The Rogue of Her Heart: A Regency Romance (The Other Bennet Sisters Book 2)

by Nina Mason

  Smiling contentedly, Winnie then opened Sense and Sensibility to Chapter Three and began to read aloud in a strong-yet-soothing voice:

  Mrs. Dashwood remained at Norland several months; not from any disinclination to move when the sight of every well-known spot ceased to raise the violent emotion which it produced for a while; for when her spirits began to revive, and her mind became capable of some other exertion than that of heightening its affliction by melancholy remembrances, she was impatient to be gone, and indefatigable in her inquiries for a suitable dwelling in the neighbourhood of Norland; for to remove far from that beloved spot was impossible. But she could hear of no situation that at once answered her notions of comfort and ease, and suited the prudence of her eldest daughter, whose steadier judgment rejected several houses as too large for their income, which her mother would have approved ...

  As Georgie listened, her heart and mind still in tumult, she wondered if her spirits would ever revive, or her mind become capable of some other exertion than that of heightening its affliction by melancholy remembrances. For her memories of the intimacies lately shared with Christian Churchill were torments to her soul at present.

  And like the poor, exploited Widow Dashwood, Georgie, too, longed to be gone…back home to Craven Castle…or perhaps somewhere even farther away, where she was not in danger of meeting the man she loved but could never have every hour of the day.

  Winnie read until she grew too hoarse and fatigued to continue. “I must stop there for the night, but will be only too glad to continue tomorrow, if that is agreeable to you?”

  “Most agreeable,” Georgie told her. “For you have a wonderful voice for reading—and such a gift for inflections. I declare, I felt as if the characters were here in the room with us.”

  Winnie blushed and closed the book. “You are too kind.”

  “No, dear friend. It is you who have shown excessive kindness toward me.”

  “I was happy to be of service,” Winnie said, climbing off the bed. “I will leave you now to get some sleep, with my sincerest wish that all will look brighter in the morning.”

  Eleven

  Things would look brighter in the morning. Was that not what Winnie had said? Well, as it turned out, she was right. For by the time Georgie awoke, after a night spent more in contemplation than slumber, her mindset was very different than it had been when she blew out the candle.

  Now that her resentments had lost some of their bitterness, she could allow other feelings, other considerations, to come to the fore. Yes, the Lieutenant engaged himself to a woman insincerely, but Georgie flattered herself she was not so cold-hearted as to feel no sympathy whatever for the poor man’s predicament. For, as her friend, he deserved her charity, did he not?

  Yes, he did. Especially when his character was not wholly bad. For she was now convinced within herself that he had not set out to deceive her. No, indeed. He had been clear all along they could never be more than friends.

  In that, at least, he was blameless.

  And no more could he be blamed for his feelings, any more than she could be blamed for hers. For the heart would have its way, would it not? However unsuitable its objet de desire might be.

  That was well worth bearing in mind. For whatever it might once have been once, she could not believe Christian’s engagement was one of the heart any longer. Especially when he’d declared his love to her. And what a softener of the heart was the knowledge of his affection for her! How greatly it tempted her to forgive him! Yes, he was blamable, highly blamable, in keeping his engagement a secret from her. In that, he could not be defended. But if he had injured her, how much more the poor man had injured himself.

  Yes. His imprudence was contemptible, but through it he had deprived himself of all chance of happiness in marriage. She might in time regain tranquility … and fall in love with someone else, who would make her an excellent husband; but HE could have no such hope for the future. All he could reasonably expect was a miserable existence with a woman so artful and selfish she would force him to marry where he did not love.

  Listening to Winnie’s reading last night of Sense and Sensibility had given Georgie ample food for thought, especially where Elinor and Edward were concerned. Their situations might be similar to hers and Christian’s, but their characters were nothing alike.

  In Georgie’s estimation, Elinor was a self-made martyr, who, through an inflated sense of honor and duty, acted against her own heart. Or, rather, did not act at all. Instead, she bore her pain in silence and kept the confidence forced upon her by Lucy Steele—not innocently, mind you, but with malicious intent. Had fate not intervened, Elinor’s saintly forbearance would have condemned her and Edward to lives of lovelessness, poverty, and regret.

  Such stupidity, in Georgie’s opinion, was not to be borne!

  Especially infuriating were Elinor’s justifications for her silence when Marianne learned how long her sister had kept the knowledge of Edward’s engagement to herself. Taking up the book, she searched for the section that had most excited her ire, finding it in Chapter 37 (Dear Winnie had read farther last night that she’d realized).

  “Four months!”—cried Marianne again.—“So calm!—so cheerful!—how have you been supported?”—

  “By feeling that I was doing my duty.—My promise to Lucy, obliged me to be secret. I owed it to her, therefore, to avoid giving any hint of the truth; and I owed it to my family and friends, not to create in them a solicitude about me, which it could not be in my power to satisfy.”

  And it only got worse from there.

  “Four months!—and yet you loved him!”—

  “Yes. But I did not love only him;—and while the comfort of others was dear to me, I was glad to spare them from knowing how much I felt. Now, I can think and speak of it with little emotion. I would not have you suffer on my account; for I assure you I no longer suffer materially myself. I have many things to support me. I am not conscious of having provoked the disappointment by any imprudence of my own, I have borne it as much as possible without spreading it farther. I acquit Edward of essential misconduct. I wish him very happy; and I am so sure of his always doing his duty, that though now he may harbour some regret, in the end he must become so…”

  Georgie found Elinor’s twisted logic insupportable. She claimed to only want Edward’s happiness, but did not lift a finger to help him escape his engagement to Lucy Steele. Not even when the betrothal deprived him of his inheritance, estranged him from his family and her, and threatened to trap him in a marriage devoid of love, respect, and affection on either side.

  Would doing his duty really compensate for such cruel deprivations?

  How could it?

  Had Elinor been one of her own sisters, Georgie would have shaken some sense into the wrong-headed girl. Moreover, Elinor’s abandonment of Edward in his hour of need made Georgie ashamed of her own behavior toward Christian. How selfishly and callously she’d responded to the poor man’s desperate predicament.

  Clearly, I am not the steady, rational creature I have always supposed!

  With smoldering indignation, Georgie recalled the letter she’d heard Christian mention earlier to Capt. Raynalds. It had to be from her, his regretted fiancée, who clearly meant to descend upon them all uninvited!

  Poor Christian. What agonies he must be suffering. What agonies she, too, would suffer watching them together whilst knowing he was lost to her forever.

  The mortifying thought was still churning in Georgie’s brain when the doorbell sounded below stairs. Struck by the early hour, she climbed out of bed and went to the window. There was a carriage below, though not a particularly elegant one. The two shaggy, mismatched horses hitched to the front suggested it was owned by a person of modest means.

  Dread tied a knot in her entrails. Was it she? God help them all, especially Christian, if it were.

  Georgie’s fears were confirmed when a young woman in pattens and a not-unfashionable cloak and bonnet emerged from
the passenger compartment, aided by the driver. It had to be her. For who else would brave such wretched weather—or impose so audaciously—to make her presence felt among strangers?

  As Georgie watched the girl trudge determinedly through the snow toward the front portico, she knew not what to do or how to act. She only knew it would not be with the saintly forbearance and passive acceptance displayed by Miss Elinor Dashwood under similar circumstances.

  Oh, no. This was all-out warfare. A take-no-prisoners battle to secure the happiness of the man she loved, as well as her own. And, as John Lyly so astutely observed in his novel Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, “the rules of fair play do not apply in love and war.”

  * * * *

  The doorbell startled Christian out of his reflections. Having had his breakfast, he was alone in the parlor, reading over the play. Still stinging from Georgie’s eviscerating set-down, he wondered if she would give up the role of Amelia—or quit the play entirely. If she did, it would probably be for the best, much as the decision would pain him. Yes, he deserved her reproof, but that did not make it any easier to bear.

  Assuming it was his brother at the door, Christian set down the script and rose from his chair. As he made to exit the room, he heard Mr. Murphy answer the door. There was a strangely long silence before the butler spoke. “If you will be good enough to go round to the kitchen door, madam, we might let you sit by the fire an hour, and perhaps even give you a bit of tea and bread.”

  “I’m not a beggar, you imbecile,” the lady returned huffily. “I’m Jinny Stubbs, the betrothed of the future Earl of Wingfield.”

  Christian’s heart sank within him.

  “My apologies, madam,” said the butler. “But I am unacquainted with any such personage.”

  “That’s because he usually goes by the family name.”

  “Oh?” Murphy’s tone was unmistakably condescending. “And what name might that be then?”

  “Churchill. Christian Churchill.”

  Christian shuddered at the sound of his own name.

  “Surely you do not mean the Captain’s friend, Lieutenant Churchill.”

  “The very one,” Miss Stubbs peevishly confirmed. “Now let me in before I catch my death.”

  When she entered the house, Christian felt as if someone had walked across his grave. He waited, heart pounding, as the butler helped her off with her bonnet, cloak, pelisse, and pattens.

  “You won’t steal my things, I hope,” she cuttingly remarked as Murphy hung her things on the hall tree hooks.

  “I might ask the same of you, madam,” the manservant snidely reposted.

  As the butler escorted Miss Stubbs toward the parlor, Christian summoned his courage. Enemy cannon fire had not been half as terrifying to face as was this formidable obstacle to his happiness. Much as he’d like to, however, he could not hide from her the whole time she was here. He just prayed her visit would be of short duration. Elsewise, she was sure to spoil the holidays for more than himself.

  He plastered on a smile as he rounded the parlor door, but could not bring himself to pretend to be glad to see her. She was standing near the fire, with her bare hands outstretched toward the flames. Her dress was very smart and her hair fashionably styled, but the beauty of her face paled in comparison to Georgianna’s.

  How he’d ever thought her pretty escaped him at present. For closer acquaintance had opened his eyes to her defects. Now, when he looked at her, he saw only ugliness.

  “So, you have come, Miss Stubbs,” he said, cautiously drawing nearer. “Just as you said you would in your letter…which, incidentally, I received only this morning. So, imagine my surprise at seeing you so soon thereafter. I wrote to tell you…well, never mind that now. Was your journey tolerable? No, I suppose it wouldn’t be in this dreadful weather.”

  “The snow and ice did give us some trouble,” she replied agreeably enough, “but nothing my driver and carriage couldn’t handle.” She paused to look him over before adding, “You look well, I daresay—and as handsome as ever.”

  “As do you,” he responded without warmth or sincerity.

  She held out her hand to him. “Will you not shake hands with me? Or kiss my cheek?”

  “Yes, of course.” He came forward and took her cold hand, which he pumped briefly before letting go.

  “You do not look happy to see me.”

  He cocked an inquisitive eyebrow. “Did you expect me to be after our last conversation?”

  She turned back to the fire. “It is owing to that very conversation that I have come.”

  “Yes, well. I suspected as much.”

  There was a long pause, during which the tension grew suffocating. “Is she here?”

  Though he knew full well who she meant, he pretended not to understand her. “Is who here?”

  “The lady who stole your heart from me, of course.”

  “My heart was never yours to begin with, as you well know.”

  She turned to him, her dark eyes narrowed to slits. “How could I not, when you have made your feelings—or lack of them, I should say—abundantly clear on numerous occasions.”

  In his chest, his heart was a hunk of ice. “And yet, you still insist we marry.”

  One side of her mouth curled into a cruel smirk. “More marriages are made for material concerns than regard, Christian. As you well know.”

  “Indeed, Miss Stubbs, especially by those with mercenary hearts,” he icily reposted. “Or no hearts at all, I suppose, in this case.”

  “Oh, I have a heart, Christian. On that, you can depend. I simply temper its desires with good sense and ambition.”

  “As well as artfulness, it would seem.”

  “I do what I must to get by.”

  “With no thought of anyone else,” he muttered, turning toward the table of fortified wines. “Can I pour you a drink?”

  “Please do.”

  “What would you like?”

  “Whatever is most expensive, of course.”

  Christian bit his lip to stop himself from saying something rude as he poured the Captain’s best beeswing port into two cordial glasses. He must try to keep a civil tongue in his head, or her visit would prove torturous to more than just him.

  Carrying both drinks to the fireplace, he handed her one and took the other to the sofa. He sat and sipped his port, thinking of Georgianna with a disheartening mixture of dread and regret.

  Heav’n has no rage like love to hatred turn’d

  Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.

  Christian guzzled port meant to be savored. How would he ever get through the next two weeks without being skinned alive by one or the other of them? Though Georgie, he supposed would go home now that the roads were clear enough for travel, saving him the grief of her coldness at least.

  “You have not yet answered my question, Christian.”

  He looked out from his thoughts at Miss Stubbs, who was still by the fire. “Pray, what question do you mean?”

  “Is she here?”

  He considered his answer. Telling her the truth would put Georgie in the line of fire, which would be utterly unchivalrous of him. Not that lying through his teeth was any less ungallant, but maintaining the peace often came at a price.

  “No. She lives in Shrewsbury, which is a dozen or so miles northwest of Much Wenlock.”

  “Oh? And have you seen her on this trip?”

  “I have not,” he said convincingly. “Nor do I intend to.”

  As if entering on cue, Georgie came into the room. To Christian’s astonishment, she was all smiles and easy amiability. “Good morning, Lieutenant,” she said to Christian before turning toward Miss Stubbs. “And who might this be?”

  Christian was astonished by her manner. If she still harbored animosity toward him, she gave no sign of it. Rising to make the requisite introductions, he wondered what the devil she was up to. Something underhanded, obviously. He just hoped she was fighting for rather than against him.

  Twe
lve

  Once the consequent introductions took place, Georgie assessed Miss Stubbs with the critical eye of a rival. She was not more than two or three and twenty and not nearly as coarse as expected, though neither could her bearing or clothes be called “elegant.” Her features were rather pretty, though, and she had a sharp eye and smartness of air that gave some consequence to her person.

  Toward Louisa and the Captain, her manners were obsequious, suggesting she had sense enough to know upon which side her bread was buttered. At present, leastwise. She fawned over the baby and was excessive in her compliments to Louisa.

  Toward her intended, however, she was merely civil, and barely that at times. And he was no more courteous to her.

  Of Miss Raynalds and Georgie, Miss Stubbs took little notice. This Georgie took to mean she’d deemed them inconsequential to her present comfort and goals.

  This, Georgie observed with a smile, would prove a costly miscalculation. For subversives could operate more freely than known enemies. And, tonight—when Winnie returned to read Sense and Sensibility—Georgie would solicit her help in her covert campaign to win Christian’s liberty.

  The book, too, would play a key role, serving as a guide for what not to do as well as a primer on human nature. For the authoress was nothing if not an astute observer of the foibles and frailties of her fellow creatures, both high and low. Not that Georgie, she flattered herself, was utterly without insights in the arena of human behavior.

  Despite being a female of limited experience and exposure.

  From what she’d observed, most people would do anything to put more gold in their pockets, no matter how despicable, deceitful, or depraved the requirements might be.

  Just look at Miss Stubbs, bowing and scraping to ingratiate herself to Christian’s friends. When she was not fawning over Sonny, she was praising to the rafters Louisa’s clothing and furnishings. Everything the baby did was a marvel, and every object in the room an exemplar of good taste and refinement. Not that there was no truth in her flattery; her compliments were simply too excessive and bombastic for Georgie to believe them sincere.