Rogue Grooms

by Amanda McCabe

  “Limited? With a ducal family in residence?”

  Lady Anders laughed. “Oh, yes, the Kentons are highly regarded, to be sure. But they have been so quiet since Damian—that is, the late duke—died. The dowager duchess and poor Lady Emily haven’t an ounce of his dash!” She sighed. “Not that we ever saw him here in the country. We almost always met in Town.”

  Georgina carefully studied Lady Anders. Obviously she had been more than acquaintances with the profligate Damian—despite the fact that she was old enough to have two daughters out. “Indeed,” Georgina said coolly.

  Lady Anders took no note of the frosty tone. “Yes. Fair Oak is so shabby without him, quite without style. Though I must say Lady Emily looks in fine form tonight. Is that a new gown even? Quite unusual. She usually takes no interest in fashion at all. Though I have tried to advise her in such things, for her brother’s sake, she does not care.”

  Georgina looked across the room to where Emily, so pretty in her peach satin and ivory lace, was playing whist with her mother and the Uptons. Emily laughed, a sweet sound, like silver bells a bit rusty from disuse. She looked so happy, and so young.

  Georgina thought of how many difficulties that young girl had been through, all because her late brother had squandered her fortune. Squandered it with the woman who now sat beside Georgina, sighing about Damian’s lost “dash” and Emily’s lack of style.

  Georgina wanted to flee, but she only nodded and said, “Lady Emily is looking well tonight. She is a very lovely young lady. And if Fair Oak is indeed ‘shabby,’ surely it is only because your Damian took no interest in it.”

  Lady Anders looked at her, with wide, startled dark eyes. “Well.” Then she looked over to where Alex sat, watching them over his fanned cards. “I see.”

  Georgina followed her gaze, and saw that Alex was frowning slightly. He seemed uncertain, perhaps even angry.

  Why would he be angry?

  “Well,” Lady Anders continued. “Now I suppose Alexander has returned, he will—take an interest. As, I see, have you, Mrs. Beaumont.” Lady Anders looked pointedly at Georgina’s sapphires and pearls. “And very fortunate the Kentons are to have your interest. I am sure they must find you quite useful. But, if you will excuse me, Mrs. Beaumont, I do believe my husband is calling me.”

  Georgina nodded briefly. “Of course. So interesting to meet you, Lady Anders.”

  Georgina watched Lady Anders walk away, her crimson and gold train trailing like a glittering serpent behind her. Lady Anders stopped at her husband’s side, whispered in his ear, gestured toward Georgina. He, in turn, nodded, and whispered back to her.

  Georgina turned away with a laugh. What a thoroughly irritating wench!

  Was she to be plagued with such sordid speculations for all her future married life?

  “Mrs. Beaumont.”

  Georgina turned to see the kindly Mrs. Upton. “Mrs. Upton! Did I not see you playing at cards?”

  “Oh, I am terrible at it! I gave the young baron my place.”

  “I fear I am not a dab hand at cards, myself. Please, won’t you sit with me? I find myself in need of some pleasant conversation.”

  “Yes, I saw you were talking with Lady Anders.”

  “Indeed I was.”

  Mrs. Upton leaned toward Georgina, her pretty, round face serious, and said quietly, “I know that as a vicar’s wife I should show charity to all. But you should not take heed of anything that woman says, my dear. She is a viper, plain and simple.”

  Georgina could not have agreed more.

  Georgina stayed awake that night long after the guests departed and the rest of the household was asleep.

  She had been alone for so very long that the new feelings of that evening, feelings of family and neighborhood, felt so strange. She sat beside her bedroom window, looking down at the moonlight-drenched garden, trying to absorb them.

  Oh, she had not been strictly alone in the many years since Jack died. She had her dear friends, who were like family to her. She had had Mr. Beaumont, who, despite his advanced years, had been a good friend to her. She had her sweet doggie. But she had lived mostly by herself, had gone where she pleased, and had done what she wanted. She had never given the words of vipers like Lady Anders a thought before.

  And she liked it. Very much. She did not dwell on things that could not be helped, like Jack’s death, or the deep, secret yearning she had felt for a child, a home, and a more secure place in Society.

  She had a career, after all. Financial security. She was so fortunate, really.

  Georgina sighed. How could she have known, when the handsome Duke of Wayland rescued Lady Kate from drowning, that her life was changing so much from that moment on? That her old yearnings for a home and a family would rise up again? That Alex would show her a world she could so easily live in, one that had once seemed so far beyond her grasp? A world of family and home and lineage. Of complete security and respectability.

  Yet so he had. She liked his mother and sister very much. They might be the widow and daughter of a duke, but she sensed in them a kindred spirit to her own. They had, all three of them, been through difficult circumstances, circumstances beyond their control, and had emerged intact. Perhaps even better than before.

  She had had fears, before she met them, that they would disapprove of her, perhaps even snub her. That they would have little in common, and this visit would prove a misery. After all, she was hardly the sort a duke would usually consider for a wife.

  But those fears had not been realized.

  Even the neighbors, who no doubt held the honor of their ducal friends very high, had welcomed her. Perhaps a few had seemed a bit puzzled, but everyone had been civil and charming.

  Except the Anders, Georgina amended wryly.

  And then there was Alex himself.

  Georgina smiled softly. Dear Alex, so handsome, so considerate, so military-proud but so kindhearted. She had wanted him so very much from that first day they met. But she had not wanted him just as an admirer, or even as a lover. She had wanted to talk with him, to sit quietly with him, to dance at balls and drive in the park with him. She wanted to show him all her work, to bask in his approval as she had the night of Elizabeth’s salon. She wanted to hear of all his experiences in the war; she wanted to know all his hopes for the future.

  She wanted to kiss him. Kiss him—and more. Much more.

  Yes, now she could bring herself to admit what she had so feared. She wanted to be his wife. She was ready to take a chance on matrimony again.

  Perhaps.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Oh, Georgina! Such dreadful news.” Emily rushed up to Georgina as she entered the breakfast room the morning after the supper party.

  Georgina’s gaze flew to Alex, where he sat with his plate of kippers and eggs. She noticed that Dorothy was not at her place. “Dreadful news? Is someone ill? Has your mother... ?”

  Alex shook his head. “Not at all! Really, Emily, you should not be so dramatic. You have convinced poor Georgina that someone has died at the very least. It is not so very dreadful.” He smiled at Georgina, and came around the table to draw her chair out for her. “Please, both of you, do sit, or your food will grow cold.”

  Emily sat down, disgruntled. “It is dreadful to me, Alex. We have only had you back for a few days, and now you are leaving us again.”

  “Leaving?” Georgina cried, aghast that her country idyll, so very perfect only last night, was ending so abruptly. “Where are you going?”

  “To Kenton Grange, our estate to the north,” Alex answered. “I received a letter from the bailiff only this morning. There is an emergency there that I must go and see to at once.” He gestured toward the letter beside his plate. “The Grange is our only other estate besides Fair Oak. Once I have seen it to rights, it can be a dowry for Emily.”

  “Since I intend to never marry, I shall not need a dowry!” protested Emily. “Therefore you should stay here with us for a few days more.”


  “I shall not be gone long, Em,” Alex answered. “A week, perhaps.”

  Georgina buttered her toast industriously to cover her disappointment. “I shall be ready to return to London this afternoon, then. I suppose a carriage could be hired in the village?”

  “Not you, too!” sighed Emily.

  “You must stay, Georgina,” Alex said quickly. “I promised you a holiday, which you have scarce had. I would not want to ruin your fun, or that of my sister.”

  “Oh, yes!” Emily beseeched. “Please do stay, Georgina. I could show you about the farm, and we could call on all the neighbors. And you have not seen the village.”

  A few more days in the country quiet did sound tempting. But would it be quite proper without Alex? “I do not know...”

  “Georgina! Please,” cried Emily.

  “I should feel too guilty if I sent you running back to London so quickly, Georgina,” Alex said. “I will take you back as soon as I return. Or, if you find your work calls you back to Town before then, you could hire a carriage.”

  Georgina smiled. “Very well. I will stay for a few days more.”

  Emily clapped her hands. “Oh, how grand! We shall miss you, though, Alex.”

  “Yes,” Georgina agreed. “We certainly shall.”

  “I will not be gone long enough for you to miss me,” Alex protested. “You will be having far too much fun without me. But I know that I will miss you.”

  “Are you certain you will be comfortable here while I am gone?” Alex asked Georgina as he prepared to climb aboard his curricle. “If you feel we bullied you into staying, and you really want to return to Town, you mustn’t let us hold you.”

  Georgina laughed. “Not at all! I am glad to have more time to spend here, in your lovely home.”

  “Good.” He laid his hand softly against her cheek. “I am truly sorry to leave you thus. I would never do so if it were not an emergency.”

  “Of course not! You must safeguard your sister’s dowry. I shall do very well here with Emily and your mother.”

  “I know you will.” Alex glanced about at the house, shimmering in the morning sunlight, then down at Georgina. She looked so very right there. As if she had been living there for years. As if she belonged.

  He leaned forward to kiss her cheek, but longed for so much more.

  “I will write to you,” he murmured against her soft skin. “As soon as I arrive at the Grange.”

  “And I will write to you. Have a safe journey, Alex.”

  He looked into her luminous green eyes, at the slight tremble of her lips as she smiled at him, and he longed to pull her into his arms. To kiss her properly. But he was all too aware of his mother and sister, watching avidly from the window.

  He knew they would like it all too well if he were to make a lascivious cake of himself in their very driveway, but he was not quite prepared to be their morning amusement! So he just took up Georgina’s hand, and kissed her ungloved fingers, lingering just an instant longer than was proper.

  “Good-bye, Georgie,” he said, then swung himself up onto the narrow curricle seat and lifted the reins.

  “Farewell, Alex. Drive carefully! More carefully than I!”

  Alex laughed. Then he waved once more to his mother and sister, and drove away.

  As his day’s drive was a long one, and he was alone with no one to converse with, he was left with a great deal of time for thinking. And his thoughts turned mostly to Georgina.

  Georgina, so beautiful, so charming. She had certainly wrapped his family and all their neighbors about her pretty finger! He smiled to remember her with his mother and sister, how she had made them laugh with her tales of London and the Continent. She had had the neighbors fascinated, as well, and quite admiring of her—just as she had all of London Society at her feet.

  She would truly make a magnificent duchess. He was just fortunate that she seemed to admire him, as well, crusty old military man that he was. Otherwise she would surely spurn his suit! All he had to offer her was a tumbledown estate. And Emily would surely kill him now if he did not present Georgina to her as her sister.

  Just look at how she had helped Emily, loaning her a fashionable gown so she would look so grand at their supper...

  He frowned a bit at the reminder that his sister had required the loan of a gown at all. He should have been able to provide her with an entire wardrobe!

  And that, once again, chafed. Georgina’s money.

  Alex was a proud man. It was his greatest downfall, and he admitted it. It would perhaps be different if he did not care for Georgina so. If he had met a woman he rather liked, who wanted to be a duchess and who was willing to trade her fortune for it, a woman who wanted only a business arrangement. Then he would not mind so much.

  But he loved Georgina. So he wanted everything equal and aboveboard between them. He wanted her life to be as fine with him as it had been without him. He wanted her to never have any regrets that she had chosen him.

  Could that be possible, when he had so little to offer her?

  Lord Anders’s words of the night before came back to haunt him. “She is beautiful, and, I hear, quite well-to-do. Quite well-to-do.”

  Alex saw again in his mind’s eye the man’s odious sneer.

  Anders had been right, though, in his own nasty way. Why would a wealthy woman like Georgina, a beautiful, independent woman, want to take on a family that was so messed up? No woman in her situation would.

  But then, Georgina was not just any beautiful, wealthy woman. She was his own unique Georgina. And she seemed to like him. Her kisses were sweet and ardent; she smiled brightly whenever he entered a room. She listened to him, confided in him.

  He knew he should let her go, for her own good. He could not, though. He had come to rely on their time together. He was being selfish, he knew that, but he could not give her up.

  Despite the difficulties that could lie ahead for them, despite the fact that he was more confused than he had ever been before in his life, he could not bring himself to let her go.

  “I am just going out to visit Mrs. Smith, our old nursemaid, who has been ill,” Emily said, putting on her bonnet and gloves before the mirror in the morning room. “Would you like to come, too, Georgina?”

  Georgina, who had been sketching before the fire and chatting with Dorothy, said, “Oh, I should like to, Emily! Fresh air sounds wonderful. But I should finish this sketch today so that I can finish your portrait before I leave Fair Oak.”

  “Nonsense,” said Dorothy. “There will be plenty of time for finishing portraits later, I am sure.” She winked, looking so much like her son that Georgina had to laugh. “Plenty of time. You two should go out into the sunshine, while we still have it. Give my best wishes to Mrs. Smith.”

  “If you are sure, Dorothy, that you will be quite all right?”

  “Oh, yes. I have been intending to finish my book.”

  Georgina smiled. “Then, I should very much like to go with you, Emily. Let me fetch my bonnet, and we can be off.”

  Twenty minutes later, they set off in Emily’s little pony cart, with Emily competently at the reins, and Lady Kate beside them.

  “Most of the fields lie fallow now, of course,” Emily said, drawing up the pony cart so Georgina could take a closer look at their surroundings. “A great many of the laborers have had to find other work. We have managed to keep on enough to cultivate those fields over there, though.”

  Georgina surveyed the recently harvested fields. “What is grown there?”

  “Wheat and oats. We used to grow barley, as well. There are some turnips and potatoes just over that hill, and cook keeps an excellent kitchen garden. We are never short of vegetables! And I have kept a few head of cattle, to pull the plows and give us milk and some meat. Only enough for the household, though.” Emily’s rosebud mouth pursed thoughtfully. “I would like to have some sheep, as well, but they cost dear just now.”

  “Do you still have many tenants?”

&n
bsp; “Oh, yes, some. You will meet some of them today, I am sure. Their rents are very welcome, though I wish we could do more for them. They have been a great help to Mother and me, teaching me about farming and livestock.” Emily laughed. “I would not have known a plow from a turnip before last year!”

  “What of your bailiff?”

  “Mr. Pryor? He left soon after Damian died. When I looked over the books after his hasty departure, I found he had been skimming off the top a bit. So good riddance, I say! I’ve done better without him. Mr. Montgomery, one of the tenants, helps me a bit.”

  Georgina was shocked. “Do you mean to say, Emily, that you have been managing this farm all by yourself?”

  Emily seemed surprised at Georgina’s surprise. “Yes. There was no one else to do it. Mother is not well. Alex, although he left the army as soon as he got my letter about Damian’s death, was delayed several times, and did not make it home for many months. And he is a military man, not a farmer; he knew as little as I did. I could not just let us starve.”

  “So you knew nothing of farming when you started?”

  Emily shrugged blithely. “Not a thing! French and needlework were all my governess taught me. But I read everything I could find, and asked all our tenants and neighbors for advice. We have not done too badly, considering.”

  “I should say not.” Georgina looked out at the fields again, in complete awe that this young girl, this duke’s daughter, had managed them all on her own. She had been worried about wheat and drainage and soil cultivation, when she should have been enjoying her first Season.

  If only there was something Georgina could do to help Emily, to help Alex and his family...

  “Emily,” she said. “I have always lived in cities and towns, and I know nothing of farming. How much would it take to put all your fields under cultivation again, and to bring in a new bailiff, an honest one?”

  Emily’s forehead creased in thought. When she at last named a sum, Georgina said in surprise, “Truly? I would have thought it a great deal more.”

  “Oh, we could use a great deal more, to be sure. The roof on Fair Oak needs repairing, the garden restoring, and, as I said, I should like to bring in sheep. But to hire a new bailiff, and bring the laborers back in time for hay making in a few weeks and then fall plowing, that should do it.”