Page 84 of When the Marquess Was Mine
“So far, I’ve written,Dear Kitty, I hope you and everyone at Osbourne House are well, especially little Annabel.” She paused. “That’s all. It’s a work in progress.”
Rob coughed to keep from laughing. Tom didn’t bother hiding his amusement. Georgiana gave him a gaze brimming with rueful humor. “I know. It’s dreadful.” She heaved a sigh. “I suppose we’re all trying to come up with good stories to explain ourselves.”
“You could claim a sudden failing of your eyesight,” suggested Tom.
“I’d have to have gone deaf as well, not to recognize the difference in their voices,” she replied wryly. “Which might become very convenient, when next we meet and she rings a peal over me...”
“I doubt she will,” remarked Rob.
“Oh, she will,” said Georgiana with morbid certainty. “Kitty will be furious. I dread what she’ll think of me, let alone what she’llsay. And Geneva, and Mother Winston—”
“I’m not going to take their house,” he pointed out. “Seems an end to the whole business, doesn’t it?”
Her brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “I suppose, but still... She and I have been friends for years, she’ll want to know why I told her such a tale.”
Rob just winked at her, and said no more. They had reached Oxford Street, which was far busier than it had been before—and fortunately so, for it gave them cover to ride faster. By the time they reached Cavendish Square, the tips of the roofs above them were gilded with the first rays of sunlight.
Rob jumped off his horse and she almost leapt into his arms. Leaving the horses to Tom, they hurried down Mortimer Street, just as they had hurried out over an hour ago. After checking for any witnesses, Rob eased open the garden door. Then he paused, cupping her cheek. “Until later,” he whispered, and gave her one last searing kiss.
“Not much later, I hope,” was her breathless reply. She winked at him, her eyes sparkling, and then she slipped into the garden and out of his sight.
No, it would not be, he promised silently. Not if he could help it. With a jaunty step, he headed back to his brother and the horses, plotting his next move.
Chapter 27
There was a small, silly smile permanently affixed to her face for the entire day. A stunning bouquet arrived, graceful red roses with sprigs of myrtle and hawthorn and a card signed only with a sweeping W, which made Lady Sidlow clap one hand to her heart in shock. Georgiana put them in her bedroom, next to the window where he’d thrown gravel to wake her. She wondered if he might do it again, but the next morning all was quiet.
Until, that is, Lady Sidlow burst into the room.
“Get dressed,” she said in a tense, worried voice. “Lord Wakefield is coming.”
“What?” Still in her dressing gown, Georgiana blinked out of her happy contemplation of the bouquet. “Today?”
“Within the hour.”
Ice formed around her heart. In the mirror she met Nadine’s gaze, as horrified as her own. “How can he? I sent my letter only a few days ago!” It was a week’s journey to London from Wakefield Manor.
“He did not explain in his note, but he is here in town and coming this morning, so make haste, Georgiana!”
It was true. Georgiana had barely scrambled into her clothes and pinned up her hair before a carriage stopped before the house. It had been so long since she’d seen her brother, she’d almost forgotten what he was like.
As a child she had thought Alistair was always angry about something. His face, in her memory, was set in a perpetual scowl, his pale blue eyes burning bright and his dark hair standing up as if he’d pulled at it in fury. She was glad he hadn’t lived at Wakefield Manor with them. Georgiana once overheard Mama tell a visiting friend that Alistair’s mother had been a cold, silent woman, and it wasn’t Alistair’s fault he was so distant. Her friend had clucked and said he was wrong in the head, which earned her a gentle rebuke from Mama, who always thought the best of everyone.
But young Georgiana had privately agreed with the visitor. There was something about Alistair that frightened her.
When she finished her schooling at Mrs. Upton’s, she’d had to go home to Wakefield Manor for a short while, but Alistair had barely been there. Her only vivid memory was of him snapping at her to be silent at the dinner table. Fortunately he’d engaged Lady Sidlow within a month and they set out for London, where she’d been ever since.
Today he strode into the drawing room, almost visibly crackling with anger. His dark hair was now cropped short and he was thinner than she remembered, with deep grooves between his brows and around his mouth. He still dressed in severe dark colors, though, and his blue eyes still burned with fury.
Georgiana’s instinctive word of polite greeting melted away, and she glanced nervously at Lady Sidlow. That formidable woman stood as straight as an iron pike, her hands clasped at her waist and no trace of expression on her face. “Good morning, my lord,” said the chaperone, dipping a deep curtsy.
“What the devil is this?” He held up a folded letter—her letter, Georgiana realized.
“I wrote to you, sir,” said Lady Sidlow quickly. “Dare I—?”
“Be quiet,” he snarled at her. His attention veered back to Georgiana. “What the devil is this?” he repeated, each word bitten off.
“I have ended my engagement to Lord Sterling,” she said, lifting her chin to keep it from sinking to her chest under his angry regard.
