Chapter Eighteen
Georgie pulled on her gloves, then affixed one of her mother’s silver bracelets around her wrist. The ticking from the nearby clock, though steady, was no match for the thrumming of her heart. This was her last night in Ashcombe House. Perhaps the last time she would see her family.
Before the night was over, if her message to Mr. Osbourne had been received, she would be en route to Scotland.
She had little doubt that her father might try to intervene.
Certainly, he would do the utmost to block her from accessing her funds, though the baroness had promised her assistance on that score.
But she was also confident he would give chase.
After her discussion with Marcus, she realized just how far Papa’s grasp on rational thought had slipped.
If he’d been prepared to sacrifice her to Lord Sharpe out of some misplaced hope that their marriage would magically cure Whetherby of whatever imagined streak of bad luck had befallen it, he would have little compunction about sending someone after her.
The head start, however, should be enough, if Mr. Osbourne was willing.
But he must have a plan, surely. Or was it Tom?
It had been so cryptic, though of course it had to be.
Still, it had been difficult to imagine that Mr. John Osbourne was capable of such subterfuge.
She allowed herself a moment of vanity as she regarded her reflection in the mirror at her dressing table.
Georgie could not recall the last time she had chosen a gown with such care.
After all, she reasoned, it might very well end up being her wedding gown.
It was pink silk, delicately trimmed with glass beads along the neckline and the edge of the capped sleeves.
Despite being a season or two out of date with the latest fashion, it was one of her favorites.
That it happened to be Tom’s favorite color was quite beside the point.
While the day had been pleasant enough, the air had turned cooler by evening.
Georgie had wrapped herself in her favorite velvet cape, the weight of it comforting on her shoulders.
Since coming to London, she’d enjoyed not only Lily’s companionship, but Tom’s touch.
Even now, she could close her eyes and imagine the sensation of his hands on her shoulders, the possessiveness of it making her feel as if nothing or no one could touch her.
While the memory of his kisses created a traitorous ache between her legs, it was his absence, she was coming to realize, she could not abide.
After years of telling herself that she’d made the right decision to let him go, her heart was making a liar of her.
She gazed out the carriage window, her thoughts scattered in a hundred different directions as she grasped the reticule on her lap.
The pouch was stuffed with every brooch and necklace worth selling—insurance, just in case everything fell to pieces.
And, given the way this plan of hers was unraveling, it may well be required.
Maybe Marcus was partially right. Maybe a dark cloud of bad luck did swirl above them.
But given the events of the last two days, Georgie wasn’t so certain Whetherby was at the heart of it.
Maybe it was simply being a Hawthorne. How else was it possible that she could let Tom slip through her fingers not once, but twice?
“Well, I say,” Marcus drawled, peering out the carriage window, “young Blakey has done very well for himself.”
Georgie turned to the tall stately building that caught her brother’s attention.
The house, sitting in the middle of St. James’s Square, was constructed of a light-brown stone in the Georgian style, rising three stories above the street.
The large windows exuded a warm glow as the sky turned the dusky blue of twilight.
Small groups of elegantly dressed guests ascended the front steps, some pausing a moment to take in the spectacle.
“He definitely has,” Georgie said, swallowing back the melancholy. Somewhere inside, Tom was no doubt standing with Miss Morehouse at his side. Was he happy with this arrangement? “Pray, do not refer to him as ‘young Blakey.’ He is a Worthington now. And, if the stories are true, always was.”
“They gave their resignation you know,” Marcus said, leaning back in his seat, letting go a long, rather loud, sigh.
Georgie turned back to her brother, not bothering to hide her impatience at his melodrama.
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t, Georgie, you witless chit,” Marcus snapped, then slouched in his seat and put his fingers to his temple.
“Two days after you left, Robert Blakey informed Father he was resigning and moving to Gloucestershire of all places. That’s how we found out about Thomas and his miraculous ascendancy into society. ”
Georgie said nothing. Tom had mentioned he was offering them a house, a living, and a pension besides. She swallowed back a smile. Tom always managed to help the ones he loved.
Plan for an eventful evening.
“It’s just one more dammed thing,” Marcus continued, absorbed, as usual, in his own misery. “I have no idea where we’re going to find anyone half as capable.”
He continued droning on, Georgie barely able to pay attention to his never-ending list of complaints.
Normally she’d sit dutifully and smile at all the right pauses.
Instead, she found herself preoccupied. Once upon a time, the Blakeys’ livelihood at Whetherby had been threatened when Marcus had discovered Georgie’s intrigue with Tom.
She’d kept that threat from Tom, unwilling to allow him to have to make the choice between Georgie and his parents.
But that threat was gone now. And Tom had apparently concocted a plan to help her…
just the way he was now helping the Blakeys.
I’m not a boy anymore. She recalled that simple statement in the garden. And Tom was right, of course. But it was more than the set of his jaw, or the firm planes of his chest. It was not the practiced art of his kisses. He wasn’t running away from his problems.
Heat prickled at the back of her neck as an uneasy awareness stilled her. Tom had grown up.
Had she?
She loved Tom—she always had. That had never changed. When they’d parted, she’d led him to believe he was unworthy of her when, in fact, she felt very much unworthy of him. Unworthy of happiness.
Had she ever told him? Had she ever told him how much he meant to her? And why on earth was she allowing him to slip away? After all, she wasn’t a girl anymore.
At last, the carriage came to a stop in front of the house, and the door swung open.
It took all of Georgie’s self-possession not to want to jump from her seat, run up those stairs, and tell him.
Perhaps their fates were set, but she could not let him go another day without him knowing that he’d once meant everything to her.
That he still did.