Page 26 of When the Marquess Was Mine
The maid looked dubious. “Surely even if he’s rude and arrogant she wouldn’t do that to one so injured.”
Georgiana sighed. “Something happened between Sir Charles and...” Helplessly she waved one arm toward Rob’s room. “It was dreadful, and Sir Charles warned Lady Winston not to let him in if he should arrive...”
She hesitated, not wanting to darken Kitty’s name too much. Perhaps she’d been all wrong about Kitty’s ruthless streak, and had been an idiot for no reason at all.A bit late to think of that, she thought. “Sir Charles believes the marquess might try to take possession of this house. I didn’t know what Her Ladyship would do, and I said he was Sterling before I could think better of it.”
“Would he really throw the family out?” Nadine gasped.
“Well...” Before he woke, Georgiana would have said with complete confidence that Westmorland was not only capable of such cruelty, but probably relished it. Now, she wasn’t sure. “Most likely,” she insisted, to herself as much as to Nadine. He’d brought the deed, after all.
Eyes wide with amazement, Nadine shook her head. “But m’lady... won’t you be in awful trouble if anyone discovers the truth?”
Georgiana flinched as if she’d been struck. “I hope to get him away from here before Lady Winston or anyone else has cause to suspect who he really is.”
The maid’s brow wrinkled. “How do you plan to do that, with him not able to walk and not knowing who he is?”
I have no idea.“I’ll work it out,” she said with a confidence she did not remotely feel.
Chapter 9
Going outside had been worth it, but only by a narrow margin. The headache that had begun outside under the wisteria burgeoned into a long-toothed, sharp-clawed monster. Georgiana urged him to take more laudanum, and in misery he did.
He must have slept for a long while. When he woke next, the room was as dark and still as a grave; he sensed he was alone. His head felt somewhat better. The Stygian darkness helped, though it also served to make him feel utterly unmoored, lost at sea without a compass. Who was he? He had no idea, and was beginning to think he didn’t really want to know.
He’d never told his fiancée she was beautiful. That might be one thing if she weren’t, and saying so would have been obviously empty flattery. But by God’s truth, she was—thick golden hair that curled into glowing wisps around her neck, moss-green eyes that could dance with merriment and darken with concern, and a ripe pink mouth he thought about kissing every time he saw her.
But her look of alarm as he leaned toward her in the garden had stopped him; she did not share his interest in kissing. Which meant that either he’d never kissed her, or she hadn’t liked it when he did.
Ballocks. How had he thoroughly ruined things with the woman he would spend the rest of his life with? She refused to tell him, and, uneasily, Rob sensed it was yet another answer he wouldn’t much like.
It bothered him intensely that he could remember nothing of their relationship, his courtship... or her feelings. Perhaps that was fair, as he clearly hadn’t made any romantic declarations himself, but it meant he had no idea what she felt for him.
At times, he thought theirs must be a match of some affection, when she smiled and laughed at his teasing. She’d been so devoted since his injury; surely she cared for him. Shemust.
At other times, though, there was a yawning gulf between them, and he thought in frustration that it could have been the most businesslike of arranged unions between strangers.
That felt wrong, though. Surely she would tell him if her feelings were not engaged; why would she pretend to be a devoted fiancée? And if he cared so little for her, why had he come haring off into Derbyshire to make up whatever falling out they’d had?
The best explanation he could form was that their betrothal had been amiably arranged. If they’d been caught in a scandal and obliged to marry, they wouldn’t have been engaged for over two years; they would have been standing in front of a vicar within a week. If the marriage were arranged, the settlements would have been sorted before the engagement was even announced. But if there were some affection, and the match was suitable, it might have been made for convenience...
Rob exhaled loudly in frustration, staring up into the dark. Georgiana should have had a dozen suitors. Was there something disreputable about her? About her family? She’d only mentioned her brother, and not in affectionate terms. Perhaps the rest of her family had died in some scandalous blaze of ignominy. Perhaps they were so scandalous they were still alive, gallivanting about Italy after leaving her to an indifferent brother’s care.
The door opened, and Georgiana came in. He could tell by her scent and the way she picked her way quietly across the dark room. “I’m awake,” he murmured, smiling.
“How do you feel?” Her cool hand rested on his forehead for a moment.
“Better.”Now that you’re here, he added silently.
“Is there anything I can do? Are you hungry?”
“No. Would you sit with me?” He tried to lighten his tone. “Dashed odd, lying alone in complete darkness. I woke and thought for a moment I’d died, and was already shut up in the coffin.”
She gave a horrified gasp. “No! Never! How dreadful—”
“Imagine my relief when you walked in,” he said quickly. “Quite worth the moment of dread.”
“You have peculiar notions of worth, sir.” He could hear her dress rustling, and then the scrape of a chair on the floor.
“Ah, because I said it was worth the headache to go outside?” He grinned. “It was.”
