‘You know,’ he said, replacing his spectacles on his nose and hooking the wires over his ears, ‘there are ways of repudiating suitors...’
And, just like that, she was furious with him again.
‘It’s all very well being all calm and rational and supercilious, but you’re not the one that...’
‘That...?’ He stood there regarding her calmly, his face betraying no emotion whatever.
‘Oooh!’ She stamped her foot. ‘If it was happening to you, you’d sing a different tune, I can tell you!’
He raised one astonished eyebrow.
‘Yes—just imagine if you had to get married and lots of...of ugly women started...ogling you, and...and you had to put up with it all...and—’ She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘And don’t you dare smile.’ He wasn’t smiling, exactly, but his lips had definitely twitched in a way that hinted he was sorely tempted to do so. ‘It isn’t funny!’
‘Not remotely.’
‘And don’t patronise me, either.’
‘I am not doing so. I am in complete agreement, knowing far more of that sort of thing than you might imagine.’
‘What? How can you possibly?’
He shrugged. ‘Well, it is just that I am quite a catch myself. Why do you think I never or—to be strictly accurate—very rarely make an appearance on the social scene?’
She didn’t have to think about that statement for even a second. ‘At least you have a choice. Whereas I have to...’ She whirled away. Walked to the next cabinet of curios.
He followed her. Stood next to her in silence. Waiting.
‘Oh, very well, I beg your pardon,’ she said, once she could no longer feign any interest in the display of antique weaponry. ‘You don’t have to tell me I am behaving very badly today. It is just that I seem to have reached the end of my tether and—’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Quite.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Actually, having witnessed Major Gowan’s behaviour I can see why you are so angry with him. I can also see that you feel trapped and observe that you appear to be struggling like any frightened creature would, when caught in a trap.’
‘I am not frightened,’ she said indignantly. ‘But trapped, yes, I do feel trapped. Because there isn’t any way out that I can see, apart from doing the one thing I most wish to avoid.’
He gave her that look, the one he applied to a new specimen, or puzzle that he was determined to solve. And then, after a few moments’ scrutiny, led her to a bench where he sat her down.
‘Believe it or not, I do understand how you feel. It is something like how I felt when I was...obliged to leave Bartlesham and everything and everyone I knew. And it was frightening.’ He gave her a stern look as though daring to argue with him. When she didn’t, he continued. ‘You panicked when faced with a similar exile. I know you did, because nothing else would have compelled you to propose to me.’
She blushed and hung her head.
He cleared his throat. ‘The thing is, now, I can look back upon that time in the Scilly Isles and see that it was actually more in the form of...an escape,’ he said, gazing off into the distance, which meant she could now look at him again and encounter nothing more challenging than his lean, closely shaven cheeks. ‘An escape from a prison...a luxurious sort of prison, but a prison, none the less. I had no notion how restricted my life had been at Fontenay Court until I experienced a different life.’
‘London isn’t an escape from anything, for me,’ she muttered mutinously.
‘You have not given it a chance.’ He half-turned to her. ‘And nor did I, when I first arrived on St. Mary’s. I was upset for a long time. Even though I knew, deep down, that I was there for my own good, I...was very, very unhappy.’
He looked uncomfortable, as though it was costing him a great deal to admit this.
Perhaps that was why he hadn’t written to her, then. Perhaps he was ashamed of being so unhappy, and hadn’t known how to put his feelings into words. Perhaps—
‘Come,’ he said, getting up and moving away from her a few paces, as though admitting that much was too embarrassing for him to be able to sit still. She followed him until he stopped abruptly by a case full of brightly coloured butterflies.
He gazed down at them, his throat working. Was he thinking about the day she’d filled his bedroom with the tiny, British cousins of these exotic specimens?
Had her gift, the time she’d spent collecting them all, meant anything to him at all?
‘Do you think,’ he said, thoughtfully, ‘that caterpillars have any notion that one day they are going to turn into beautiful creatures like these? Do you think they have any idea what it would be like to have wings?’
‘No.’
He turned to look at her, expectantly, and she knew he wasn’t speaking about butterflies and caterpillars at all. ‘Are...are you saying that...I am like a caterpillar? Wanting to stay on my little leaf, rather than going out into the world and becoming a butterfly?’
‘Ah, not exactly. Putting it the way you have just done is to imply some sort of criticism. And I cannot fault you for thinking or feeling the way you do. I felt the same, don’t forget. No, what I am saying is that you don’t need to be afraid of new experiences. Of becoming the beautiful creature you are meant to be.’
‘The trouble with that metaphor,’ she said bitterly, ‘is that I’m doomed to stay a caterpillar. No matter how hard Stepmama tries to make me into one, I simply cannot be a butterfly.’
‘What do you mean?’
She sighed. ‘Look, you know that I never used to fit in with the other girls in Bartlesham. But once Stepmama taught me how to behave like a lady, I did think I might be able to...pretend I was normal. But then, none of the men at the local assemblies would ask me to dance, even though they flocked round Sukey. The only way to get them to dance with me was to ask them. Which they had to do, from good manners, but it wasn’t the same...’ Not when she saw a flash of something like fear in their eyes. As though they were picturing her knocking them down.
‘The men of Bartlesham are idiots. Take it from me. You are perfectly splendid exactly as you are.’ He waved his hand at the glass case. ‘There are all sorts of different butterflies. And you do not have to be like all the others to be a butterfly. Have you learned nothing from Miss Durant? She reminds me of you at that age, before...life, shall we say, crushed out that spark.’
He’d liked her then. Before Stepmama and Papa had tried to turn her into a Sukey butterfly. A task that had always been doomed to failure, because inside, she was always going to remain a grub.
But what did he think of her now?
He gazed down into her face with concern. ‘Why can you not believe you are attractive? Ah—the idiot male inhabitants of Bartlesham.’ His lips thinned. ‘Georgiana, you believe, I hope, that I would never lie to you?’
‘Ye...es.’ She thought for a moment. He had actually been outspoken to the point of rudeness, on occasion, but he had never fobbed her off with anything less than the truth. ‘Yes,’ she then said with more conviction.
‘Then let me tell you, in plain speech, speaking as a man who is most definitely not an idiot, that you are a most attractive woman. You have lovely eyes. Lovely hair. And your figure is...’
‘Big,’ she interjected. ‘Ungainly.’
‘No,’ he said sternly. ‘Your figure is splendid. Full, yes, but with a firmness that speaks of health and vitality,’ he corrected her. ‘When you couple that with your love of the outdoors and energetic pursuits, it makes men looking for a wife see that you would be a good choice to mother their children. And I am sure you could have many of them...’ he seized her hands and gave them a squeeze ‘...with no difficulty whatever.’
‘I...I...’ She blinked as her eyes started stinging. She wasn’t going to be a mother. Ever. Not if she couldn’t ov
ercome her revulsion at the act that was necessary to get them.
‘I know your mother died in childbirth,’ he said gently. ‘But that need not be your fate.’
What? He thought that was why she’d asked him for a pretend marriage? He thought she was a coward?
‘It isn’t that,’ she cried indignantly. ‘I’m not afraid of that!’
‘Then what—?’
She tore her hands and her gaze away from him, her heart beating rapidly and her stomach squirming. She couldn’t tell him about...about Wilkins and Liza.
‘I just...cannot, that’s all.’
‘Yes, you can, Georgie,’ he said, walking round her until he was standing in front of her. ‘You can do anything you set your mind to. I can see that your stepmother’s influence has diminished your belief in yourself, but deep down, is there not still a spark of...that girl who was not afraid of what anyone said, or thought? The Georgie I knew—’ He reached out and with his forefinger lifted her chin so that she was looking into his face, rather than at his boots. ‘She would have taken London by storm. She would probably have done it by flouting just about every rule governing the behaviour expected of debutantes. She’d have acquired a large following of devoted admirers. And if any of them had tried to step out of line she’d have had no trouble giving them a leveller. Probably literally,’ he finished on a wry smile.
Her breath hitched in her throat. He admired all the things about her that Stepmama had told her were bad. He thought other men would find them attractive, too. That if she could just dare to be herself, they would flock round her, the way they flocked round Sukey.
For a moment, a vision of that Georgie, holding a swarm of suitors in the palm of her hand, flitted into her head.
But then she focussed on the way Edmund was smiling at her. And they all vanished. Because Edmund was the only man she wanted to smile at her like that. And find her fascinating. And look at her as a potential mother for his children.
Something happened to her insides. To her breasts. To her mouth. Something she’d never felt before.
But she knew what it was, all the same.
Oh.
It was like being slapped in the face by an enormous tree branch when galloping through a densely wooded area.
The ‘right man’, Stepmama had said, would make her feel differently. She had been speaking of some mythical Corinthian, the kind of man Papa would have liked for a son-in-law. But Georgiana was looking at the right man, right now.
It was Edmund.
And that was the moment she knew exactly why she’d proposed to him. Why she couldn’t think of any other man as a husband. It wasn’t because she was afraid of leaving Bartlesham, or devastated by the prospect of having to sell Whitesocks.
It was because once she married someone else, it would be over between them. Finally and irrevocably over.
She had never given up hope, she realised, that some day, somehow, he would return to her. Her Edmund.
She wanted him to love her. The way she loved him. Had always loved him.
Even as children, he’d been her favourite playmate. He’d been more intelligent, more sensible, more...everything than any other child in the area. It was why she’d been devastated when he’d left and apparently forgotten about her at once. Because she’d feared she hadn’t meant as much to him as he had to her.
And when he’d come back, as a handsome and healthy young man, she’d started loving him in a different way. How could she have denied the way her body had leapt to attention whenever she spied him? Only to curl in on itself when he’d looked down his nose at her, reminding her that he was a lord now and not her playmate. She’d told herself she was glad to see the back of him when he’d gone away to university, after spending only a few weeks in Bartlesham. That she hated him.
But it wasn’t true. Oh, it wasn’t true! It had just been easier on her pride to stomp round in a fury than to curl up somewhere and weep.
And now?
As though he was in tune with her thoughts and didn’t like them, he suddenly turned his head so that they were no longer gazing into each other’s eyes. Let go of her hands.
Then she could hear Sukey giggling over something one of the naval officers was saying.
Her cheeks flooded with heat.
‘We should join the others,’ she said through a throat that was squeezing shut with the force of the emotions roiling through her and marched swiftly across the room, not daring to look back to see if he was following. Because he was so clever, he’d surely see the longing, the inappropriate and unreciprocated longing in her eyes. And he’d start avoiding her again. The way he’d done in Bartlesham. Because he’d just told her he avoided the kind of women who stalked him like some form of matrimonial prey.
So she’d have to convince him she didn’t think of him that way.
At least while he thought she regarded him only as a friend, he’d feel safe keeping her company.
But if he ever guessed how she felt about him, he’d run a mile.
Chapter Thirteen
Edmund shifted from one foot to the other as he waited for his turn to hand in his ticket to Lady Chepstow’s charity ball. It was no use telling himself that the cause was a good one. He didn’t give a rap for indigent governesses, or whatever it was tonight’s takings would fund. He just wanted to see Georgie again. Ever since the conversation they’d had at Bullock’s Museum, about the way he’d felt when his mother had sent him into exile, he’d been kicking himself for not bringing up the topic of the intercepted letters.
He’d practically accused her of being too cowardly to grow up, yet he’d balked at bringing the truth out into the open. Out of concern for what the result would have been. He’d stood there, wondering if she’d be angry, or hurt, or, if she’d felt as deeply as he had about it, if she might not even have burst into tears. In the museum, of all places.
So he’d changed the focus of their conversation. Talked to her about the suitors she ought to be attracting, for heaven’s sake. When there were already far too many men hanging round her for his liking. With their tongues hanging out.
He slapped his ticket into the hand of Lady Peters, the gorgon presiding over admittance to Durant House for some reason, and then stalked past, ignoring her speech about the premises tonight’s profits would be used to purchase.
He needed to see Georgie for himself. To...
To do what, exactly, he wasn’t sure. He stomped up the staircase that led to the ballroom, his face rigid with self-disgust. Since the day she’d made that outrageous proposal it felt as if he’d abandoned every principle by which he’d ever lived. He might have come to London with the intention of proving he was the better man, by steering her into the kind of marriage she’d said she wanted, but what had he done instead?
Deliberately sabotaged the one chance she might have had at making such a match by warning her stepmother about Lord Freckleton’s proclivities, that’s what. And then, when he’d seen glimpses of the old Georgiana peeping out from behind the curtain of ladylike behaviour, he’d practically dared her to come all the way out, by introducing her to that hoyden Julia Durant. And then, at the museum, telling her outright that’s what he wanted her to do.
He reached the ballroom just as the orchestra was screeching its way to the conclusion of a dance and scanned the couples returning to their seats for a sight of her.
And he saw her. With Eastman. Eastman! Hadn’t his warnings about the libertine been explicit enough? Clearly not, because Eastman was bending over her hand as she sat down and saying something which was making her look uncomfortable.
And her stepmother was smiling up at the scoundrel in an encouraging way, while Georgiana looked as though she was only holding a polite smile on her face with an extreme effort.
Then Eastman sauntered away, in the
direction of the card room, leaving Georgiana with her lips pulled tight and shoulders so tense they were practically up by her ears.
He strode over.
‘What did he say to you?’
Georgiana blinked up at him as though in confusion.
‘You know who I mean. Eastman,’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ she replied. Which was obviously untrue.
After he’d continued to glare at her for a second or two, she wilted.
‘Nothing I care to repeat,’ she admitted, lowering her gaze and fiddling with the struts of her fan in a distracted manner.
‘I thought we had agreed you should stay away from him,’ he said.
‘You don’t understand—’
‘Then explain it to me.’
‘He asked me to dance. If I had refused him...’
She didn’t need to say anything else. If she had refused one partner, publicly, she would not have been able to dance with anyone else. He flicked one contemptuous glance at her stepmother. The woman whose job it was to protect her charges from just such a situation by vetoing unsuitable, or unwelcome, men.
‘And he took advantage?’
‘Only to say...something. He didn’t do anything...’
He couldn’t very well. Not on a dance floor. But he could guess what a man like that might have said.
‘I will deal with him,’ he growled. And set off in pursuit.
He caught up with his quarry just outside the card room.
‘Want a word with you,’ he said, just before Eastman went through the door.
‘Me?’ Eastman half-turned to look at Edmund over his shoulder. ‘Cannot imagine what business you would have with me,’ he said, with a hint of disdain.
Edmund ignored the intended insult, since he felt a reciprocal disdain for men like Eastman who frittered their lives away on a variety of trivial, and often immoral, pursuits. Then he stepped a little closer and lowered his voice before speaking again, although it was unlikely anyone could hear any conversation held at a rational level, above the general hubbub emanating from the ballroom. ‘It concerns Miss Wickford.’
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