Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
“ I sobel! Isobel, please! I need you!”
Georgiana’s eyes were wild as she caught Isobel’s arm and tugged her into the shelter of the topiary maze. It took a moment for Isobel to understand what was going on. She’d been so intent on making her way to the orangery – to Lucius – that she had not even seen Georgiana coming to intercept her.
Georgiana paced up and down, rubbing her hands over her arms as though the warm day had turned icy. Her eyes roved desperately from one end of the leafy corridor to the other, searching out for some secret beyond the maze’s usual mystery. She looked sick to death.
“It’s not here!” she moaned, covering her face with her hands. “Oh, Iso, what will I do now?”
“Sit down, for a start, and breathe steadily.” Isobel steered her to a little stone bench. “Come, now, what have you lost? I’m sure it can be replaced.”
Georgiana lowered her hands just enough to reveal her wide, frightened eyes, and gave her head a little shake, sending her curls bobbing. “Some things can’t be bought in a shop, Iso. Reputations, for example.”
Isobel’s head was still full of her own intrigues, and her thoughts turned immediately to Lucius.
Had she compromised her reputation with him? Already? When he’d kissed her hand – when his lips sent flickers of flame from her fingertips straight to her core, a different sort of fire entirely from the familiar burn for vengeance – had all she felt been written so plainly on her face?
“The puzzle purse ,” Georgiana wailed, and Isobel remembered that she herself was not the only impressionable young woman at Whitby Manor.
“That little plaything?” she asked. Georgiana had been showing off the fruits of her labours to Evie and Isobel just as Lucius came to interrupt them. A square of paper folded into an intricate design, each layer inscribed with a line of poetry and daubed with a delicate spray of flowers in Georgiana’s skilful hand – forget-me-nots for devotion, violets for fidelity, red carnations for an aching heart. “I’m sorry you’ve lost it. It was so lovely. But you can make another, can’t you?”
“I could,” said Georgiana, whispering through her fingers. “I could, certainly. But I’m not sure if I ought to, Iso. Because, you see, the problem is…”
Isobel groaned. “Georgiana. What did you write inside it?”
She’d seen the outer layers. Painted paper that folded outwards like the petals of a flower, lines of self-composed poetry inscribed in looping calligraphy. Heart rhyming with part , hand with wedding band . By Georgiana’s standards, it was surprisingly modest.
But Lucius had interrupted them before Georgiana had revealed the final layer of the puzzle.
Georgiana moved her hands upwards to cover her eyes, revealing a bitten lip beneath. “Poetry.”
“Saucy poetry?” Isobel raised an eyebrow and waited. Georgiana had never been able to withstand simple patience.
“The last time my brother Sebastian came home on leave, he left behind a book of verse. And… well, some parts of it were very enlightening.” Georgiana twisted her fingers together, writhing in the agony of Isobel’s patient attention. “Did you know, for example, that John Donne did not only write religious poetry?”
Isobel said nothing. Georgiana writhed, whimpered, grinned in spite of herself, covered her eyes again and began to recite. “ Licence my roving hands, and let them go
“ Before, behind, between, above, below –”
“My word! Enough!” Isobel caught Georgiana by the wrists and prised her hands away from her face, to reveal an unrepentant smile and a pair of eyes bright with terror. “What sort of poem was that?”
“It’s called To His Mistress Going to Bed .”
“Georgiana!”
“Well, it’s hardly my fault. Sebastian bought the book. I only happened to stumble across it.”
“And read it. And memorise it.”
“It was really very interesting, Iso.”
“I can imagine,” said Isobel, who really couldn’t. Certainly not. Though, if she could imagine the interesting parts of that sort of poetry, she would definitely not be imagining it read by a gentlemen with a wicked smile and storm-cloud eyes.
“You’d have read it too,” said Georgiana. “Don’t deny it. You’re blushing!”
Isobel clapped a hand to her hot cheek. “Yes, I might have read it – but I would stop short of copying saucy quotes down into a puzzle purse for my sweetheart. Georgiana! What were you thinking?”
Georgiana cast her eyes down. At times like this, it was clearer than ever why so many gentlemen were captivated by her. Even in the throes of despair, Georgiana was a work of art from every angle. Her eyes were brightened by tears, rather than red and streaming. Her cheeks pleasantly flushed, her lips bitten red, her hand pressed delicately to her bosom.
“I thought it might make him… notice me.”
Isobel was silent again. This time, because she was lost for words.
She recognised the expression on Georgiana’s face. The hopelessness, the confusion. She’d seen it in the mirror, three years ago in Brighton, and too many times to count since.
“Georgiana. Not –” Isobel sat beside her, putting an arm about Georgiana’s shoulders, though she felt she was in as much need of support as her friend. “Not Lord Randall?”
Georgiana let out a squeak of dismay. “Is it so obvious?”
“Only to me.” Isobel gave her a comforting squeeze. “My dear friend. Listen to me. If a gentleman is not clever enough to notice you of his own accord, he does not deserve a single piece of your heart. Do you understand?”
Georgiana shrugged and gave a little half smile. “I wouldn’t say it’s my heart, exactly. It’s just – oh, it’s so strange! I was sure that he liked me. And I like him a great deal more than those silly fellows, Bell and Chamberpot.”
“Sir Ivor,” Isobel corrected her. Georgiana twisted her fingers again.
“Yes, Sir Ivor. But you see how I am, Iso! I am too easily tempted into doing the wrong thing. Teasing poor Sir Ivor is only one of my sins. And when I noticed that Randall had started to take less notice of me, I admit I was piqued enough to forget my good judgement once again.”
Lord Randall had stopped taking notice of Georgiana. There was no reason for Isobel to doubt it – her friend was an expert in the art of flirtation, and she knew well enough how to see if a gentleman was taken by her.
Isobel searched her own heart for any trace of unjust triumph, or even the thrill of impending victory. If Randall’s attention had been withdrawn from Georgiana, despite all her efforts, it surely meant his thoughts had turned to someone else.
To her .
Isobel’s heart responded with nothing. No swell of strings, no accelerando of its steady beat.
What did she feel, on learning Randall had left off his thoughts of Georgiana?
Nothing.
How odd.
“I invited Lord Randall to take a turn about the gardens with me,” said Georgiana. “But rather than wait for him here, I meant to leave the puzzle purse on the bench so that he would find it. I thought it might… intrigue him.”
“Intrigue,” Isobel repeated. Licence my roving hands… “Intrigue is not quite the word, is it?”
Georgiana grinned. “Well, Randall did not come out to the gardens. I saw him just now walking towards the stables. So I ran back to collect my little puzzle purse, and when I got here… it was gone!”
Isobel looked at the tall square walls of box hedge, as though they could bear witness to the interloper who had discovered Georgiana’s ill-advised puzzle. “Did you see anybody on your way back? A gardener, perhaps?”
“Nobody. Nobody at all.”
So it could have been found by anyone in the house. A servant, a parent, a sister, a friend…
Or any of the gentlemen staying at Whitby Manor.
“Did you sign the puzzle?” Isobel asked. Georgiana shook her head.
“After what I wrote inside? No, I’d never dare!”
“And you wrote in calligraphy, not your usual hand.” Isobel thought it over a moment, testing all the ways the situation could go awry. “You’ve only shown it to me and Evie, haven’t you? So we are the only ones who would know for certain that it was yours.”
Georgiana’s eyes widened. “But who else in this house would ever make such a thing? Evie is so heartbroken, no one would ever believe it of her. And Cassie hates painting, and poetry, and all that sort of thing.”
Isobel laughed. “That leaves me… and Aunt Ursula! Don’t worry, Georgiana. If it does come back to haunt you – which is not at all likely, I think – my good aunt will no doubt be delighted to take the blame for you.”
Georgiana spluttered into laughter. “Oh, poor Lady Ursula! As if anybody would believe it.” She dabbed at her eyes, removing the last traces of her frantic tears. “Thank you, Iso. It was silly of me, I know, but I was really beside myself. Thank goodness for sensible friends like you! Now I am quite at ease. Will you come back inside with me?”
“Not yet.” Isobel could not help but feel that Georgiana had recovered a little too easily. She was prone to this sort of scrape – and so far, immune to its consequences. But that did not mean she would always be. A true friend would find the words to remind her of the seriousness of her mistake.
But Isobel could not seem to do it. Not with her own murky schemes unfolding and commingling with Georgiana’s own.
“Will you do me a favour?” she asked. “Check in on my aunt and see that she has everything she needs? I…” She found her eyes sliding away from Georgiana’s. “I would like to stay out a little longer. On my own.”
Another lie. A small one. Inconsequential, compared to others Isobel had told.
But each feather-light lie, no matter how small, only added to the weight of the pile on her shoulders.