Chapter 4
After spending the day tiptoeing around the rectory so as not to awaken Lord Peter and tending to the otters, Georgie knew she could not put off her next decision.
She forced herself to get up before breakfast the next morning and write the letter to Caroline asking if she had heard of anyone in need of a companion.
She must at least try to find employment so as not to compromise Lord Peter any more than necessary.
She would walk to the village and send the letter from the local shop that very day so she would not come to dread it so much that she never sent it.
Even if Caroline did not know of any positions, that would be useful information for Georgie to know before she made other plans.
With a sigh, she folded the letter and sealed it. She should have enough money left to post it pre-paid to Bath.
She nearly bumped into Lord Peter on her way into the breakfast room as he came around the corner unexpectedly.
He was slightly rumpled, and a faint eau d’otter led Georgie to believe he had been out to visit them already.
She tried not to frown, feeling a pang at knowing someone else had taken on the care of her pets.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, interpreting her glance correctly. “I had already gotten into the habit of feeding them in the morning. I didn’t realize you might want to do it yourself.”
“It’s all right,” she said, a little uncomfortable he was able to read her so well. If worse came to worst and she did need to abandon her otters, at least Lord Peter seemed willing to care for them.
For a moment, they both hesitated in front of the closed breakfast room door, and Georgie realized she was waiting for him to open it, out of long habit. She reached out and turned the knob to let both of them into the room.
There was another fresh newspaper this morning. Georgie wondered how to discreetly steal it away later to look at the advertisements, but even as she had the thought, Lord Peter frowned at her over the opened paper.
“Have you thought about your plan going forward, Mr. Morley?”
“I’d like to borrow the newspaper after breakfast to look for any posted positions,” she said, with a rush of gladness she would not need to add to her deceptions of changing her name and gender.
“And I shall be posting a letter to an old friend today to ask if… they know of any positions that would suit.”
He did not seem to notice her hasty pronoun substitution and only nodded. It would not do for Lord Peter to become curious why a young man had an “old friend” who was a woman.
“We can set out for the village as soon as we finish breakfast. I have some business at the church today, so I can walk with you and show you the way.”
“Thank you,” Georgie said. “It’s very kind of you.” It would be a relief to her if she could feel she had made at least a small step towards helping herself.
After breakfast, Georgie donned her brother’s greatcoat and they set off at a brisk pace that made her realize how often gentlemen had adjusted their stride to her own…
or had failed to. Lord Peter seemed to expect her to be able to keep up with him, though he paused when he realized she was struggling.
“Bit out of condition, are we?” he said, a touch of humor in his voice, and Georgie glared at him as she fought for breath.
She had not realized until now how restricted her life had become since her cousin had moved in, and that included the small area of the house and grounds she was allowed to walk through.
She had taken to staying in her room as much as possible, only leaving when she had to teach lessons to the children or feed the otters.
“I am a scholar, my lord, not an athlete.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lord Peter said, with what Georgie felt was considerable heartlessness. “The best way to get around this part of the country is on foot. You’ll be in prime shape in no time at all.”
He did, however, slow his pace to hers, and they strolled in companionable silence until Georgie was able to get her breath back.
She looked around the surrounding countryside with interest. The village was placed south of the famous moors, but the purple-grey edge of them could be seen off in the distance on this clear summer day.
In the other direction, the faint outline of a grand manor house graced a small rise, surrounded by rolling green fields.
“Whose estate is that?” Georgie asked.
He paused for a moment, and said with some reluctance, “It belongs to the Duke of Livesey.”
Georgie succeeded in not allowing her jaw to drop at the scandalous name. “However did you get the living here?”
Even as the words emerged from her mouth, she realized what his answer would be. He hesitated for another long moment, glancing sideways at her, and sighed as he saw her expression.
“The duke is my older brother.”
Georgie stopped in her tracks. “Your brother is the Duke of Livesey?”
Lord Peter seemed to brace himself as he turned to face her. “Yes.”
“That Duke of Livesey?”
“Yes. Well, no. It was our elder brother Percy who was killed in the duel. He was the heir, not the duke. But then the duke our father died as well, and …”
“And your next eldest brother became the duke.”
“Yes.”
Even while in deep mourning in rural Sussex for their own losses, Georgie and her father had heard of the terrible scandal of the Double Demise, two noblemen killing each other in a Hyde Park duel over a whore.
It had been far too public to be hushed up entirely, especially after the old Duke of Livesey succumbed to a heart seizure the night before his eldest son’s funeral and the burial arrangements had to be postponed to make room in the family vault.
The funeral itself had been a near-riot, with unruly spectators crowding the streets to get a glimpse of the mourners as the coffins were transported to be interred.
“That must have been dreadful for all of you,” Georgie said. “To be at the center of a public scandal while you were trying to mourn your father and brother.”
“It was,” Lord Peter said. “We discovered after it happened that we did not have nearly as many friends as we had thought.”
“I am so sorry.”
After another moment of gaping at him, Georgie remembered herself and began walking again. Lord Peter resumed walking as well, his first few steps slow before he seemed to shake off the memories and return to his brisk pace.
“Is that why you ended up in Yorkshire?” she asked. “To escape the scandal?”
“Not really.” He cast a sideways glance at her, looking a little ashamed of himself.
“In truth, I was able to, er, use the situation to convince my brother Paul—the current duke—to allow me to serve in the London parish I preferred over a more lucrative position, but my actions there unfortunately put my twin in danger and I had to accept this living to avoid even more scandal.”
“The current duke is your twin?”
“No, my twin is Philip. He was on the continent fighting Bonaparte when all this was happening. Lucky devil.”
Georgie shook her head. Clearly Lord Peter’s mother had been far too fond of names that started with the same letter and had not cared how confusing it might be for everyone outside the family. The humorous thought died as she contemplated the rest of his story.
“I think… I think I might understand a little of that,” she said slowly. “What it’s like to be a scandal through no fault of one’s own.”
She glanced over at Peter as they continued to walk, fearful of his reaction, but his expression was placid. Open. She took a deep breath.
“My mother… we were known in our village of course, but we would sometimes travel to another village where the people might never have seen someone with skin darker than theirs. Mama would tell me to hold my head up high and be proud of myself and my ancestry, but… it is not easy to feel as though one is on public exhibition whenever one walks down the street.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That must have been difficult.”
Georgie shrugged a shoulder. “It was, sometimes. But we had each other—Mama and Papa and Freddy and I.”
She had been relieved when her parents chose a finishing school in Cheltenham for her, with its population that included both English gentlemen returned from India as successful nabobs and emigres from India itself, but of course she could not share that with Lord Peter without raising more questions than she could answer.
A young gentleman would have gone to a school like Harrow. Like Freddy had been supposed to.
Before she could be lost in gloom again, the road widened and the village came into view around the bend, first with a few isolated cottages, then with more low buildings as they approached the church near the center of the village.
They paused at the gate, and Lord Peter gazed at the building with understandable pride.
St. Alcuin’s was an ancient church that had survived the Normans and the Tudors alike, carefully maintained by generations of villagers to its present mellow golden-brown state.
Headstones surrounded the building, looking almost as though they had grown out of the soil along with the building itself.
“Mr. Banner’s shop is another few dozen yards that way,” Lord Peter said, pointing towards a fork in the lane that cradled the church. “He keeps the mail for when the supplementary rider comes through. Will you be able to find your way back to the cottage from here?”
“I believe so.” Georgie turned to look back the way they had come, and then towards the split in the road. “I generally have a good sense of direction.”
“If you have any trouble, you can always ask one of the villagers. Good day.”
Lord Peter bowed, and Georgie returned the gesture before turning to make her way towards the village shops, her mind still spinning at their conversation.