Chapter Twenty-Three
The following morning, Georgina descended from her carriage and waited as Thomas stowed the carriage step, climbed back on the box, and resumed the reins.
Only then did she turn to eye the townhouse where her friends of the Ladies’ Literary Society of London convened, awaiting her arrival.
Her feet felt frozen in place, her mouth bone dry. The moment had come for her to lay her soul bare before her friends. Her best friends.
The idea terrified her.
Not only had she never told them of Teddy, but now, she must tell them she was living with the man as his wedded wife, which she most certainly was not. She must tell them how she’d tried to poison him, albeit in ignorance. And worst of all, she must ask them for advice on how to let him go.
Yes, that was the sticking point holding her in place on the curb. She had to set him free, which, at this point, would be akin to cutting out her own heart.
With a dull, rusty spoon.
Abruptly, the front door swung open. Gwen’s blonde head appeared, her face animated with a warm smile.
Next, Amelia leaned past Gwen to grin at Georgina.
And suddenly she did not feel nearly so awful. Her friends were here. They’d come, and now everything would be all right.
Staring at her, both of their faces fell.
“Oh, dear,” Amelia said to Gwen. “Dearest, I’m afraid your news might be a tad too late.”
“It would appear so,” Gwen replied.
Georgina glanced between the two women. “What news?”
Evidently neither heard her query. Without another word, the two hurried down the steps, each taking Georgina by an arm, and escorted her inside the townhouse.
After a hurried and joyful series of hellos, the Ladies’ Literary Society members took their respective seats in the drawing room, filled teacups in hand, with Lady Harriet, the club’s matriarch, presiding.
Someone had seen fit to arrange the drawing room’s armchairs and sofa into a semi-circle, as was their custom when they met in their usual arena, number 7 Dove Street, the home of Lady Harriet and Margaret.
The Ladies’ Literary Society was comprised of like-minded women of the modern age who shared an affinity for reading, learning, and discussing topics ranging from those considered acceptable for ladies to those deemed unfit for feminine consumption.
They also shared their secrets. All present here—which included the entirety of the Ladies’ Literary Society—knew of Georgina’s career as an authoress.
They also knew of Amelia’s secret visit to the Black Widow of Whitehall to consult about her then-husband of six months, and of Gwen’s visit to same in order to acquire a husband.
Of course, Mrs. Dove-Lyon had more or less assured Gwen her newly purchased husband was actually dead, which suited Gwen as she was not actually seeking a real, live husband. More, the pretense of one.
Mr. Devereux, however, wasn’t dead, as they all soon learned.
All’s well, and all that. Gwen and Mr. Devereux were blissfully in love and quite happily married as of little more than six months ago. Amelia, too, a bride of less than two years, was newly and happily wed.
And everyone knew Mrs. Nancy Floyd, the only other married member of their club, adored her husband.
Which begged the question: Why had the ladies agreed to abandon their homes and respective spouses to come on holiday without them?
Georgina was forced to conclude her friends wished to speak on a private matter—involving her and the news to which Amelia had alluded.
Had they somehow learned of her visit to the Lyon’s Den? She would soon find out.
Sipping her tea, she glanced about her, noticing for the first time that she had somehow been seated in the center of the semi-circle.
To her left, each in her own armchair, sat Mrs. Nancy Floyd, Miss Charlotte Hodges, and Margaret.
To her immediate right, and seated with her on the sofa, was Gwen.
The beautiful and willowy blonde was a recent transplant to London who hailed from the north.
She was also Georgina’s editor and publisher in one—in short, her biggest supporter, and, Georgina would have to say, her closest friend.
Amelia, Lady Culver, perched on the edge of an armchair on Gwen’s other side. Her vivid blue gaze was glued on Georgina. Whenever Georgina’s eyes met hers, she smiled encouragingly.
Oh, dear.
“Let us begin,” Lady Harriet intoned in her calm, authoritative manner. “As most of you know, our holiday is something of an emergency meeting—”
Georgina knew it.
“—urged by our dear Gwen after she received some disturbing information from her husband Mr. Devereux.”
Georgina blinked. Perhaps she had jumped to the wrong conclusion. What would Mr. Devereux know of Georgina visiting the Lyon’s Den? She relaxed back into her chair and took a soothing sip.
“Gwen, dear, you have the floor.”
Gwen smoothed her skirts, then shifted to face Georgina.
Georgina’s stomach dropped. Evidently she was not off the hook. At all.
She set the cup in its saucer and the saucer on her lap. She’d had the unfortunate experience of inhaling her beverages on a gasp when being confronted by something shocking too many times, and this was starting to look like another one of them.
Gwen aimed her signature gentle smile at Georgina. “Georgina, dear, recently Mr. Devereux was perusing my office shelves. He mentioned your books, not for the first time, namely that he thought he might know you because he recognized your name—Arlington.”
Georgina nodded. “But he couldn’t, as that is my nom de plume.”
“That is what I assumed. And then, he picked up one of your books, then another, and another. Dear, I shall cut to the chase. He recognized your hero.”
“My…hero?”
“The one who is in all of your books.”
Georgina swallowed. “But he is a fictional character.”
Gwen’s smile never faltered. “Mr. Devereux informed me that the man he recognized is not only a viscount, but an officer in His Majesty’s army, recently returned from the war.
Darling, I don’t know how to say this, but, it seems this man came home with some sort of unknown injury and has not been seen since. ”
No one in the room said a word. Georgina did not dare glance around, but she assumed they all watched with somber, sympathetic expressions matching that of Lady Amelia’s who currently peered at her over Gwen’s shoulder.
Gwen went on. “As we all have long assumed that you nurse a tendre for someone—”
“You have?” Georgina all but squeaked.
Gwen nodded once. “Darling, you are a beautiful, vivacious woman possessed of a passionate nature. Yet, you recently took to wearing those spectacles I understand you do not actually need…” She broke off frowning. “Where are they by the way?”
Georgina waved her question aside. “I…only need them on occasion. In fact, my eyes seem to have improved of late.” She lifted her chin, though she assumed the heat crawling up her cheeks was staining her cheeks a brilliant shade of red.
Both Gwen and Amelia’s expressions said Georgina had made the point for her.
“As I was saying, you seem keen on dissuading any and all male attention, like a woman might who’s in love.”
Georgina lifted her saucer from her lap and handed it away, blindly.
Amelia jumped up to take it from her.
Glancing about the space, she met each of her friends’ eyes in turn, then she blurted, “His name is Lord Theodore ‘Teddy’ Arlington. I’ve loved him from the moment I first laid eyes on him, when my brother brought him home for a visit from Eton and he gave me my first rose.
But, I always knew he could never be mine. He is so very….so…” She shook her head.
“So very, what?” Amelia demanded.
“He’s beautiful, and charming. He’s smart, and flawless at everything he sets his mind to try. He’s a future earl and…”
Amelia’s dark brows snapped together. She opened her mouth to argue, but Gwen beat her to it.
“You are all those things. With the exception of being a future earl, that is.”
In a rush, the rest of the room chimed in, their sentiments mirroring Gwen’s. Even Lady Harriet, their imperturbable leader, voiced her affront. “Well, I never. As if any man alive could outshine our Georgina.”
Tears pricked her eyelids and she made a valiant effort to staunch them.
She needed to keep her head. She hadn’t yet told them everything.
“He came home from the war, injured. I didn’t know what had happened to him, only that he was nowhere to be seen after his return, so I paid a visit to Mrs. Dove-Lyon at the Lyon’s Den… ”
“She what?”
“Did she just say she ventured to the Lyon’s Den? Alone?”
Georgina heard the murmurs coming from all around her, but continued on. “And asked if she had any information about him. She told me Teddy’s father was sending him to a madhouse…”
“A madhouse?” Amelia sounded shocked and appalled.
“What sort of father would do that?” Gwen seconded.
Georgina soldiered on. “Mrs. Dove-Lyon suggested only a wife could countermand his parent’s decree, and asked if I wanted to…to…marry him.”
Abruptly, the room fell silent.
Georgina drew a bracing breath. “I said no. Because”—she swallowed—“because he has always had an intended of sorts, the very beautiful, very elegant Lady Catherine, herself a daughter of an earl. However, after deciding to collect him, I forged a document attesting to our having eloped to Gretna Green before the war.” Her words came very fast, now.
“I only intended to use the paper to free him, if he so desired, only he had—has—amnesia, and as the doctor informed me he had need of a particular medicine which he detests and was refusing to take, I decided to allow the ruse to stand.”
She paused to allow her words to sink in.
“To…stand, dearest?” Gwen asked.
“I let him believe we had, in fact, married.”
She chanced a glance to her right. Both Gwen and Amelia gazed at her with wide, unblinking eyes.
“I also told him I was seeking an annulment, because I didn’t wish to entrap him should anything of a physical nature occur.
“Only, he kept pressing for why I wished to end our marriage, and, when he suggested he’d done something dishonorable to earn my disdain, I had to assure him that was not the case.
I said…” She ducked her head and studied her hands, clasped in her lap.
“I said I didn’t feel married because he could not remember speaking our vows. ”
Gwen reached a hand to cover hers. “Let me guess, Georgina. He arranged a ceremony.”
Georgina’s gazed darted to Gwen. “How did you…?”
She opened her arms wide. “That is what Mr. Devereux would have done.”
Amelia smiled her beatific smile. “As would Lord Culver.”
Georgina nodded. Here came the awful part.
“The thing is, all along, I told myself the end justified the means. The lies I told him were all meant to keep him safe, to aid his recovery and, if things went a little too far, well, I had to make it believable, didn’t I?
So, I told him we were married, then I fed him stories about us from my novels, and I…
even went along with the pretend ceremony and…
” she swallowed and it sounded very loud to her own ears, especially as the women had all gone very quiet “…and all that you can imagine that entailed, following. And then, last night, I learned he had not been taking the medicine as I thought.”
“I…don’t follow,” Gwen said.
“Oh, dear,” Lady Harriet murmured.
“It turned out my butler, Mr. Danvers”—she turned to Amelia—“you know, the veteran Lord Culver recommended.”
“Of course,” Amelia said.
“Mr. Danvers told me he and Teddy had worked out a way not to take the tisane as it contained a known poison, which, in sufficient doses could kill him.” Tears began to spill down her cheeks, and speaking became difficult as a hard lump formed in her throat.
Still, she did not attempt to staunch her grief. Not this time.
“I lied to him, and have basically entrapped him into a marriage not of his choosing, and all for nothing. He never needed the medicine.” She covered her face with both hands. “I fear he will never forgive me and I love him so very much. I do not know what on earth to do.”
One by one, beginning with Gwen, the ladies moved to surround Georgina from all sides, wrapping their arms around her and murmuring words of encouragement.
And then Gwen grasped one of her hands. “Now, dear, dry your tears. No one has died in this scenario, and, in truth, I do not believe things are as bad as all that.”
“Indeed, neither do I,” Amelia seconded.
Murmurs of assent came from one and all.
Georgina glanced around at her friends who all wore varying degrees of indulgent, or encouraging, or supportive smiles.
“You don’t? But whatever am I to do?”
Gwen sent her a gentle smile. “You must tell him the truth, from the beginning. Tell him you love him—”
“I have told him that, many times. Indeed, he seems rather fond of hearing the words for some odd reason.”
Amelia gave a watery chuckle. “Of course. The man arranged a wedding ceremony for you, Georgina. I think it is clear he has strong feelings for you.”
Gwen nodded. “Precisely. You will tell him what you did and why. I believe, strongly, that he will understand.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Georgina asked, her voice just above a whisper.
“If he doesn’t,” Lady Harriet said, her voice clear and strong, “then he doesn’t deserve you to begin with—either way you will survive this, Georgina. And, whatever happens, you will not face it alone.”
“Thank you. All of you,” Georgina said.
“I would add one thing more.” Gwen squeezed Georgina’s hand, still held in hers.
“I suggest you do not delay your conversation, Georgina. I’d hate to think how Lord Arlington might feel if it happened that his memories returned without you having shared the truth.
It’s important he hears from you why you did what you did. ”
Georgina nodded.
By the time she stood on the front stoop beside Gwen awaiting her carriage, Georgina’s course was set. This very day she would make a full confession to Teddy.
Gwen hugged her tightly once more. “All will be well, dearest. I would not be surprised if your pretend husband loves you every bit as much as you love him. How could he not?”
Georgina did not have the heart to tell her Teddy did not love her. He had never once said anything to imply he did. Which was fine—so long as he did not hate her when all this was through.