Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When they spoke to Meggie, after she had overcome her shyness in Julian’s presence, she confirmed Annabel’s actions that last afternoon two years ago had been exactly as Georgiana had thought they might have been.
With the added horror that Annabel had twisted Meggie’s arm until it broke at the same time as she warned Meggie that if she told anyone she had seen Annabel sail away in a French ship, she would come back and punish her even further.
Which explained Meggie’s melancholy at this time of the year and the nightmares.
It troubled Julian deeply that Meggie should have had to suffer both physical and emotional pain because he married a woman whom, it transpired, was both vicious and cruel.
Except it seemed he had not been married to her at all.
St. Albans had instructed his men to come to Norfolk when they returned from France.
The information they brought with them was that one Annabelle Benoir, and her husband, Count Francois Benoir, married for five years, had both been killed during the fighting to reinstate Napoleon as the emperor of France after his escape from Elba.
Those men had brought a painted likeness of the countess and her husband back from France with them.
Proof to Julian that not only had Annabel used a false name when they met, but that her age was also six years older than she had told him it was. That she was also already married and had been so for five years before the two of them even met.
It possibly also explained her refusal to enter into physical relations with him. Although that might be attributing her with a faithfulness to her French husband that she had not possessed.
The moment Julian knew the truth, he waited only long enough for St. Albans’s men to be escorted to the kitchen by Dalton so that Cook could feed them, before he went down on one knee in front of Georgiana.
He was totally unconcerned that the St. Albanses and the Hellsmeres were still seated in the salon with them.
The six of them had become close over the past ten days or so, spending their days together riding, reading, or walking, and their evenings playing cards or listening to the ladies play the piano.
Julian knew that the St. Albanses and the Hellsmeres would not be in the least surprised by his actions.
It was Georgiana who looked thoroughly taken aback at seeing him down on one knee.
Julian clasped both her hands in his. “Please marry me, darling Georgiana.”
“I have told you that, as a member of the Spinsters Alliance, I do not need to be married, only loved—”
“Which I do. With all my heart. But I also want to be married to you,” he insisted. “I want to be able to claim you far and wide as my wife. To be able to walk proudly at your side as your husband. To accompany you as my duchess to all Society events. To have children with you. Grandchildren.”
Her cheeks became flushed. “I had not thought about having children…”
“You should,” Chloe, the Duchess of Hellsmere, encouraged as she rose gracefully to her feet. “Lucien and I are working diligently upon the first of ours,” she added with a loving smile at Hellsmere as he now stood beside her, his arm about the slenderness of her waist.
“As are we.” Lily, Duchess of St. Albans, gave her husband a teasing smile as she stood and held a hand out to him.
“I am always happy to oblige, my love,” St Albans drawled as he stood beside her.
“We shall leave the two of you alone to…talk.” Hellsmere’s gaze did not waver from the beauty of his wife’s face. “Take your time,” he offered. “I know that we shall.”
“Is it too late to kill him?” St. Albans asked his wife as they followed the Hellsmeres to the door.
“Chloe would never forgive you,” the duchess pointed out.
“There is that, I suppose,” the duke murmured before he paused in the doorway to look back at Julian and Georgiana.
“I am pleased to have been instrumental in helping to bring the two of you together. I should also, with your agreement, like to be the one to walk Georgiana down the aisle. I am sure Hellsmere will be equally as happy to stand beside Julian and for our wives to attend and assist Georgiana.” He closed the door behind him as he followed his wife from the room.
* * *
Georgiana chuckled at the arrogance of St. Albans’s statement. “He is truly incorrigible.”
Incorrigible and very arrogant. But St. Albans, by offering his arm for her to walk down the aisle on, and Hellsmere to stand as witness to the marriage beside Julian, would also be making a statement to the ton and anyone else who cared to know.
That statement was that these two wealthy and powerful dukes, and their duchesses, supported and approved of their marriage.
If she and Julian married…
She looked at him from beneath long lashes. “I really do not need marriage, Julian.”
“I do.” He stood to take both her hands in his. “Darling Georgiana, I know that you made a pledge of spinsterhood with five of your friends. But, if I recall, that pledge only applied in regard to you not wanting to be forced to marry where you did not love and were not loved in return?”
“Yes…”
“Well, you have told me you love me, and I could not love you any more deeply than I already do. So, as was the case with your friends Lily and Chloe, I believe you are now perfectly justified in accepting my proposal of marriage.”
Georgiana gazed up at the man she loved beyond all and everything else. She imagined spending a lifetime being loved by him. Of the two of them having children together. Of enjoying watching those children grow. Of the two of them growing old together, happy in each other’s company.
There was only ever one answer she could or wanted to give.
“Yes.”