Andrew gave her a long look. “Dress, Georgie? Flowers?”
It came to her then. They were discussing her wedding, the wedding she never expected to have. It would be simple; it would be soon, but it should be meaningful.
“Yes, all right. I think so,” she said. “And a wedding supper, too. Geoff, your grandmother will help, won’t she?”
“She’ll dance a jig. She’s been hoping to see you two make a match of it for weeks now—anything but you alone in that dreadful little house.”
Even Dunning’s insensitive remark about her house didn’t dampen her spirits. Mrs. Potter will dance a jig. The idea made her laugh out loud. “We will all dance a jig at the wedding.”
Three days later nothing sounded simple. Where are they? Andrew estimated two days. They should have been back late last night or at least early afternoon today. He agreed we would marry today. Where are they?
She wished she had never agreed to special license. She wished they had dashed off to Scotland or at least that she had insisted on accompanying them to Ely.
Georgiana rearranged the flowers in the center of Andrew’s worn old worktable (as she had a half-dozen times before) and checked the nosegays on his mantel. Afternoon shadows sank lower with each passing moment and still no sound at the door.
She knew she ought to go downstairs and help Edwina Potter and Geoff Dunning entertain Reverend Parke. He wouldn’t stay much longer.
She took one more look around. The room made a perfect background for their wedding; she had been right about that. It was fragrant with memories. They would wed surrounded by his books and the work they shared. It had everything except a groom.
“Two days,” Andrew had said, with time for the bishop to complete the paperwork. “We will marry in the early afternoon,” he had said. It was long past early.
A knock on the door sent her running. She flew halfway down the stairs before she realized that Andrew wouldn’t have knocked. He would have opened the door and flown to her. Another man stood at the door, a slender figure so tall he had to duck slightly to enter. The last apricot-orange rays of sun illuminated impeccably groomed golden hair. Richard.
“The Major isn’t in.” Harley, not impressed with anyone’s consequence, stood with one hand on the door as if to shut him out. Richard looked quizzically at the tableau in the parlor: Dunning and Reverend Parke sipped tea companionably and slowly; Edwina chatted with Molly Harding; Mr. Peabody sat engrossed in Poetry by the Female Authors of Ancient Greece. Harley waited but gave no ground.
Richard swept his glance inexorably up the stairs to his sister. “Georgiana, I thought I might see you here. There were no servants at Helsington. It is closed.”
“Richard, this is a surprise.” She forced the words out through clenched teeth. His clear blue eyes, inscrutable as always, scanned her appearance. She descended the final steps and believed he could see her very soul. “Helsington has been sold. The last of the servants left yesterday.”
“Is there somewhere we might speak privately?”
For a moment she wanted to insist on the parlor and an audience. Her heart beat erratically, but she wouldn’t become a coward now. She wouldn’t shrink back.
She gestured up the stairs, gave Harley a reassuring smile, and preceded Richard up. The old batman looked ready for a fight if necessary. She knew he would stay within earshot.
The honey glow of afternoon filled Andrew’s study and enhanced the soft crème lace of Georgiana’s gown.
“You look well. Your health continues to improve, and that dress, I must say, is stunning.” Richard’s voice seemed sincere, but one could never tell. “Is there an occasion? I understand your host isn’t at home.”
“As you see. You wished a word with me?” Don’t be defensive. Stand your ground.
Richard looked at her more sharply.
“Actually, I have brought you something.” He removed a parcel wrapped in paper and unwrapped it on the worktable. She knew what it was, of course.
“I think perhaps you have already seen this. There was a copy downstairs, wasn’t there?”
“Certainly.”
“Did you know he had it published?”
“Not initially, no. I understand that someone released it accidentally before I could approve. Richard, I would have approved it. The intent was always to publish it. Now that the first run has sold out, we’ve ordered an additional printing.”
“When Andrew came to Mountview, this was his business?”
“Yes.” She faced him defiantly.
Richard ran his long graceful fingers over the rich brown leather. “It is quite good, a very fine piece of work. Georgiana, I had no idea. I read it in London, at Bailey’s, before it was printed.”
The air left her lungs in a rush, as if forced. “I didn’t know that. Andrew didn’t tell me.”
“As I said, it’s quite good but not the work of one A. Mallet, I believe.”
“Not entirely, no. But without him there would be no book. Is mother in collapse or preparing warfare?”
“Warfare, but not the sort that involves frontal attacks.”
“How so?”
“All violence of feeling has been in private. She is more concerned about deflecting any rumors about the ‘Lady of Scholarship.’ She chooses not to know who it could possibly be.”
“Ignore the unpleasant, and it will wither?”
“Exactly. It’s quite effective. No one dares to contradict her.”
“His Grace?”
“Isn’t interested in scholarship.”
“I see. If he chooses not to know about it, it doesn’t exist. And you?”
“If the Lady of Scholarship wishes to remain private, I have no quarrel with it. I’m proud of you.”
She looked away, overwhelmed. He was giving her his approval.
“Are you still set on living alone in a hovel?”
“It wasn’t a hovel!”
Damn Richard’s arrogance.
A commotion on the stairs spared her from answering any further. Georgiana heard Jamie’s heavy steps bypass Andrew’s lumbering climb. He burst into the study first.
“Richard! Come to join the wedding party, have you? Too late. Andrew has already assigned the honor of standing up with him to me.” He defied the Marquess to stand in their way.
Silence followed that amazing speech while Reverend Parke, Harley, and their guests filed in. Richard looked over at Georgiana. Whatever questions he had must have been answered because he gave her one of his rare smiles.
“Don’t be foolish, Heyworth. I’m here to give the bride away.” He raised her hand and kissed her fingers, whispering as he did so, “Thank God. I feared for you alone.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. His concern touched her heart in spite of his managing ways.
Andrew removed her hand from her brother’s, a protective glare dark in his eyes. The ferocious expression delighted Georgiana.
“Consider the bride presented, Richard. You are welcome to share in our joy, but I warn you—”
Richard raised a hand to pause, but Andrew overrode it and went on, “—that if you hurt her in any way, if she suffers the slightest humiliation or difficulty, there will be hell to pay.”
“My dear Andrew, that should be my speech to you,” the Marquess replied with perfect hauteur.
“Richard, what about His Grace?” Georgiana asked, suddenly anxious.
“As I said before, he prefers to ignore what he doesn’t wish to exist.” Glenaire watched her with steady eyes. She would cease to exist to them; she already had. They both knew it.
She reached up and brushed the coarse black hair from Andrew’s eyes. “So be it,” she said out loud.
Andrew looked puzzled and glanced at Richard suspiciously, but her swift kiss more than satisfied him.
Richard watched them for a moment; his slight smile reached his eyes slowly. He looked around the room as if satisfied with what he saw. “One presumes there is a license. Perhaps
the Reverend would like to see it, Heyworth. There’s a good man.”
“Georgiana,” he said, “you might want a moment to freshen. Or perhaps not. You are disgustingly radiant already.”
Harley directed their guests to seats. “Corporal Harley? Ah, good man! I see the champagne wine is chilled. Cakes and ices as well. Excellent. We may need to light these candles also. Andrew, would you see to it? I think that exquisite mantelpiece would make a good setting, don’t you?”
Georgiana laughed as everyone did his bidding. They always did. This time no one seemed to mind, and she minded least of all.
In the flicker of twilight candles, surrounded by the things they valued most and the people they loved, Georgiana gave both her hands to Andrew, and repeated the words that joined their lives. When Andrew leaned to kiss her, their loved ones clapped in delight.
We should celebrate more often. This house was in need of joy, Andrew thought as he stepped around Mr. Peabody and John Bailey deep in conversation on the bottom of the stairs.
He looked at the guests standing in his kitchen door and spilled around his sitting room. They chatted in groups of two and three and happily sipped champagne. He and Georgiana would fill the house with guests often in the future. Not tonight, though. Tonight is for us.
That night he wanted nothing except to be left alone with his wife. Glenaire had already begun to hint Jamie away, promising dinner at Cambridge’s best inn. Harley announced he would spend a few days in Georgiana’s little cottage, ostensibly packing it up, but in reality giving them privacy.
All I want is my bride, who seems to have gone missing.
“Geoff, have you seen Georgiana?” Andrew asked. “She and your mother were deep in some female conversation ten minutes ago.”
“Went out back for air,” Dunning replied, putting on his cloak. “Mrs. Mallet looked a bit peaked.”
Peaked? Andrew looked in the direction of the kitchen. His tiny garden lay beyond it.
“I will bid you good evening, Mallet, and give you my congratulations one last time. Mother and I will take our leave in a few moments,” Dunning said.
Andrew merely nodded. He headed through the kitchen before Dunning could finish. He heard others making their departures behind him.
“Georgiana, is there a problem?” he asked, coming out the door. “Your brother is preparing to leave and—”
He stopped short at the sight of his bride, pale as linen, bent over in the shadowy garden. Edwina Potter sat next to her on a stone bench against the brick wall that surrounded his small patch of green. The old woman had an arm around her shoulders.
Andrew rushed forward.
“What is it, Love?”
“I fear champagne didn’t agree with her,” Mrs. Potter told him. “She’s had a bit of nausea.”
He knelt in front of Georgiana.
“I’m sorry,” his new wife mumbled. “It should pass.”
“Indeed it will, young man. Nothing to be concerned about,” Mrs. Potter told him with a smile as she rose to her feet. As if to confirm that, Georgiana sat up straight.
Mrs. Potter beamed at both of them. “I’ll leave you two together. You’ll want some time alone.” She scurried away without another word.
Georgiana leaned her forehead against his. “Andrew, I’m so sorry, but it has passed already. I’ll be fine. I won’t let it spoil our wedding night.”
He kissed her softly. “Nothing could, no matter how you feel or what we do. We have hundreds of nights ahead of us. Are you certain you aren’t ill? Do you want me to fetch Peabody?” He stood up. “I’ll have to run to catch him.”
She grabbed a hand and pulled him back.
“I’m not ill, Andrew. I fear I may have misled you, however. This house is very small.”
He looked at her, confused. “I told you we didn’t need to stay here,” he said, struggling to understand her meaning.
“Mr. Peabody may have been wrong.”
His puzzlement deepened.
An impish smile crossed her lips. She pulled him down to the bench to whisper in his ear. “I’m not quite sure, but I think we will have another collaboration to manage in seven more months.”
Still not making sense.
He felt baffled. Georgiana just smiled back until the radiant look on her face moved something inside him and the light dawned. He felt an explosion of joy great enough to fill their little house.
“Pregnant Georgie?” he whispered when he could breathe. He covered her belly with his hand. A child grew there, his child. The idea made him tremble.
She nodded, a happy laugh bursting forth. “I’ve never been so glad to be wrong about something.”
He kissed her then, as he wanted to do all evening. “I love you,” he said. She didn’t answer. She took his mouth with hers and kissed him until they both gasped for air.
Andrew stood and helped her rise. He slipped an arm around her waist, and they walked to the door.
“I think, dear wife, that, no matter what happens, my life with you will be a constant surprise.”
Georgiana let out a yelp when he swept her up into his arms. He carried her across the threshold, laughter trailing in their wake.
Author’s Note
Dangerous Works takes place in 1816. At that time Lord Hardwick’s Marriage Act of 1753 regulated marriages in England. The law stipulated that a valid marriage required the reading of banns in both parties’ home parish for three weeks before the wedding occurred. To avoid the public reading of banns, a couple could obtain a license as Andrew and Georgiana did. Technically, a special license had to be obtained from the Archbishop of Canterbury or his representative, a situation that Georgiana wanted to avoid. For the purpose of the story, our characters needed a creative way around that stipulation. Luckily, Jamie’s uncle, whose diocese included Cambridgeshire, did have friends on Canterbury’s staff.
DANGEROUS WORKS
Copyright©2014
CAROLINE WARFIELD
Cover Design by Christy Caughie
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