Chapter Four
Georgiana trailed George down the wide steps, dazed.
Their wedding had been nothing like what she’d heard whispered about at school.
For one, George hadn’t been willing to go to a blacksmith, as everyone else did.
Instead, when they’d disembarked in Edinburgh, he’d insisted on locating both an attorney and the local sheriff.
Spending more of the money they’d sold her jewelry for, George had their marriage documented, in duplicate, and the papers signed.
By them, their hastily called in witnesses, the attorney he’d found, and the sheriff.
Now, they were on their way to a bank, where George planned to leave a copy.
Georgiana trailed him down the narrow street. His strides long and purposeful, he hardly seemed to notice her presence. He did whistle, though, and kept a hand on the coat pocket in which he’d stowed the signed, folded pages.
In the stories she’d heard, the couple always stood before a blacksmith in Gretna Green, holding hands above his anvil.
He would have a delightfully unassuming name, like Joseph Paisley or David Lang, and he would ask the two, before witnesses, if their love was an unbreakable bond.
If they wished to be together forever, to the end of their days.
They would agree, and he would demand they declare such before the witnesses.
The two would do so, using words made eloquent by the depths of their love, and then their passion would overcome them, and they would share their first kiss as man and wife.
In the stories, there were no sheriffs, no attorneys, and no paperwork. George had been so concerned with all of that that he hadn’t declared his love at all, or even held her hand.
Georgiana swallowed back tears. What if he hadn’t declared his love because he felt none? Was she a fool? The biggest, greatest fool to ever live? What if George didn’t love her? If he’d only ever wanted—
He spun to face her. His smile warm, he held out a hand. “Dearest, what are you doing back there? Come, walk beside me. You are my wife. At long last, we are together.”
Relief washed through her. She was silly.
Her handsome, smiling George did love her.
He had been so patient, after all. Taken such care of her.
If all he’d wanted was her money, he could have seduced her and then gone to her brother with the knowledge that she was ruined.
Only a good, honest gentleman would devote so much time to securing their union in such a proper fashion.
Still…the paperwork. The attorney. The bank. None of that was the least bit romantic. Oughtn’t her wedding be romantic?
She reached him and he took her hand, his warm even through their gloves.
George gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, then tugged her up beside him, tucking her arm through his.
Walking like this, their shoulders touching, their arms twined, made her feel so warm inside. Giddy. Almost as if she floated.
Yet… “Why are you so determined to have a written record of our union in a bank?” Georgiana watched him from the corner of her eye. “Surely, informing others is enough.”
Not that any of the books she’d read or stories she’d heard had spoken of such matters.
They always ended when that blissful moment of union was achieved.
That was, after all, the culmination of life.
The moment for which Georgiana had been born, had gone to school, had attended so many lessons on comportment.
Her wedding day. The moment years of education and work came to fruition, when she became a man’s wife.
George cast her a look tinged with amused condescension. “You truly do not know your brother, do you?”
She wished George wouldn’t look at her as if she were a witless child. “I know him well. He is my brother.”
But George was already shaking his head. “You know a part of him. The side he chooses to present to you. You never see the man who robbed me of the living your father left me, or forbade me admittance to Pemberley. That man, the unfeeling, dictatorial one, he hides that man from you.”
Georgiana frowned. Fitzwilliam could be strict with her, but it was true he was never capriciously cruel as he’d been to George.
And for no good reason. Her poor George.
He used to be Fitzwilliam’s closest companion.
At least, until jealousy over how Georgiana’s father had loved George more than he’d loved Fitzwilliam divided them.
Now, however, she might see that side of her brother, for she had no illusions about how he would react to her marriage.
“Here we are,” George said, halting before a tall, many-pillared structure. “You wait here, my sweet. I will only be a moment.”
“I am not going in with you?”
George chuckled. “Do not be silly, dearest. Women have no place in a bank.” With that, he released her and started up the wide steps.
Georgiana stared after him, bereft, suddenly aware of how crowded the street was. A pair of men left the bank as George darted in. A few others went up the steps. Georgiana had to admit, for all the activity around the grandiose building, she saw no women leave or enter.
Aware that passersby regarded her with curiosity, she tried to stand tall and not fidget. She was a wife now, after all. A woman. She could stand alone on the curb outside a bank if she so chose, and no one could say a thing about it.
Still, relief filled her when, nearly half an hour later, she sighted George exiting the bank. He trotted down the steps to her, smiling, and the world dwindled to that smile, and his handsome visage. Everything seemed so much more right when she was with George.
“All taken care of, my pet,” he said, reclaiming her arm. “And I have directions to the nearest coaching inn.”
“Coaching inn? Is that the finest the city can offer? I want…” She trailed off in embarrassment. “That is, our wedding night should be somewhere special.”
His arm tensed beneath hers. “And it will be, for it will take place at Pemberley.”
“Pemberley?” she gasped. “But we are miles away. It will take days to reach.” Geography had never been her best subject, but she knew they were far from her home.
“Days? Two weeks, if we are fortunate. Down the eastern road, I think.” That last he said contemplatively.
“But surely we could have our wedding night now and depart come morning?” Would they have any privacy taking the coach south?
George shook his head. “Absolutely not. We will have our wedding night when we reach Pemberley and not a moment sooner. We have waited this long so that everything may be as special as possible.”
“But—”
“No,” George interrupted. “I have made my decision, and that is final. Need I remind you that I am your husband?”
Her feet halting, Georgiana gaped at him.
He released her arm, but only to put his about her shoulder. With firm pressure, he propelled her along. “People begin to stare.”
“I do not care if they do,” she huffed. “I care about how you spoke to me. Yes, you are my husband, but I am your wife, and you are meant to…to love me. To care for me. Not to order me about.”
Still exerting force to keep her walking, George let out a sigh. “This is the only way I can convince Darcy that I truly love you. It is important to me that I do not tear your family, my family, asunder.”
Georgiana considered that. His words made sense, but she’d waited for so long for the magic of their wedding night. She didn’t know much about what happened in the marital bed, but whatever happened, it was the culmination of her and George’s love.
“Please, dearest,” George urged, his voice low. “Wait a bit longer. For my sake. For the sake of our future happiness.”
Georgiana let out a sigh. “Yes, certainly.” A smile tugged at her lips as she added, “Whatever you think best, husband.”
George cast her a relieved look. He dropped his arm from her shoulders to re-twine with hers. “I am afraid, after I settle you to wait for the coach, that I must dash off to sell the remainder of your jewelry if we are to reach Pemberley in good time.”
“Oh.” They had only a few pieces left. Her mother’s pendent watch. A ring that had been her grandmother’s. Only her most cherished pieces remained, but George had told her from the start that they might need to sell everything. “I suppose, if you must, you must.”
“I will need the locket you wear.”
Her hand flew to the little heart hanging about her neck. “But you gave me this.”
“And I will give you another. One a hundred times better. Something worthy of you, my love.”
“But…” She squeezed the locket, a symbol of when she first began to love him.
Truly love him. She’d been alone in the music room, crying, with no idea where her brother was.
Nothing that Christmas had been right, without her father.
George had found her there, and given her the little gold heart she wore.
“I do not want anything nicer. I want this.”
His arm tightened, tugging her up against his side. He tilted his head, bringing his lips near her ear. “More than you want us to reach Pemberley and our first night as man and wife?”
A delicious shiver went through her. “No,” she breathed. “Not more than that.”
George gave her a quick smile. “I suspected not,” he said, and she could not even mind his smugness as they continued on their way to the coaching inn.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet, all of nineteen and full of the knowledge that she had mastered life, pecked away at the pianoforte, bored.
She used to enjoy playing, when she and her younger sister Mary began years ago.
Then, they had an instructor, a bubbly, eccentric woman who would swoop about the room, congratulating and reprimanding them in equal measure.
They also had the occasional new piece to play, not the same dozen pieces Elizabeth had now played over and over.