Chapter Four
Georgina was thoroughly exhausted by the time the journey from Surrey to Brighton neared its end.
It had been a long day, and her nerves were frayed ached from the continual jostling.
Still, she’d enjoyed the rarity of staring at Teddy to her heart’s content, especially as he’d spent the last several hours asleep, half sprawled on the cushions as she cradled his head in her lap, smoothed his hair back from his forehead, and traced the chiseled bones of his face and jaw.
Teddy had amnesia. That was why his family had kept him sequestered from society. She’d never even considered the possibility.
But now, forced to consider his condition, something had become blazingly clear to her over the last hours.
Her plan to share with him that the two of them were not man and wife, then offer him the use of her Brighton Beach villa in which to recover while leaving him to his own devices, was not a remote possibility.
At least, not until she determined whether she could trust him on his own.
She had never intended to deceive him. Had never intended to act out the part of his wife. But what choice did she have? As far as she could tell, none.
He muttered in his sleep, some unintelligible gibberish that said he was dreaming, and not of pleasant things. He’d become increasing restless over the last half hour. Now, as she looked upon him, his eyelids fluttered open.
He gazed up at her, a dazed expression in his melted-caramel eyes. Then he glared and heaved himself to a sitting position beside her.
“You drugged me,” he accused, his voice hoarse, slightly slurred, and unmistakably petulant.
Georgina had anticipated this. She’d made up her mind not to allow him to browbeat her, or rather, not to appear cowed by him. She could not cede control of the situation if she intended to care for him with any degree of success, which she vowed to do, somehow, some way.
But what did she know of caring for a man with amnesia and violent tendencies? Absolutely nothing.
She forced down the hysteria threatening to overtake her, and answered him in a calm, assured manner. “I did no such thing.”
“You did,” he insisted. “I clearly—”
She held up one hand, palm out. “The doctor took it upon himself to do so without my foreknowledge. I am merely the one who removed you from the madhouse. I got the impression that was your preference. If I was wrong, I can order this conveyance turned around at once, and we can—”
“No.” He clipped out the one-word denial. Eyeing her, he scrubbed a hand over his jaw, and the scruffy growth of tawny hair covering it. His beard was springy and not exactly soft to the touch, as she very well knew.
“My wife, you say. Married before I departed for the war, eh?” His head lolled back against the cushions. It seemed to take everything out of him to pose the question.
“Indeed. Your idea,” she proffered.
“You don’t say?” He grasped the edge of one of the velvet curtains between two fingers and flicked it aside to survey the passing scenery.
It was well into night and pitch black as far as the eye could see.
“Good God, we’ve departed the civilized world for no-man’s-land. Where are we going, if I may ask?”
“To our villa in Brighton.”
“Brighton.” He repeated as if trying to place it.
“It’s located on the coast.”
He sent her a disgusted look. “I know that. I am trying to recall the villa.”
“Oh. As to that, you’ve never been there. It’s a cottage orné, on the Marine Parade. Not exactly on par with your parents’ London manse, but I assumed you would not wish us to return to your ancestral home as…” She considered how to phrase her summation with any subtlety.
A sardonic smile curved his finely shaped lips, barely visible under his scruff.
“Right-o, as my so-called parents and dear cousin Jonathan deemed it appropriate and, I quote, for your own good, Theodore to lock me up in a dressed-up sanitarium? A wise course of action, madam, especially as they clearly have no notion of your existence.”
“Oh, they know who I am,” she corrected, in all honesty. “They simply know nothing of our nuptials.”
He studied her with an unreadable expression.
“We’ve a ways to go,” she offered, seeing him struggle to keep his eyelids open. “Perhaps you wish to rest a bit longer? You may rest your head on my shoulder,” she offered.
“Nonsense. I’m wide awake,” he replied with a belligerent tone, then promptly nodded off once more.
The carriage lumbered down the gravel road that was the Marine Parade and the location of her beautiful, three story, white stucco villa, purchased some eight months prior.
In the dim lantern light, Georgina watched Teddy’s head bob with each lurch of the carriage, hoping beyond hope he would not awaken prior to their arrival.
For the hundredth time, she questioned her decision not to administer more sleeping medicine to Teddy without his approval as Dr. Penhurst had suggested.
She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t bring herself to pour the stuff down his throat. Perhaps because it struck her as an inauspicious start to their time together. Or maybe she was too soft as her brother used to tell her, especially as concerned Teddy.
One day in particular came back to her in stunning clarity. It was summer, as she recalled, during one of Drake’s and Teddy’s school breaks, and they’d gone to Hampstead Heath as was their custom.
She’d been making up a plate for Teddy, choosing items from the basket she’d packed for the four of them.
Meanwhile, Teddy sprawled on a blanket under the shade of a massive yew while Catherine read to him from a book of poetry…
Drake sidled up to her and tsked. “You need to stop pandering to him so, love. He won’t thank you for it—”
“He just did—”
He continued unabated. “He can’t give you what you seek, love. He’s not able. Not now, at any rate.”
She ceased arguing in favor of offering up a perfectly ridiculous denial. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”
“George, Georgina, look at me.” He crouched beside her and took her hands in his. Gazing at her with sage, compassion-filled eyes, he went on. “Ted’s not a bad man. Hell. He’s my best mate, as close a thing to a brother as I’ll ever have.”
She heard the but coming, as usual, so supplied it herself, “But? I’m not his sort. Don’t you think I know that, Drake? He deserves the beautiful, the elegant, someone like himself, like Lady Catherine, in point of fact, who’s not only stunning, but adept at flirtation and—”
“Darling, stop. That is not what I meant at all,” he said, lying to spare her feelings, no doubt. “You must trust me. Ted’s got demons he needs to slay—if he can. And if he can’t, better you set your sights on another.”
She wanted to ask what demons, if there really were any, but experience told her not to bother. Her brother’s integrity was such that she could torture him and still he wouldn’t breach Teddy’s trust, just as he would never reveal her deepest secrets.
So she concentrated on her task, murmuring, “I’m sure you’re right.”
But Drake, for once, had not been content to leave things there. “Better he ends up with her than you.”
She scowled at him then, and he chucked her on the chin.
Then he said something she’d never forget because by saying it he’d revealed so much more than he ever had before. “He’s one hell of a friend. There through thick and thin. A man’s man. But when it comes to the ladies…” He left off with a shrug. “Better her than you…”
How she wished her brother were here, just now, to advise her.
How she wished he were here, period.
She shook off the memory and thoughts of Drake as the carriage slowed to a halt. With infinite care, trying to make nary a sound, she opened the door and gestured madly to Thomas, communicating her desire he not utter a word as he placed the step for her.
Teddy did not stir as she exited the equipage. With a sigh of relief, she hurried up the walk.
Mr. Danvers, her recently hired butler, awaited her at the villa’s entrance with the front door open. Excellent. She wished to have a word with him in particular. The rest of the small household staff, hired some seven months ago, consisted of a local cook, a chambermaid, and, of course, Thomas.
Cook and Peggy might think it odd their mistress never mentioned having a husband who also happened to be a future earl, but they would undoubtedly turn a blind eye so long as she paid their wages on time and did not abuse them.
Her groom, Thomas, had been with her for over two years and she paid him handsomely.
He had not blinked an eye when she informed him they would be transporting her quote-end-quote husband home.
But, then, he was used to her eccentricities and, as the man who transported her to and from her publisher, was well-versed in her expectation of absolute discretion.
Mr. Danvers had been in her employ only a short while.
She would have no qualms about the situation if he were a trained butler, as his reaction to learning of his employer’s previously unheard-of husband would be a bland acceptance.
However, Mr. Danvers was not a classically trained butler.
He was an ex-soldier, having fought against Napoleon’s forces, and one of the men Lady Amelia’s husband, Lord Culver, had suggested for the vacant post.
Georgina had leapt at the chance to support Lord Culver’s project—that of helping displaced war veterans who had returned home to England only to find it difficult to resume life as a contributing members of society.
In her heart, she imagined doing so honored her dear late brother, Drake, taken in the line of duty, and, of course, Teddy.