‘You cannot just marry the first man to show an interest in you in case nobody better comes along,’ he snapped. ‘You need to think it all over, in a rational manner.’
‘In a rational manner,’ she repeated, with scepticism.
‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘For example, it might help if you were to draw up a list of factors which would make living with some man...’
She tilted her head to one side. ‘Bearable?’
‘I was trying to think of a more positive word, but, yes, in your case, since you have a ridiculous aversion to the whole idea of matrimony, perhaps the word bearable would do.’
‘You are a fine one to talk,’ she said, setting her own empty cup next to his on the windowsill.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Only that it’s common knowledge that you are not the marrying kind.’
‘Not the marrying kind?’ His whole being swelled with outrage. How dare she imply that he was of the same ilk as Lord Freckleton? He had a good mind to drag her into one of the convenient alcoves set aside for the purpose and make violent love to her until she had no doubt about his proclivities.
None whatsoever.
The idea of kissing her into submission...or...no, he could not see Georgie being a submissive partner. She’d either fight him off, or become an enthusiastic participant.
‘I’ll have you know,’ he said indignantly, ‘that I bedded my first woman while I was at Oxford. And have had a score of mistresses in my keeping since then.’
Her eyes widened in shock. ‘I don’t think you are supposed to talk about that sort of thing to...to someone like me.’
‘Well, I needed to make it clear.’
‘Yes, I suppose...I mean, I dare say a lot of men prefer to keep a string of mistresses rather than tie themselves to just one woman. That was one reason I thought you might not mind, um, giving me a home. As long as you knew I wouldn’t demand fidelity, or...’
‘What?’ Now she was insinuating he was loose in the haft. It was a good job he hadn’t been taking a drink at the time because he had a notion he’d have just sprayed it all over the curtains. ‘You knew about my mistresses?’
She widened her eyes as though what he’d said was rather stupid. ‘Everyone in Bartlesham knows about your mistresses. People gossip about everything you do, since there is so little going on down there. And you have lived such an exciting life...’
‘Me? Exciting?’
‘Yes. First of all going off to the Scilly Isles, for all those years, which everyone said was as good as going on the Grand Tour for a young gentleman nowadays—’
‘It was nothing of the kind! My health—’
‘And then you went off to university and created a scandal by getting involved with the daughter of your bedmaker—’
‘It wasn’t a scandal! Betty was—’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. This was making no sense. If she knew he’d been active in that way, for so long, then she couldn’t possibly suspect him of being...
No. Of course not. Georgiana was far too innocent to know about that sort of thing. Which brought him neatly to the next point.
‘Nobody should have repeated such gossip to you, at that age. Why, you could hardly have been more than...’ Actually, she hadn’t been that much younger than Betty. Which reflection made him feel rather flushed.
‘Oh, they didn’t,’ she said blithely. ‘But I couldn’t help overhearing things, sometimes.’
Now it was her turn to blush and look uncomfortable.
The whole situation was deuced awkward. She clearly knew details about his life he wasn’t at all comfortable with her knowing.
Though he supposed that was marginally less unpleasant than having her suspect he did not find women attractive at all.
‘Well, you shouldn’t have! You should not repeat the things you’ve overheard, either, especially not to me.’
She sighed. ‘I beg pardon. I know I’m always blurting out things I shouldn’t. It’s just—well, it’s so hard not to be frank with you, now that we are talking again. I keep forgetting that we aren’t...friends any more.’
‘Of course we are friends!’ He stared at her, feeling almost as shocked as she looked. And then something flared in her eyes. A sort of wistful look. And she leaned a little closer.
But then whatever it was died.
‘No,’ she said, with a rueful shake of her head. ‘Stepmama says that single ladies cannot be friends with single gentlemen. It isn’t proper.’
He was about to say that was nonsense, when he recalled that actually, it was true. It wasn’t proper. So he clamped his mouth shut.
‘And that being so,’ she said, ‘I think you ought to return me to Stepmama now. Don’t you?’
‘No, I don’t. We still haven’t made any progress in defining what sort of man you could tolerate marrying.’
‘What, you still think I ought to draw up some sort of list?’
‘It couldn’t hurt,’ he said. ‘As a mental exercise, it would certainly help you to get your thoughts in a less chaotic state than they are in at present.’
‘My thoughts are not in a chaotic state.’
‘They are. Otherwise,’ he said, when she drew breath to object, ‘you would not think it a good idea to marry Major Gowan, nor would you be talking to a man about what mistresses he keeps whilst in the same breath implying—’
‘Implying what?’ She looked up at him in confusion.
He felt a touch confused himself.
He never blurted out what he was thinking—or to be more precise, feeling. Especially not what he was feeling. He could normally keep a cool head during any debate, no matter how heated other participants might become.
‘Never mind what I thought you were implying,’ he ended up saying, since he was definitely not going to explain that one, some men did not find women attractive, two, he’d thought she’d thought he was one of those men, three, he resented her assumption, and so on and so forth. It would take far too long and only end in embarrassment all round.
‘It is time I returned you to your stepmother.’ He’d lost track of time whilst bickering with Georgie. Any moment now his mother would be hauling some husband-hunting debutante up before him and insisting he dance with her.
‘I shall call upon you in a few days,’ he said, taking her by the elbow and steering her out of the refreshment room at a brisk pace. ‘Which will give you time to set your thoughts down on paper. And then I can see what I can do to match you up with your...ideal man.’
She shot him a look of resentment.
‘You do not need to bother.’
‘Oh, but I do,’ he said firmly. ‘If you think I’m going to have a moment’s peace, if I stand back and watch you throw yourself away on the likes of Major Gowan, then you are very much mistaken.’
‘But, Edmund—’
‘But nothing, Georgie. He’d make you miserable.’ And so would Lord Freckleton, albeit in an entirely different way.
And he didn’t want her to be miserable.
He walked her back to her stepmother, was aware she said something, and he said something back, and that people were chatting and laughing and somewhere in the background music was playing. But he was only half-aware of any of it. Because he was reeling at his last unspoken thought. He’d meant it, too, with every atom of his being, without even knowing he felt that way.
And it made no difference what she’d done, or not done in the past, or even what she thought of him now.
He couldn’t bear to think of her being miserable.
Chapter Ten
Of all the high-handed, arrogant, supercilious...men! Georgiana glared at Edmund’s back as he sauntered out of the ballroom, his mind already clearly elsewhere. She spent the rest of the evening fuming.
By the time she reached their rented house, all she could remember of the ball were the moments she’d spent with him. Being lectured and dragged round and forced to drink lemonade, and lectured again, and then tossed aside as if he’d grown bored with her antics. And all whilst trailing two feet of spangled floss trimming.
Georgiana tore off her ball gown, wincing as one of the pins she’d used to repair the damage scored her ankle, kicked off her slippers and brushed her hair so vigorously that sparks crackled. When Sukey dreamily bade her a goodnight and wafted to her room on a cloud of happy reminiscences, she grunted a brief response, shut her bedroom door with exaggerated patience and then flung herself on to her bed, thumping the pillow for good measure.
He was a beast to speak to her that way!
The worst of it was more than half of what he’d said made perfect sense. Drat him. She had been foolish, thinking she might as well accept Major Gowan’s proposal—if he ever made one—simply to get the business settled.
But Edmund had no idea what it felt like to have a sword hanging over his head, or the terrible strain of being braced for the moment it finally fell.
Oh, she should have said that to him! Why hadn’t she come up with that clever analogy when it might have impressed him?
She buried her face in the pillow and screamed her frustration into it. And then, since she was never going to be able to sleep, the way she felt, she rolled off the bed and went to her window, and sat on the sill with her knees drawn up, looking out at the night sky.
As she watched the last few stars still valiantly twinkling in the face of approaching dawn, it occurred to her that at least he hadn’t had things all his own way. Once or twice she’d had the satisfaction of shaking him out of his cool, superior attitude. He’d blustered instead of making his point in a clear, concise fashion.
Her lips curled up, just a touch, as she recalled the moment when he’d halted mid-sentence and then gone off on a completely different tack. It was a small victory, but a victory none the less. And all the more valuable since not many people ever managed to shake his utter certainty in himself, these days.
But then Edmund was so very often right. Even she could concede that it was a good idea to think seriously about what would make a husband tolerable and discovering if any man in London possessed those qualities, before settling for the likes of Major Gowan.
If only he wasn’t expecting her to apply reasoning to a problem that stemmed from her emotions. Whenever she bent her mind to the act of getting married, it was her body and her heart that shied away from it. The prospect of letting any man do what she’d seen Wilkins doing to Liza made her feel physically ill.
She hugged her knees, trying to imagine Major Gowan...
Ugh! No. She couldn’t bear that.
Edmund was right. She couldn’t marry a man who would expect that of her. Who would be disappointed, and probably hurt, too, when she responded to his embraces by... She pressed her hand to her stomach.
So what was she to do?
Think—that was what. About what sort of man she might be able to stomach.
Funny, before coming to London, she’d thought only some sort of savage would deign to consider her, but in fact, several perfectly respectable and well-mannered men appeared to find her attractive. Not Edmund, though. She knew, thanks to Bartlesham’s gossip mill, that every time he’d taken a mistress, they had been blonde, dainty little creatures.
Not that she cared. She sniffed and lifted her chin. She’d always known she couldn’t compete with all those fairy-like beauties he so admired. She had never intended to try. She had just hoped he might have taken pity on her, for the sake of their shared past, and given her a home.
But she hadn’t taken into account his need for heirs. His need for legitimate children to carry on his line. And more than that, his need to see them flourish.
Edmund would be a good father. She could see him with two or three sons, and a couple of daughters as well. She could see him taking the whole tribe down to the trout stream, where the boys would sit with their sketch pads, drawing the insects they’d watch running up and down the rushes. While his little girls would wade into the shallow with jars to collect tadpoles.
She’d never felt even the slightest yearning to become a mother, no matter what Stepmama said about it being a natural urge. She still couldn’t imagine herself holding a baby. But those children of Edmund’s—she sighed. She could all too easily grow fond of them. Partly Edmund and partly... She sucked in a juddering breath and dashed the back of her hand across her somewhat watery nose. They would be like their mother. A woman who was willing and able to give him children. A woman who would be as nobly born and arrogant as his own mother, like as not.
Whereas she...all she wanted...was...
She raised her head and looked blankly round the room. All she’d asked of Edmund was that he give her a roof over her head. That was all she wanted of any man, really. She didn’t even care how small that roof might be, as long as she could feel secure in it. But then her eyes came to rest on her narrow single bed and she amended that proviso. She wanted to have a room of her own. Even if it was as small and cramped as this one. Even though there was only room for a bed, with a nightstand on one side and a chair on the other, and a washstand next to the window which had a sill just wide enough for her to sit on, it was her own space. And having her own space into which she could retreat had been the only thing making this visit to London bearable. It would probably be the same in her marriage. Particularly if she ended up with a man whose opinions she couldn’t respect.
Or who was too stupid to hold up his end of a conversation.
She didn’t want to marry a man with whom she couldn’t converse, she promptly decided. She would end up very lonely.
On the other hand, if she liked and respected her husband too much, it would be harder to bear his disappointment in her when she proved far from enthusiastic in his arms.
Oh, this was impossible! She couldn’t face marrying a man she didn’t like. She couldn’t face marrying a man she liked too well either. There was no way through the dilemma that she could see.
So what was the point of even trying to write a stupid list?
There was only one man she’d ever seriously wanted to marry. And marriage to him was out of the question.
* * *
‘Have you completely lost your mind?’
Edmund looked up from the pile of correspondence on his desk, currently awaiting his attention, and regarded his mother with resignation.
‘Good morning, Mother,’ he said with heavy irony. ‘I take it your question is rhetorical, since it must be obvious that I am in complete control of all my faculties?’
‘Not to me it isn’t,’ she said, surging forward in a cloud of Brussels lace and indignation.
Beyond her, he could see his secretary wringing his hands as he hopped from one foot to the other. Poppleton had standing instructions not to admit anyone, especially not his mother, to his study while he was working. But nobody could stand in his mother’s way when she really got the bit between her teeth.
‘Actually, I do have some business I wish to discuss with Lady Ashenden,’ he said to Poppleton. ‘You may leave us.’ Ever since his last visit to Fontenay Court he had known some sort of confrontation was inevitable. It was unlikely she’d come to discuss the issues uppermost in his mind. Nevertheless, now that she was here and clearly spoiling for a fight, he might as well get it all out in the open.
She turned and shut the door in Poppleton’s face with a triumphant flourish, then whirled on him.
‘Is it true? That you attended Miss Twining’s debut and set tongues wagging by showing marked attention to one female only?’
‘Ah.’ That aspect of it had never occurred to him.
‘So it is true! You...you...imbecile! You cannot
dance only once, drag your partner into the supper room without consulting her chaperon, engage her in intense conversation in a secluded corner and then leave without so much as paying your respects to the girl in whose honour the ball was being held, without it giving rise to the kind of speculation that simply will not do. Not in relation to that...’ She pulled herself up with visible effort. ‘With Miss Wickford.’ She ejected the name from between her teeth as though spitting out a lump of gristle.
‘You could easily nip any gossip in the bud,’ he pointed out, ‘by reminding people how eccentric I am. You are always complaining of it. Of my lack of...how have you termed it? Social address. Why not put it about that last night was simply another example of it?’
‘I have already done so,’ she said, sweeping her demi-train impatiently aside as she took the chair facing his desk. ‘But while I have always deplored your lack of social address, it has never given me such cause for alarm. Don’t you realise that singling out a scheming trollop like that Wickford girl is just asking for trouble?’
‘Trollop?’ He sat back, eyeing his mother coldly. ‘Take care, my lady, what you say.’
Her eyes met his. They were equally as cold. And just as determined. ‘Or what?’
So, it was going to be like that, was it? This was where he was going to have to draw the battle lines?
So be it.
‘Or you are going to find,’ he said firmly, ‘that I am nowhere near as complaisant as my father. So far I have placed no curb upon your behaviour, irksome though it has often been.’
Her hand curled into her skirts, claw-like. ‘How dare you?’
‘But I warn you,’ he continued as though she had not interrupted, ‘that there are lines I shall not permit you to cross.’
She sat up straight, her lips compressing into a bloodless line.
‘Permit me! Permit me?’ She tossed her head and laughed. ‘There is nothing you can do to stop me behaving exactly as I please.’
‘You seem to forget who picks up your bills, madam. Who allows you the run of all the properties you currently enjoy—even though, technically, you ought to be living in a far more economical style in the dower house.’
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