Chapter Twenty-Five
Teddy flicked the curtains aside to watch as the coach carrying his wife and her mother lumbered down Marine Parade.
It still rankled she had eschewed his offer to accompany her to London to deal with her father’s illness. Something about her rationale for keeping him a secret, though logical, did not sit right.
He eyed his sketch book, charcoal, and pencil. He did not have the inclination to sketch. Nor did he wish to swim. And he’d already read the paper front to back.
He was bloody tired of being an invalid, living in this gilded cage. Especially now. It felt cavernously empty with Georgina gone. Hell.
Show no chink.
He’d felt her absence when she visited her friends. How in God’s name would he manage with her gone for days? And how had he allowed her to become so vital to him?
Show no chink.
Jamming a hand through his hair, he trotted down the stairs.
With no real destination in mind, he let himself into the receiving room.
Georgina’s lair. He prowled the chamber, finally making his way to the sofa where he’d taken to sitting so he could observe her at work, sitting and scrawling in her notebooks, posture ramrod straight, prim as any governess—until her silvery eyes lit on him and turned molten, like the very sight of him enthralled her.
Damn, but her love was addictive. Like the purest nectar, it drew him to her as surely as the tides.
His father would laugh, if he knew. The earl scorned such vulgar exhibitions of sensibility, especially if he caught so much as a glimmer from Ted.
“By God, never carry on like an ignorant peasant, ever willing to make a spectacle of himself, Theodore. You are a future earl. You’ve never once glimpsed me fawning over the countess, have you?
No, and you never will. No one appreciates an abundance of unguarded sentiment.
It’s repulsive—and screams of weakness.”
The hair on his nape stood on end. He remembered. He remembered his father.
He closed his eyes. Tried to call up something else—and drew a blank.
He surged to his feet. Glanced around the chamber seeking something, anything, familiar.
And then his gaze fell on Georgina’s desk. The connected cabinet was open. Georgina had forgotten to lock it with the arrival of her mother.
He considered, briefly, resisting the call of that forbidden font of material. Georgina’s private notes and God knew what else. She had made it abundantly clear her desk cabinet was off limits.
Nevertheless.
He crossed the chamber, slid behind the desk, and lowered onto her chair. Then he reached into the cabinet and withdrew each of the notebooks contained therein.
He opened what appeared to be the oldest of the books and began to read.
An hour later, having pilfered several of her notebooks, he couldn’t decide if he was more confused or angry. Georgina’s stories, so far as he could tell, were primarily based upon the two of them.
She’d dared to tell the world their private stories.
The birthday when she was yet a girl when he’d bestowed on her a single pink rose—and thereafter she decided to make it her signature scent.
The fountain where he’d kissed her, precipitating their courtship.
Their midnight assignation in the garden, prior to their dash to Gretna Green.
The kiss he’d stolen aboard the skiff, under the trees.
Oddly, though, the stories, as she’d written them, seemed to have undergone several different versions before she settled on the one that matched the events as they’d taken place.
All save the one with the rose. The fountain, in her first draft, was not located at the country home of a party hostess, but at a London address.
The stolen kiss on the skiff, conversely, had happened, on Georgina’s first imagining, on a lake at a summer house party.
“May I ask what it is you think you’re doing?”
Teddy jerked upright to find Danvers looming.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.”
Teddy snorted in derision. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
Danvers’s dark gaze flicked over the open notebook, and the ones which he’d already skimmed. “It looks like you’re invading Lady Arlington’s privacy.”
Which was exactly what he was doing—and none of Danvers’s business.
“Don’t you have some butlering to do, Danvers? Or must you always be skulking about, peering over my shoulder?”
He folded his burly arms over his chest. “I urge you to reconsider what it is you are doing, Major.”
Teddy leaned back in Georgina’s chair to contemplate Danvers. “Why is that? I’m doing nothing wrong, here. What’s hers is mine, etcetera, etcetera.”
“You’re opening Pandora’s box, is what you’re doing.”
“I’m doing nothing of the sort.” He resumed his reading, hoping the butler would take the hint and depart from him.
“Do you recall Genesis, Lord Arlington?”
He huffed in annoyance and looked up at the big man. “What sort of question is that? I’ve lost my memories, not my mind. Not yet at any rate,” he finished on a mutter.
Danvers arched a supercilious brow.
“Yes,” Teddy hissed. “Yes, by God, I recall Genesis. What of it?”
“Does the tree of knowledge ring any bells?”
He sneered. “My wife is God in this illustration?”
“My point is, pilfering around in her private things is not only wrong, it may have unwelcome consequences.”
He narrowed his eyes in warning. “Such as?”
“Such as reading something that displeases you, sir. What will you do in that event?”
“What do you mean, ‘what will I do’?”
Instead of answering, Danvers posed another question. “Will you turn your back on the lady? Attempt to cast her aside? Deny your marriage, out of hand? You are, you understand, well and truly married.”
“Cast her aside? My wife? Are you mad?” He would never. He could never. The mere thought of Georgina not his enraged him.
A look of satisfaction crossed the butler’s hard features. “I’m gratified by your response, my lord.”
Teddy scoffed. “You’ve no idea how that warms the very cockles of my heart.”
Danvers cast one more disparaging look over the desktop. “Mark my words, you’ll regret this.” He turned to leave.
“Close the doors on your way out, Danvers. I wish not to be disturbed again.”
He did, using, by Teddy’s estimation, more force than necessary.
Teddy eyed the closed doors, and found himself grinning.
The truth was, he’d grown rather fond of Mr. Danvers.
He liked his forthright style and slight edge of moral superiority.
He liked the way the man stood for what he perceived as just, even when that opinion did not bode well for his future.
In short, he trusted the man—not that he intended to admit as much.
Returning his focus to the open notebook, he reflected that Danvers was probably right. He oughtn’t be reading through Georgina’s notes without her express permission—which, experience told him, she would not give.
Which begged the question. Whyever not? What didn’t she want him to see?
Georgina used the hours closed up with her mother en route to London to grill her, first about her own father’s illness, then about Teddy’s father’s supposed health condition.
As for her Papa, her mother would say little beyond repeating that he’d developed a chest ailment, likely resulting from his diminished spirits.
She shed a bit more light on the earl. According to her sources—the servants—he had some sort of apoplexy one evening while imbibing his after supper port.
The doctor had been called in, and the earl had been consigned to his bed chamber ever since.
The usual treatments had ensued. Rest. Weak tea and broth. Bleeding.
The more Georgina learned, the more concerned she was on Teddy’s behalf.
He had every reason to stay out of arm’s reach of the earl who had consigned him to Brook Haven.
On the other hand, if Ainsworth’s condition proved critical, by keeping his distance, Teddy was forfeiting his chance to see his father again, alive.
She thought of the renderings Teddy had sketched of the earl—almost caricatures by her estimation, in which his father appeared brutish and cruel. Had that been the seemingly cavalier-Teddy’s experience? If so, had he shared his woes with Drake?
Drake had never implied anything of the sort—although, he had more than implied that Teddy had demons. Were those demons external rather than internal?
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked about Lord Theodore Arlington, your dear brother’s constant companion.”
Georgina’s ears pricked. “What about him?”
“I mentioned he’d returned from the war and had not been seen.”
Georgina already knew that much. “So you did.”
“Asking after his welfare garnered zero results, as, apparently, the earl’s servants refused to share one iota of information. Our housekeeper insists the earl threatened his staff with instant termination should news of his son’s condition leak beyond their stone walls.”
“Oh?”
“And then, the earl had his incident and the iron manacles weakened.”
“I see. And what did you learn?” Georgina asked.
“It seems, Lord Theodore came home irrevocably damaged.”
Georgina was incensed. “That is absurd.”
Her mother looked taken aback. “I haven’t even told you what befell the man. Of course, you always did hero worship him.”
She sniffed. Evidently her secret crush wasn’t so secret. “Go on, then.”
“His doctor has pronounced him insane. He has fits of temper. Delusions. He even tried on more than one occasion to do himself bodily harm. Well, they had no choice but to confine him lest he eventually succeed in taking his own life.”
Georgina sent her an icy stare. “Is that all?”
“I should think that is more than enough. I did expect a bit more of a reaction. I had the impression you harbored a…never mind. That hardly matters at this point.”
“He’s not dead yet, Mother,” Georgina chastised.
“Let us hope not,” she agreed. “But his condition likely explains Lady Catherine’s behavior, however.”