Читать книгу Historical Romance June 2017 Books 1 - 4 - Энни Берроуз, Annie Burrows - Страница 25

Chapter Fifteen

Edmund strode along Jermyn Street with his head bowed, scarcely noticing the other pedestrians dodging out of his way. He couldn’t bear the thought of any other man touching Georgiana. Or making her miserable. And he wanted her. It wasn’t surprising Chepstow and Havelock though that meant he should marry her. But they didn’t know what that would mean.

How could he bear being married to her and not really having her?

How could he bear the loveless, tepid relationship she’d painted that day, when he wanted so much more?

More? He wanted more?

Did he? Did he really?

The answer roared back like a toddler having tantrum. Yes, he wanted more! Everything, in fact. Everything she had. Everything she was.

He came to a standstill, a slight sweat beading his brow.

What was the point of getting so...worked up, when he knew she wouldn’t listen to any proposal? The only proposal she would be happy to accept, from any man, would be the kind she’d made him. Which wasn’t what he wanted.

Dammit, he was right back where he’d started.

There had to be another way out.

He took a deep breath and started walking again.

What if he were to tell Georgie that he would consider a marriage in name only? His stomach clenched. He took himself to task. Told himself sternly to consider it as a hypothetical situation. And found he could breathe more easily.

In that kind of marriage, the husband and wife in question would live in a state of companionship. Which meant there would be none of the jealousy, and demands and betrayals, and broken crockery that went with what usually went on behind closed doors.

There would also be no children. No heirs.

But would that really matter? He had cousins. Dozens of them scattered about the country. Fontenay Court, and all the people who relied on the Earl of Ashenden, would be secure.

He would be the only person to lose out.

Very well, that was one solution. Unpalatable, but there it was. And now that he’d come up with one possible outcome, he was ready to move on to another. One in which Georgiana accepted a proposal from some other man who would be happy with that kind of marriage. Completely happy.

No. He could not bear to see any other man taking that role. Of Georgie being grateful to any other man for living only half a life. If Georgie was going to regard any man as saviour, it would be him.

He came to a standstill again as it dawned on him that his decision was made. He was going to have to marry Georgie, no matter what it cost him. Because no matter how hard such a marriage might be for him, the alternative, seeing Georgie married to someone else, would be far worse.

So, all he had to do now was come up with a way to convince her that he had good reasons for changing his mind about what he wanted from marriage. Stating quite categorically that he was now ready to put aside his demands for heirs.

How hard could that be?

* * *

Two days later, Edmund put in his first appearance in the park on a horse he’d bought specifically to prove to Georgie that he could be the man she needed him to be. The park, he’d decided after much cogitation, would be the perfect place to have a serious conversation with her about their future, because the intrepid and headstrong Miss Durant was not likely to be much of a chaperon.

Miss Durant was not hard to locate, mounted side-saddle as she was on her famously expensive dappled grey. But she was not accompanied by Georgie and a groom at all, but by her half-brother, Lord Havelock.

‘Good morning Miss Durant, Havelock,’ he said, touching his riding crop to the brim of his hat as they all came abreast.

‘Morning, Ashe,’ said Havelock, looking distinctly amused. ‘Taken up riding, have you?’

‘I might ask you the same question,’ he replied frostily. ‘I was under the impression Miss Wickford accompanied your sister to the park, since you were not inclined to do so.’

‘Georgie isn’t well,’ Miss Durant replied helpfully. ‘Wasn’t well yesterday, either, which is how Gregory managed to slip the leash this morning. Even Lady Havelock had to agree it isn’t fair to make me do without my ride two days on the trot.’ She giggled. ‘So to speak.’

‘I’ll thank you not to imply I’m tied to my wife’s apron strings,’ Havelock snapped.

His sister made a sulky response. Edmund saw that the pair were likely to continue bickering for some time, so he made his excuses and turned for home.

‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ he said to the horse. ‘Perhaps I should name you something like Folly. Or Pointless.’ The chestnut snickered and shook her mane, reminding him that, actually, his outing had not been a total loss. He had discovered one pertinent fact. Georgie was ill. In fact, she must be really ill. Nothing but the direst circumstances would make her forgo her ride two days in a row.

If it was any other woman but Georgie, he wouldn’t have been so surprised, now he came to consider it. She’d been under a great strain for a considerable period of time.

She had clearly already been in some desperation when she’d approached him and made that marriage proposal. And in the weeks since, she’d been pursued by Major Gowan and propositioned by Eastman because her hen-witted stepmother kept pushing her on to the marriage mart. And she’d endured it in a succession of outfits which made the entire ordeal ten times worse.

He dismounted in the mews with a curt nod to the groom who came running, then strode into Ashenden House, absentmindedly rapping his boot with his riding crop as he went. He’d always prided himself on being observant, in the normal run of things, but when it came to Georgie, she disturbed him so much that his intellect invariably failed him spectacularly.

Still, armed with the knowledge that she was ill and not merely avoiding him—or, more probably, he deduced on a flare of hopeful speculation, the other suitors—he decided to act accordingly. A man who wanted a woman to look upon him as a potential suitor would call upon her and deliver flowers when she was ill. Which was exactly what he would do, as soon as he’d changed out of his riding gear and asked Poppleton if he knew where, exactly, a man could procure a suitable offering at this hour of the morning.

* * *

Later that day, armed with a posy of pink rosebuds, he took a hack as far as Bloomsbury Square. Just as he approached her front steps, the door of the house opened and a rather disgruntled-looking man emerged. Edmund had never seen him before, but the deferential way Wiggins was handing him his hat indicated that he was a regular and welcome visitor.

As the stranger clapped his hat on his head he noticed Edmund standing at the foot of the front steps, the posy of roses in his gloved hand, and his lip curled into a sneer.

‘I dare say,’ he said bitterly, ‘they’ll let you in to see her. What with you having a title.’

From the way he said the word ‘title’ as though it was some form of disease, coupled with the distinctly northern accent in which he spoke, Edmund was easily able to deduce his identity.

‘Good morning, Mr Armitage,’ he said and had the satisfaction of seeing surprise flit across the man’s face.

‘You know who I am? I wouldn’t have thought—’ He stopped, his mouth pressing into a grim line. Then fell silent, running his eyes over Edmund’s frame as though sizing him up.

While Edmund did the same. And he didn’t like what he saw. Because there was no denying that Mr Armitage was a very handsome chap. Dark, with rather unruly hair, but exuding a kind of vitality that a girl as full of energy as Georgie must surely admire. And since Georgie had already told him that he was the least unwelcome of her suitors, he could actually see them as a matching couple.

Mr Armitage’s perusal halted at the posy in Edmund’s hand. Then he smiled. In a predatory fashion. ‘Aye, mayhap that’s the way to go,’ he said. ‘Good day to you.’

With that, he sauntered off, with the air of a man on a mission. Which gave Edmund a chill of foreboding. Because if Armitage started wooing Georgie with flowers and compliments, who was to say he might not persuade her...

No. Armitage was all wrong for her. He would demand his conjugal rights if he ever became her husband. Nobody but Edmund knew her well enough, or cared about her badly enough, to put her welfare above his own selfish desires.

Clutching the posy with renewed determination, he mounted the steps. Before he could knock, Wiggins, who must have been watching through the keyhole, opened the door.

‘Good morning, my lord,’ he said, in the way that butlers invariably had, which subtly imparted the information that he was a more favoured guest than the one who’d just departed.

‘Mrs Wickford and Miss Mead are in the drawing room,’ he said, motioning to the stairs. Edmund supposed he’d have to go in and endure a half-hour of their tedious conversation if he wanted to persuade everyone that he was in earnest about courting Georgie. But then that was what serious suitors did. They also informed a girl’s guardian of their intentions and asked permission to pay their addresses. All of which he’d also better do.

He handed his hat to Wiggins, then stood for a moment perplexed as to how to remove his gloves whilst holding a posy.

Wiggins cleared his throat.

‘The posy is for Miss Wickford, I presume?’

‘Yes. I heard she was indisposed.’

The butler’s face sobered. ‘Indeed, my lord,’ he said with a rueful shake of the head.

All Edmund’s senses went on the alert. What did that mean, that grave look? The sorrowful tone in his voice? The doleful shake of the head? Just how sick was Georgie?

Terrifying visions of scarlet fever, or typhus, or smallpox claiming her before he could speak to her again leapt into his mind.

‘I will have the maid take them up to her,’ said Wiggins, just as a harassed-looking girl carrying a tray emerged from a door to the rear of the hall that no doubt led to the servants’ hall. Or whatever passed for the offices in a house as small as this one.

She shot a mutinous look at the posy and then at the butler, then eyed the tray in her hands in a pointed fashion.

If only etiquette was not so strict, he’d save her from having to take on another duty she clearly had no time for, by taking the flowers to Georgie himself. In a more reasonable world, it would be the perfect excuse to see her. Which was what he really wanted. So that he could find out exactly how ill she was and with what. And, yes, he knew he could simply ask the stepmother those questions, but that wouldn’t be the same.

And what if she died? Without ever learning the truth about why they’d parted and how it had affected him? Without understanding why he’d rejected her proposal the way he had? Without hearing that now he intended to make amends for all of it?

Why, for God’s sake, were the rules governing society so rigid? Why shouldn’t an unmarried man enter the sickroom of an unmarried girl if she was at death’s door? That rule wasn’t only rigid, it was downright cruel.

Resentfully he handed over the posy to the maid, who’d slammed the tray down on a side table, and his gloves and coat to the butler.

Since Wiggins had long since given up trying to make him wait in the hall while he took his outer garments to wherever it was that butlers stashed them, Edmund began mounting the stairs only a few paces behind the maid.

It was when he was about halfway up that it suddenly occurred to him that if Georgie was suffering from anything contagious, and deadly, her stepmother would not be admitting visitors to the house at all. Which was an immense relief. In fact, he couldn’t think why he’d leapt to such dire conclusions in the first place.

But even though his fears abated, the urge to storm into her room and tell her how he felt did not. He’d put it off long enough as it was.

In fact...

He came to a dead halt, one foot on the landing, the other on the last tread, as the implications of doing just that unrolled in a series of vivid tableaux. The scandal. The inevitability of marriage...

It would solve all his problems at a stroke. Chepstow and Havelock had said he ought to consider kissing her, in public, in order to compromise her. But this would be even better. In fact, it was downright brilliant. She’d be compromised all right, but he wouldn’t have to do anything he had good reason to know she would hate.

Besides all that, there would be a pleasing symmetry to storming her room in order to solve all the things that had gone wrong between them. Georgie had regularly sneaked into his bedroom when he’d been sick, as a lad. And had eventually been caught by his outraged housekeeper. The events of that day had torn them apart, though neither of them had known it at the time. If he invaded her room, today, it would bring their relationship full circle.

He half-smiled at the elegance of the solution. It would mean an end to all the uncertainty, all the wild emotions that had been making him so uncomfortable of late. Once he and Georgie married, he could settle back down into a regular, ordered existence, with her at his side.

He only hoped he would have sufficient time with her, alone, before discovery, to convince her he was in earnest about wishing to marry her. Although surely sneaking into her bedroom would convince any girl a man truly wanted her, wouldn’t it? It certainly wasn’t a place any man who was determined to remain single would stray.

It was a great pity he hadn’t thought of this in the first place, rather than wasting time buying horses and flowers. That time would have been far better spent studying this house and discovering if a handy tree happened to be growing outside her bedroom. He could have climbed it and gone in through her window. That was the kind of gesture Georgie would appreciate.

It was at that point that he realised that searching for a tree would have been useless without first ascertaining where, within this house, Georgie’s bedroom was situated.

He swore under his breath. This was the trouble with acting on impulse, rather than taking time to make a watertight plan. The house was not all that large, but who knew what lay behind any of the doors he’d be obliged to open in order to discover her whereabouts? If he opened the wrong one, he’d have to...

But, no, actually, there would be no need to search the whole house. All he would have to do was follow the maid who was on her way to Georgie’s room with that insipid posy. He’d only been mulling things over for a moment or two. She couldn’t have got far. Could she?

Hastily, he took the final step that carried him up to the landing and was just in time to see his quarry turning into an alcove at the far end. Then he heard the sound of her feet, stomping up another set of stairs.

He glanced briefly to his left, to make sure that the drawing-room door was shut, before turning to his right and tiptoeing along after the maid at full pelt.

He was halfway up the second flight of stairs before he saw the flaw in this plan. The maid, having delivered the posy, was bound to return this way and she’d see him. And demand to know what he was doing.

His hand instinctively went to the pocket that held his purse. Would he be able to bribe the maid to turn a blind eye to his presence on the upper floor?

Unlikely. Even if she was of a romantic disposition and inclined to be sympathetic to his cause, her superiors would expect her to alert them at once. And, though discovery was vital, he needed time alone with Georgie first.

While he was calculating the chances of making her an ally against the odds of her losing her job, his feet were carrying him inexorably to the upper landing. He arrived just in time to see a door at the far end of the passage closing. He stood stock still, though his mind was still racing. Would ten guineas be enough to get the maid on his side? It was all he had about him at the moment, but he would give ten times that much if only he could get to Georgie. Perhaps he could offer the girl an alternative position if she was turned off. Surely she’d prefer to work in the household of an earl than one of a woman like Mrs Wickford?

Though what the hell did he know of the aspirations of housemaids?

A cold sweat broke out on his brow as the door at the far end of the corridor opened again and the maid came out. He braced himself for the inevitable confrontation, but, instead of heading his way, the maid turned to her left and disappeared into what looked like an alcove just beyond Georgie’s bedroom door. He then heard the distinct sound of her feet descending another, uncarpeted staircase. And sagged into the wall in relief. She’d taken the back stairs, which must lead directly to the servant’s hall. His heart pounded. So hard that it made him tremble in anticipation. This was going to work. It was really going to work. With a sense of exaltation, he strode along the corridor to what he now firmly believed to be Georgie’s room, scratched briefly on the door panel, pushed open the door and went in.

At which point he blinked, wondering if this could really be her room after all. For it was tiny. More like a storage room than one in which a young lady should be sleeping. Moreover, it would have been in complete darkness if not for the light streaming in from the landing, through the door which was still open behind him.

But that light illuminated a narrow bed, in which a figure lay hunched up. A hunched-up figure that let out a moan.