Chapter 8 #3
Greyville didn’t sit right away. He paced, which made her feel worse. She was not feeling any more enthusiasm from him than she was from herself. She was plagued by the suspicion that they were walking straight into disaster. And she hadn’t even heard his proposal yet.
Georgie knew what her opinion was, but she pulled in a deep breath and clasped her hands and waited. Greyville kept pacing.
“Unless you intend to ask your questions of the palm trees,” Georgie finally said, “could we get on with it? I have a busy day ahead of me. And now I must go out to my grandmother’s and tell the bees.”
Well, that got his attention. It even got him to stop and turn. “I beg your pardon.”
She spared him a wry smile. “Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
He sat. Far too close, but there it was.
She sighed and held her position. This always made perfect sense to her, possibly because Grandmama had been telling her since she could remember how the bees that Grandmama raised were part of the family and deserved the same respect.
When Georgie had been seven, she had quite archly told her grandmama that considering some of the people in her family, the bees probably deserved more respect.
“It is an ancient custom,” she said, purposely leaving out her childhood. “Grandmama grew up with it from her Irish grandmother. If you have bees, you must alert them to every major life change. Especially death. They must have the option to leave if they want. Although they never have.”
“You’ve done this before.” He did not sound as if this made sense to him. Georgie could hardly blame him. On a bad day, it was just a bit too much like a fairy tale, even for her. And she had been sitting on that little bench before the bees ever since she could remember.
“I have. It is very precious to my grandmama, and I will never do anything to hurt her.”
He nodded, as if that was all that needed to be said.
“You know we have to marry.”
This time she did not answer.
It was his turn to sigh. “When we marry, we will have a comfortable life. Your father is making certain you have a sizable dowry under your control.”
She squinted as if he needed to come into focus. “My father. The short man who waves a lot.”
His smile was wry. “Yes.”
She actually smiled back. “I love my father, but it would never naturally occur to him to give any woman such an option. I’m still not certain how my mother manages it.”
“Well, he did this time. You’ll want for nothing.”
“Except a breath of free air.”
“I don’t follow you.”
She sighed, collected her thoughts, struggling to make him understand what no man truly could.
“I have been in charge of the day-to-day running of this house and two others when we’re there, since I was fifteen.
I also do most of the parish visits, the church committees, the governess and tutor interviews.
My entire life I have been responsible for quite a few people, even my parents.
Do you know what that’s like? And please don’t say yes. ”
His grin was a bit sheepish. “I was merely a colonel in the Dragoons. Does that count?”
“You’ve served with my brothers. Do you think so?”
She was gratified to see a scowl.
“There are five more just like them under the age of twelve in this house,” she said. “Not to mention the three girls. And that doesn’t even take into account the parents and staff. Or Charlie and Eddie.”
“There are only two little girls at my home,” he said, as if it would answer everything. “Much easier.”
That once again brought her to her feet. Why didn’t anyone understand? Why didn’t they ever understand? The girls only made it so much worse, because she could so easily love them.
“I can’t!” she said, surprising herself.
Inevitably he came to his feet as well. “Why? Are you afraid? You’re obviously skilled enough. After seeing what you do here, your change to my home would seem a vacation.”
She was shaking her head, the panic rising in her throat.
He shrugged. “It could be—”
She spun on him, leveling an accusing finger. “Do not say it could be worse. Not if you want to leave this room in possession of all your teeth.”
Of course, she surprised a smile from him. What else did she expect?
“Don’t you understand?” she demanded, hands clenched, back so straight she feared she’d crack.
“It is what I tried to explain last night. I have never been given a choice or an option. I have never been able to do what I want. My entire life has been spent at the service of my family. And now, it will be your family.”
“But what do you want?”
“I don’t know! But something that is mine. Now I will never get the chance to even look! I’ve gone from being a little mother to a big mother. I’ve never been just Georgie.”
When she looked up to see if he was finally beginning to comprehend what every woman did, she found herself caught tight by his expressive seawater eyes. Pain, she thought. Frustration. Caring. He was trying, she realized.
With a sigh of his own, he reached down and captured her hands.
His fingers were callused, long and elegant.
A real gentleman’s hands. Hands that should have played the pianoforte, not wielded a weapon.
Hands that nonetheless held hers as gently as a whisper, so that she didn’t feel threatened or overwhelmed.
So that she felt...cossetted. Comforted.
Even as her body once again sang with a life she barely recognized as her own.
Oh, how frustrating! That this was the man who would steal her only chance at escape, and she could see that he regretted it. Not enough to throw over the traces and let her go, of course. She saw it in his eyes long before he knelt down at her feet.
She immediately frowned and pulled at her hands. “Stop that.”
Looking up, she made sure Preston was looking the other way. She did not need this bruited about below stairs. She tugged again at Greyville’s hands, but he was suddenly immovable. He was also smiling, albeit one that was rueful and wry.
“Lady Georgianna,” he began, pulling her hands to his chest, which meant she went neatly along.
Too close. Too blasted close. She couldn’t think when she was this close.
“I am sorry,” he said, which helped clear her head. “I wish I could give you your wish. But you know that it’s been too late since your aunt stepped onto that balcony.”
The panic was building again. He was boxing her into a corner, and doing it in the kindest way, and she saw the door to escape closing before her eyes.
And worst of all, she was so afraid that she would end up hurting this kind man because her frustrations would simply pile up like dirty snow and freeze her.
She was even more afraid that she might come to love him and his little girls more than herself, which would take away her last choice.
She tried pulling again. “What about Priscilla?” she asked. “Last I heard, you were still engaged to her.”
He held her hands right against his heart. She could feel it speed up, as if he were as afraid as she.
“Your subterfuge seems to have been successful,’ he said. “This morning the Earl sent a notice to papers. Evidently the entire family is loath to visit Wales.”
She nodded and couldn’t think of a thing more to say. This time she wished she hadn’t been quite so successful.
“We must wed,” Grey said. “But even though I would be heartsore, what if we give it our best try for four months. At the end of that time, if you simply cannot abide me, I can arrange for a separation.”
That made her even angrier. “And what about the girls? Are you intending to have yet another mother desert them?”
“Well, my cousin didn’t exactly...”
She managed to get her hands free this time and punched him square in the chest. “They were abandoned. That’s all they know. That is all they would know if I left again. Maybe you are that much of a beast, my lord, but I. Am. Not.”
“And so, what do we do?” he asked, rubbing at his chest.
She could only close her eyes. He was a good man, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t hurt her. Would he?
But it was the rest of her life.
“What about this idea?” he finally asked, once again catching her hands and pulling them to him. “What if we look for Georgie together?”
She found herself blinking. “What?”
He insisted on overwhelming her manners. Worse, he grinned when he did it, and her own heart began to stumble about.
“I cannot take away the responsibility,” he said, his eyes distressingly sincere. “I can give you all the help you need. And the support to find what it is that belongs only to you.” Another grin. “Unless it’s gunrunning. I’m afraid I cannot support that, no matter what your brothers want.”
He surprised her into a burst of laughter. How could he do that when she felt the world collapsing around her?
“I sincerely doubt gunrunning will be involved. I tend toward seasickness.”
“Does this mean a future trip to India would be out of the question?”
“Absolutely not. I would overcome. But your responsibilities are here.”
He shrugged. “We will have quite a bit of money to cushion life’s blows, especially once I get the estates to be profitable again. I imagine it could also secure me a competent manager in time. The girls will be in school in a few years.”
She almost pulled her hands back again. “Do not even think of it. I told you. Wherever we go, those girls go. I will not have them deserted again, even for the chance to explore the world.”
He didn’t answer right away. Just gazed up at her, his hands cradling hers, his smile seeming to encompass her. “Is that a yes, Lady Georgianna?”
She battled an overwhelming urge to cry. “I’m afraid so.”
“Why afraid?”
“Because I have been told I am not a restful person. And I am being inflicted on you.”
“I have been a soldier for fifteen years, my dear. Not restful is my specialty.”
“I will demand a voice in our affairs.”
“I will be happy to listen.”
“And the chance to try new things.”
“Except gunrunning.”
“Except gunrunning.” She drew a shaky breath. “And I insist on honesty, Greyville. I cannot imagine surviving this without it.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Your word.”
“My word. May I get up now?”
“I told you to get up ten minutes ago.”
He did, finally, managing to make it seem like a dance move, smooth and elegant, even as he flinched with that leg. Left leg, she realized. She wished she could curtsy half so well. He was so smooth he had his arms around her before she knew it.
“Would a kiss be acceptable?” he asked, his face so close she could see the creases fanning out from the corners of his eyes.
“Tell me anything I should know first.”
He frowned. “About what?”
“Anything. I shall tell you, for instance, all holidays for the foreseeable future will be spent at Clevedon. That I shall spend an inordinate amount of time with the other kings. That I have a schedule of meetings coming up I cannot cancel, and that you will likely go into debt over my library subscription.”
He smiled. “I’m afraid I have nothing nearly as interesting. I have a batman named Braxton who believes he is really the marquess, two little girls who confound and delight me, and a new fiancée I cannot wait to get to know. Now what about that kiss?”
She could feel the hard wall of his chest against her breasts and his arms encapsulating her.
Those troubling reactions were firing again all along her limbs, into her chest, her belly.
Deeper where she didn’t have a name, heating her.
Making her impatient, urging her to move even closer.
Pushing her up on tiptoe so she could meet his mouth.
The kiss was different this time. Softer, deeper, sweeter. A greeting and a promise rather than a connection. A symphony of sight and sound and scent, pulling her in, sending her spinning. Imbuing her with the oddest sense of homecoming.
She felt his hand against the back of her head and rested against him, for the first time in her life giving herself up to another. For the very first time wanting to follow the path he was blazing. Wanting to lay her trust in his elegant hands.
Which meant it was inevitable that the door to the conservatory would swing open and her mother and father sweep in.
“I tried,” Georgie heard from Preston and thought she should have locked the door against them. Nothing else would have kept them out.
She made it a point not to jump back but to separate herself with as much dignity as a woman could whose hair was mussed and whose lips felt tender and pleasured.
“I do hope this means we can plan the wedding,” her mother said, smiling.
“Indeed, it does, ma’am,” Greyville said, his arm now around Georgie’s shoulder.
She instinctively wanted to buck at such a gesture of possession. She held still.
Her father was rubbing his hands again. “Excellent, excellent. I can have Charles whip up a special license by the end of the day. Cousin, you know. Owes me a favor from when were at Cambridge together. We can have the thing done by week’s end.”
He turned to consult with his wife, who gave him a calm nod.
Georgie wasn’t feeling quite so sanguine. “This weekend? Won’t that make the scandal worse?”
Her father gave one of his hand waves. “Might. But this way we can have Coleford here off on his trip by next weekend.”
That quickly, the exhilaration Georgie had been flirting with died a terrible death.
“Trip?” she asked, turning on her brand-new fiancé. “What trip?”
Her father looked at her as if she were slow to catch up. “Why, the reason you’re marrying so soon. So you can take over his house while he’s gone.”
Georgie didn’t say another word. She simply turned away from them and walked out the door. The last thing she heard was her mother’s faintly chastising voice. “You didn’t tell her?”