Page 65 of Ladies in Hating
“We shall do it then.” Cat’s gaze went to the window, where Bacon had gone up on his hind legs to put his tiny front paws on the glass. “We’re not so far from Woodcote Hall, just now. Does Bacon recognize it?”
“He does not.” Georgiana heard the way her voice sounded, stiff and cold, and could do nothing to prevent it.
“Oh. You’ve not been there together? I had thought…” Cat hesitated, then said cautiously, “Ambrose did not receive you, then? After he became earl?”
Georgiana scarcely knew how to respond. She had no idea what Ambrose would have done or said. She had not let him say anything.
She knew it had been the right choice. She knew it was safer for Ambrose and Percy that way. And still, she felt ashamed to tell Cat what she’d done. To admit how poisonous it was to associate with her publicly.
She felt, somehow, just as vulnerable as she had when Cat had asked her to strip off her clothes. Ludicrous, how easy it was to touch and kiss with her eyes closed—and how difficult to bare herself in the light.
“I have not visited Woodcote Hall,” she said finally. “Not for a very long time.”
“I see,” Cat murmured. Her fingers played along the seam of Georgiana’s stocking. Her hands were as expressive as her face—terribly, fearfully gentle wherever they touched. “I can picture it so clearly in my mind.”
“Woodcote?”
“Mm. It was not all bad, you know. The library. The grounds.” Cat flicked a charged glance up at Georgiana’s face. “You.”
“You’re only saying that because you know that I… that I fancied you.” Ah God, why was it so dreadful to say it aloud? Thank heaven she had not told Cat about the journal with all the hearts round her name.
Cat laughed, as warm and generous as an open hand. “Perhaps a little. But we were happy there. Even my father would not have done anything differently.”
Georgiana stared, incredulous, across the carriage. “How can you say that?” She knew—she knew precisely—what her father had done to the Lacey family. Every time she saw the worn edges of Cat’s cloak, she thought of it—how her family had been the author of their poverty.
“Well, he would certainly have chosen not to get sick. That part he would have changed.” Cat’s mouth tipped up at the corner, bittersweet and fond. “But he would not have changed who he loved, and how.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Cat’s dark lashes fluttered down to her cheeks and then back up, startlement written upon her face. “You don’t know? Why your father put us out?”
Georgiana’s chest felt tight. She hated this—hated speaking of her father, recalling the whims of his cruelty. “I didn’t know it to be anything in particular. He was always that way. He fired one of the maids because she dropped a glass and left a shard in the carpet, and Percy got a hole in his coat.”
His volatility had made him all the more frightening to her. She’d known for a long time that there had been no way to please him. No way to make herself safe enough.
See what happens when you’re all alone.
Cat was still gazing at her in surprise. “My father fell in love with your brothers’ tutor. Your father caught them together. That’s why we were thrown out.”
“What?”Georgiana realized her mouth had dropped open, and she snapped it closed. “Mr. Bidwell?”
Cat laughed, very soft. “Yes. Hugh Bidwell. He was the kindest, gentlest man. He adored your brothers, and Jemmy, and me—no doubt he’s the reason Jem and I are so fond of books.”
Georgiana squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. Cat was still there, smiling to herself and casually rearranging Georgiana’s understanding of the past. “I thought—was your father not married? Twice?”
Cat’s mouth quirked. “Some people fancy ladies and gentlemen both, you know.”
Yes, of course. Of course she knew that, although her own preferences certainly did not seem to have ever trended toward the male half of the populace.
“I am aware of that,” she managed. “But I had no idea—yourfather—andMr. Bidwell—”
“My father called him Hugh, if that makes it easier to fathom.”
“Not especially!” Georgiana could recall Hugh Bidwell clearly; he had been a fixture at Woodcote Hall until Percy had gone to Oxford, around the same time that the Lacey family had left Woodcote. He’d been very thin, soft-spoken, possessed of a startling pair of black eyes and even more startling thick black eyebrows. He had not seemed the sort of man to inspire life-altering passions.
Cat laughed again and relinquished Georgiana’s foot, only to lean forward and grasp her fingers instead. “My father always said that Fate had given him two great loves—my mother and Hugh—and that he would never be churlish enough to quibble with Fate.My mother died when I was four, and he was… shocked, I think, to find love again. He had not anticipated it.”
Georgiana let Cat entangle their fingers, even as she tried to make sense of Cat’s words. “What about Jem’s mother? They were married, were they not, before your father came to be employed at Woodcote?”
