Chapter Sixteen
Georgiana
My hands were fists at my sides.
What did she just say?
“We won’t tell a soul,” Miss Grandy whispered. Her friend, Miss Spellman, grinned like a cat. “Just tell us the truth.”
I glanced sideways, but Maggie had stepped out of earshot. I’d conversed with both of these women at the Waymonts’ party. They’d called upon me at Ashburn Abbey. I’d called back with Her Grace. I’d thought we were making progress. I’d thought we were . . . friends.
What did you have to do to earn the duke’s favor? was the first question they’d asked when they had me alone.
“Are you inferring that I have loose morals?”
The girls drew back, laughing as though we three were privy to some inside trickery.
Miss Spellman squeezed my arm. “Come, now, Miss Wood. You are so good at pretending. We know what you did to try to force Sir Ronald’s hand.
What did the duke require? Was it quite the chore?
We won’t judge you for it, will we, Rachel? ”
Miss Grandy pursed her lips. “But we would like to know how you’ve managed it.”
Emotion boiled in my veins. Anger for their horrible assumptions, fear that I’d act on that anger, and sorrow that what I’d hoped for seemed farther out of reach than ever.
These women hadn’t believed my friendship with the duke for a second.
They’d seen it for what it was—a means to an end.
They were wrong about the how, but they were not wrong about the pretending.
Foolish of me to hope that they would ever see me as anything more than the one grand mistake I’d made.
Might as well shock them. It was what they wanted, wasn’t it? I tilted my head at them and forced a smile. “Let me assure you, ladies, it wasn’t a chore at all. The man came to me.” Their jaws dropped as they gasped, and I turned on a heel. “Mrs. Drexel, I am overtired. A headache ails me.”
Maggie tsked and squeezed her friend’s arm. “Please excuse us, Mrs. Grandy. Farewell, girls.”
“Please take me home,” I whispered as Maggie laced her arm through mine.
“That bad, is it?”
I nodded, rubbing my temples. Maggie did not want to interrupt the duke and Lady Diana, so we tore Gabriel away and the three of us hired a hackney.
Ashburn Abbey felt like a refuge. But it wasn’t home.
The closest I’d felt to home was in the library with Marlow. And in the stables. He’d become a truer friend to me than anyone else in London, but he was the last person I could talk to. The last person who would want to hear my self-inflicted grief.
Gabriel had the hackney take him back into Town, though he didn’t say whereabouts.
Maggie sighed heavily and gave her hat to Toole with mine just as her husband, Thomas, came out from the drawing room. “Darling?”
She fell into his arms.
My heart ached for a similar reprieve. Someone, anyone, who cared for me as much. I could think of only one place to go. I backed up a few steps and slipped right out the front door.
The air was warmer in the stables. In daylight, though the sky grew more golden as the hour turned, the space seemed magnificent in size.
Details I hadn’t noticed before—ropes, harnesses, feed buckets, tools—drew my attention, distracting me every few steps.
Half the stalls were empty. But Flora was there.
I didn’t say a word. I sat on the floor just outside her stall, watching her through the slats.
She watched me, too, settling on the hay.
I lay my head against the wooden wall and squeezed my eyes shut. I would not cry. Not over this. I’d already spent enough tears.
I missed home. I missed Mercutio. I missed Peter, and heaven help me, but I even missed Amelia.
My gaze landed on a bucket of oats, and I scooped up a handful, offering it to Flora from under the high door. I moved closer, petting her nose as I fed her.
What do I do now?
Would Society ever forgive me for what I’d done? I doubted it. There would always be questions in their minds—What kind of person is Georgiana? What more has she done?
Time might prove my character, but the truth was, even with the duke by my side, their opinions were unchanged. They simply acted as he expected them to. That is, until he was out of sight.
“—take whoever is available.” Voices sounded just outside, and the door scraped open against the stone floor.
I jumped up, patting the dust off my skirts and straightening them.
Marlow.
He startled when he saw me. His eyes washed over me, brows knit together. He’d forsaken his top hat. “Geor—M-miss Wood.”
The young stablehand looked between us, then down to his feet.
“On second thought, later, perhaps,” Marlow said to him, and the boy quickly hurried out the door. The stable house quieted once more.
I faced him, unsure of what to do, and wrung my hands together. Again, I felt the instinct in his presence to follow the rules of propriety. To leave before we were seen alone. Before something happened I might regret.
I already had enough regrets.
Marlow’s chest rose, then he exhaled. Perhaps he mulled over the same thoughts.
I surely looked a fearsome sight. Dusty, unkempt, sitting with his horses. I should excuse myself, have Jane rush a cold bath for me, and ready myself for dinner.
But a stronger instinct trumped reason. A desire to stay. To have him pull me close, wrap his arms around me. To hear him say that everything would be well soon, if only I’d be brave and keep trying.
Folly, for if I acted on that instinct, he’d certainly freeze and push me back.
“You left early.” His deep voice rumbled through the space.
I shrugged a shoulder. “Headache.”
Hands behind his back, he took a few aimless steps, closer, as though inspecting the stables. “Better now?”
I nodded. “Just a little out of sorts.”
He stopped a pace away at Flora’s stall and rested a hand on her door, watching her. “I am glad you came here, then.”
I leaned my shoulder against the stall door, facing him. “You know how dearly I love hay barns.”
He squinted. “This is a stable house.”
Details! I waved a hand in the air. “It has the same effect.”
Marlow nodded. “Hay in your hair? Dust and dirt on your hands?” He fought a smile.
I took a deep breath of hay and dust and dirt and fought the urge to cough. “Calming to the soul.”
His gaze bored into mine. His smile faded. “Anything I can do to sort you out?”
Sort me out. My heartbeat flurried within my chest. I wished I could lay every worry, every sorrow at his feet and ask him to carry them all away. “Same old problems, I am afraid. Even a duke cannot fix them.”
He leaned back, still holding onto the stall door. He huffed at my disbelief in his abilities. “Despite two whole outings?”
I tilted my head at him. One. “Hyde Park does not count. Your mother planned that. And we were hardly seen together.” Not that being seen together would do any good. Today had proved that.
He smiled, nodding at my reasoning. Flora shifted in her stall, lifted her head, and then settled again. We watched her together.
“Did someone say something to you?” Marlow asked nonchalantly.
Had he heard something? Had the girls gone to him after I’d shocked them with falsehoods? My cheeks burned, remembering.
“Tell me.” His voice was gentle, but commanding. And this time, I did not chide him for it.
I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to care.
But unfortunately, his name was involved.
I worried he’d be angry with me. “I was asked earlier . . .” I swallowed a lump forming in my throat.
I’d been managing the opinions of others for months now.
I shouldn’t care, shouldn’t let their words affect me so.
Admitting them to Marlow was both humiliating and painful.
“I was asked if to earn your friendship, I’d done to you something like I’d done to—”
Marlow held up a hand to stop me. A muscle popped in his jaw. “Who? Who said this?”
I shook my head, looking down at my slippers. “Just some women from earlier.”
He shifted his feet, then reached out to lift up my chin. “Name them.” His eyes were fierce, his voice firm. “Please.”
As though he’d rush to defend my honor. My heart tugged toward him. “They are only repeating what they hear. I shouldn’t let them bother me.”
“Tell me their names, Georgiana, and I will ensure they never open their mouths with falsehoods ever again. I will spread the ugliest rumors, and they can see how it feels—”
I barreled into him so hard, he lost his breath, his very speech, as my arms flew around his neck. Face buried in his jacket, I choked, coughing out the rising emotion demanding an escape.
Slowly, his hesitant hands wrapped around my waist, and I let myself cry for a moment. Just a moment.
“What can I do?” he whispered into my hair. “Please, do not cry, Georgiana.”
I sniffed. “I’m not,” I lied, pulling back to wipe my eyes with my sleeves. “So sorry. I lost myself.”
“Don’t apologize. Let me help you.” He kept me in his hold, tightening his grasp. “Indeed, I refuse to release you until you’re smiling again.” He raised his brows, expectantly. “And let me be clear—there is absolutely no rush to smile.”
My lips quirked, and I tried desperately to bite down my humor. “No, I mean it. You have helped me so much already. Whilst I fear I have only made your life harder.”
He reared back, still holding me, shaking his head. “Not by half.”
“I have, Marlow. Indeed, just this afternoon I said something I shouldn’t have, and if word got around . . . these women, they irritate me to no end.” I sighed and grasped his arms, thinking I should pull them off, but he took one of my hands and lifted it to his chest.
The right side of his mouth lifted playfully. “What, pray tell, did you say?”
My gaze hung on his. It was warm and inviting, and I felt far too at home in his hold.