Chapter Eight #2
She gave a little rueful smile. “I am unfortunate enough not to be able to remember my own mother, who died before I was even a year old. My father loved her very much, so I am sure I would have done so as well, had I known her. He once told me that although his sister, my aunt Patience, encouraged him to remarry, he could not bring himself to do so. He valued my mother’s memory too highly. ”
Were those tears in her eyes? For a mother she’d never known? Or were they for her more recently departed father?
He looked away from her in case she was embarrassed.
“My mother loved my father but she didn’t love the life he led.
Having been born in a castle as the daughter of a duke, nine years was all she could stomach before her yearning for the luxuries of life brought her home to her father.
I, like you, was just a baby when contact with my own father was lost.”
And damn again. Why was he admitting all this to her? Things he’d never spoken of to anyone in his entire life. Not even his sister or mother. Well, never them. What was there about her that had loosened his tongue to excess?
Of course, she hadn’t missed his tone. A hand that was clearly meant to be comforting settled on his arm. “So we are a little alike, it seems, in that you grew up without a father and I without a mother.”
He met her gaze again for a moment, before giving a shake of his head to free himself from this sudden overwhelming melancholy.
If he wasn’t careful there’d be tears in his eyes too, for the fatherless boy he’d once been.
Better move on to safer things. “I met my father again when I was up at Eton, and it was he who encouraged me to take up a commission, just as he had done. He kindly pointed out that as the son of a daughter, I would come nowhere in the line of succession to my grandfather’s title.
I already knew this, of course, and had been wondering how I would make my living.
He made the life of a junior officer sound very romantic.
Something my mother must have fallen for. ”
“And was it?”
Another shrug. He needed to keep noncommittal if he could.
“At times, I suppose you could have described it thus. But most of the time it’s been a life of doing what others tell you to do, of living in makeshift, uncomfortable camps when on campaign and in barracks when not.
” Usually he told women he wanted to get into bed that it was a life of romance and adventure, but, quite unaccountably, he couldn’t bring himself to embroider his military life to her.
She studied him for a moment, her eyes boring into him as though she were reading his soul.
The urge to fidget under her gaze was strong.
However, after a long minute, she smiled as though she’d not been probing deeply into his psyche.
“I too was sent away to school. My papa wished me to learn to be a lady and to associate with other young ladies, so he deemed it most important for me. My mother, you see, was gently bred, and he wished me to enter into polite society when I was old enough, as she had.”
“But you didn’t.”
She shook her head in an almost matter-of-fact manner. “I did not. My dear papa died unexpectedly when I was just turned seventeen years old and I was sent to live with my Aunt Patience, who is a spinster and has very strong ideas as to how young ladies should be brought up.”
Was that a twinkle in her eyes? Dared he pose the question on the tip of his tongue?
“If she was so strict, and you were not presented, then how did you come to be in the, er, somewhat indelicate condition you find yourself in now? I am assuming that your aunt’s ‘strong’ ideas do not relate to young ladies and gentlemen’s union before marriage?
” It had been a struggle to put that politely and he wasn’t certain he’d succeeded.
However, she didn’t appear to be offended.
In fact, she laughed. “Of course they didn’t.
The very thought is quite amusing. No. She held but one party at her house that I was allowed to attend, and to which she invited select guests.
This was how I encountered the young man who was to be my nemesis as he was the grandson of her dear friend, home on leave from the navy.
Then my aunt, unaware of our mutual attraction, allowed me to attend another small dinner party.
” She paused. “And, er, that was where it happened.” She blushed hotly.
It must be hard for her to recount the tale of her own undoing.
He offered a raised eyebrow to ask her to continue.
“You wish for the whole sordid tale?”
“If you don’t object to sharing it with your… husband.”
“Touché. And no, I don’t object. How can I when you have been kind enough to offer me a way out of my predicament?” She indicated an arbor with a bench. “Shall we sit down and make ourselves comfortable? And I will tell you.”
Did he really want to know? The sensation arose that her being with child to another man now seemed to matter far more than it had done when he’d accepted Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s offer and she’d been an unknown quantity.
More so, also, than it had at the church this morning.
Might he be, even on such short acquaintance, a little bit jealous that someone had been before him?
That he could never be her first? Although he’d been the first for practically none of his previous conquests.
However, a man, he admitted to himself, in general likes to be the only man in his wife’s heart.
And this situation was different indeed to the one he’d toyed with before—that of finding himself a rich and merry widow to marry.
Why it was different he couldn’t be sure. Only that it was.
She sat down beside him and smoothed the skirts of her gown.
“I thought I fell in love with Alexander on our first meeting. How could I not have? He was so very handsome.” She frowned as though something about this statement bothered her.
“It was a small party, but there was dancing. I was only allowed one dance with him, of course, for propriety’s sake.
Aunt Patience kept me close by her and monitored my behavior like a hawk.
But I went into supper with him, and…he was most attentive to me.
He was very handsome in his naval uniform.
” Another little frown as she repeated this information.
“And he was charming, as well as being close to me in age, as none of the other guests were. He was the first man who’d ever been charming towards me.
” She met his eyes, her own candid. “I say again; how could I not have fallen in love with him when he so obviously was in love with me from the moment we met?”
Was she saying this in order to convince herself it had been true love when she now suspected it had been nothing of the sort?
Fitz, being both a man of the world and as cynical as it was possible to be, couldn’t help but think her young man had just been after her substantial inheritance.
For a moment he bristled at the thought before he remembered that he himself had married her for her money.
So he didn’t have a leg to stand on, if he was honest.
And yes. He was jealous. He acknowledged that in his position thinking things like that about another man was not quite the done thing.
But damn it, the bounder had left her with child.
He ignored the fact that the object of his anger was dead.
In his eyes, the fellow was a scoundrel for having forced himself on an innocent girl. The irony of this escaped him.
Seemingly oblivious to his emotions, Georgiana continued with her tale.
“He called on me the following day and asked me to marry him. Of course I said I would, but Aunt Patience was of a different opinion. She refused to give her consent. I’d thought because he was grandson to her especial friend she would be pleased, but she called him a fortune hunter and said I was too young to know my mind and definitely too young for marriage.
We had a terrible argument.” Her eyes clouded at the memory.
“So, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you manage to…?”
This question made her blush, but it also brought the ghost of a smile to her lips. Perhaps she longed to be able to tell someone her story.
“Aunt Patience most conveniently caught a cold which she insisted was the influenza and took to her bed. She was quite delirious, or so she said, so I took the opportunity and sent a message to Alexander. He came to the house and we…we walked together in the garden. I was a little afraid my aunt would drag herself to her window and spy us there, so I encouraged him to retreat into the summerhouse. Perhaps that was a mistake and what happened after that was all my fault. He said we should be married as soon as I turned twenty-one, which was a very short time, on his return from Ireland. He was a lieutenant in the navy, you see, and was on the troop carrier The Sea Horse which was to transport troops across to Cork.” She blushed hotly, but soldiered on.
“He…er…he became somewhat enflamed because we were hidden from view, and I’m ashamed to admit I was also persuaded by the privacy of our situation.
He-he said it wouldn’t matter as we were so soon to be married. So I let him.”
The cad. Not that he himself wouldn’t be averse to trying the same thing with a young lady. Had, on numerous occasions. “And he never came back?”
“The ship foundered in a storm and sank. His body has never been found.” She put a hand on her stomach. “It saddens me that he will never know he is a father.”
But was she truly sad for him or was it for herself?
Somewhat carried away by the melancholy in her voice, Fitz caught her hand.
“Georgiana. I would like to assure you that you will always be safe with me.” That sounded wrong.
“I mean, I shall afford you all honor and respect.” A little better.
“And I shall acknowledge your child as mine. He will have the benefit of the ancient name of Carlyon.”
Her melancholy flown, her pretty, and eminently kissable, mouth quirked in a smile. “He might well be a she, you know.”
The thought of a little girl who looked just like her mother was oddly pleasant. “Whether he’s a he or a she, I shall treat your child as my own. As ours.”
She squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Fitz. I am most reassured by your words.”