Читать книгу Historical Romance June 2017 Books 1 - 4 - Энни Берроуз, Annie Burrows - Страница 20

Chapter Ten

Of all the high-handed, arrogant, supercilious...men! Georgiana glared at Edmund’s back as he sauntered out of the ballroom, his mind already clearly elsewhere. She spent the rest of the evening fuming. By the time she reached their rented house, all she could remember of the ball were the moments she’d spent with him. Being lectured and dragged round and forced to drink lemonade, and lectured again, and then tossed aside as if he’d grown bored with her antics. And all whilst trailing two feet of spangled floss trimming.

Georgiana tore off her ball gown, wincing as one of the pins she’d used to repair the damage scored her ankle, kicked off her slippers and brushed her hair so vigorously that sparks crackled. When Sukey dreamily bade her a goodnight and wafted to her room on a cloud of happy reminiscences, she grunted a brief response, shut her bedroom door with exaggerated patience and then flung herself on to her bed, thumping the pillow for good measure.

He was a beast to speak to her that way!

The worst of it was more than half of what he’d said made perfect sense. Drat him. She had been foolish, thinking she might as well accept Major Gowan’s proposal—if he ever made one—simply to get the business settled.

But Edmund had no idea what it felt like to have a sword hanging over his head, or the terrible strain of being braced for the moment it finally fell.

Oh, she should have said that to him! Why hadn’t she come up with that clever analogy when it might have impressed him?

She buried her face in the pillow and screamed her frustration into it. And then, since she was never going to be able to sleep, the way she felt, she rolled off the bed and went to her window, and sat on the sill with her knees drawn up, looking out at the night sky.

As she watched the last few stars still valiantly twinkling in the face of approaching dawn, it occurred to her that at least he hadn’t had things all his own way. Once or twice she’d had the satisfaction of shaking him out of his cool, superior attitude. He’d blustered instead of making his point in a clear, concise fashion.

Her lips curled up, just a touch, as she recalled the moment when he’d halted mid-sentence and then gone off on a completely different tack. It was a small victory, but a victory none the less. And all the more valuable since not many people ever managed to shake his utter certainty in himself, these days.

But then Edmund was so very often right. Even she could concede that it was a good idea to think seriously about what would make a husband tolerable and discovering if any man in London possessed those qualities, before settling for the likes of Major Gowan.

If only he wasn’t expecting her to apply reasoning to a problem that stemmed from her emotions. Whenever she bent her mind to the act of getting married, it was her body and her heart that shied away from it. The prospect of letting any man do what she’d seen Wilkins doing to Liza made her feel physically ill.

She hugged her knees, trying to imagine Major Gowan...

Ugh! No. She couldn’t bear that.

Edmund was right. She couldn’t marry a man who would expect that of her. Who would be disappointed, and probably hurt, too, when she responded to his embraces by... She pressed her hand to her stomach.

So what was she to do?

Think—that was what. About what sort of man she might be able to stomach.

Funny, before coming to London, she’d thought only some sort of savage would deign to consider her, but in fact, several perfectly respectable and well-mannered men appeared to find her attractive. Not Edmund, though. She knew, thanks to Bartlesham’s gossip mill, that every time he’d taken a mistress, they had been blonde, dainty little creatures.

Not that she cared. She sniffed and lifted her chin. She’d always known she couldn’t compete with all those fairy-like beauties he so admired. She had never intended to try. She had just hoped he might have taken pity on her, for the sake of their shared past, and given her a home.

But she hadn’t taken into account his need for heirs. His need for legitimate children to carry on his line. And more than that, his need to see them flourish.

Edmund would be a good father. She could see him with two or three sons, and a couple of daughters as well. She could see him taking the whole tribe down to the trout stream, where the boys would sit with their sketch pads, drawing the insects they’d watch running up and down the rushes. While his little girls would wade into the shallow with jars to collect tadpoles.

She’d never felt even the slightest yearning to become a mother, no matter what Stepmama said about it being a natural urge. She still couldn’t imagine herself holding a baby. But those children of Edmund’s—she sighed. She could all too easily grow fond of them. Partly Edmund and partly... She sucked in a juddering breath and dashed the back of her hand across her somewhat watery nose. They would be like their mother. A woman who was willing and able to give him children. A woman who would be as nobly born and arrogant as his own mother, like as not.

Whereas she...all she wanted...was...

She raised her head and looked blankly round the room. All she’d asked of Edmund was that he give her a roof over her head. That was all she wanted of any man, really. She didn’t even care how small that roof might be, as long as she could feel secure in it. But then her eyes came to rest on her narrow single bed and she amended that proviso. She wanted to have a room of her own. Even if it was as small and cramped as this one. Even though there was only room for a bed, with a nightstand on one side and a chair on the other, and a washstand next to the window which had a sill just wide enough for her to sit on, it was her own space. And having her own space into which she could retreat had been the only thing making this visit to London bearable. It would probably be the same in her marriage. Particularly if she ended up with a man whose opinions she couldn’t respect.

Or who was too stupid to hold up his end of a conversation.

She didn’t want to marry a man with whom she couldn’t converse, she promptly decided. She would end up very lonely.

On the other hand, if she liked and respected her husband too much, it would be harder to bear his disappointment in her when she proved far from enthusiastic in his arms.

Oh, this was impossible! She couldn’t face marrying a man she didn’t like. She couldn’t face marrying a man she liked too well either. There was no way through the dilemma that she could see.

So what was the point of even trying to write a stupid list?

There was only one man she’d ever seriously wanted to marry. And marriage to him was out of the question.

* * *

‘Have you completely lost your mind?’

Edmund looked up from the pile of correspondence on his desk, currently awaiting his attention, and regarded his mother with resignation.

‘Good morning, Mother,’ he said with heavy irony. ‘I take it your question is rhetorical, since it must be obvious that I am in complete control of all my faculties?’

‘Not to me it isn’t,’ she said, surging forward in a cloud of Brussels lace and indignation.

Beyond her, he could see his secretary wringing his hands as he hopped from one foot to the other. Poppleton had standing instructions not to admit anyone, especially not his mother, to his study while he was working. But nobody could stand in his mother’s way when she really got the bit between her teeth.

‘Actually, I do have some business I wish to discuss with Lady Ashenden,’ he said to Poppleton. ‘You may leave us.’ Ever since his last visit to Fontenay Court he had known some sort of confrontation was inevitable. It was unlikely she’d come to discuss the issues uppermost in his mind. Nevertheless, now that she was here and clearly spoiling for a fight, he might as well get it all out in the open.

She turned and shut the door in Poppleton’s face with a triumphant flourish, then whirled on him.

‘Is it true? That you attended Miss Twining’s debut and set tongues wagging by showing marked attention to one female only?’

‘Ah.’ That aspect of it had never occurred to him.

‘So it is true! You...you...imbecile! You cannot dance only once, drag your partner into the supper room without consulting her chaperon, engage her in intense conversation in a secluded corner and then leave without so much as paying your respects to the girl in whose honour the ball was being held, without it giving rise to the kind of speculation that simply will not do. Not in relation to that...’ She pulled herself up with visible effort. ‘With Miss Wickford.’ She ejected the name from between her teeth as though spitting out a lump of gristle.

‘You could easily nip any gossip in the bud,’ he pointed out, ‘by reminding people how eccentric I am. You are always complaining of it. Of my lack of...how have you termed it? Social address. Why not put it about that last night was simply another example of it?’

‘I have already done so,’ she said, sweeping her demi-train impatiently aside as she took the chair facing his desk. ‘But while I have always deplored your lack of social address, it has never given me such cause for alarm. Don’t you realise that singling out a scheming trollop like that Wickford girl is just asking for trouble?’

‘Trollop?’ He sat back, eyeing his mother coldly. ‘Take care, my lady, what you say.’

Her eyes met his. They were equally as cold. And just as determined. ‘Or what?’

So, it was going to be like that, was it? This was where he was going to have to draw the battle lines?

So be it.

‘Or you are going to find,’ he said firmly, ‘that I am nowhere near as complaisant as my father. So far I have placed no curb upon your behaviour, irksome though it has often been.’

Her hand curled into her skirts, claw-like. ‘How dare you?’

‘But I warn you,’ he continued as though she had not interrupted, ‘that there are lines I shall not permit you to cross.’

She sat up straight, her lips compressing into a bloodless line.

‘Permit me! Permit me?’ She tossed her head and laughed. ‘There is nothing you can do to stop me behaving exactly as I please.’

‘You seem to forget who picks up your bills, madam. Who allows you the run of all the properties you currently enjoy—even though, technically, you ought to be living in a far more economical style in the dower house.’

‘All I have ever done is take care of your interests,’ she gasped, as though he’d struck her. To make sure he got the message that he was an ungrateful brute, she pressed one hand to her bosom, whilst widening her eyes until they watered. ‘Somebody has to think of what you owe to your tenants, while you are wasting your time on those stupid books and experiments of yours. And as for last night...’ She shook her head, eyeing him up and down as though he was a servant caught with a pocket full of silver teaspoons. ‘Do you care nothing for your reputation? What you owe to your family name?’

‘I hardly think my reputation is going to be damaged by dancing with a former neighbour of mine. A girl I have known since the cradle.’

‘Well, that just goes to show what a fool you are when it comes to women! If only you moved about in society a bit more, you would have so much more experience. And I don’t mean the kind you get with your bits of muslin,’ she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘They are different. But when it comes to a girl like that...’ She shook her head. ‘For God’s sake, Edmund, I didn’t go to all that effort to see you fall prey to her wiles in the end.’

All that effort? What could she mean? Though the remark had roused his curiosity, he did his best not to reveal it. In fact, he lowered his eyelids and regarded her steadily, though his mind was racing. He’d already detected an anomaly of some sort regarding his past dealings with Georgie. Was he now about to discover that his mother had played some part in it? She was so angry that she was already being highly indiscreet. Hopefully he could goad her into losing her temper altogether. It wouldn’t take much, by the look of her. She always ended up like this if she didn’t get her own way. If tears and pleading failed, she worked herself up into a fury. It was one of the reasons his subordinates found it so hard to defy her, even when they knew it would mean disobeying his orders.

But he was made of sterner stuff. And hadn’t been scared by one of her tantrums since he’d been a very small boy.

Which made it almost a pleasure to say the very thing most likely to infuriate her.

‘Georgiana does not need to employ any wiles,’ he said, with what he hoped was a smile she’d take for that of a besotted suitor. ‘She is far too beautiful to need to bother. Besides being by far the most interesting conversationalist...’

‘Interesting? Interesting! That girl knows nothing about anything except hounds and horses! How can you...lower yourself to that level? But it is all the same with you...men,’ she said scornfully. ‘You may claim to be intelligent and care for intellectual pursuits, but deep down all any of you can think of is the bedroom.’

He gave her a mockingly innocent smile. ‘Is that so? The bedroom? Why, madam, whatever can you mean?’

‘Don’t give me that innocent act,’ she screeched. ‘I know all about your proclivities. And hers. Why do you think I let Dr Scholes remove you from Bartlesham in the first place? You were just at the age to start noticing the difference between male and female, and there she was, climbing into your bedroom at all hours of the day and night. Romping in your bed, in her undergarments...’

He frowned. ‘Romping?’ They had never romped. He’d barely started noticing that she was becoming a young lady. And wondering whether she really was as pretty as he thought, or if he liked her looks so much because he liked her so much. Every single one of her features had appeared perfect to his inexperienced eyes. Especially her lips. He’d become fascinated by the way they moved when she talked. The way she pressed them together when she was thinking hard. And, yes, he might have wondered, once or twice, what it would be like to kiss her, when they grew up, but that was as far as it had gone.

‘Yes, romping! I knew all about it, from the very first. Because Mrs Bulstrode came straight to me and told me the whole, the very day she caught that bold little piece in your bed.’ Lady Ashenden clasped her hands so tightly the knuckles went white. ‘I knew the only way to save you from getting embroiled in a sordid scandal was to send you away. Somewhere she couldn’t reach you. Though, what it cost me—’ Her voice hitched. ‘You were my boy. My only boy. I knew I’d never have another, not with your father—’ She pulled herself up. Gulped. ‘And you never came back. Not to me...’ Her voice faded away. The sheen of moisture in her eyes welled completely naturally this time. And then to his surprise, her whole posture changed. She looked as though she was actually shrinking.

Until that moment, he’d never thought of her as old. Because her personality was so forceful. Her mannerisms so vibrant.

But beneath all the bravado, and the fashionable clothes, and the jewellery, and the gossip and the brittle laughter, he could now see there lurked a sad and lonely woman who was well past her prime.

He cleared his throat. ‘You are telling me that was the reason you sent me away? Because Mrs Bulstrode came to you with some tale about Georgie and I getting up to no good?’

‘It was for the best,’ she said in a hollow voice. ‘By the time you came back, you’d...grown out of the infatuation.’

‘Firstly,’ he said, ‘Georgie and I were never more than friends, in those days.’

His mother snorted. ‘She was in your bed, with her dress hitched up to her waist.’

‘Because she had just climbed up to my room with a dozen jam jars full of specimens she’d collected for me. Good God, woman, she was only twelve. And completely innocent, most particularly because she’d been brought up more like a boy than a girl. She had no notion that showing her legs was indecent. Her skirts hampered her ability to climb, so she simply hitched them out of the way.’

‘Trust you to try to defend her. But don’t forget, Mrs Bulstrode heard the pair of you giggling. Behind closed bed curtains. And when she twitched them away, the pair of you were the picture of guilt.’

‘Of course we were the picture of guilt. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be there. You had forbidden all visitors lest they bring some infection to my room, hadn’t you? It was no more than that. Nothing—’ he slammed his open palm on the desktop so hard the inkwells rattled ‘—absolutely nothing improper ever crossed either of our minds.’

‘Well, it does not matter now.’

‘Doesn’t matter? Doesn’t matter? Have you no idea how unhappy I was when you sent me into exile?’

For the first six months, he’d been in daily torment, waiting for letters that never came. And when Dr Scholes had given him the explanation about women being fickle creatures, he’d absorbed that lie to the extent that he’d based every interaction, with every person he’d ever met since then, male or female, on the premise that if he was fool enough to believe a word they said, if he trusted them, then they’d let him down.

‘Well, I’m sure you were. As was I, to have to do it. But it was worth it, in the end, wasn’t it? You came home strong, and well, and free from...’ She trailed away at the look of fury he was sure must be blazing from his eyes.

‘Sending me away was not all that you did though, was it? It wasn’t enough to physically part us, you did your utmost to kill our friendship, by preventing us communicating at all. Somehow you prevented my letters from reaching her, didn’t you? You made sure she thought I’d forgotten all about her the minute I left Bartlesham.’ He got to his feet. ‘And I thought she’d forgotten all about me, too, but now I wonder. Did she write to me? And did you prevent her letters from reaching me?’

She lifted her chin. ‘It was for the best.’

He could scarcely believe it. He didn’t think he’d ever had a hypothesis proved correct in such short order.

‘How did you do it? No, wait...’ He stalked to the window, then turned back. ‘It would have been remarkably simple.’ The man who came up to the house with the letters always handed them to Dr Scholes. ‘You ordered Dr Scholes not to permit me any communication from her. What did you tell him, that she was an undesirable connection? A corrupting influence?’

She sat as though turned to stone. But he did not need her to say a word. Dr Scholes had done his work well. He’d known the truth, yet had no scruples about tarnishing Georgiana’s image by spouting all that nonsense about women being fickle and forgetting what they’d promised, or changing their minds at the drop of a hat.

‘But why, that is what I cannot understand.’

And why had he trusted Dr Scholes, a man he barely knew, a man employed by his mother, rather than in Georgie? When she’d been the only person to have cared about him without having some ulterior motive? Why hadn’t he searched for another reason to explain why he hadn’t heard from her?

And why, when he’d finally returned to Bartlesham, hadn’t he simply gone to see her and demanded an explanation? He steadied himself by resting the tips of his fingers on the desk before speaking again.

‘How could you have...destroyed the one friendship I had? What, pray, do you have against her? Why did you feel it was necessary to take such...steps?’

‘Mrs Bulstrode found the pair of you in bed together. Isn’t that enough?’

‘No. I have already explained it was perfectly innocent. So, apart from a mistaken belief she was some kind of...sexual adventuress as a child—’ his voice dripped with disdain ‘—what other reason do you have for finding her so unpalatable as a daughter-in-law?’

Her eyes widened in horror. ‘You cannot mean you actually do propose to marry that...that...’

He couldn’t help himself. She’d put him through so much misery. Set events in motion that had warped his view of all females. Made him believe that Georgie had betrayed him. And probably made her hate him in return. Though he’d had no thoughts of marrying at all, he couldn’t help taunting his mother with the prospect that the only daughter-in-law she was likely to get was the very one she’d worked so hard to exclude.

‘Miss Georgiana Wickford,’ he therefore said, ‘is from a perfectly respectable family. She is a sensible woman with whom I can converse, without feeling one moment’s tedium. And, moreover, she is as healthy as a horse. Since you profess to be so anxious for me to ensure the succession, I should have thought you would be glad I am looking at a woman who is bound to produce healthy offspring.’

‘You cannot mean that,’ she said faintly, reaching into her reticule for her vinaigrette. ‘Not...after all I have done...the sacrifices I have made...I won’t have it,’ she whimpered. ‘I won’t be supplanted by that...great...ungainly...’

‘Be careful what you say about Georgiana, madam,’ he said coldly. ‘To anyone. Because if I discover,’ he said, leaning towards her across the desk, ‘that you have done anything, or said anything, to tarnish her reputation, I will make you regret it.’

‘Oh, but you are just like your father,’ she said, as though it was the deepest insult she could fling at him.

‘No, madam, you will find that I am not,’ he said coldly. Not in any respect. ‘I take duty to my tenants very seriously, for one thing. And as for marriage,’ he continued, warming to the subject, ‘when I do decide to tie the knot, I will not settle for a dynastic union which has been arranged for me, which I subsequently make no effort to sustain. I will choose my own bride, because she is a woman I can regard as a partner and a friend. A woman I can respect and admire. A woman who will complement and complete me.’

His mother reeled back as though he’d struck her. Though he could not tell whether it was because he’d described the very antithesis of her union with his father, or because she believed he’d been listing reasons for marrying Georgiana in particular.

Because she didn’t give him the benefit of her opinion for once, before turning and flouncing out of the room.