Page 51 of When the Marquess Was Mine
“Even her?” He clapped one hand to his heart as if in shock.
Georgiana laughed. “She thinks I’m very headstrong and silly, and she would prefer I have no fun at all. I don’t think the woman knows how to smile, Rob.”
The name struck him in the heart. “Who on earth put someone like that in charge of you?”
“Alistair,” she said. “I used to think he looked for the dullest person who would take the post, to put me in my place. But she was a friend of my mother’s—or so I’ve been told, for I cannot square her temperament with what I remember of Mama’s—and despite all her scoldings and declarations that she’s at the end of her tether with me, she refuses to give her notice.”
“Georgiana,” he drawled in amusement, “have you tried to drive the woman off?”
“A little,” she admitted impishly.
Rob snorted with laughter.
“Clearly I failed in my every attempt,” she went on, enjoying herself now. “Even when I ran off she wouldn’t leave. It’s very unsporting of her, actually.”
“You ran off?” he asked in astonishment.
She nodded, her golden curls bobbing around her neck. With this sparkle in her eyes and a pink flush in her cheeks, Georgiana Lucas was enchanting. For the first time Rob grasped what a strain she’d been under. All the uncertain glances, all the nervous looks, all her hesitation had completely vanished. Even the way she moved exhibited relief, as if a great weight had rolled off her.
He supposed it had, or rather was about to—that weight being his presence.
“I did,” she said rather proudly. “One of my dearest friends, Eliza, left her husband. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but Eliza loved him so desperately before that, and when she wrote to me that she was leaving him, of course I had to go to her! I did take another friend,” she added. “I suppose that’s what saved me. Sophie brought her husband, and his title cured all Lady Sidlow’s anxieties.” Her brow furrowed. “Perhaps, in hindsight, I ought not to have done that. If I’d gone to Kings Langley by myself, it might have given her such an apoplexy shewouldhave given notice...”
“Who is Sophie’s husband?” Rob was entertained beyond belief—and just a touch dismayed. A whole week he’d had with her and only now, for the last hour, was he seeing this side of her. He’d found her previous manner appealing. If she’d been this carefree the entire time...
“The Duke of Ware,” she said. “He’s not as stuffy as he seems.”
“Ah.”
“Do you know him?” She gave him a curious glance. “Do you remember—?”
“Not Ware,” he said thoughtfully. “I know his brother slightly. I think.”
“Lord Philip,” said Georgiana with a sigh. “Such a scapegrace! I used to tease Sophie that she should set her cap for him, but she fell in love with Ware instead.”
“Sophie...” he said slowly, memory stirring. “Sophie Campbell?”
“I thought you might know her!” Georgiana beamed. “She played at the Vega Club. You’re a member there, aren’t you?”
Rob frowned. “Yes.” He remembered the club, just as he remembered Mrs. Campbell, the youngest, most attractive woman who’d ever tossed the dice there. He’d never sat at a table with her, because she played too low. But there was something else about the club that niggled at the edge of his memory...
Georgiana’s demeanor had darkened. “If you ever see Charles Winston there, please promise me—that is, I hope you won’t play against him. He must be horribly incompetent.”
Rob smiled briefly, the nagging memory slipping away before he could grasp it. “Never again will I trade cards with Charles Winston. I hope he’s learned that lesson as well, since one of us really ought to remember it.”
She laughed behind her hand, and Rob rested his head on the back cushion and watched her, wishing the trip could last another year.
Sadly it did not. They reached the King’s Arms and found Tom waiting. Once he had joined them in the carriage, there was no chance of talking about anything other than The Plan, as Rob had begun to think of it.
He was less and less enamored of Tom’s plan to separate him from Georgiana—which, he suspected, was his brother’s primary goal—while Georgiana seemed genuinely anxious that he recover his memory by returning to familiar surroundings. While Tom quizzed her about every particular of his time at Osbourne House, Rob mostly stared out the opposite window, having realized that gave him the best covert view of her. The play of emotions over her face as she answered Tom’s questions made him maudlin, and angry, and wistful.
Damn it all, he didn’t want to go back to Salmsbury Abbey yet. He didn’t want to leave Georgiana at the inn and drive off with Tom; more the other way round, he thought, listening to Tom pick apart some minor inconsistency in Georgiana’s story and feeling his temper stir.
“Leave it,” he finally snapped.
“This story is gaping with holes.” His brother shot a black look at Georgiana. “Sir Walter Scott himself would be taken aback by the leaps of logic and flights of fancy.”
She flushed. “I suppose you’d have done a better job of it, without even a moment to prepare.”
