‘But I wasn’t. Edmund, I did write.’
‘And then it was my birthday.’ He carried on as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘And still no word from you. And I was halfway through my weekly letter to you, when I saw that it was more or less an inventory of the wildlife I was discovering on the island and it struck me that it was probably so boring, that all my letters had been so boring, that it was no wonder you hadn’t written back. That you probably didn’t know how to reply without revealing what a bore I was. Not when you’d never had it in you to dissemble.’
‘No,’ she grated, horror struck. ‘I would never have found any letter from you boring, Edmund. And I had never found you a bore. Surely you must have known that? Why, you were so clever. Noticing things that nobody else did. Like the differences between all the beetles we found in the woods, which everyone else just...crushed, if they bothered to think about them at all. And I did write. More than once a week. At first...’
He nodded, grimly. ‘Yes. I expect you did. At first. But then you gave up, didn’t you?’
‘Well, yes, because I thought you’d forgotten all about me. And I started thinking that perhaps, before, you’d only tolerated me hanging around you when you’d been so ill, because you were so bored.’
‘No,’ he said vehemently. ‘That was not how it was between us.’
‘But then what—?’ It felt as though she was experiencing yet another earthquake. ‘If you wrote to me—’ When his face tensed up, she hastily amended her statement. ‘I mean, where did your letters go? And what of mine to you? If you didn’t receive them...oh! I gave my letters to my father to post. Are you trying to tell me he...he didn’t send them? Any of them?’ It felt as if someone had just punched her in the stomach, to think Papa might have started betraying her as far back as that.
‘That I cannot say. What I do know is that my tutor used to collect all the mail that arrived at St Mary’s. To begin with. And I gave my letters to him to post.’
‘So it was him. It must have been him.’ She heaved a sigh of relief. It had been bad enough that Papa had married a woman who’d imposed such a strict new regime upon their household. When he’d turned a blind eye every time his new wife had beaten her. For things that had never been crimes before.
‘But...why would he have done it?’
‘Obviously because he had instructions to that effect.’
‘What? Why? Why would anyone want to make you so miserable? And me? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Yes, it does, Georgie, think about it.’ He leaned forward. ‘Don’t you recall Mrs Bulstrode’s reaction that day she found us in my bed with the hangings closed?’
Georgie winced. ‘She called me a trollop. I didn’t even know what a trollop was. Not until much later.’ When Wilkins had got Liza into trouble. And then, from the names flung about during Liza’s dismissal, she had worked out that a trollop was a girl who spread her legs in the stables so that a man could use her like a brute beast.
‘I heard her berating you all the way downstairs. I’ve already told you that, at the time, I just found it amusing. But recently, I discovered,’ he said, looking uncomfortable, ‘that she carried tales of that escapade to my mother. And that my mother subsequently took action to...separate us from one another.’
‘But why? Why go to the lengths of...sending you so far away and stopping us from keeping in touch at all?’ She pressed her hand to her head, which was throbbing at the struggle to make sense of what Edmund was telling her. ‘Why didn’t someone just explain to us that it was improper? And why it was improper?’
‘Because Mrs Bulstrode believed that we were past the stage of needing explanations.’
‘What? What do you mean?’
‘Georgie, think about it. She drew back the curtains to see your skirts hitched up round your waist, while you have to admit I was wearing only my nightshirt.’
‘But I only drew the bed hangings round because I wanted to fill the air with colour for you. Like...like putting flowers in a vase, rather than strewing them all over your room. Which would have happened if I’d just let the butterflies out to fly where they wanted.’
‘I suspect they would all have headed for the window, and arranged themselves decoratively across the panes,’ he said pedantically. ‘Not that it wasn’t a splendid idea of yours,’ he added, reaching out his hand to pat hers. ‘I never forgot it. Even when I had persuaded myself I hated you, I remembered the joy you brought me that day and couldn’t turn my back on you entirely.’
‘You hated me?’ Her stomach lurched. ‘What had I ever done to make you hate me?’
‘You broke my heart,’ he said.
‘I...what?’
‘You weren’t just my friend, Georgie. You were my sunshine. My joy. You were too young, probably, to feel the same about me, but...the truth is, I loved you. When you didn’t write—or to be more precise, when they made me believe you hadn’t written—I was devastated.’
‘Oh, Edmund. Oh, no!’ She turned her hand over and gripped his as hard as she could. He returned the pressure, his face working.
‘The only way to survive the devastation,’ he grated, ‘was to twist what I felt for you and turn it around into hatred. When I returned to Bartlesham, for that short spell before I went up to Oxford, all I wanted to do was hurt you. So when you tried to greet me as though nothing was wrong, I...’
‘Looked down your nose at me. I thought it was because you’d become the Earl. I thought that you were ashamed of letting me dog your heels when you were just a boy and were doing your utmost to put me in my place, the way your mother puts people she considers encroaching in their place.’
He shook his head. ‘There was an element of that, in my behaviour, I dare say. But it was because I couldn’t bear to look at you, thinking you’d forgotten all about me, that you hadn’t cared how badly you’d hurt me. It was like a nest of snakes writhing inside me every time I caught a glimpse of you.’
Oh, how cleverly he described things. That was exactly how she’d felt. All those emotions, swirling through her, making her want to strike out, the way snakes struck out and spat venom.
‘I acted as badly, when you came back. Because, even though I never received any letters from you all that time you were away, I went to the gatepost, hoping...’ She couldn’t say more.
‘You looked for a message from me? Even after what you believed I’d done?’
She nodded. ‘I sneaked out and went to the trout stream, too, hoping you might go there, the way you used to. I thought if I could catch you there, I could make you tell me why we couldn’t be friends any more. But—’
‘Georgie,’ he gasped. ‘Even after everything you thought I’d done, you still hoped... God.’ He bowed his head over their clasped hands. ‘You had more faith in me than I had in you. I believed,’ he said, raising his head and looking into her eyes, ‘I really believed that you thought so little of what we had that you found it easy to toss aside the promises we’d made.’
‘Oh, Edmund. All these years...’ She felt her lower lip quiver. And her vision blurred.
‘Don’t cry Georgie. Just be glad we’ve found each other again,’ he said. And then leaned forward to press his lips gently to her forehead.
She sucked in a short, shocked breath.
Just as the air was rent by the sound of a scream of outrage.
Chapter Seventeen
Georgiana made a desperate attempt to free her hand from Edmund’s clasp. Somehow, it wouldn’t seem so bad, Stepmama finding him in here, if only they weren’t holding hands.
Or if he hadn’t just been kissing her.
But Edmund had a very firm grip and was refusing to let go. What was more, before Stepmama had a chance to draw breath, he was saying, with marked irritation, ‘Do you have to make so much noise? Have you no consideration f
or Georgie?’
‘Do I have no consideration? Do I...? You...’ She pulled herself together, stepped into the room and bore down on Georgie’s bed. ‘Just what do you think you are doing in here?’ she hissed into Edmund’s face.
‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ Edmund calmly replied. ‘I was kissing Georgie.’
‘How dare you?’ Stepmama uttered in an outraged shriek.
Georgie experienced a strong urge to pull the quilt up over her face. And not only to drown out the screeching. The sound of footsteps thundering up the stairs meant that any second now, even more people were going to burst in on her.
Not that it appeared to bother Edmund in the slightest.
‘I dare,’ he said, ‘because it was essential that I persuade Georgiana that I am determined to marry her.’
Marriage? He hadn’t said anything about marriage before.
‘Only a gesture as dramatic as invading her bedroom and kissing her was going to convince her that I am in earnest, given the rift that had developed between us.’
‘Marriage?’ Stepmama shook her head. ‘But Georgiana swore it was no such thing. That you were merely friends.’
‘Nevertheless—’
‘No! You cannot marry her. Otherwise...’
She shut her mouth with a snap. Georgie looked over her shoulder to see Betsy and Wiggins jostling each other in the doorway to get a glimpse of what could possibly have occurred to make Stepmama shriek so.
‘Otherwise?’ Edmund was eyeing Stepmama coldly.
‘I only meant to say, I’m sure you cannot really wish to marry a girl like Georgiana.’
‘Not only do I wish it, but, should you attempt to oppose me in this, you will regret it.’
‘I...’ Stepmama swallowed. Wrung her hands. Turned to look over her shoulder at the servants.
‘Precisely,’ said Edmund, rather grimly. ‘There will be no way to keep my presence in Georgie’s room a secret.’
He was right. These were London servants. Hired along with the house. They had no particular loyalty to the tenants. And she could hardly expect them to keep such a juicy morsel of gossip to themselves. Oh, no—poor Edmund.
At this point, he let go of her hand, rose to his feet and went to the door.
‘You may be the first to congratulate me,’ he said to the servants in a determined voice. ‘Miss Wickford has just done me the honour of accepting my proposal of marriage.’
Wiggins’s left eyebrow rose in patent disbelief. But Betsy clasped her hands together and beamed at him.
‘Congratulations, your lordship,’ she said, bouncing on the tips of her toes.
‘Just so,’ said Edmund, reaching into his pocket and producing some coins, which he pressed into the hands of both servants.
Judging from the maid’s gasp, and the way the butler’s eyebrow immediately resumed its correct position, the bribe had been sufficiently generous to remove any malicious inference from the way they would relate the incident to anyone willing to listen. Which would probably be half of London.
Having ensured the servants’ goodwill, if not their silence, Edmund closed the door firmly on them and turned to Stepmama, his expression set.
‘Have you come to your senses yet?’ Edmund gave Stepmama one of those looks. The kind that put her in mind of his mother when she was depressing someone’s pretensions. Though Stepmama didn’t look as though she was about to meekly surrender. There was a martial light in her eyes that made Georgie suspect a battle royal was about to commence.
‘And do not attempt to hamper me by reminding me that Georgie is technically your ward and refusing to grant your permission for the match—’
‘Technically? There is no technically about it!’
‘Because,’ he continued as though she hadn’t interrupted, ‘if you should do anything so foolish you will find yourself presiding over a scandal that is bound to reflect very badly upon your guardianship. And that will not only adversely affect Georgie, in the short term, but also hamper your own daughter’s chances of ever making a good match.’
Stepmama’s eyes flashed fury. She clenched her fists.
‘Very well,’ she said, tossing her head. ‘Why not? Why shouldn’t you marry her? It isn’t as if she kept her word to me, is it? All that talk of advancement and doing Sukey whatever favours she could, it never came to anything, did it?’
‘Ah,’ said Edmund as though he understood perfectly what Stepmama was talking about, when Georgie felt as though she’d dozed off in the middle of a play and had woken up again only at the end to discover she’d missed too much of the plot to be able to make sense of anything anyone was doing. ‘Is that how you became her puppet?’
Puppet? Why was Edmund calling Stepmama a puppet? Just whose puppet Stepmama was supposed to be, Georgie couldn’t tell.
Stepmama flung up her chin. ‘For all the good it did either of us,’ she said bitterly. ‘Sukey never met anyone higher ranking than tradesmen’s sons in Bartlesham, for all that her stepfather was the local squire. I waited and waited, but she did nothing.’
She? What she?
‘Not until we had no choice but to leave Bartlesham,’ Stepmama was continuing, without appearing to draw breath, ‘and I reminded her of the bargain we’d struck, did she finally agree to arrange a court presentation for both girls. And how did she arrange it? Not by presenting them herself—oh, no! She just sent me an introduction to Lady Ackroyd, who is so deep under the hatches she’ll do just about anything legal for cash. And not only did that bit of business cost me the best part of her inheritance,’ she said, waving in Georgie’s direction, ‘but it didn’t do any good. It was vouchers for Almack’s I should have got, if my girls were going to be accepted, not an expensive day out at the palace which everyone knew was a put-up job the minute they heard Lady Ackroyd’s name in connection with it. Which they always do, somehow. And the end result was that not one of those stuffy patronesses was willing to give vouchers to girls whose mother had to pay to have them presented at court.’
‘As my wife,’ Edmund pointed out, ‘Georgie will most certainly obtain vouchers. As will her stepsister. I will make sure of it.’
Stepmama sat down, rather suddenly. It was fortunate that she happened to be sideways on to Georgie’s bedside chair as she’d squared up to Edmund, otherwise she would have ended on the floor.
‘I will also make sure Sukey has a respectable dowry,’ he said. ‘As my stepsister by marriage, it will be my duty to provide for her.’
Stepmama’s mouth opened and shut a few times. For which Georgie was immensely grateful. The volume of the bargaining—for that, she saw, was what had been going on between these two even if she hadn’t fully understood the nuances—had been drilling holes in her skull.
‘Edmund,’ she whispered, since there was a lull into which she could at last interject her own opinion, ‘you don’t have to marry me.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘Of course I do,’ said Edmund, and Stepmama, at the same moment. And as Stepmama got to her feet, Edmund nudged her aside and took her place on the chair.
‘But there must be a way out,’ said Georgie plaintively. She couldn’t bear to think of Edmund trapped into a marriage he’d been so determined to avoid. Just because he’d come in here, in a spirit of friendship. Oh, he’d come up with a wonderful reason to explain his presence, and swiftly, but then he had a brilliant mind. Of course he was going to say the only thing that would make everything appear acceptable to everyone.
The only trouble was she knew it wasn’t really acceptable to him.
‘Don’t be so stupid,’ hissed Stepmama from over Edmund’s shoulder. ‘There is no keeping the two of you apart. There never has been and she should just have made the best of it. And then none of this would have happened.’
‘None o
f what?’ If Georgie hadn’t already had a headache, this conversation would have been enough to give her one.
‘Yes, Mrs Wickford,’ said Edmund, taking hold of Georgie’s hand again and patting it soothingly. ‘Why don’t you explain just how you came into it? I should love to hear how my mother persuaded you to do her dirty work.’
His mother?
‘Come, come,’ said Edmund firmly. ‘There is no point in prevarication at this stage. I have worked out much of what has happened. All that has so far eluded me is your motive. Though your statement just now leads me to suppose it was to benefit your own daughter?’
Stepmama tossed her head again. ‘I am a mother. A mother will do whatever she can for her children. Even to the extent of—’ She stopped. Glanced at Georgie. Flushed. ‘Well, I am sorry, dear, but though I grew fond of your father by the end, you have to admit he was not exactly the stuff of a maiden’s dreams.’
Georgie gasped. ‘Do you mean to say, you married Papa to...that you were...put up to it?’
‘Well, I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but you have no notion of how hard it is, trying to maintain standards when you are a widow and your husband has left you with nothing but debts. I was at my wits’ end when Lady Ashenden approached me with what sounded like a wonderful opportunity. A chance to give Sukey every advantage she should have had, what with her being so pretty. Her ladyship told me she knew of a widower, a man of substance, who had a daughter in dire need of feminine guidance. That she’d arrange a match between us and see Sukey had the chance to rise in the world.’ She reached for a handkerchief to dab at her nose, which had grown pink with distress. ‘Well, of course, I agreed on the spot. And married your father.’
Georgiana was suddenly aware she’d been clutching Edmund’s hand so tightly his fingers were going white. She made a determined effort to relax her grip, even though it felt as though he was the only solid thing left in a world that was splintering apart.
The Debutante's Daring Proposal Page 19
