Chapter Twenty-Five
Marlow
“What is all the fuss about?” Maggie held my arm as we trailed our party down the wide dirt footpath of Hyde Park Corner toward Kensington Gardens.
Georgiana looked over her shoulder at us. “Quite the crowd ahead.” She was flanked by Reynolds and Gabriel.
“We should certainly be in the middle of it.” Reynolds smirked at her.
The man was an utter dolt. If Maggie wasn’t holding me back a step, I might have thrashed him for the way he grinned at Georgiana.
She’d said last night she wasn’t interested in his suit.
Trusting that was harder now than it had been a few hours ago.
I hadn’t thought of myself as a man who needed reassurance of his feelings, but devil take me, I wanted to have it out with her! I wanted to tell her exactly how I felt, and I wanted her to return those feelings. I wanted her to return Grandmother’s ring so that I could give the thing right back!
I was fairly confident she felt the same.
But dash it all, a man needed to hear the words!
If Georgiana agreed to a courtship, Society would be shocked. Perhaps even scandalized. Georgiana Wood, the woman I swore I had no intentions toward.
Just a friend.
Not after that kiss. Not since that night at the Waymonts’ party, if I was completely honest with myself.
Little did Society know, she’d outsmarted them all by bargaining with me. Then she’d faced them with grace. She was brave, empathetic, intelligent, and strong.
What more could I want from a partner? What more could I want from the future mother of my heir?
Could she maintain the dukedom in my place if something happened to me? I could say with certainty that she would try. And she’d have her brother, who, despite his feelings toward me, was respectable and honorable and quite successful on his own. He would guide her through it.
In truth, my feelings for Georgiana were still new, but they felt old. Like I’d loved her for a lifetime already.
For the first time in my life, I could imagine a future—more so than I had with anyone else—of late nights and early mornings, a courtship of gifts and flowers and stolen moments. All the way to picnics on the lawn, our children chasing the wind and whatever it carried.
It was mad, and yet, I was old enough to know that this sort of match only came once in a lifetime. It was far more valuable than any title, any wealth, any ring.
Georgiana looked back at me again and smiled. Surely, she felt it too.
Just ahead, a gathering crowd stood at the end of the pond in Kensington Gardens.
The water glistened in the sunlight, reflecting the palace just across the way.
The crowd made room for us, a horde of young ladies and gentlemen and their ever-watchful chaperones along the sidelines. Three young bucks with their coats tossed aside skipped rocks across the pond.
“Four!” one young lady cheered. “The winner is Mr. Warwick.”
A young man thrust his fist in the air. “Huzzah!” He strode to the young lady, who beamed and blushed, and with both hands, pulled her face to his.
A chaste kiss, but the crowd cheered all the same.
“It’s a game,” Reynolds told Georgiana. “They skip stones to earn a kiss from the most beautiful woman in the crowd.”
“Heavens, in public?” Maggie’s eyes widened.
“Let’s move on.” I nudged Gabriel, whose eyes were fixated on the young gentlemen.
“Anyone think they can beat four skims?” the most confident of the young men asked.
“I can!” Reynolds called out, hand raised.
I groaned. “Must we?”
“There! Come forward, sir!”
“That’s Lord Reynolds,” someone said. Watchful eyes studied our group.
“Don’t.” Georgiana winced, tugging his arm back.
“I am very, very accomplished in the art of skipping rocks, Miss Wood.” Reynolds winked at her, and every muscle in my back tensed.
“Pick your rock, Lord Reynolds,” the young man said, “and of the crowd, pick the most beautiful young lady among them.”
In the space of a beat, he said her name, “Miss Georgiana Wood.”
They knew her. All of them. They clapped and laughed, and two other men joined Reynolds to choose their stones for a chance to kiss Georgiana.
“No.” Georgiana shook her head, hands at her flushing cheeks. She waved off their attention. “Thank you, but no.”
“Come now, Miss Wood.” A young lady tugged her arm. Her friend took Georgiana’s other side. “Just a kiss. Just one!”
“We know you won’t mind,” someone older said from the crowd.
Georgiana looked back at me, panicked.
What could I do without making a scene? “She said no,” I told the girls. “Margaret?”
Maggie raised a brow like she thought it odd I’d want to intervene. “On the hand, then,” she directed them, and though the girls rolled their eyes, they led Georgiana to the front.
Reynolds had removed his coat, stone in hand. “Shall I try for five skims?”
“Six!” the crowd cried. The girls shrieked with delight, blushing for his attention. One threw her handkerchief out at him.
At once, the men lined up.
The first man’s stone went three skims.
The second’s, five.
Lord Reynolds turned and reared back his arm. With a smooth flick of his wrist, he released his stone, skipping, one, two, three—
All the way to seven.
The crowd cheered.
His eyes found Georgiana.
I knew that look.
“No,” she directed him. “On the hand.”
He bit his lip as he sauntered toward her, much to the glee of the crowd.
“Kiss her!” they called. “Here’s your chance! Kiss her soundly!”
The air shifted, cold. He wouldn’t . . . would he?
I started moving, pushing my way through the crowd.
Reynolds reached her first, and he swiftly snaked his arm around her back. His other hand cupped her neck, and his lips pressed against hers with fervor.
I froze, stunned into a stupor until Lord Reynolds pulled back, grinning at his cheering new friends as though he’d won some great prize.
Georgiana pulled herself free, her face apple red, eyes watery, and I felt her distress like a knife in my chest. She’d told him no.
She’d told him no.
My hands were fists. Feet frozen as I watched her rush away.
An older woman laughed. “What a pair, those two. They both love a public scene.”
Her friend replied, “Did you see how quickly she volunteered? I heard—”
Georgiana pushed past them all, and Lord Reynolds smirked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
“Blast. I’ve embarrassed her,” he told his admirers.
Something in me snapped, and the boiling rage burst free. “Reynolds,” I seethed, pushing through the last of the onlookers until we were toe to toe.
He looked up, giving me the perfect open target.
I thrust my fist directly into his jaw.
Gasps sounded all around. Reynolds fell back, cursing and holding his face. “Deuces, man! It was a game!”
“Touch her again,” I bellowed, “and I will end you in front of everyone you love.”
“Marlow.” Gabriel stood between us, palms up, his expression one of shock and fear. “All is well, Cousin.”
“Step aside, Gabriel.” My breaths were coming fast, shallow. “Stand up, Reynolds.”
“I think we ought to leave now,” Gabriel said tersely. “You are causing quite the scene.”
“I’m bleeding,” Reynolds muttered, surprised as he touched the corner of his mouth. “Who the devil do you think you are?”
I reared back my arm again.
Gabriel hung his weight on my side, unbalancing me, and turned me round. “Our apologies,” he called over his shoulder as he shoved me forward.
Then, with a rush of air, Gabriel fell back a step and groaned.
I turned round only to be knocked sideways by Reynolds in a whirl of frenzied hits.
I recovered and caught one in the eye, another in the gut, but I gave as much right back.
Gabriel pushed his way between us, hands up in surrender.
Reynolds landed a blow to the side of his head.
I didn’t think. I pushed my cousin out of the way and broke Reynolds’s nose with my fist.
His blood sprayed over the grass.
“Now, we are leaving.” Gabriel pushed me hard. “Idiots, the both of you, and—ahh—my eye.” He pressed his hand over his right eye.
I struggled against him half-heartedly—I might’ve broken my knuckles on Reynolds’s face—then seethed over my shoulder, “Come anywhere near her, and I’ll—”
“We’ll knock out what’s left of your teeth!” Gabriel finished.
The crowd had dispersed, teeming with wide stares and flurried whispers, save the half a dozen men aiding Reynolds. I spun round, searching the passersby for Georgiana. I tasted something metallic. Ah. My bottom lip. That buffoon split my lip?
“She’s gone. Maggie took her,” Gabriel said. His right eye was swelling. He led me to the far edge of the Park and lifted his hand to call a hackney. “That little scuffle will definitely make the papers tomorrow. Lud, Marlow.”
I couldn’t care less about the people, the papers. “Ashburn Abbey,” I directed the driver.
Gabriel tugged off his cravat and handed it to me. “Your eye.”
I pressed the cloth to my face, surprised at the wetness down my left side. “He will regret this day.”
“I am quite sure he already does. Over skipping stones, no less.”
“She told him no. You heard her.”
“I did.” Gabriel huffed. “He deserved the hit. But let us leave it at that, for Georgiana’s sake.”
I grunted my agreement. The only thing that mattered now was ensuring Georgiana was well. I’d seen her face as she pulled away. He’d hurt her in more ways than one.
He’d never come near her again.
Back home, Gabriel paid the driver with coins from his own pocket for once, and I rushed inside the house.
“Where is she?” I asked Toole.
“Upstairs, Your Grace. But you are bleeding—!”
I took the stairs two by two.