Page 86 of When the Marquess Was Mine
The dark thought crossed Georgiana’s mind that Lady Sidlow would lose her plum post if Georgiana went home to Yorkshire, but then the emphasis sank in. “Why?” The chaperone sank into a chair, handkerchief at her lips. “Why, Lady Sidlow?” Georgiana demanded, ready to scream it if she had to ask a third time.
“I... I do not know,” faltered the older woman. “I have heard tidbits of gossip—only hints, mind you—that Lord Wakefield...”
Georgiana leaned over her. “Tell me,” she ordered. “I want to hear everything.”
The chaperone glanced up with a frown, but Georgiana’s expression must have dissuaded her. “All right,” she said in a low voice. “Close the door.”
Georgiana almost ran to do so, then back to the chair beside her chaperone.
“This isrumor,” stressed the woman. “I cannot vouchsafe any of it is truth. But there are whispers.”
“About what?”
“After you ended your engagement, I spoke to Lady Capet—instrictestconfidence, of course. She has heard whispers that your brother has encountered some financial difficulties. I made my own inquiries, and discovered he has not paid several of your bills. Unfortunately, I have some acquaintance with this, and fear it portends deeper trouble. The—the first sign of insolvency is delaying the payment of bills.” She avoided Georgiana’s gaze. “It was that way with my husband, Lord Sidlow—delay payment, then argue over the bill, then refuse to pay at all. Only when the milliner refuses more credit does a family discover what’s happening.”
“If he’s not paying the bills,” Georgiana said slowly, “does that mean he can’t pay my dowry?” Her father had left that money for her, but she wouldn’t put it past Alistair to hold tight to it if his own funds ran low.
Lady Sidlow bit her lip. “I do not know. But it does not bode well.”
No, it did not. She digested that in silence.
“I won’t go,” she declared. “To Yorkshire. I won’t go, not to live with him.” Just the thought made her skin crawl.
“Quite right, my dear.” Lady Sidlow was still very pale. “But what will you do?”
“He can’t forbid me to marry anyone else.”
“No,” agreed the chaperone. “You are legally of age and can marry without his permission. But... it may be true that he can tie up your dowry.”
Georgiana nodded grimly. Of course Alistair would be able to keep from her the dowry her father had explicitly left her. Just as Charles Winston could wager away the house that had been in Kitty’s family for decades, because it became his when she married him. Sterling’s remarks about gentlemen being driven to do stupid things because of their honor ran through her head again, and she wondered why on earth men were allowed to be in charge of anything.
“I’m not going to Yorkshire,” she repeated, returning to the main point. “And I shall marry whomever I choose.”
Lady Sidlow darted a wary glance at her. “Please do not say you have some scandalous plan in mind.”
She gave the woman a disbelieving look. “Scandalous! After Alistair said he would drag me back to Yorkshire and keep me there for three years if I didn’t marry Sterling? What could I possibly do that’s worse than that?”
“Yes,” acknowledged Lady Sidlow after a moment. “Perhaps this calls for something scandalous.”
Georgiana gave a decisive nod. “I think so, too.”
Rob stayed in that night. Tom wanted to go to Vega’s, but Rob had no desire to return there after the melee that had caused him to turn his ankle and given him a split lip, just when he’d finally recovered from the beating in Derbyshire.
“What will you do?” wondered his brother.
Rob shrugged. “Read a book, perhaps.” He’d told Bigby to locate a copy ofThe Arabian Nights. Not only did he want to look up the story Georgiana had read aloud in Maryfield, he wanted to read the others.
Tom shook his head, but took himself off. Rob prowled the house for several minutes. He’d sent Georgiana flowers the previous day, and judged he could call again tomorrow. As he had often done before, he thought the rules of thetonwere idiotic, but now he was willing to bow to them. For the first time in his life, he didn’t want to make a hash of this.
In his dressing room he sank into the chair at the desk. What would he do with himself if he weren’t out gambling and drinking all night? Heath had tried to prod him about the Forester business, whatever it was, and was still irked that Rob had put him off.
Rob’s gaze fell on the desk. He hadn’t thought to look through his own things in a bid to restore his memory.
As he opened drawers, it was as though he watched himself from a distance. There were bills, a ledger, a slim stack of letters. The handwriting on some sparked faces in his mind; that was his mother’s hand, this one his aunt’s. He remembered she had written to wish him a happy Christmas, and to relate a story about her pack of Pomeranians. A faint smile touched his face. As a boy he’d run with her dogs up and down the hills of Salmsbury.
He kept searching, memories filling in the gaps in his mind like sand pouring into a bucket of rocks. Some were tiny, inconsequential things, others more significant. But finally, in a leather portfolio, he found the letters that cast illumination on Heath’s plans for Forester.
He was still reading when the door knocker sounded distantly. He thought it must be Tom, but the butler had a very odd look on his face when he came.
