Chapter 10
“Your Grace!”
The lady dowager countess looked quite surprised to see George the next morning, and it took all he had in him not to show his amusement.
“We did not expect your presence today.”
Clasping his hands behind his back, George dipped his head to the lady who was sitting in an armchair, looking quite pale indeed.
“It is my job as chaperone to be in attendance for callers, is it not?”
The lady blinked, dumbfounded, and he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Lady Cecelia looked just as shocked.
Mary's expression was quietly excited, and he suspected she felt some pride at having been the one to convince him to take his chaperonage seriously.
Catherine, too, looked excited, and she nudged Lady Cecelia as if to encourage her to speak.
“Th … thank you for coming, Your Grace,” Lady Cecelia said, rising to offer a curtsey.
“It is a good job I did. You seem to have callers lining down the driveway.”
At that, she glanced out the window, and her eyes grew wide. The way she paled suggested that she wasn't quite ready for so many visitors, and George was glad again that he had decided to take this duty seriously.
He couldn't stand the thought of her entertaining the wrong type.
“Mama, I think perhaps your presence is not so needed as we believed,” Mary said, sauntering to her mother's side. “Perhaps with his grace here, you might retire back to your room?”
For a second, George feared the lady might protest. Then she looked at him and asked, “What have you to say about that, Your Grace?”
With a raised brow, he turned to Lady Cecelia and said, “I think we ought to be able to handle it. Don't you, My Lady?”
Though she appeared to try to hide it, George did not miss the way she blushed.
“I think we are capable, Your Grace.”
“Then it is decided,” George said, and he stepped to offer his hand to the dowager countess. “Please, allow me to escort you to your room before we begin.”
“That is very kind of you, Your Grace, but I think I shall manage,” she said, rising on clearly unsteady legs. “Besides, we cannot keep Lady Cecelia's callers waiting.”
Almost as soon as the event began, George wished it hadn't.
The first gentleman in attendance was one George most definitely did not wish for Lady Cecelia. And as they sat together conversing, he thought up a way to remove him.
Interrupting their conversation about the weather, George said, “Is it not said, Lord Barnaby, that you have little care for taking a wife this Season?”
The gentleman looked around at him, mouth open.
“I have heard tell that you have been quite frivolous in recent months. I do not think this characteristic is appropriate for a man seeking the attentions of such a charming young lady.”
The way Cecelia scowled at him suggested she believed he was lying through his teeth.
Yet, it seemed his words had worked, for Lord Barnaby made a quick excuse to leave.
With the second, a Mr Harrington, George reported, “It is said you have spent much time at Browns in recent weeks. I have heard you have not been very lucky at the gaming tables, sir.”
And that was the end of him.
“Lord Renworth, I hear you have many a mistress waiting in the wings for when you inevitably tie the knot.”
The gentleman, clearly snubbed, made his excuses and left just as the first two had.
Soon, George had seen more than half a dozen men fleeing from the drawing room, and with each, he watched Lady Cecelia's mood growing darker and darker.
By the time the eighth had left, he saw her disapproval quite clearly.
On the final visitor, he and Lady Cecelia left him with his head in a spin. At George's encouragement, he rose several times from his seat only to drop back down at Lady Cecelia's requests.
By the time they were finished, George was struggling not to laugh at the man's look of being a puppet on a string.
Once the gentleman had left, Lady Cecelia rose. She looked at George with an exasperated expression, her mouth opening and closing several times as if she knew not what to say.
He almost wished her to chastise him, for them to clear the air between them, to admit his feelings that he was most definitely conflicted in all of this.
Just seeing those men sitting beside her, seeing the way they had eyed her like she had been some prized pig they were determined to possess, made him feel sick.
But Lady Cecelia said nothing. Instead, she stormed from the room in a flurry of pale blue skirts, her anger palpable.
Lady Catherine hurried after her, leaving George and Mary alone save for a maid.
And it was the youngest sister who dared to confront him.
“Your Grace, I think if your aim here was to diminish Cece's prospects entirely, then you have accomplished it,” she said, scowling at him. “If you did not wish to take chaperoning seriously, you ought not have accepted the proposal at all.”
George's stomach twisted. “It was not my intention to do so, My Lady. I merely care for your sister's welfare, and I would not see her falling into the hands of the wrong gentleman.”
Mary rose from her seat and looked at him with a pointed expression. “I fear your outlook on the situation may be skewed, Your Grace.”
George crossed his arms over his chest and asked, “How so?”
“There were a handful of your gentlemen here today who would have been perfectly acceptable, yet you barely allowed them a foot in the door before you began hounding them. Pray, might you tell me why?”
George cringed at the question because, in truth, he could not even admit to himself the reason why.
“As I have said, I merely care for your sister's well-being and future prospects.”
This time, Mary crossed her arms over her chest and declared, “You certainly have a funny way of showing it.”
Before he could say another word, she too stormed from the room, leaving him alone to contemplate the trouble he had caused.
And for what reason? He did not know.