Chapter Twenty-Seven
For a full five seconds, Georgina stared at her father. She realized, at the last second, a part of her had known what he would say. But still, she could hardly comprehend the words.
He’d betrothed her to Mr. Mealy.
Then she shot to her feet. “I will never marry him,” she burst out.
Her father gaped at her. “You most certainly will, and I have the contract to prove it.”
She glared at him, then her mother, who was bent so far over her skirts, her body was C-shaped.
“You knew? You knew what he’d done?” Georgina began to pace.
“In my wildest dreams, I never thought my parents could do such a low-down, underhanded thing as to—” She froze, then pointed an accusatory finger at her father.
“You sold me. You sold me to cover your gambling debts, did you not?”
His jutting jaw was all the answer she needed.
“Oh, Papa, how could you? If Drake was here, he would never have allowed—”
“Well, he ain’t here, is he?” Her father shot back, finally rising to his feet. Tears filled his eyes. “If he was, mayhap things would be different. Mayhap…I can’t say. But I can hardly let your Mama lose her home.”
“I already told you I would never allow that to happen. I told you I would see to the staff. I won’t pay your gambling debts, and you need to quit asking all of us to bow down to this despicable habit you have fostered.”
“That’s crazy talk, g’al. And I won’t have it, especially not under m’ own roof.”
“You will. Because you’re going to tell me precisely what Mealy has promised you, and then you’re going to promise me never, ever to…oh, I don’t have a clue what to do with you. I shall have to consult with Mrs. Dove-Lyon, again,” she muttered, cupping her flaming cheeks.
“What did you say?” Her father demanded. “Who did you say you consulted?”
She dropped her hands. “Never mind that. Tell me what he promised you in exchange for me.”
He licked his lips in a nervous gesture and sent a beseeching glance toward Georgina’s mother. “It ain’t what he promised. It’s what he’s done. Tell her, Olivia.”
Georgina looked at her mother. “You lied to me. Lured me here under false pretense.” Just as she herself had done to Teddy.
Looking utterly defeated and powerless, she peered up at Georgina.
“I’m sorry, Georgie. I didn’t know what else to do when your father told me what he’d agreed to after Mr. Mealy purchased all of his IOUs.
Mealy offered to give them back, to call them paid in full as a marriage settlement. What else could he do?”
“What else? What else?” she spat. “He could have said no, Mother. He could have not lost the money. He could have not agreed to sell me.”
“A good daughter would obey her parents,” her father muttered.
“Yes, well, perhaps a good daughter would not have started you being dependent upon her, and a good father would not have asked it of her, but here we are.”
Heaving a sigh, she started from the room.
“Where are you going?” Her mother asked. “You can’t leave. What are we to do? What are we to tell Mr. Mealy?”
“He has m’ vowels, g’al. He can call ’em due, don’t you see?”
Unfortunately, she did see. “I must think. I must find a way to sort things,” she said, adding under her breath, “just as I always do.”
Teddy glanced outside, spotting Thomas atop his wife’s carriage, readied in the forecourt—finally. He’d had to harangue Danvers into seeing to the business.
The clergyman-turned-soldier-turned-butler had argued that Teddy should delay his departure ’til morning, and give himself time to process all he’d recalled, not to mention he could stand to cool his heels concerning Lady Arlington.
Lady Arlington, indeed. He never failed to call her by Teddy’s given name.
I hope you’re not planning to go off half-cocked on Lady Arlington, he’d said as Teddy mounted the stairs in preparation for leaving.
Now the butler followed at his heels as he entered the receiving room. He gazed at the desktop where her personal notebooks still sat, and the open cabinet housing her letters.
“What are you after now?”
“After due consideration, I wish to consult my…Lady Belfry’s notebooks anew for any clues as to why she chose to deceive me.”
Forget the damned notebooks. He marched to the desk and snatched out a handful of letters from the exposed slotted wooden shelf, Danvers nipping at his heels like some irritating mama duck.
“You need clues, Major? You’re a fool if you can’t see why.”
“Oh, I’m a fool all right,” Teddy muttered and headed outside.
Of course, Danvers followed.
Teddy climbed aboard the carriage and reached to close the door, but Danvers held it ajar and leaned in.
“Ask yourself this: Did your family, your own flesh and blood, have your best interest in mind? Or did they, instead, choose to lock you up, to hide you away like so much rubbish? Someone like Georgina is a gift. Most people go their whole lives and never have someone willing to risk their own necks for the sake of someone they love.”
Teddy batted back a surge of pure longing. “You don’t know why she did what she did. Perhaps she merely wanted to exact revenge by weaving a web of lies around me. Or it could be as simple as seizing an opportunity to snag an earl. I won’t reward either behavior.”
Danvers gave him a rare smile. “I’m afraid it’s a bit too late for that, Major. I did ask if you were sure.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are married, Major. There’s no getting around it.” He slipped his hand into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew what Ted could see was an official looking certificate. “This one’s no forgery. I still have connections. The paperwork’s all been filed.”
He handed it to Ted, who took it without bothering to read it.
“Nothing says I can’t burn the thing,” he said in a deliberately belligerent tone. But, he folded the parchment and slid it into his inside pocket.
Danvers only snorted. “It’s been recorded, sir.”
There was no use denying the small burst of relief the man’s words elicited, but he kept the shameful knowledge to himself.
Danvers slapped the side of the equipage, as if preparing to withdraw, and Teddy stayed him with a raised hand.
“I don’t intend to make my way back here, Danvers.
I want you to know…” A great many things.
That he had Teddy’s respect and thanks. That he was a fine man, and one Ted considered more of a friend than a servant.
God, but he was a namby-pamby, just as his father claimed, wasn’t he?
“I know. I’m here, should you ever need me.”
He nodded. “If my so-called wife should return…” Damn. There was no message to convey. He would speak to her, himself. Confront her on her lies. And then they could go their separate ways. He closed his eyes, briefly. “Never mind. I’ll tell her myself.”
Danvers smiled. “I think that would be best, Major. Especially as I fear your wife might have need of you at this present juncture.”
As if Georgina ever needed anyone. Still, Danvers’s words caused an irritating frisson of alarm. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just a feeling.”
A moment later, the carriage wheels bit into the gravel drive and started off.
He flicked open the drapes, allowing the late morning light to spill into the cab’s interior and picked up the first of Georgina’s letters on the short stack. A quick glance at the signature told him this one was from Georgina’s friend, Lady Amelia.
Nothing here, he realized after reading the missive, other than proof Georgina had, indeed, some very loyal friends in her fancy book club. Even in private correspondence between them, they spoke in code about her career in the off chance someone intercepted the letter, as Teddy had.
One thing gave him pause. The woman mentioned a nameless “friend” of Georgina’s. Who, he wondered, with an odd stab of…he couldn’t say. He didn’t precisely recognize the unpleasant feeling rising up in him. Some combination of possessiveness and ire that made no sense.
He set the letter aside, and started on the missive from Lady Gladstone, Georgina’s mother.
After reading no more than two lines, affront on Georgina’s behalf had his blood boiling.
How dare her parents lay the blame for Lord Gladstone’s irresponsible behavior, gambling away the family funds, at Georgina’s feet.
And who was this Mr. Mealy, whose name they’d so casually tossed at her, concluding with a vague reference to whatever favor he might seek.
Teddy almost detected a subtle threat in Lady Gladstone’s words—aimed at manipulating Georgina into resuming taking on the family’s plight as she had done for many months.
The wonder was that she had ceased doing so, such was her tendency toward selflessness—if Danvers was to be believed, at any rate. According to him, Teddy’s fake wife was a bloody saint, intent on taking up his cause with no thought for herself.
Teddy tossed the letters aside and stared morosely out one of the cab’s small windowpanes, Danvers’s words replaying in his head. You’re a fool if you can’t see why she did it.
Why had she come for him? Why claim him as her husband?
He’d believed her. He’d bought her story, hook, line, and sinker.
And though it galled him to give Danvers’s words credence, considering the many roadblocks she’d thrown up to their physical intimacy, not the least of which was her supposed request for annulment, he had to admit she may have orchestrated the whole endeavor for his sake alone.
From his great coat pocket, he pulled a flask he’d had the forethought to fill and slugged, reflecting how Drake, Georgina’s brother, was that way, always.
Drake. It was relief to remember him. His closest friend. From their days at Eton, when they’d roomed together, he’d taken up Teddy’s cause as his own.