Chapter 18
Georgie had no idea how long she cried. She knew she cried to exhaustion.
She knew she lost every barrier and bit of training that had seen her through her first twenty years, the same discipline that had allowed her to take control of every kind of situation her family had faced.
She knew she had never once so much as dampened her mother’s clothing. Well, she did now.
At one point she thought she heard the door open and quickly click close.
She wasted no attention on it. She knew that her mother, the most quietly controlled woman she’d ever known, watered Georgie as well.
She knew that sooner or later she would have to get back on her feet and take control again.
It was her duty. Her responsibility. Her privilege.
At least her Aunt Berenice would put it that way when she saw her again.
But for now, she was a lost child who needed her mother.
“You fell in love with him,” her mother said very matter-of-factly, pulling back to hold Georgie’s face in her hands.
Georgie fought fresh tears. “Silly, isn’t it? I barely knew him a week. I was married for two days—a day-and-a-half, really. Is that a record?”
Her mother briefly rested her forehead against Georgie’s, still holding her face.
“Not silly at all. I fell in love with your father the first time I saw him laugh. You have been falling in love with Greyville ever since you began reading his name in the dispatches to Geoffrey. During that week you spent with him you were just lucky enough to realize he was the man you’d hoped he’d be. ”
Georgie sucked in a ragged breath. “I was lucky, wasn’t I?”
Her mama just nodded. Georgie squeezed her eyes shut against the pain.
“Your grandmama is here,” her mother finally said when both their eyes were once again fairly dry. “Will you see her?”
Georgie wanted to say no. She wanted to send everyone away and crawl up to her bed and curl into a small ball and sleep.
She wanted to close her eyes and keep everyone and everything out.
She knew better, though. Nothing, in the end, was changed.
She still had to create order out of disaster. And she had to begin to do it now.
“Of course,” she said, sitting up to find her mother holding out a sturdy man’s handkerchief to her.
“Your father won’t miss it. I figured a woman’s handkerchief simply didn’t have the volume needed to handle this situation.”
Georgie accepted it with a smile. She noticed her mother had another for herself that she applied briskly. Then Georgie climbed to her feet and walked over to the bell pull.
“Please have the Dowager join us,” she told Chalmers when he immediately responded.
Georgie caught her breath. Chalmers already wore a black armband for mourning. He saw her attention and touched it, as if that would make it real. “We have a store of these still from the last marquess. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” Georgie assured him, her chest feeling too tight to take a good breath. “Thank you for your prompt attention.”
For just a moment, Chalmers betrayed his own grief. He opened his mouth to say something, but after a moment, simply closed it again. Shaking his head, he turned for the door to bring in the Dowager.
Georgie and her mother immediately stood. And for the second time in her life, she was the recipient of unheard-of comfort. Her grandmother also wrapped her in her arms and simply held on. It almost broke Georgie all over again.
“I saw the girls,” Grandmama said, her own voice sounding a bit shaky. “They have suffered too much. Too much.”
Georgie gave her grandmama one final hug and separated herself. “I wish I could make it better.”
“Move home,” Grandmama said. “Let them run about with our brood for a bit.”
Georgie sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
For a long moment, Grandmama just looked at her in silence. “You must tell the bees,” she finally said.
Georgie reared back as if she had been slapped. “No,” she said, stepping away. Lifting her hand, she waved at her grandmother as if shooing her away. “No.”
Grandmama frowned. “You know they must be told.”
Georgie turned around. “Not yet. Not…yet. The girls are not ready.”
I am not ready? she thought wildly as she rubbed at the fresh pain in her chest. She didn’t bother to consider that in fact she would never be ready.
“Georgie…”
She shook her head. “Let them pretend for a while that everything is still all right. Don’t rile them until we need to.”
She knew that her grandmama was looking at her mother, as if for support.
She had no idea what her mother did. Her own eyes were closed, and she was digging the heels of her hands into them to stop further tears.
She had to calm down before the girls returned.
She had to be their rock now. No more tears.
No wailing as if the banshee hovered in the room.
Two days.
Two. Days.
Georgie almost couldn’t believe it, but her grandmama finally nodded and backed off. They sat like civilized people and discussed arrangements for the memorial stone and service. Eventually the girls returned, giving Grandmama a stiff little curtsy, and Grandmama held her arms out as well.
At least the girls would get all the support they needed. Perhaps it had been a good thing after all that Georgie had been forced down the aisle, even for two days, so that the girls, who had so often been deserted and discarded, had the cushion of their new family to comfort them.
It was inevitable that the kings came. They took over the redecorating and cared for the girls when Georgie was pulled away to plan a funeral without a body.
She hadn’t thought to have anything elaborate.
Family, of course, which meant that notice had to be sent to Grey’s sister near Tewksbury.
Room had to be found for her, her husband, and their daughter.
Braxton, of course. The Packhams. Those who could take the time to go to Gloucester to attend service at the cathedral and reveal the memorial in the family crypt.
But then, evidently word got out to those who had served under and with Grey.
Those families who mourned his lost men.
Wellington himself, which along with her parents meant the diplomatic corps, and amazingly, the Prince Regent. It turned into a spectacle.
Mama helped with the diplomatic side of things, Michael with the military. Georgie took advantage of Eddie’s list-making skills and Charlie’s contacts. Georgie was the most organized, competent person she knew. But this was beyond even her.
And then she learned from Winslow that Coleford Abbey was in no condition for guests.
It was in no condition for even family. So instead of leading a procession into Gloucestershire for the obsequies, the funeral itself was moved to St. George’s in Mayfair, with the crypt ceremony limited to family sometime later.
Actually, Georgie was relieved. The girls could stay where they were comfortable and where she could easily get to them if needed, and she could be where it was at least familiar, and close to her family.
At least it all kept her so busy that when she fell into bed at night, she slept.
It demanded her attention and her skills and her time so she didn’t have to think far past the funeral.
She could get herself and the girls fitted out in black, and confer with everyone involved, and make the best decisions she could.
The good and the bad news was that she was truly in her element.
It meant that the funeral proceeded with swift competence and ended up, she hoped, being worthy of Grey’s life.
She met Grey’s sister and was relieved to find that she truly liked her, this horse-mad woman who had taken over their father’s work.
She visited Braxton at his sister’s home.
She even greeted the new ponies Grey’s sister had brought in for the girls and her own Lucy.
And she saw her friend Anastasia Dunn, who had just returned from Vienna, and who promised her they would pick up the project she and Anastasia had been working on for so long.
And to be honest, it all felt unreal, as if she were watching someone else’s life pass her by. She was numb.
Standing at the door to St. George’s, she greeted the Prince, who had known her since childhood.
She greeted his brother, the Duke of Clarence, in his resplendent Naval uniform.
She greeted the various foreign dignitaries who were in for the celebrations and came for her parents.
She stood with her parents, who knew most of the players, and handed the girls over to the Kings and Archangels who kept them safe.
She even met the Archbishop of Canterbury, a distant cousin, who came to sit regally in the sacristy in support of the service.
She did not, however, meet Wellington, who had evidently come to the service but avoided her.
She briefly wondered why, but was too busy with the portentous service and later the gathering, which was held at her parents’ home, since hers was still hip deep in scaffolding and paint buckets.
She nodded and smiled and held out her hand to be saluted and hid behind the mourning veil and murmured pleasantries, especially to Grey’s true friends, like Rob Glenn and Declan Bowdern, who was supposed to have been their sacrificial rake, and would have, she realized, played the part well.
She even sat in on the reading of Grey’s will, which he had somehow managed to draw up between his proposal and death, to find no surprises.
She was cared for, the girls were cared for, and the longtime servants were cared for.