Chapter 20 #2
Georgiana’s stomach clenched. Loving one’s children just was not done.
Chadbourn and his lady were utterly besotted and made no effort to hide it, much to her mother’s disgust. Longing overwhelmed Georgiana when Will turned to face his bride in the church, love glowing from every inch of him.
Once she wouldn’t have understood what she saw.
Once she, too, might have mocked them. Now, she envied them.
Now, she knew what flowers these roses are.
A very private smile crept, unbidden, to her face.
“Really, Georgiana, if you are going to fidget with your food and smile like a buffoon, you may as well leave the table. I command it.” The Duchess sneered down her nose in distaste.
Georgiana began to rise but froze like a frightened rabbit in the face of her mother’s disapproval. She despised herself for it.
Glenaire ignored his mother’s disapproving glare and rose smoothly to assist his sister. “Are you well?” He pitched his voice for her ear alone. Some of the old affection filled her.
“I am well. I prefer my room. Let it go, Richard.” The preference was real; humiliation stung.
Glenaire lifted her hand and kissed the top. “Perhaps tomorrow we can walk.”
“I would like that.”
“Do get on, Georgiana. Glenaire, you disrupt dinner. A gentleman does not disrupt conversation.” Voices faded behind her as Georgiana left the room. She used all her strength to avoid running.
Mountview’s air of menace, the constant threat of maternal abuse, followed her up the stairs.
She vowed that when she broke free again she would never let them drag her back.
She wasn’t sure what she would do, but she knew she would do nothing that threatened her fragile independence. Nothing. Ever.
Finely waxed floors and priceless carpeting led the way to an over-stuffed room at the back of the house.
She knew it was slightly less fine than the better guest rooms, infinitely more luxurious than the upper servants, and a great deal shabbier than the quarters assigned to Eloise and Ardmore. She hated it.
Nothing there raised her spirits. Her notes, scattered on the table, were days old. The steady stream of correspondence with Andrew that flowed rapidly while she had been a guest of the Duchess of Murnane stopped when she came to Mountview.
Here in her father’s house, she feared discovery.
Anything sent from this house was vulnerable to prying eyes.
She feared that her letters would reflect her love for Andrew.
Even if they didn’t, fear of censorship made her reluctant to send her questions and ideas.
At best, her work would be mocked. At worst, they might trap her here and attempt to prevent the work from going forward.
Georgiana lifted a fine gold chain from around her neck and pulled a tiny key from her bodice. She leaned under her bed and pulled out a strongbox, glad no servant would bother to interrupt the objectionable daughter while the family was still at dinner.
The box opened quietly. Andrew’s messages lay like treasured love letters wrapped in tissue.
Fool! Each was signed simply, “Yours, A. Mallet.” Anyone reading them would know them for the business correspondence that they were.
No one would mistake them for love letters.
Yet, they lay wrapped in tissue and locked in a small strongbox as if she feared discovery.
Andrew had sent no letters in more than a month. She assumed that he was being cautious also or that he was waiting for her to write. Either way, it was safer, she knew, but she missed his letters terribly. She missed him.
She replaced the box in its hiding place and went to the window, as she did every night, and began to count the miles to Little Saint Mary’s Lane. She pictured the roads. She could be back in Cambridge in two days. Perhaps Glenaire would arrange it sooner. She would ask him again tomorrow.
She didn’t know if the man who wrote those careful, businesslike letters would welcome her.
She wondered if he looked out his window and thought of her or if he was absorbed in work.
She had hurt him. He might not wish to continue the connection.
She did, even if she still had no idea what sort of connection she wanted.
Two days. If she had a carriage. If her father would permit it. If she had the courage to leave. Two days.
* * *
Two nights later, Mountview’s grizzled gatekeeper informed Andrew with exaggerated generosity that, while his chaise wasn’t permitted inside the gate, Andrew might walk to the manor if he chose to try his luck at the servants’ door.
Andrew looked at the man’s hulking bulk, barrel-shaped legs, and massive arms. He reined in the urge to drive on, dismounted, and began to walk.
The manuscript, secure in its leather folio, lay under his arm while wind whipped his coat about.
Pain in his back and hip, aggravated by the long ride and the cold, reminded him of how he had felt months ago.
The vigor of recent months deserted him, but he soldiered on.
The year had stretched deep into February.
March loomed in a few days. The wind still attacked with a bite, but dusk came a bit later.
Wind threatened the portfolio with its precious manuscript.
He pulled it more tightly to himself with one arm and grasped the silver lion’s head on his ebony cane with the other.
He leaned his head into the wind that roiled his hair and brought tears to his eyes.
Mountview’s massive shape blotted out the sky. Light glowed in every window as if to call out to him, while at the same time the gray stone walls, dark in the moonlight, stood ready to keep him out. It had always been so.
As a boy, he had come here with the heir, permitted in but not welcomed. This time he came as an outright intruder. The impulse to seek the tradesman’s entrance flooded him for a fierce moment, but he shook it off. He would enter by the formal entrance.
* * *
Night brought no poetic softening to life inside the Hayden household.
Georgiana sat stiff-backed in the corner of the family stateroom.
Her impeccably correct gown, high-necked and edged in lace, fell in straight lines of navy blue silk, heavy and rich, to the floor.
She felt as if her hair, drawn back in a tight knot and covered with an exquisite lace cap, must emphasize the misery lodged deep in the bones of her face.
She faded more every week that passed without meaningful work, Peabody’s health regime, or word from Andrew.
Her will to defy the family weakened daily, and she knew it.
The Duchess of Sudbury held court on a gold brocade sofa before the fire.
The Countess of Ardmore, draped her gown artfully around her, tilted her head to catch chandelier light, and gracefully occupied a matching chair.
Her husband faded into the shadows of the room, a pale wraith outshone by Hayden splendor.
The Duke himself stood in silent dignity to the right of the fireplace.
Lady Marianna Hayden sat straight-backed on a small chair just below her mother’s.
The room’s final occupant, her brother Richard, every inch the Marquess, stood removed from the rest. His posture, while no less dignified, didn’t condescend to being part of the carefully arranged tableau before the fire. He sat at a splendid mahogany secretaire and observed his eldest sister.
Georgiana returned Glenaire’s gaze without blinking and with little warmth. Neither Glenaire nor His Grace found it convenient to arrange her return to Cambridge after Candlemas or on any day since. She knew Richard couldn’t or wouldn’t understand her need to return.
They waited in silence for the summons to dinner.
The finely carved double doors between the atrium and the family sitting room swung open with a well-oiled swoosh just as the clock in the entrance chimed the hour.
All eyes turned in anticipation. The Duchess raised a languid hand for assistance and made an impatient sound.
“The announcement, Peters!” she demanded.
The butler’s tones were funereal. “Your Grace, I must beg your pardon. A caller has arrived who will not be repelled. He asks for the Lady Georgiana.”
Georgiana felt as if air had rushed from the room. Her heart lurched in her breast, beating so strongly she believed the others must see it pounding in her chest. She forced her features to show indifference and her eyes to focus on her father.
“Show the impertinent intruder to the tradesman’s parlor.” The Duke spoke in bored tones.
The butler looked pained, as if he couldn’t bring himself to admit he had tried and failed. The Duke of Sudbury made a gesture of impatience. “Very well. Don’t delay dinner. I won’t be long.”
“Yes, Your Grace. Dinner is served.”
Hope warred with confusion. She knew it had to be Andrew, but she wondered what would cause him to come. He hated Mountview.
“Glenaire, escort your eldest sister to the dining room.” The Duke skewered Georgiana with a look of command and left the room.
The Duchess chose to overlook the breach of protocol. She sailed through the door alone, with the Earl and Countess of Ardmore following in strict precedence. She assumed her son and his sister would follow in her wake.
The hand Georgiana placed on her brother’s arm shook. If he noticed, he didn’t comment. He covered her hand with a warm and reassuring one of his own.