Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
They took a full twenty minutes, but the thought of Jamie hovering, aware and protective, dampened passion eventually.
“It’s deuced uncomfortable to be interrupted. We best not continue to the conclusion we’re both considering.”
She blushed brightly. “I can wait, I think. There’ll be time to love each other, all the time we want now.”
He started to kiss her again but thought better of it. He took her hand and led her to the stairs.
“Possible, yes. Easy, no,” he said.
She felt her blush deepen when they rounded the corner to the room. Four pairs of eyes met them: Jamie’s dancing, Bailey’s warmed by profound emotion, Dunning’s kind, and Harley’s cheeky as ever.
Harley looked as if he wanted to say, “About time.” Instead, he said, “The wine is getting warm. Thought the major was going to have to fetch you.”
Jamie reached over to pour. “Am I to toast your happiness then?”
“Certainly. Our book is a success.” Andrew gripped her hand as if he feared she would flee.
Jamie lowered his eyebrows. “That isn’t what I meant.”
Andrew continued smoothly. “And my partner agrees to a reprint. A larger one this time, Mr. Bailey.” He grinned down at her. She grinned back like a fool.
“I say! That is splendid. It’s a fine work.” Bailey beamed.
“As to happiness,” Andrew said, pausing to make sure he had everyone’s attention, “yes, you may wish us happy. I have accepted Lady Georgiana’s gracious offer of marriage.”
Jamie exploded with a loud whoop of laughter and clapped Andrew on the back. Dunning looked a bit puzzled by the wording but offered polite congratulations.
Bailey downed the wine Harley offered and quickly made his excuses. “Can just about make London tonight if I travel light. Best get on it quickly while the demand is there.” The little printer rubbed his hands together. “Congratulations again, Mallet. Every happiness, my lady. Every happiness.”
Dunning might have left also, but Andrew asked him to stay. “We have a wedding to plan, Geoff, and not much time to do it. You are welcome to help.”
A wedding! Things were moving too quickly for Georgiana.
She felt her stomach flip and the color drain from her face.
Andrew squeezed her hand sympathetically.
“Weddings are public things, I know, but they must be endured to get to marriage.” He winked again.
“I think the sooner we do it the better. Anticipation won’t help. Your family—”
“Will object no matter what we do. The sooner it is done the better.”
“Good girl. Banns will take too long.”
“I can be ready to travel to Scotland in an hour.”
Dunning looked distressed, and Harley shook his head. Jamie’s face looked insufferably smug. She turned to Andrew, puzzled.
“Actually,” Andrew said, “Jamie had an idea.”
Georgiana gaped at them. The rotten men discussed it before I even had a chance to ask.
“A license, Lady Georgie,” Jamie explained.
“That could prove difficult,” she said. “Only Canturbury can issue a special license. The archbishops are all my father’s relatives or cronies. They’ll put a spoke in our wheel without his permission.”
“Not Ely,” Jamie told her. “Plain bishop, not an archbishop, but he has connections to Canterbury’s staff. He can issue a common license. Doesn’t give a fig about what Canterbury thinks—too old to care.”
“Why Ely?”
“He’s my mother’s uncle,” Jamie said. “If we leave now, we should be back in a few days.”
A bolt of excitement shot through her. That would work. She could go with them, and the bishop could marry them. Then she remembered. A common license meant a week’s wait.
Dunning spoke up. “Those things take a day. Paperwork, you know.” He looked at Georgiana with sympathy. She must have looked like she had been knocked on the head; she certainly felt like it. “Lady Georgiana will want time to prepare, I think, in any case.”
Andrew gave her a long look. “Dress, Georgie? Flowers?”
It came to her then. They were discussing her wedding, the wedding she never expected to have. It would be simple; it would be soon, but it should be meaningful.
“Yes, all right. I think so,” she said. “And a wedding breakfast, too. Geoff, your grandmother will help, won’t she?”
“She’ll dance a jig. She’s been hoping to see you two make a match of it for weeks now—anything but you alone in that dreadful little house.”
Even Dunning’s insensitive remark about her house didn’t dampen her spirits. Mrs. Potter will dance a jig. The idea made her laugh out loud. “We will all dance a jig at the wedding.”
* * *
Six days later nothing sounded simple.
Where are they? Andrew estimated a few days. They should have been back three days ago.
She wondered if he was deliberately staying away for the required waiting period so she could use his house without added scandal. She wished she had never agreed to a license. She wished they had dashed off to Scotland or at least that she had insisted on accompanying them to Ely.
Georgiana rearranged the flowers in the center of Andrew’s worn old worktable (as she had a half-dozen times before) and checked the nosegays on his mantel. Afternoon shadows sank lower with each passing moment and still no sound at the door.
She knew she ought to go downstairs and help Edwina Potter and Geoff Dunning entertain Reverend Parke. He had come to finalize details and wouldn’t stay much longer.
She took one more look around. The room would have made a perfect background for their wedding. It was fragrant with memories. They could have wed surrounded by his books and the work they shared. St. Mary’s church would have to do, since law and a common license required it.
She took one more look around and sighed. It had everything except a groom. “A few days,” Andrew had said, with time for the bishop to complete the paperwork. “We will marry promptly on the seventh day,” he had said.
Seven days! We should have dared a special license and His Grace be… She knew better. She feared His Grace her father would have descended with fury. As it was she feared he would get wind of the wedding and interfere.
A knock on the door sent her running. She flew halfway down the stairs before she realized that Andrew wouldn’t have knocked.
He would have opened the door and flown to her.
Another man stood at the door, a slender figure so tall he had to duck slightly to enter.
The last apricot-orange rays of sun illuminated impeccably groomed golden hair. Richard.
“The Major isn’t in.” Harley, not impressed with anyone’s consequence, stood with one hand on the door as if to shut him out.
Richard looked quizzically at the tableau in the parlor: Reverend Parke had come to discuss flowers with Edwina.
He sipped tea companionably and slowly with Dunning and Edwina.
Mr. Peabody, who had come for news, sat engrossed in Poetry by the Female Authors of Ancient Greece. Harley waited but gave no ground.
Richard swept his glance inexorably up the stairs to his sister. “Georgiana, I thought I might see you here. There were no servants at Helsington. It is closed.”
“Richard, this is a surprise.” She forced the words out through clenched teeth. His clear blue eyes, inscrutable as always, scanned her appearance. She descended the final steps and believed he could see her very soul. “Helsington has been sold. The last of the servants left yesterday.”
“Is there somewhere we might speak privately?”
For a moment she wanted to insist on the parlor and an audience. Her heart beat erratically, but she wouldn’t become a coward now. She wouldn’t shrink back.
She gestured up the stairs, gave Harley a reassuring smile, and preceded Richard up. The old batman looked ready for a fight if necessary. She knew he would stay within earshot.
The honey glow of afternoon filled Andrew’s study and enhanced the soft crème lace of Georgiana’s gown.
“You look well. Your health continues to improve, and that dress, I must say, is stunning.” Richard’s voice seemed sincere, but one could never tell. “Is there an occasion? I understand your host isn’t at home.”
“As you see. You wished a word with me?” Don’t be defensive. Stand your ground.
Richard looked at her more sharply.
“Actually, I have brought you something.” He removed a parcel wrapped in paper and unwrapped it on the worktable. She knew what it was, of course.
“I think perhaps you have already seen this. There was a copy downstairs, wasn’t there?”
“Certainly.”
“Did you know he had it published?”
“Not initially, no. I understand that someone released it accidentally before I could approve. Richard, I would have approved it. The intent was always to publish it. Now that the first run has sold out, we’ve ordered an additional printing.”
“When Andrew came to Mountview, this was his business?”
“Yes.” She faced him defiantly.
Richard ran his long graceful fingers over the rich brown leather. “It is quite good, a very fine piece of work. Georgiana, I had no idea. I read it in London, at Bailey’s, before it was printed.”
The air left her lungs in a rush, as if forced. “I didn’t know that. Andrew didn’t tell me.”
“As I said, it’s quite good but not the work of one A. Mallet, I believe.”
“Not entirely, no. But without him there would be no book. Is mother in collapse or preparing warfare?”
“Warfare, but not the sort that involves frontal attacks.”
“How so?”
“All violence of feeling has been in private. She is more concerned about deflecting any rumors about the ‘Lady of Scholarship.’ She chooses not to know who it could possibly be.”
“Ignore the unpleasant, and it will wither?”
“Exactly. It’s quite effective. No one dares to contradict her.”
“His Grace?”
“Isn’t interested in scholarship.”
“I see. If he chooses not to know about it, it doesn’t exist. And you?”
“If the Lady of Scholarship wishes to remain private, I have no quarrel with it. I’m proud of you.”
She looked away, overwhelmed. He was giving her his approval.
“Are you still set on living alone in a hovel?”