Chapter 15
She should have known better. She had actually believed things were looking up. The next morning proved that she had just walked from one circus into another.
It didn’t get worse right away. She sat down at a lovely early breakfast with the girls, Grey, and Bark, who parked himself right in between the little girls, where the most food landed when falling off plates.
Mrs. Peters, the unusually thin blonde cook, had a way with bakery items, as Georgie knew all too well, and Grey was happy to serve both tea and coffee, which Georgie had grown to like on her brief forays to the Continent.
The conversation was desultory and comfortable, and Grey only checked his watch twice to make sure they would have time for the estate agent and solicitor.
“He is bringing the papers that will give you supervisory power along with him while I’m gone,” Grey said, stirring his tea.
Georgie nodded over the list she was making of her most immediate tasks. “That sounds perfect.”
And then she met the estate agent.
“How long has he been in his position?” she quietly asked Chalmers, as Grey met Mr. Hartman, the estate agent, and Mr. Deevers, the solicitor. “Mr. Hartman, I mean.” The estate agent, who wasn’t even looking at her.
Chalmers did look over at her, evidently surprised by her question. “About six months, my lady.”
She nodded. “I see.”
Mr. Deevers was no surprise. He looked much like most solicitors she had interacted with. Businesslike, tidy, greying, with a smile that conveyed caution. Georgie immediately liked him. He reminded her of her Uncle Samson. Mr. Hartman, though….
Georgie trusted her instincts. They had seen her through some difficult times, fractious relatives, and powerful acquaintances. And right now, they were lifting the hair off the back of her neck.
She couldn’t quite put a name to it. Maybe it was the fact that when Grey introduced them, Mr. Hartman offered a smile that was pure condescension.
Maybe it was the fact that he just looked too slick, his attire just a bit too finely crafted for an estate agent, or that his boots were definitely Hoby.
Suddenly she had an overpowering urge to see the estate books.
“You just leave everything to me, my lady,” he said with that too-smooth smile. “We’ll get along fine.”
No, she knew suddenly. They wouldn’t. So she sat in on the meeting with the three men, surprising both of their guests, even though she offered nothing more than the occasional nod and a few signatures alongside her husband’s on authorization papers after she read the terms quite closely.
“You really want to read all that legal mumbo-jumbo?” Hartman asked, still smiling.
She smiled right back. “I don’t like to be surprised.”
The terms were there. She and the solicitor had control over the estate until Grey returned from the Continent. She needed to make sure, though.
“If you gentlemen won’t mind,” she all but purred. “I need to check with my husband about a personal matter. I’m sure Chalmers would be happy to serve tea in the parlor.”
The two gentlemen bowed and let Chalmers lead them out.
“There’s a problem?” Grey immediately asked, his voice pitched low.
Georgie kept looking after the estate agent. “Your cousin hired Mr. Hartman?”
Now Grey looked that way, as if he could still see the man through the closed door. “He did. Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just have a…”
“Feeling? Why?” He was smiling. “It couldn’t be because he just tried to patronize you.”
She couldn’t help but grin. “Well, that too. But there is something that just doesn’t fit. I need to see the estate books.”
“Because his clothing is too well-made and he acts like a politician?”
She looked up to see that knowing smile in his eyes. “You noticed, too?”
“I am new to this,” he said, looking back toward the parlor, “but I admit to some suspicion. I just haven’t had the chance to dive into the situation yet.”
“The estate hasn’t been bringing in the income you thought it would, though, has it? What was his reason?”
“A need for maintenance that my cousin fell behind on.”
“Why do I have a feeling the rents have been raised without your knowledge?”
He looked back at her, betraying a surprise that should have annoyed her, but didn’t. He really was new to all of this. “Are you asking me if you can take care of this little problem while I’m gone?”
“I am.”
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “You have my full faith, my girl. Just be careful. He won’t be happy if you show him the door.”
“He’ll be more ready to go if I show him the magistrate. Who is he, by the way?”
Now Grey was frowning. “Well, at Coleford Abbey it is Squire Handy. I wish I could be here. I hate dumping all of this on your plate.”
Georgie was proud of herself. She didn’t smile and say she would be happy to handle it. Instead, she kissed her husband back. “I wish you could, too. I wish I could wait for you to come back to handle this. But...”
His smile was rueful. “You have a feeling.”
Grey thought he would get out of the house without more problems. His luggage was piled on the carriage, and he was just about to help the girls don their coats when Chalmers showed up at the salon door looking frantic.
“My lord, I….”
Before he could finish, a whirlwind shoved right by him and stomped into the salon, feathers quivering from her puce hat and the floors vibrating beneath her hard heels.
“There you are, you lecher. Do you not stay home to care for these poor defenseless girls anymore? Or are you too busy in your debauches? Or is that luggage out there not yours?”
Grey felt the girls freeze all over again and fought the urge to jump in front of them and battle this fury.
It was vital, he knew, to assure the girls that they were safe or they would be right back to where they had been a week ago.
When he heard Bark growl out beyond the green baize door, he knew he had to act.
It took exactly half a minute to realize that he didn’t have to jump to anyone’s defense. His wife kissed the top of Amelia’s head and passed her little hand to Grey before stalking toward the interloper, a Valkyrie on the march.
“Might I have an introduction, Grey?” she asked, never looking away from the bristling hedgehog of a woman with suspiciously yellow hair and a voice like a foghorn.
“I apologize, Georgianna,” he said, still holding onto his girls, who were poised for flight. “Please meet Mrs. Philomena Keyse, the girls’ grandmother. Mrs. Keyse, my wife. Lady Georgianna Packham Greyville, Marchioness of Coleford.”
One of them should have curtsied. They stood as still as mountain goats readying to butt heads.
“Lady my arse,” Mrs. Keyse snorted, looking Georgie up and down as if she were a chorus girl in a sacristy.
“She’s one of your trollops. That’s what she is.
If not, I would have been invited to the wedding.
And I won’t have it!” This with a foot stomp, as if she were six herself.
“These girls need a better foundation than your wild escapades! Tell him, Sophie! Tell him, Amelia! Don’t let him force you to stay here! ”
Grey felt the girls trembling and squeezed tighter. He moved just in front of them. His instinct was to get them out of the room, but Georgie made a minute signal with her hand that kept him in place.
Georgie tilted her head at their grandmother as if she were trying to solve a puzzle. “If you cannot speak in a civil manner, ma’am, I cannot see even letting them stay here now, much less go with you.”
Mrs. Keynes shot Grey a scowl. “Aren’t you going to do anything?”
If the girls hadn’t been literally trembling, he would have happily laughed at Philomena’s cherry-red face. “I did do something, ma’am. I gave my daughters security.”
“Your daughters?” the woman all but screeched. “Your daughters? They are no more your daughters than I am.”
He held even more tightly to the girls. “I beg to differ. According to the terms of Francis’s will, they are indeed now my daughters. And I suspect the Chancery court will agree.”
It actually sounded like she growled. “We’ll see about that. Those girls don’t belong with a thief and his doxy. They belong with their grandmother, and you know it. “
“With you, Mrs. Keyse?” Georgie countered in a terrible, quiet voice. “A woman who spouts such obscenities in front of her own grandchildren? I sincerely doubt that, madame.”
“How dare you?!” the girls’ grandmother sputtered. “You have no right to keep my granddaughters from me!”
“But I am not. I will be happy to work out a schedule so you and the girls can spend time together if they choose. Here, if it is agreeable to the girls. But I will tell you now, ma’am, that I will not allow anyone to act in a crude or threatening manner around them in their home.
I am not certain where you came from, Mrs. Keynes, but in my family, we do not frighten children. ”
“Your family,” the old woman spit. “Your family? Who are your family, if anybody, who would raise such a termagant?”
Grey took a step forward. Georgie motioned him back and took her own step.
“I would be delighted to introduce you to my own grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Clevedon, and let her deal with you if you prefer.”
It seemed that the Dowager was just as fearsome as Grey had suspected. His cousin’s mother-in-law blanched as if Georgie had threatened her with the guillotine.
Without moving, Georgie seemed to be taking up quite a bit more space.
“Now, I am certain the girls would be delighted if you visited, if you only give me some notice. But right now, we are about to accompany their uncle to his ship. If you have any questions, you might ask Mr. Deevers, the Marquess’s solicitor. But please let us settle in first.”
“Settle in?!” Mrs. Keyse snarled. “Take over. Usurp my daughter’s precious memory. Shoving her out of her daughters’ life!”