ returned Georgianne, smiling up at him, causing his heart to turn several somersaults. ‘Very well, you may consider yourself forgiven. However,’ she added, pointing across the lake to where Fenton and Stephanie were presently making their way—arms closely intertwined, as she observed with some misgivings—back towards the house. ‘It is getting late and you will, no doubt, be wanting to get back to your hotel.’
Since getting back to his hotel was, at this moment, the very last thing in the world that Maitland either wanted or needed, he could do little more than answer with a laconic, ‘As you say.’
‘And, thank you for being such pleasant company, Mr Maitland,’ she hastened to add. ‘I know that having your friendship has always meant a great deal to Cat and I would like to feel that we, too, can be good friends.’
Maitland briefly closed his eyes and gritted his teeth before once again offering her his arm. ‘I can’t think of anything I would like better,’ he lied, as he led the blissfully unsuspecting Georgianne back along the path.
Chapter Twelve
When he rode into Gresham Hall’s stableyard the following morning, however, Maitland was not exactly overjoyed to discover Catford mounted and ready to join Georgianne and himself in their ride.
‘I’ll come with you as far as Brinkley’s cottage,’ said the viscount, gesturing to some vague point in the far distance, as the three riders exited the yard. ‘Father has asked me to have a word with one of the cottagers.’
Swallowing his disappointment, Maitland held back his mount, in order to allow Georgianne to move in front, next to her cousin. Having received a number of highly confusing and conflicting messages during his recent conversations with each of them, he had hoped that this morning’s excursion would provide him with the opportunity to discover, for once and for all, how things really stood between Georgianne and his friend.
For several minutes, the trio rode in a companionable silence, then, to Maitland’s surprise, Catford dropped back to join him.
‘I just wanted to ask you to keep an eye on Georgie,’ the viscount advised him, in an undertone, although the sound of the horses’ hooves on the gravelled roadway was more than enough to prevent any third party from making out his words. ‘She seems to be doing all right, at the moment, but I’d like you to be sure that she has the measure of her mount, before you let her take to the gallop, if you would?’
‘I think that you can rely on me to make sure that she comes to no harm, old chap,’ replied Maitland, rather taken aback that his friend had found it necessary to caution him on such an obvious point. ‘Your cousin will be perfectly safe in my hands, I assure you!’
‘Good God, Will!’ exclaimed Catford, a horrified expression appearing on his face. ‘Don’t you think that I know that? There’s not a safer pair of hands in the whole world to whom I would rather trust her than your own! It’s just that, well, um…’ he glanced up ahead to make sure that Georgianne could not hear his words ‘…knowing her as well as I do, I know how headstrong she can be on occasions and I just felt that I needed to warn you to keep your wits about you. After that business on Tuesday, she is quite liable to push herself too far, just to prove some stupid point or other and— as I’ve mentioned before…’ here he paused and a wistful look crossed his face ‘…she is rather precious to us all!’
Reaching across, Maitland squeezed his friend’s arm. ‘Please don’t concern yourself, Cat. I shall watch her like a hawk—she won’t get away from me this time, I promise you!’
‘A thousand thanks, Will.’ With a satisfied nod, the viscount turned his horse’s head to the left, where a narrow lane led down to a row of estate cottages, one of which was his intended destination. ‘I’m off now, Georgie,’ he called to his cousin. ‘Enjoy your ride!’
‘See you later, Cat!’ she called back to him, as she slowed her pace to allow Maitland to come alongside. ‘I’d lay a pound to a penny that I can guess what all that havey-cavey chat was about,’ she said, with a sideways peep at his rather sober expression.
Raising an eyebrow, he stared at her in astonishment. ‘Havey-cavey? I can’t think what you mean!’
She laughed. ‘Liar!’ she challenged him. ‘I know perfectly well that Cat has been telling you to make sure that I don’t kick over the traces! He still thinks that I’m the same uncontrollable scamp that I was when I was in pigtails, bless him!’
‘Well, he was keen to make sure that I didn’t allow you to push yourself too far on this occasion,’ admitted Maitland, with a guilty grin.
‘I doubt if anyone could push themselves too far on this little slugabed,’ she grimaced, flicking her reins in an effort to urge the docile chestnut mare into a trot. ‘Everton must have been ordered to pick out the most passive mount in the entire stables!’
‘It’s just until you get your confidence back,’ he assured her sympathetically. ‘Perhaps, if we cut though this copse just here, we could take a quick canter across those couple of fields over yonder?’
‘What, not even a little gallop?’ she said, pouting her lips in mock dismay.
‘Well, possibly,’ he chuckled. ‘If you give me your word that you will not make off without me!’
‘On this pesky creature?’ she returned, her eyes twinkling with laughter. ‘Very unlikely!’
Turning into the little copse, they were obliged to walk in single file along the narrow bridle path, giving Maitland ample opportunity to admire Georgianne’s trim waist and shapely rear end, a spectacle that caused him to experience a certain stirring somewhere in the region of his lower abdomen. Mindful of Catford’s exhortations, however, he gritted his teeth and endeavoured to concentrate on the task in hand.
Several minutes later, the two riders reached the first of the aforementioned fields, whereupon Georgianne was quick to point out that, to cross into its neighbour, would involve them stopping to unlatch and then refasten the five-bar gate that separated the pair.
‘Unless you can trust me to take a four-foot jump without falling off and breaking my neck, that is!’ she said, confounding him with another of her provocatively dimpling smiles.
‘It’s actually your mare that I wouldn’t trust, on this occasion,’ he grunted, at the same time wondering what the devil had possessed him to suggest this damnfool idea in the first place! She was driving him slowly mad and, if she didn’t cease from tormenting him with her eyes and her lips, he would be unable to prevent himself from dragging her out of her saddle and kissing her and kissing her until…
‘So, have you reached a verdict, Mr Maitland?’
As Georgianne’s laughing voice cut across his lustful fantasy like an icy blast, he was obliged to take several deep breaths to bring himself back to earth. Hurriedly turning his attention back to the current problem, he cast an eye across the field to the gateway and estimated the distance to be about two hundred yards or so. Then, having hazarded a guess that the width of its neighbour would be something in the same region, he figured that the total distance across both fields would be roughly a quarter of a mile.
‘Tell you what we’ll do,’ he suggested. ‘If the gate were open and you carried on through, that would give you a good four hundred yards to work up steam. Would that suffice for this morning, do you suppose?’
Her eyes sparkling with excitement, Georgianne raised one finger and tipped her hat to salute him. ‘What a very clever man you are, Mr Maitland,’ she beamed. ‘I would never have thought of such a thing!’
He gave a diffident shrug, at the same time feeling rather smugly satisfied that his suggestion had met with such a delighted reaction. ‘If you’ll just wait there while I go over and sort out the gate,’ he called, as he took off across the field. ‘Then you’ll be able to breeze on through without a hitch.’
Watching him go, Georgianne could no
t help thinking that life, at times, could be decidedly unfair. There was Steffi, cold-heartedly scheming and plotting to entice the poor unsuspecting Fenton into running away with her and here she was, alone with the most desirable man she had ever met in her life and, despite all the provocative signals she had attempted to throw him, he had not attempted any sort of response. It was true that she had, more than once, caught him staring at her with a rather disturbing expression in his eyes— an expression that had the effect of causing her mind to go completely blank whilst, at the same time, turning her insides into a quivering mess—but he had remained, at all times, the perfect gentleman. Clearly, despite his cheerful willingness to escort his friend’s spinster cousin around the countryside, he was not in the least bit interested in her as a woman which, to Georgianne, was a somewhat dispiriting thought. But, then, with a defiant toss of her head, she decided that she could not allow such an insignificant consideration to mar the few precious hours that she did get to have him all to herself. It was not as though there was any harm in what she was doing and, when the time came for him to leave, as it surely would, she would simply creep back into her shell and nurse her battered heart without anyone being any the wiser!
Maitland’s distant shout, from the far side of the field, interrupted her pensive reverie and, with a guilty start, she realised that he had probably been standing by the gate for some time, for he was madly gesticulating to her to get a move on! Digging her left heel into Brandy’s side, she flicked the reins and, after a moment’s hesitation—heavily mindful of what had happened on the previous occasion—tentatively brought her crop down on the mare’s rump. Instantly obeying her rider’s command, the animal set off across the field.
At this point, the somewhat concerned Maitland had just been on the verge of swinging the gate back into position and returning to Georgianne, fearful that she had lost her nerve but, no sooner had he registered the expression of pure joy on her face as she swooped past him, than he knew that all was well. He breathed a sigh of relief as she reached the far side of the second field without mishap and wheeled back towards him with the utmost competence.
‘Well done!’ he cried, reaching out to grab hold of the bridle as, laughing breathlessly, she reined in at his side.
‘Oh, that was absolutely marvellous, Will!’ she panted, her face aglow with happiness. ‘It would seem that I did the poor creature a disservice! Can I go again?’
‘As many times as you care to,’ returned Maitland with a self-satisfied smile, Georgianne’s inadvertent use of his given name not having escaped him.
For some five minutes he stood by his own mount, poised to leap into the saddle to rush to her aid, should she have the misfortune to come a cropper. Eventually, however, having reached the conclusion that Georgianne was more than capable of carrying out the exercise without any interference from him, he swung himself up on to the top bar of the gate and simply allowed himself the sheer pleasure of just watching her. She was like no other woman he had ever come across: vibrant, quick-witted and so full of life yet, at the same time, it was clear that she was possessed of a quiet but steely determination. He let out a deep sigh of longing. If only she had not belonged to another man!
Having replayed the activity several times more, until both she and her mare were thoroughly spent, the highly exhilarated Georgianne finally allowed Maitland to leap down from his perch and refasten the gate.
‘I really can’t thank you enough, Mr Maitland,’ she exclaimed, as they retraced their way back across the field towards the copse. ‘It must have been incredibly boring for you to sit there all that time and watch me making a fool of myself.’
‘Hardly,’ retorted her escort. ‘You were magnificent! I promise you that it was a pleasure to witness such fine horsemanship!’
Then, after pausing for a moment, he added, ‘However, I’m not altogether sure that I approve of the return to “Mr Maitland”. I believe you called me “Will”, not so many minutes ago.’
Georgianne’s cheeks flamed. ‘D-did I, really?’ she stammered. ‘I do beg your pardon! I tend to think of you—that is, I have become so used to hearing Cat refer to you by your given name that I…’ Her voice trailed off in embarrassment.
‘Oh, please don’t think that I’m complaining!’ he hastened to assure her. ‘If we are to be friends, I should have thought that it was the obvious thing to do. I was rather hoping that you would allow me to call you Georgianne—or, perhaps, Georgie…?’
‘Oh, no! Not Georgie, please!’ was her hurried reply. ‘That has always been Cat’s pet name for me!’ As a matter of fact, she had always disliked the diminutive, although she had no intention of admitting this to her beloved cousin’s friend.
Despite the considerable sinking of his heart at these words, which merely served to confirm his suppositions, Maitland was determined not to allow such a trifling drawback to spoil the moment. After all, he reasoned, as he held back his mount to allow her to precede him into the copse, it’s not as though I have any intention of turning the situation to my advantage!
‘Then Georgianne it shall be,’ he said, with a wide smile, as she made to overtake him.
‘But only when we are by ourselves, if you please,’ she returned hastily. ‘My aunt would not think it at all seemly for us to be on first-name terms after so short an acquaintance.’
Before he could think to retort that, in his opinion, it was well past time that such archaic conventions were done away with, Georgianne was already out of earshot.
On reaching the lane that led back to Gresham Hall, where they were, once again, able to ride abreast, Georgianne turned towards him and asked if he would be free to ride with her again the following morning.
‘I realise that I am taking up an awful lot of your time, Mr—er—Will,’ she said. ‘But it is so long since I had so much fun as I’ve had today!’
‘My mornings are entirely at your disposal, I assure you,’ replied Maitland who, having spent the past few minutes pondering on the various ways that he might introduce the topic, was more than delighted that it was she who had suggested it. ‘My dear cousin Fenton rarely surfaces before half-past ten.’
‘It would seem that you are not having a great deal of success in your search for the missing Miranda,’ she then remarked.
‘Melandra,’ he corrected her absently, as they trotted in a leisurely fashion up the quiet country lane. ‘We have pretty well scoured the whole of the immediate vicinity—I had never realised how many churches there were in this part of Warwickshire. If I have to read through many more parish registers, I swear I shall go cross-eyed!’
Her lips curved and she let out a rippling laugh, the very sound of which sent a frisson of desire shooting right through him. ‘Now, that would be unfortunate, for then you would be obliged to stare at twice as many names!’ Pausing, she then added, ‘Melandra? It is a very unusual name, isn’t it?’
‘It translates as “Little Honey”, I believe,’ he replied, with a wide grin. ‘Her father—my Uncle Henry—was something of a scholar, I’m told.’
She returned his smile. ‘And to think that all this time I had been under the impression that you were saying “Miranda”.’
Raising his eyebrow, he gave a short laugh. ‘Doesn’t say much for my powers of articulation then,’ he observed drily.
‘Well, it’s not as though I have ever had a face-to-face conversation with you about your missing relative,’ retorted Georgianne. ‘Most of what I have accumulated has been hearsay—would it bore you to tell me the whole story?’
‘Not at all,’ said Maitland. ‘Although it will probably bore you to hear it!’
Notwithstanding, he then gave her a brief outline of the events that had led to his recent arrival in the area, followed by his singular lack of success in laying his hands upon any trace of the unfortunate Étienne.
‘Twenty-one years ago,’ she repeated, almost to herself. ‘That would make him roughly the same age as I am.’
; ‘If the child survived,’ Maitland could not forbear from pointing out. ‘Although, having explored more or less every possible avenue in this neck of the woods, I am fast coming to the conclusion that my late uncle’s memory of the whole business must have been decidedly awry, in which case, the lad could be anywhere!’
‘But you won’t give up just yet, will you?’ she asked, holding her breath. Having felt herself totally at one with him, she did not think that she would be able to bear it if he left so soon. Just a few more days, she pleaded, sending up a prayer to whichever invisible deity might be smiling down on her at that moment, and then I swear that I will put him out of my mind for ever!
Not while I have the opportunity to spend a few more hours alone with you, was Maitland’s immediate thought, as they rode into the stableyard.
‘No, I shan’t give up until every vestige of hope is gone!’ he replied, his lips twisting in a brief smile as he handed her down from her horse.
Chapter Thirteen
As soon as luncheon had been cleared away, Georgianne sought out her friend and suggested that she might like to take a walk down to the lakeside.
‘Then you can tell me what happened between yourself and Mr Fenton,’ she declared, as she selected one of a collection of straw hats from the row of hooks in the back lobby and tossed another to Stephanie. ‘I trust that he managed to persuade you to forget your ridiculous proposal?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ replied Stephanie complacently, as she tied the ribbons under her chin, ‘he didn’t think that it was in the least bit ridiculous, but he did say that it would require quite a bit of organisation and—as he so charmingly put it—a fair bit of blunt!’
‘Perhaps Mr Fenton is not quite as well heeled as you supposed him to be?’ observed Georgianne quietly.
‘Oh, he clearly has plenty of money,’ returned Stephanie, with a careless shrug. ‘It’s just that—not expecting to be in need of it on this trip—he didn’t bring a great deal with him. So, it would appear that our plans will have to be put on hold until he can have some funds transferred up to the Town & County in Dunchurch. Plus, it seems that he will need to apply to some bishop or other for a special licence.’
The Major and the Country Miss Page 13
