Chapter 6 #2
Drake blinked at him, as if just coming awake. “But? Nothing. I approve of your choice. The question will be whether she does.”
Which lazy observation sent another flash of guilt stabbing through Grey. “No,” he said, turning again toward the over-sized rowhouse on Brook Street that held all the myriad Packhams. “It was not intentional.”
Drake nodded amiably, lifting a hand in greeting to a gentleman strolling the other way. “She is a lovely girl.”
Drake stared at him. “Girl? That is no girl. That is a whirlwind.”
Another lazy smile. “You will have to either enjoy being managed or come to some mutually agreeable compromise. After all these years being in control of the clans, she will naturally take charge.”
“If she can make those little girls happy, she can take charge of anything she wants.” He found himself grinning. “I may also let her take charge of the livestock.”
That merited another raised eyebrow. Grey refused to explain.
“The other excellent benefit of tonight,” Drake mused as if continuing a thought, “is that she is more than well-set-up. She is, in coarse parlance, filthy rich. She will be everything you need if you’re smart enough to hold onto her.”
Funny. He hadn’t even considered that. “Thank you for the endorsement. Now, why else are you acting the limpet this fine evening? There are at least four other balls, a musicale, and Covent Garden to be enjoyed.”
Drake smiled again. “I am not allowed to support a comrade-in-arms?”
“I have never known you to perform an altruistic act that did not also involve a bit of hugger muggery.”
“No, no. Nothing of the sort. I just wanted you to know that I approve your choice, since she can quite easily manage your home while you are away. Next week.”
Grey slammed to a stop. “No.”
Suddenly Drake wasn’t looking quite so sanguine. “I wish I could send someone else. But I fear our friends in Paris are already too well-known. A military attaché liaising with those involved in the peace preparations will barely be worth a notice.”
“I understand that. But I will not leave so soon. If you want me there, those are my terms.”
“Even if Gracechurch is dead?”
Grey caught his breath. “Is he?”
For the first time Drake hesitated. Turning away, he lazily swung his quizzing glass as he considered the leafing trees in the square. “We don’t know. I have a bad feeling, though.”
“As harsh as it sounds, he won’t be any more dead in three weeks. Give me a chance to settle in with my family before I leave, or I suspect my new wife will make me pay for the rest of my life. And you, if she finds out you are involved.”
“A wife who has not accepted your hand yet.”
Drake scowled at him and started walking again, hands in his pockets. “I’m afraid after the spectacle her aunt put on tonight, she’ll have little choice.”
“I’m not so sure,” Drake mused, strolling along beside him. “She also has a rather charming streak of independence. “
Grey scowled at him. “In what way?”
“Well, every Friday while the rest of the house naps in preparation for their active social life, Lady Georgianna disappears.”
Grey came to a halt. “Disappears? Where?”
Drake shrugged. “Her maid calls her a hackney back by the mews and they leave.”
“And why do you know this?”
Drake looked at him like a particularly slow-witted first former.
“Her father is on the Privy Council. Her brother and cousins are performing a bit of extracurricular governmental service much as you have. She was a student in that particular boarding school so she could be protected from people who would try to use underhanded methods to influence the men in her life. It is my job to know.”
“But you don’t know where she goes.”
Now Drake was smiling, that infuriating smug quirk to his mouth that made Grey want to punch him. “I thought it might be a bit more appropriate—and judicious—for you to.”
After a moment’s consideration, Grey started walking again. “You’re an ass.”
Drake nodded pleasantly. “I know. But I am the King’s ass.”
“Don’t be a ninny.”
There was something about that strident voice that made Georgie want to rip the feathers out of her aunt’s headdress and stomp on them, just so they would stop bobbing in her face every time Aunt Berenice made some ludicrous declaration, like, “You could do worse.”
For the sake of household peace, Georgie chose to pace instead.
She certainly couldn’t admit that her aunt had a point.
She could do worse than the Marquess of Coleford.
Much worse. But for once, just this once, she had hoped they would listen to her and understand.
That maybe they would admit that she could do better. That she should do better.
She was so frightened.
“For once,” he aunt snapped, “Think of this family.”
And there it went. The very last shred of her patience with her frustratingly righteous, autocratic aunt. Georgie even heard a hiss of breath from one of her cousins.
It did not deter her. She suspected her face was bright red as she pulled herself to her not-inconsiderable height to face down her godmother for possibly the first time in her life. But correcting her aunt had never mattered so much before.
“Think of this family?” she echoed in the kind of hushed tones one hears a fuse make before the explosion. “Think of this family?”
Her hands were clenched, her heart thundered.
She swore she saw a red haze before her eyes even as she struggled to control the temper that was astonishing her even more than it was her cousins, if their wide eyes were any indication.
She never lost her temper. She prided herself on it, the ability to remain calm in the face of the chaos that seemed to regularly break out in this house, not to mention society as a whole.
She was famous for it. Relied on because of it. But it was disintegrating fast.
Her aunt meant well, she kept thinking. Her every aim was to protect the Packham reputation, the Packham history. The Packham status as one of the premier political families in Britain. And truly? No single person lived up to her expectations.
But being the oldest daughter in the entire family, Georgie had spent her life bearing the brunt of those expectations, demands, and coercions. And she was so tired of it.
“Tell me, Aunt,” she all but snarled, her fists clenched, “Exactly when have I not thought of the family? Please. Any incident will do. Was it when I was teaching my young cousins, or doing menus with Cook, or helping my cousins shop and decide on wardrobes, or maybe when I organized the move to the Castle and back this year? Again?”
Her aunt looked as if Georgie had struck her. Georgie suddenly didn’t care.
“My pardon, ma’am, my lady.”
Georgie almost sobbed with the effort to rein in her frustration. “Yes, Reems,” she said, not even turning to acknowledge their butler who undoubtedly stood in the parlor doorway like a Guardsman on parade.
He cleared his throat. “Lord Coleford has arrived. Shall I tell him….”
“Chinese parlor,” she said. “Maybe he will enjoy communing with a dragon or two for a moment.”
“Tea, my lady?”
“Of course. We are a civilized family, after all.” She was still eyeball-to-eyeball with her aunt. “And Reems, when my parents arrive, please direct them here.”
“Not…?”
She didn’t even bother to shake her head. “Here.”
“Of course, my lady.”
“Oh, and please send for Preston. I will meet her outside the Chinese salon.”
She saw her aunt bristle and couldn’t be sorry, even as she heard Reems quietly close the salon door.
But truth to tell, Aunt Berenice would never think to direct the staff.
That, she said more and more frequently, was a task Georgie should learn.
Georgie was becoming hard pressed to keep from telling her aunt that she had thoroughly learned the task by her twelfth birthday.
“Your parents are due home from the embassy any minute,” Aunt Berenice warned. “You would not add further distress to your father’s burdens.”
Georgie continued to face off with her aunt, which she realized with a surprise, she was actually enjoying a bit. “What happens between my father and me is between us alone.”
Aunt Berenice snorted like an overheated horse. “Not—”
“Between,” Georgie repeated, “us.”
And all she could hope for was that she could talk her service-minded father into understanding that his oldest daughter, who had lived her life as an obedient oldest daughter, had finally had enough. She had hoped…
She had planned….
She shook her head. No matter to give voice now. She would simply confuse her aunt and worry her cousins. But the chaos that was upending her plans swelled in her like lava rising in a volcano, threatening to scorch the earth beneath and send everyone fleeing.
And yet, still, she couldn’t discount the lingering delight from that kiss.
Blast him.
“It would seem, Aunt,” she said, finally pulling at the fingers of her gloves, “I do have time to speak to the Marquess before my parents arrive home.”
“Do not be absurd,” her aunt protested, feathers bobbing again. “Haven’t you caused enough talk for one night? You shall wait for your father.”
“No, Aunt,” Georgie disagreed, pulling off her second glove and laying both on the secretary, her voice gentling. “I need to speak with the Marquess before a formal offer is made or my voice will never be heard.”
Her aunt spun around, those pernicious feathers bobbing and swaying. “What do you have to say to the matter? Especially after that display you put on tonight?”
A display no one would have seen if her aunt had not broadcast it like a town crier. All Georgie could do was walk over, give her aunt a kiss on the cheek and continue out of the room. She had a real confrontation to face.