Chapter 7
TWO WEEKS LATER
“Georgia, you simply must use this ridiculous affair to your advantage,” Hermione Archer said insistently.
“How am I to do that?” Georgia threw up her hands in hopelessness.
They walked through the lavish gardens of Silverton Hall, awaiting the Vexleys. Soon, there would be a carriage ride to Westvale, where Georgia would be married to the Duke at his family chapel.
She wore a white dress, reluctantly commissioned at short notice from the same modiste who had made Amelia's ballgown. Reluctantly on the part of the Vexleys, because the short notice had increased the price significantly.
Now, for the first time since her debut, Georgia felt quite beautiful. She almost felt like a princess in a fairy tale. Almost.
“Why, your brother, of course!” Hermione, her bosom-friend of nine years, insisted.
She was tall and slender with dark hair and a swan-like neck. Her dark eyes could be fierce when she wanted. They were fixed on Georgia now, determined.
“My brother?” Georgia asked.
“Are your senses addled by the dress?” Hermione demanded bluntly, “You lack the resources to recruit sufficient men to find your brother for you. A Duke has no shortage of resources. He can help you!”
Georgia had considered it. Just because the Duke was handsome didn’t mean that the enforced marriage was something she could simply accept with equanimity.
She had been forced by circumstances to enter into a marriage with a man who was practically a complete stranger.
And she had to trust that he would not seek to take advantage of their legal status.
The idea was thrilling to part of her and horrifying to another.
“He has categorically stated that there will be no interaction between us. This is to be a marriage of convenience only,” she reminded.
“Interaction? Is that what he calls it?” her friend emphasized with a lascivious smile.
Georgia blushed. Her friend was married and the holder of some earthy views on the matter of the relations between man and wife.
“You know what I mean,” Georgia nudged her. “It is to say that I doubt he would be willing to help me.”
“Then make it worth his while!”
“Hermione!” Georgia gasped, “That is the one thing that is prohibited! Consummation will not take place.”
“I was not speaking of consummation you silly goose,” her friend replied with a knowing look.
Georgia's blush deepened. She had leaped to the most obvious conclusion in her mind. Which said much about what came into her head when she thought of the Duke.
I should be thinking of how aloof he is. How unemotional and unapproachable. How downright arrogant he is! Not the softness of his eyes or the symmetry of his features. Certainly not the breadth of his chest or his shoulders!
“He requires your equal co-operation in order to sell this illusion of romance to the ton,” Hermione began matter-of-factly. “You will have to go along, or no one will believe the marriage. Hold that over him, use it as leverage.”
They were perambulating around the broad, rectangular lawn beyond the south aspect of Silverton Hall.
Georgia looked upon the croquet hoops sadly.
She remembered visiting with Elias and teaching Amelia to play.
That had been a happy day. There had been others, in the company of mama and papa, visiting with mama's sister.
As a child, she had been oblivious to Aunt Clarissa's nature then.
She wondered if her older brother had been too.
Perhaps that is why he was so keen to travel... He could not bear to associate with people like that. Didn't even want to share a country with them. Oh, Elias! Where are you?
“Do you really think I could?” Georgia murmured aloud, finally.
“I do, and what is more, you must. There will never be another opportunity like this.”
Georgia glimpsed the crow-like figure of Mr. Sobel appear from the veranda, the Vexley's butler. He beckoned to Georgia.
“I think the Vexley's are ready,” Georgia sighed.
“Brave heart, Georgia. This will be the beginning of an adventure,” Hermione replied stoutly but with worry in her eyes.
Georgia took her friend’s arm and spun back to the manor.
Westvale Estate was a sprawling titan of orange and red brick with ancient castellations about its sharp rooftops.
It seemed to sprout asymmetrically, as though added by successive generations with little thought of what came before or would come after.
A dark line of hills rose behind it, topped with its own castellation of antique stone, thrusting up above the soil and giving a jagged aspect to the landscape.
Georgia rode in the carriage alone and was greeted at the door by Uncle Benjamin.
“Your aunt and cousin have gone to the chapel to take their places. I am to bring you,” he stated.
She narrowed her eyes. “I believe the expression is give me away.”
“Yes, well, that is quite accurate as it happens. I am giving you away for a song. Not exactly what I had planned, but...”
Abruptly, he harrumphed and tugged his whiskers.
“Really?” Georgia asked, raising a brow, “And what had you planned, pray tell?”
“Never you mind, young lady,” Uncle Benjamin said gruffly, “come along.”
He led her into the house. The hall beyond the oak front door was dark, panelled in shadowy wood and lined with frowning portraits of men who looked very like the Duke.
A servant met them midway, bowing before announcing, “His Grace regrets to inform you that he is running late and asks that Miss Roseton wait the auspicious moment in the library.”
Georgia could not help but smile. It was perfectly obvious that this was a snub to the Vexleys, reminding them of how powerless they were in this arrangement, how inconsequential.
“Pardon?” Uncle Benjamin blustered, “This is outrageous! How can the man be running late in his own house for his own wedding?”
“Lead the way, please. What is your name?” Georgia asked of the servant, a young man with neatly brushed, short brown hair and a round face.
“Harris, ma'am,” he answered politely.
“Lead the way then, Harris,” Georgia smiled.
She followed the servant, leaving her uncle behind. A moment later, he was hurrying to catch up.
“Your Aunt will not be happy at this,” her uncle groused when he puffed alongside.
Georgia said nothing. Her mind was full of her plan. When to best broach the subject? She could wait until after the ceremony, but would the Duke simply fob her off? Once they were married, some of her leverage would disappear.
It will have to be before, when I can still threaten not to go through with it. I must hope he is a man of his word.
The library she was led to was a cathedral of books. A high, vaulted ceiling bore skylights that cast broad shafts of sunlight across the stone floor. Bookcases lined the walls and stood about the room. Every shelf was full, and tables were scattered about, bearing more piles.
“Ostentatious to show off one's books,” Uncle Benjamin, whose library was a tenth as large, muttered.
“Simply magical,” Georgia breathed, taking in the surroundings, breathing in the air musty with the smell of paper, wood, and nostalgic leather.
What a wonderful place! So much knowledge! So many stories! I wonder if he has it arranged by subject. I should love to see what he holds on travel and far-off lands, as Elias would speak of…
The servant was closing the doors when Georgia turned.
“Before you go, Harris. I should very much like to speak to the Duke on a matter of great urgency.”
Uncle Benjamin had seated himself on the edge of an armchair, but now he came to his feet as though stung.
“What? Why? It is bad luck, you cannot see the groom before the ceremony,” he remarked.
“It is bad luck for him to see me. Which he will not,” Georgia assured, “but I wish to speak to him, and there is nothing in traditions that says I cannot.”
Harris nodded, unable to refute the logic, and ignoring Uncle Benjamin’s stammered protests, he departed, closing the doors behind him.
“I don't know what you're up to girl, but there is no getting out of this,” the owl-faced man hissed when they were alone.
Georgia simply wandered around the room, running her fingers along the bound spines of the books, examining the titles.
She smiled once or twice, but it was to hide the nerves that made her hands shake.
Touching the books, seeing familiar titles that she had also seen in her brother's collection, reassured her somewhat.
She heard her Uncle striking a match and then smelled the sour stench of tobacco.
She lost herself among the shelves, among the forest of books and memories of her brother.
The library at Marsham had a collection of maps, marked with places he had traveled to and annotated. What I would give to see those notes again. Perhaps there is a clue among them.
Presently, she heard a door open, and her heart quickened.
But then came Aunt Clarissa's shrill voice, demanding to know where Georgia was.
Georgia walked further into the narrow aisles made by some of the freestanding shelves, not wanting to be found for the moment.
Time enough for that when the Duke arrived.
At the end of the aisle, she came to a door and half turned to go back when Aunt Clarissa's sharp summons echoed to her from the other side of the library.
Dash it all! I am not going to come like an obedient hound. If this place is going to be home for the next month, then I had better start exploring.
She turned back and tried the door handle.
At first, it seemed that it must be locked.
Then it shifted. It was stiff, she realized, and put both hands to it.
It eventually cranked down, and she opened the door.
Beyond was a dusty, stone staircase, narrow and twisting, leading up.
Georgia smiled to herself at the consternation her Aunt and Uncle would feel at her disappearance.
The Duke too. It would do them all good to realize that she was not a meek lamb.