A Regency Invitation to the House Party of the Season

by Nicola Cornick, Joanna Maitland

  Anthony took a very deep breath, on the brink of telling John the truth, when a dreadful thought occurred to him.

  He felt dazed. William had tried to destroy John’s trust in Sarah and his own trust in Marcus. Could he possibly have tried the same trick at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball? But, damn it, he’d seen Georgie in Finch-Scott’s arms, actually seen her stretch up on tiptoe to kiss him. There had been no possibility that he had taken that kiss against her will. She had given it freely.

  ‘Anthony? Are you all right?’

  He blinked. John was watching him with a worried frown.

  ‘Sorry, John. You’re right. As usual. It is time I did something about the business.’

  John’s brow cleared. ‘Well, that’s a relief. If there’s anything I can do…’ He left it hanging.

  Feeling a complete hand, Anthony flushed. ‘There is something—whatever my decision…er…whatever the outcome of my decision, you will support me, won’t you? You and Sarah?’

  From the look on John’s face he might have been offered a mortal insult.

  ‘I take it back,’ he said grimly. ‘Not even Marcus is that big a codshead! Of course we’ll support you! Not that I’ll tell Sarah you asked. I might hesitate to draw your cork, but I doubt she would hesitate to slap your face! For God’s sake, man! Get on with it and get your own heir.’ A raffish twinkle came into his eye. ‘Believe me—it’s far more satisfying than making a will!’

  Swallowing hard, Anthony refrained from answering. It was entirely possible that he had dealt with the problem last night. And with that possibility staring him in the face, his choices were limited. Limited to one.

  Chapter Two

  At Breakfast Georgie wondered when Anthony would return from his ride. He had not been seen at all and even Lady Quinlan had considered this most peculiar.

  Mr Sinclair and Miss Devereaux appeared far too taken up with each other to concern themselves about an errant host. Their gazes kept meeting and the blush on Miss Devereaux’s cheeks was far from delicate.

  Somehow Georgie had managed to sneak back to her own bed without being seen by anyone. And since Miss Lyndhurst had said nothing, she could only assume that her night-long absence had gone undetected.

  She pushed her breakfast around the plate with no real interest. It blurred before her eyes. All she could see was Anthony, asleep as she left his bed at dawn, the grim lines around his mouth at peace, his powerful body relaxed.

  At least she had lain with him one last time.

  She wished she had dared to caress his cheek before she left the bed, but she had not, drawing back her outstretched fingers at the last moment. Her eyes burned and she blinked.

  ‘Eat, girl!’ Miss Lyndhurst was glaring at her. ‘Drat it, child. Took me three years to get some flesh on those bones and bedamned if you aren’t losing it all! Anthony’s cook ain’t that bad. Nothing that a watchful mistress wouldn’t put to rights.’

  Her cheeks burned as she stammered a disclaimer that her breakfast was lovely, she was merely woolgathering.

  Miss Lyndhurst’s bright black eyes narrowed. She snorted, but mercifully let it lie.

  When Georgie dared look up from her plate, she discovered Mr Sinclair watching her as he had the previous evening, his blue-grey gaze piercing and an odd, secret smile playing about his mouth. She dropped her eyes to her plate. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t! None of Anthony’s family had ever met her, apart from Mr William Lyndhurst-Flint. And he hadn’t bothered so much as to glance at her. So why did Mr Sinclair keep staring at her?

  If only Anthony would consent to ending their marriage quietly enough that Miss Lyndhurst never discovered what a viper she had been nursing. Otherwise she would be without a reference. Despite her waspish comments, Miss Lyndhurst had a considerable affection for her great-nephew. And she would be hurt by the deception practised on her. Georgie shivered slightly at the thought. She had caused enough hurt for one lifetime.

  Breakfast over, Mr Sinclair announced that he and Miss Devereaux were going to take a walk.

  Lady Mardon glanced up. ‘Very well, Marcus. I shall be ready in fifteen minutes.’

  Mr Sinclair gave her a withering look. ‘Sarah—I said Miss Devereaux and I were going for a walk. Since when was your name Devereaux?’

  Lady Mardon favoured him with the most quelling of quelling looks. ‘Marcus, just in case it had escaped your notice, I am Amy’s chaperon here, and—’

  Georgie could only describe Mr Sinclair’s roar of laughter as unseemly and there was not a hair’s breadth to choose between the shades of crimson adorning the cheeks of both Miss Devereaux and Lady Mardon.

  He glanced fleetingly at Miss Devereaux and frowned as he turned back to Lady Mardon. ‘Dearest goose, we are betrothed. Remember all that champagne? Miss Devereaux is perfectly safe with me and I’m sure you can count on Anthony and John to put a pistol to my head if I fail to meet my obligations. Why don’t you chaperon Cassie instead?’

  ‘We’re married, Marcus, you great clod!’ Lady Quinlan said. ‘We can do what we like, when we like! Without your permission!’

  Miss Lyndhurst gave a bark of laughter as Lord Quinlan choked on his sirloin.

  ‘Waste of time, child,’ she said to Lady Mardon. ‘You may keep me company instead and tell me all about these boys you have given Mardon. Miss Saunders is going to take a rest.’

  She bent a stern look on Georgie. ‘Knew that truckle bed in the dressing room was no damn good. Bad for your neck. Have to find another bed for you. I’m sure Anthony will oblige.’

  The blush on Georgie’s face rivalled Miss Devereaux’s.

  Miss Lyndhurst charged on. ‘You go and sit in the library. Nice, quiet spot if you’ve got a headache. No one will disturb you there. Off you go. Dare say Anthony won’t be back for a while. Go on. Do as you’re bid!’

  Curled up in the big wingchair by the library window, Georgie dozed a little in the sun. She hadn’t slept well, wildly aware of Anthony on the opposite side of the bed and her own hopeless longing to wriggle into his arms and be held. She had dreamt of him and kept half-waking, unsure of what was dream and what was memory. And now she drifted in the sunlight by the window, the print of her book dancing and blurring before her eyes.

  He would return soon enough. To be told by his butler that most of the party was out about the grounds, but that Miss Saunders was in the library. He would know that she was waiting for him, would probably be only too glad to have the opportunity to be rid of her.

  She awoke with a start and realised that he was there, in the other wingchair on the opposite side of the window, reading a newspaper with his old setter dozing at his feet, half on her back. One booted foot was absently rubbing Stella’s exposed belly. If the boot slowed, an imperious paw put it in mind of its duty.

  For a moment, she watched him. Knowing it might be for the last time, she absorbed every detail: strong, chiselled jaw, the slightly tousled auburn hair, the powerful form relaxed in the chair. And his unthinking gentleness with his dog.

  Her husband. The man she loved—who was about to disown her.

  He lowered the paper and regarded her over it. ‘Good morning. You must have risen early.’

  She sat up, conscious of untidy hair and a rumpled gown. ‘I…I beg your pardon, sir. You should have woken me when you came in.’

  His mouth tightened. ‘You didn’t sleep well last night. Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m very well.’ As well as she could be, anyway, facing his cold grey eyes. Knowing that he despised her.

  ‘It won’t happen again.’

  She flinched. ‘You made that quite clear last night, sir.’ He had taken her for revenge and she had been fool enough to hope for passion and forgiveness. Dear God—and she’d thought she had grown up…Drawing a deep breath, she said, ‘There is something I must ask you, sir. A…a favour.’

  His face hardened even further. ‘A favour. Madam, you are scarcely in a position to be making demands! Surely—
’

  ‘I’m not demanding,’ she broke in. ‘Simply asking.’ Clinging to self-control, she said, ‘When you divorce me—I don’t know how these things are done, but would it be possible for Miss Lyndhurst not to know who “Miss Saunders” is? I…I will need a reference…and she—I think she would be hurt to know the truth.’ She hurried on. ‘Naturally you wish me to leave her employ, but without a reference—’ Her voice shivered to silence. Without a reference and with a scandal like this attached to her name, she would never gain another respectable position. She might as well hang out a sign saying ‘whore’. Which was, no doubt, how Anthony thought of her.

  ‘I see.’ His voice was cold. Hard. ‘It may come as a surprise, madam, but I have no intention of acceding to your request.’

  She tasted fear. Could Anthony hate that much? ‘Very well.’ Somehow she forced her legs to support her as she stood and placed the book in the very centre of the wine table beside her chair. It was oddly important to make sure it was dead centre.

  ‘Where are you going?’ His voice cracked like a whip.

  Holding herself together by sheer willpower, she said, ‘To pack. You must wish me gone. If you will give me your solicitor’s direction—’

  ‘Dammit, Georgie! I just said I wouldn’t divorce you! You’re not going anywhere!’

  The room whirled blackly.

  ‘Georgie!’

  Strong arms caught her, lowered her to the chair. Swift, shaking fingers undid the buttons at her throat, brushing lightly over her cheek. Her dream again—the one in which the past four years had never happened, in which he still cared for her…

  The haze receded to reveal him leaning over her. ‘Drink this.’ A tumbler was pressed to her lips and something fiery tipped down her throat. Spluttering, she pushed the tumbler away.

  ‘No. Please—’

  ‘Drink it. You fainted. It’s only brandy.’

  His fingers closed around hers on the tumbler and she couldn’t repress the tremor that rippled through her at his touch, the sensation of him surrounding her.

  Abruptly he released her and stepped back.

  Georgie wondered if she had misunderstood. Surely, surely he wanted to divorce her?

  ‘Let us have this straight, madam. I will not divorce you.’

  She sank back in the chair, dazed. His denial echoed through her. But, he thought she had cuckolded him—he’d made that plain enough last night.

  It remains to be seen what new tricks you have been taught…

  He had turned away to stare out of the window, his fists clenched at his sides. ‘After last night…’ there was a bleak pause ‘…after last night there is every chance you are carrying my heir. Divorce is out of the question.’

  Pain splintered deep as other memories ripped free. An heir… If he knew? Would he still want her? If all he wanted was an heir…she would have to tell him.

  ‘Then…then we could wait, until—’

  ‘No!’

  The old dog jolted up.

  Anthony whirled, eyes blazing, his jaw a solid line of outrage. ‘Dammit, Georgie! We won’t wait! You are to remove your things from Aunt Harriet’s dressing room today!’

  That distracted her. ‘Remove my things? But…but where am I to sleep? All the bedchambers are being used. You gave the last spare one to Mr Sinclair!’ Even as she spoke, Anthony’s stunned face gave her the answer.

  Anthony couldn’t quite believe that she’d actually asked. For a moment shock strangled him. Then, ‘Hell’s teeth, Georgie!’ he exploded. ‘You’re my wife! You’ll sleep where you slept last night! Where you belong—in my bed, of course!’

  The shocked gasp from the doorway froze every drop of blood. Turning slowly, Anthony realised that this was one of those moments. The sort of moment when you wished the floor would hurry up and open, when you wished the world would crack open in fire and obliterate you.

  Sarah stood on the threshold, her hand clapped to her mouth, with the rest of the house party crowding at her back. All of them: John, Marcus, Miss Devereaux, William, Aunt Harriet, Cassie and poor Quinlan, who must think he’d married into a family of Bedlamites.

  Taking a very deep breath, Anthony braced himself for explanations, even as Sarah gave vent to a delighted cry.

  ‘Oh, Anthony! How simply—ooh!’

  How John silenced her, Anthony couldn’t quite see, but, judging by the squawk and the glare Sarah cast at her husband, he assumed she’d had her bottom pinched.

  Smothering a grin, John said, ‘Later, my love. Come along. There’s something I forgot to show you in our bedchamber this morning.’ He cast Anthony an amused glance. ‘We’ll, ah, leave you to the solving of your problem, old chap.’ So saying, he steered his audibly giggling wife from the room.

  What John might have forgotten to show Sarah during eight years of enthusiastic marriage, Anthony refused to contemplate. All he could do was face Marcus, whose eyebrows rose briefly as he propped himself against the door frame and grinned openly, with not the least sign of surprise. Damn Marcus! He’d seen the miniature, of course, but did he have to look so curst smug?

  ‘But…but…’ That was Miss Devereaux, whose extraordinary eyes suggested she had taken a blow to the head. Evidently Marcus had kept his mouth shut about his suspicions.

  ‘Very discreet, our Anthony,’ offered Marcus in soothing tones. ‘Dare say he meant to tell us eventually. House parties are supposed to be, er, hotbeds of scandal. Have to keep the side up, you know.’ He winked at Miss Devereaux and she blushed violently.

  Anthony gritted his teeth. And forbore to ask just how Marcus and Miss Devereaux had been keeping the side up. There were things a host simply didn’t want to know and there was something damned smoky about the pair of them anyway.

  ‘Well…well…I mean to say…ah, Aunt Harriet, dare say you’ll need to lie down. Some hartshorn. Quite a shock and all that sort of thing…’ William sounded as though he needed a restorative. He was staring at Aunt Harriet’s erstwhile companion as though he couldn’t quite believe his eyes and ears.

  Great-aunt Harriet silenced William’s tentative effort at tact with a glare and pushed his proffered arm away with her ear trumpet.

  ‘You may presume to tell me what to do, William, when I’m in my winding sheet and not before. Cassie!’ she rounded on her great-niece. ‘Tell that maid of yours—Ebdon, isn’t it—to remove Mrs Lyndhurst’s belongings and take ’em to Anthony’s bedchamber. I’ve not the least doubt that man of his will be only too happy to show her where everything goes!’

  Cassie, miraculously lost for words, obeyed, with a last stunned glance at Georgie. Quinlan followed her with an incomprehensible mutter, and an all-too-comprehensible grin.

  Aunt Harriet turned her guns on Anthony. ‘As for you—God only knows what took you so long! I parade the chit under your nose for days before you come to your senses! Lord! I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to dose her with laudanum and have Timms and Ufton put her into your bed!’

  Mentally reeling from this broadside, Anthony absorbed the fact that at least he was spared this particular explanation. The meddlesome old hag had known all along! Which meant…He swung around to find Georgie staring transfixed at Harriet.

  ‘You…you knew! That was why you decided to come here! Why you insisted that I come!’ Her voice echoed disbelief.

  Shock hit Anthony. Then…Georgie hadn’t planned it? Hadn’t even wanted to come?

  Harriet snorted. ‘Knew? Good God, gel! Of course I knew. Your godmother was one of my oldest friends. She and I planned the whole!’ She sniffed. ‘Never thought it would take this long! Or that I’d have to practically drag you here! Four years! I ask you!’ Her mouth tightened. ‘Not that you weren’t a good companion, though. Best I ever had. Now you get back where you belong and sort out this idiot great-nephew of mine.’

  She turned on Anthony, eyes snapping, and poked him in the chest. ‘And mind you keep her! I’ve interfered enough for one lifetime. As for the rest of
you—out!’ With a sweep of the ear trumpet that nearly clipped William’s ear, she drove the others before her like chaff, stalked out after them and shut the door.

  Battling to order her thoughts, Georgie faced her husband, her chin up, despite the flush of mortification burning her cheeks. After that, there was no way that she could quietly disappear with no one the wiser. ‘You haven’t given me very much choice, have you?’ she said.

  He flushed. ‘Damn it, Georgie! I didn’t know they were there. D’you think I meant it to happen?’ He wiped his brow. ‘Damn it to hell! I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. Thank God it was only family!’

  ‘What do we do now?’ she whispered.

  His mouth set hard. ‘We put our marriage back together, that’s what we do. I am sorry if you wish otherwise, Georgie, but I am not prepared to go through the scandal and expense of a divorce. Especially since I require an heir. You will forgive my plain speaking.’

  Her throat ached with suppressed tears. He couldn’t know the pain his words gave her. A marriage of convenience for an heir. To the man she loved. When he despised her and she had no idea if she could fulfil her duty…She had to tell him that. Tell him what she’d never told anyone—And watch him turn away.

  ‘I…I see. Then…then you wish me to do my duty. You expect—’

  ‘No!’ The harshness of his voice shocked her. He took one step towards her, eyes blazing. She stood her ground. Damned if she’d back up!

  He swung away and continued. ‘After last night—I do not intend to press my attentions on you immediately. But you will share my bed.’

  She swallowed the choking lump. He didn’t even want her, then. She had thought nothing could shame her more than the unexpected revelation of her identity. Shame, she now learnt, had entirely unplumbed depths. Doubtless he didn’t trust her enough to permit her a separate bedchamber. And when he could bring himself to touch her, he intended to do his duty and get an heir. Probably a spare or two as well.