Chapter 7 #2
But she’d spent her life nurturing her mother’s children, her aunt’s children. She had begun to see her way clear from constant responsibility, and then…him.
She was still hashing those inchoate thoughts when she realized that he’d stepped even closer. She realized it because her body began to thrum again. Her heart picked up speed. She swore her breasts grew heavier.
She looked up to see that he was lifting his hand as if to swipe back a loose curl, except her curls never broke loose.
Not the Countess of Clevedon’s daughter.
Even so, he stroked the hair right above her ear, sending shivers cascading through her.
She might have stopped breathing entirely.
She wasn’t certain. But she was so very warm.
So anxious. She wanted to take hold of that hand of his and see if he had calluses, and that was the very last thing she should be thinking of.
“You can’t say you don’t want me,” he challenged, his voice like dark honey.
She blinked, and the air came rushing back into her lungs. “What does that have to do with anything?”
He took another step forward. “Don’t you want to see where tonight would have gone?”
That absolutely froze her. It was all she could not to haul off and box his ears. She stepped back, feeling the settee hard against her legs. “So, I should sacrifice my entire life to, how do you gentlemen put it, scratch an itch?”
She was so delighted by his shock at her words that she might have gone further, but from the window she heard a definite throat-clearing.
Good Lord, she’d even forgotten that Preston was sitting there. If she’d been able to blush, she would have been red as Charlie’s hair.
“It might be a better attitude to make the most of the situation in which we find ourselves,” Coleford said, and Georgie wasn’t sure whether he was challenging, apologizing, or negotiating.
She didn’t get the chance to find out. Suddenly the door flew open, and her parents strode in, both of them smiling like pirates.
It was bad enough that her father was rubbing his hands. “I hear we have a wedding to prepare for.”
“Now, Clevedon,” her mother cautioned, stepping up beside him. “You haven’t even been introduced yet.”
Her father’s laugh was sharp. “Georgie knows him, obviously. Knows him well enough to warrant a wedding. Isn’t that right, girl?”
“No, sir.”
Her parents gaped. At which point, of course, it got worse.
Aunt Berenice stalked in right behind them. “I told her there was no other option.”
And behind her Eddie and Charlie all but tumbled into the room like Astley’s clowns. “We tried to keep her out,” Eddie protested.
“You shall do no such thing,” Aunt Berenice insisted, turning on them like a fury. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“It doesn’t concern you either,” Charlie accused her own mother, which made Aunt Berenice choke on her own ire.
And all Georgie could see was the way Greyville looked at the windows as if planning an escape.
“Stop,” she said.
“Why don’t I talk to the young man,” her father said.
“Once you’ve been introduced,” her mother said in that velvety voice that belied the underlying steel. “Yes, Georgianna?”
“I’ll introduce you,” her aunt offered, her voice even more strident.
“Stop,” Georgie insisted a bit more loudly.
“No,” her mother said, “Georgie should do it. He is her fiancé after all. At least that is what the guests at the Embassy Ball were saying.”
And all of a sudden everyone was trying to talk over each other, and Greyville looked as if he were being attacked by hornets, and Georgie couldn’t tolerate another minute.
“Stop!!!” she screamed.
And amazingly, they did. For at least enough time for her to speak.
“Father, may I introduce you to Peter Greyville, the Marquess of Coleford. Greyville, you already know my mother, Countess of Clevedon. My father, the Earl of Clevedon. Who haven’t yet noticed that you look as if you are frantic to escape this madhouse.
So I will tell you right now that no, we are not engaged. ”
“I asked,” Greyville offered with a rather winsome smile.
“And I said no,” Georgie said.
He turned to her, that mischief still in his eyes. “You did?”
She glared at him. “I am now.” Facing him fully, she dipped a quick curtsy. “Thank you for the honor you do me and all that,” she said, so frantic that her voice sounded thin and fractious. “But I do have another option. Thank you for the offer. My answer is no.”
“What option is that?” her aunt demanded.
Georgie didn’t stop walking. “The convent, if it comes to that.”
And before Aunt Berenice could wind up for a good scolding, Georgie strode from the room, the last thing she heard being Greyville’s voice.
“I didn’t know she was Catholic.”
And damn him, she wanted to laugh.
Well, Grey thought, standing in the middle of the room like the interloper he was. What do we do now?
Oddly enough, Lord Clevedon acted as if nothing had changed, smiling and clapping his hands. “Coleford, eh?” he all but sang. “Colonel Greyville of the Dragoons, if I don’t miss my guess.”
“Retired, sir.”
“Precipitously, I should think, once word of the title came down. Good, good. We need to have a chat, don’t we?”
Grey had no idea how to answer. Hadn’t Clevedon heard his daughter? Or did he bother to listen to her at all?
He knew the Packhams’ type—well-fed, well-shod aristocrats who bore the classic stamp of power and privilege.
The Earl was white-haired, squared-off and solid, his tailoring perfect, his signet sleek, his voice the honeyed tones of an experienced orator.
He radiated bonhomie, but Grey strongly suspected one shouldn’t take that hail-fellow-well-met attitude at face value.
This man had negotiated some very complex treaties and stood up to Prinny on more than one occasion.
Grey already knew his wife, so he bowed to her like the gentleman he was purported to be.
She stood just outside her husband’s shadow, her attire this time different from her sister’s.
She wore gold and scarlet, with diamonds and rubies in her elegant blonde hair, and a parure that had probably once graced a royal neck embellishing the rest. Of the group of them left behind in that overwrought room, he suspected she was the only one who comprehended the level of her daughter’s distress.
The rest of them were still milling about the doorway, as if Lady Georgie had taken their direction along in her wake.
He couldn’t help it. No matter what happened, he thought she was magnificent.
Her aunt was obviously not so enamored, nor with her own daughter’s behavior. Her voice rattled around Grey’s head like shrapnel as she pushed the remaining cousins out.
Grey was distracted by the departing winks the girls gave him and almost missed the Earl holding out a manicured hand. “Welcome to the family, son.”
Grey shook like a gentleman, but his attention was all on the void left by Lady Georgie’s departure. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, sir.”
Clevedon waved at the settees. “Nonsense. Sit, sit. We’ll discuss the situation. I see you’ve already got yourself a bit of courage. Think I’ll get a bit myself.”
And before Grey could answer, the older man was over at the drinks table.
“Girl has no sense,” the aunt snapped, setting the feathers in her toque wildly bobbing. Grey could hardly take his eyes off them. “She needs to admit the truth.”
“Berry,” Lady Clevedon said, her voice like silk.
Oddly enough that seemed to stop her sister in mid-flight. “Well, she does,” she insisted. “But obviously you don’t wish to hear from me on the subject.”
The Countess smiled. “We can have a coze later, yes? Why don’t we get the Marquess on his way. We can revisit all of this in the morning after I have a visit with Georgie.”
“You want to get that girl to do anything,” the aunt insisted, “you should leave her to me. Stubborn as a shrike.”
This time the Countess didn’t even speak. Just leveled a look on her twin that sent the woman bustling from the room.
“And please leave Georgie to herself,” Georgie’s mother suggested. “You know that hectoring doesn’t help.”
The only answer she got was a huff of impatience and the sharp click of the door.
“Preston, thank you,” the Countess said while smiling at Grey. “I’m sure Georgie can use your help about now.”
Grey admitted that he was startled. He’d forgotten the maid was still there. At least he knew where Lady Georgie got her unshakable air of command. Her mother had routed everyone with the dispatch of a seasoned general. And Grey suspected it was hard to do with that sister of hers.
Even as the servant gathered up her yarn and gave a quick bob in the general direction of the Countess on the way out the door, that august lady was giving Grey a quiet but thorough assessment.
“I suspect you have had quite a long enough day, my lord,” she said. “We certainly have. Embassy balls are more effort than they’re worth, I often think. Would it be better for you if we reconvene in the morning?”
Which was how Grey found himself back out on the walk wondering who the diplomat really was in that family.
Nothing had been settled at all. Nothing except the fact that it wasn’t settled.
Although it would be easy to take Lady Clevedon’s parting words as a promise.
“Georgie is no fool. She knows what her duty is.”
Not exactly the encouragement Grey had been hoping for. He was developing the very strong suspicion that the last thing he wanted from Georgie Packham was duty.