Chapter Ten #2
Her father would have dismissed the Blakeys without reference, and she was sure, would have tracked her down and marched her to the altar.
Of that, she had little doubt. She’d spent her life placating her father who spent every moment trying to hold on to a legacy that seemed to be unraveling around him.
He would never have abided her leaving, and there was nothing Tom could have done to stop him.
“Good evening,” she began, as gaps of silence hung where conversation should have been.
As per the rules of the game, the gentlemen were only to speak when bidden, and as little as possible.
The masked gentleman before shuffled his feet, waiting on Georgie’s question for his opportunity to gain the token that might push him on to the last round of the game.
Goodness, but this was awkward.
She and the other ladies had come up with a list of potential questions to ask the suitors, all of which seemed to have escaped her memory now that the moment had arrived.
“What is your favorite animal?” she asked at last. How one could possibly choose a potential partner from a few simple questions was quite impossible, but she started with a simple assumption that any person who didn’t like animals was of a questionable character.
“Dogs,” came the reply.
Not Mr. Osbourne then, who would have clearly chosen horses. And not Tom either. Not that Tom didn’t like dogs—he loved them in fact. But the voice wasn’t his. She plucked a token out of her silk bag and placed it into the gentleman’s hands. Within seconds he had disappeared.
Not long after, a second gentleman approached.
The pressure of not speaking must have gotten the better of him, for he not only introduced himself, but gave three reasons why he felt spaniels were superior to beagles.
Having not the heart to give him a black ribbon for breaking the rules of the game, she merely dismissed him without a token.
Mr. Osbourne, whom she recognized not only by instantly declaring horses as his favorite animal, readily added “most especially Turkmens,” which technically might have earned him a black ribbon as well, but she could not help but smile as she placed the token in his hand.
Could she enjoy a life with him? While she did not dislike horses, she could not imagine a future where she spent her days in the stables the way he did. But he wasn’t a cruel man, and she suspected he would not deny her own interests.
Perhaps she could grow to appreciate Mr. Osbourne in time. His looks were pleasing enough, and he did not appear to be a cruel or petty man. Mrs. Dove-Lyon seemed to be a woman who chose the men for these arrangements carefully. Kindness had been on the top of Georgie’s list.
She continued on through the maze, ducking around corners.
After coming across three gentlemen in quick succession, she wondered if the game might have come to an end.
After all, the gentlemen who collected the most tokens would proceed.
Each lady only had three, along with a number of black ribbons. She had one token left.
The sound of female voices caught her attention. They were low, punctuated by laughter. She paused to see the silhouette of two ladies, barely visible through a gap in the thick boxwood hedges, holding hands in what appeared to Georgie to be a loving, playful embrace.
She froze, not wanting to make her presence known. Not only because she didn’t want to intrude on the pair, but she knew that their discovery, even in a place as ridden in scandal as the Lyon’s Den, was a risk for them both.
Turning on her heel, she picked up her skirts and dashed off around another path, which snaked this way and that, hoping to avoid anyone else before the bell rang once more, marking the end of tonight’s game. She rounded a corner and nearly crashed into a rather solid masculine form.
“Excuse me,” she said, her hands reaching up to adjust her mask, which had gone slightly askew from the collision.
There was no reply from him, and the shadows made it nearly impossible to discern this gentleman’s identity.
He was masked like all the others, and yet a bolt of awareness flared, her body understanding who was before her.
That place against his chest where her head might rest was where it had always been, and under the expensive cologne he now wore, she breathed in the echo of Tom’s scent.
His body stiffened under her touch, and the idea that her presence would be such anathema to him sent a sliver of pain to her chest.
Georgie stepped back, trying to remind herself that this sting of rejection was merely the return of one she’d dealt him years before. But when they parted years ago, she’d been the only one still in love.
Maybe she still was.
“My apologies,” she said, hoping he would mistake her breathlessness for embarrassment.
Save for a quick nod, there was no reply. The air felt heavy and restless, as if the weight of a thousand thoughts and feelings had formed, whirling around them unsettled, like before a summer storm.
“I suppose you are waiting on a question,” she said, even as her mind went blank. “I’m just not certain what to ask.”
The seconds seemed to stretch as he waited, possibly against his will, for her question.
The game would end soon, and he needed her token to make it through to the next round.
There was no way she would deny him, but it occurred to her she had him captive.
And if she did not take this opportunity to speak with him, she might never have another chance.
“Before I do, I need to tell you something. You are not unworthy, Tom. Indeed, you are very much worthy of every happiness and good thing you deserve,” she began, using every ounce of her nerve to keep her voice steady.
She’d done it before, years ago, when her heart was breaking at letting him go.
Surely, she could do it again. “If I could take everything back I would, and not just because of my current circumstances.”
She felt the wobble in her voice, and stopped just a moment to take a breath, before continuing.
“But because I hope that perhaps one day you may despise me a little less,” she said, “and maybe one day you’ll understand why I had to say those horrible things. Because I didn’t mean them.”
He stepped forward, silent, and rested his hands on her shoulders, the gentle weight of his touch a sweet torture.
And a cruel reminder of the tenderness she’d lost…
lost because she’d been trying to keep her father happy.
Lost to keep an uneasy peace within a family and a legacy coming apart at the edges.
It was more unraveled now than it had ever been, and she’d sacrificed her happiness… for what?
In this moment where she felt on the precipice, about to fall into her future with a man she may grow to like but never love, she found the gentle yet possessive weight of Tom’s hands on her shoulders.
She wanted to melt into him, if only for a little while.
To take one moment for herself. Something she could hang onto for a lifetime.
Suddenly, the storm abated, and her question was right there, waiting to be asked. Blinking away the tears, she looked up through the mask.
“Would you kiss me?”