Читать книгу Historical Romance June 2017 Books 1 - 4 - Энни Берроуз, Annie Burrows - Страница 27

Chapter Seventeen

Georgiana made a desperate attempt to free her hand from Edmund’s clasp. Somehow, it wouldn’t seem so bad, Stepmama finding him in here, if only they weren’t holding hands.

Or if he hadn’t just been kissing her.

But Edmund had a very firm grip and was refusing to let go. What was more, before Stepmama had a chance to draw breath, he was saying, with marked irritation, ‘Do you have to make so much noise? Have you no consideration for Georgie?’

‘Do I have no consideration? Do I...? You...’ She pulled herself together, stepped into the room and bore down on Georgie’s bed. ‘Just what do you think you are doing in here?’ she hissed into Edmund’s face.

‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ Edmund calmly replied. ‘I was kissing Georgie.’

‘How dare you?’ Stepmama uttered in an outraged shriek.

Georgie experienced a strong urge to pull the quilt up over her face. And not only to drown out the screeching. The sound of footsteps thundering up the stairs meant that any second now, even more people were going to burst in on her.

Not that it appeared to bother Edmund in the slightest.

‘I dare,’ he said, ‘because it was essential that I persuade Georgiana that I am determined to marry her.’

Marriage? He hadn’t said anything about marriage before.

‘Only a gesture as dramatic as invading her bedroom and kissing her was going to convince her that I am in earnest, given the rift that had developed between us.’

‘Marriage?’ Stepmama shook her head. ‘But Georgiana swore it was no such thing. That you were merely friends.’

‘Nevertheless—’

‘No! You cannot marry her. Otherwise...’

She shut her mouth with a snap. Georgie looked over her shoulder to see Betsy and Wiggins jostling each other in the doorway to get a glimpse of what could possibly have occurred to make Stepmama shriek so.

‘Otherwise?’ Edmund was eyeing Stepmama coldly.

‘I only meant to say, I’m sure you cannot really wish to marry a girl like Georgiana.’

‘Not only do I wish it, but, should you attempt to oppose me in this, you will regret it.’

‘I...’ Stepmama swallowed. Wrung her hands. Turned to look over her shoulder at the servants.

‘Precisely,’ said Edmund, rather grimly. ‘There will be no way to keep my presence in Georgie’s room a secret.’

He was right. These were London servants. Hired along with the house. They had no particular loyalty to the tenants. And she could hardly expect them to keep such a juicy morsel of gossip to themselves. Oh, no—poor Edmund.

At this point, he let go of her hand, rose to his feet and went to the door.

‘You may be the first to congratulate me,’ he said to the servants in a determined voice. ‘Miss Wickford has just done me the honour of accepting my proposal of marriage.’

Wiggins’s left eyebrow rose in patent disbelief. But Betsy clasped her hands together and beamed at him.

‘Congratulations, your lordship,’ she said, bouncing on the tips of her toes.

‘Just so,’ said Edmund, reaching into his pocket and producing some coins, which he pressed into the hands of both servants.

Judging from the maid’s gasp, and the way the butler’s eyebrow immediately resumed its correct position, the bribe had been sufficiently generous to remove any malicious inference from the way they would relate the incident to anyone willing to listen. Which would probably be half of London.

Having ensured the servants’ goodwill, if not their silence, Edmund closed the door firmly on them and turned to Stepmama, his expression set.

‘Have you come to your senses yet?’ Edmund gave Stepmama one of those looks. The kind that put her in mind of his mother when she was depressing someone’s pretensions. Though Stepmama didn’t look as though she was about to meekly surrender. There was a martial light in her eyes that made Georgie suspect a battle royal was about to commence.

‘And do not attempt to hamper me by reminding me that Georgie is technically your ward and refusing to grant your permission for the match—’

‘Technically? There is no technically about it!’

‘Because,’ he continued as though she hadn’t interrupted, ‘if you should do anything so foolish you will find yourself presiding over a scandal that is bound to reflect very badly upon your guardianship. And that will not only adversely affect Georgie, in the short term, but also hamper your own daughter’s chances of ever making a good match.’

Stepmama’s eyes flashed fury. She clenched her fists.

‘Very well,’ she said, tossing her head. ‘Why not? Why shouldn’t you marry her? It isn’t as if she kept her word to me, is it? All that talk of advancement and doing Sukey whatever favours she could, it never came to anything, did it?’

‘Ah,’ said Edmund as though he understood perfectly what Stepmama was talking about, when Georgie felt as though she’d dozed off in the middle of a play and had woken up again only at the end to discover she’d missed too much of the plot to be able to make sense of anything anyone was doing. ‘Is that how you became her puppet?’

Puppet? Why was Edmund calling Stepmama a puppet? Just whose puppet Stepmama was supposed to be, Georgie couldn’t tell.

Stepmama flung up her chin. ‘For all the good it did either of us,’ she said bitterly. ‘Sukey never met anyone higher ranking than tradesmen’s sons in Bartlesham, for all that her stepfather was the local squire. I waited and waited, but she did nothing.’

She? What she?

‘Not until we had no choice but to leave Bartlesham,’ Stepmama was continuing, without appearing to draw breath, ‘and I reminded her of the bargain we’d struck, did she finally agree to arrange a court presentation for both girls. And how did she arrange it? Not by presenting them herself—oh, no! She just sent me an introduction to Lady Ackroyd, who is so deep under the hatches she’ll do just about anything legal for cash. And not only did that bit of business cost me the best part of her inheritance,’ she said, waving in Georgie’s direction, ‘but it didn’t do any good. It was vouchers for Almack’s I should have got, if my girls were going to be accepted, not an expensive day out at the palace which everyone knew was a put-up job the minute they heard Lady Ackroyd’s name in connection with it. Which they always do, somehow. And the end result was that not one of those stuffy patronesses was willing to give vouchers to girls whose mother had to pay to have them presented at court.’

‘As my wife,’ Edmund pointed out, ‘Georgie will most certainly obtain vouchers. As will her stepsister. I will make sure of it.’

Stepmama sat down, rather suddenly. It was fortunate that she happened to be sideways on to Georgie’s bedside chair as she’d squared up to Edmund, otherwise she would have ended on the floor.

‘I will also make sure Sukey has a respectable dowry,’ he said. ‘As my stepsister by marriage, it will be my duty to provide for her.’

Stepmama’s mouth opened and shut a few times. For which Georgie was immensely grateful. The volume of the bargaining—for that, she saw, was what had been going on between these two even if she hadn’t fully understood the nuances—had been drilling holes in her skull.

‘Edmund,’ she whispered, since there was a lull into which she could at last interject her own opinion, ‘you don’t have to marry me.’

‘Nonsense!’

‘Of course I do,’ said Edmund, and Stepmama, at the same moment. And as Stepmama got to her feet, Edmund nudged her aside and took her place on the chair.

‘But there must be a way out,’ said Georgie plaintively. She couldn’t bear to think of Edmund trapped into a marriage he’d been so determined to avoid. Just because he’d come in here, in a spirit of friendship. Oh, he’d come up with a wonderful reason to explain his presence, and swiftly, but then he had a brilliant mind. Of course he was going to say the only thing that would make everything appear acceptable to everyone.

The only trouble was she knew it wasn’t really acceptable to him.

‘Don’t be so stupid,’ hissed Stepmama from over Edmund’s shoulder. ‘There is no keeping the two of you apart. There never has been and she should just have made the best of it. And then none of this would have happened.’

‘None of what?’ If Georgie hadn’t already had a headache, this conversation would have been enough to give her one.

‘Yes, Mrs Wickford,’ said Edmund, taking hold of Georgie’s hand again and patting it soothingly. ‘Why don’t you explain just how you came into it? I should love to hear how my mother persuaded you to do her dirty work.’

His mother?

‘Come, come,’ said Edmund firmly. ‘There is no point in prevarication at this stage. I have worked out much of what has happened. All that has so far eluded me is your motive. Though your statement just now leads me to suppose it was to benefit your own daughter?’

Stepmama tossed her head again. ‘I am a mother. A mother will do whatever she can for her children. Even to the extent of—’ She stopped. Glanced at Georgie. Flushed. ‘Well, I am sorry, dear, but though I grew fond of your father by the end, you have to admit he was not exactly the stuff of a maiden’s dreams.’

Georgie gasped. ‘Do you mean to say, you married Papa to...that you were...put up to it?’

‘Well, I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but you have no notion of how hard it is, trying to maintain standards when you are a widow and your husband has left you with nothing but debts. I was at my wits’ end when Lady Ashenden approached me with what sounded like a wonderful opportunity. A chance to give Sukey every advantage she should have had, what with her being so pretty. Her ladyship told me she knew of a widower, a man of substance, who had a daughter in dire need of feminine guidance. That she’d arrange a match between us and see Sukey had the chance to rise in the world.’ She reached for a handkerchief to dab at her nose, which had grown pink with distress. ‘Well, of course, I agreed on the spot. And married your father.’

Georgiana was suddenly aware she’d been clutching Edmund’s hand so tightly his fingers were going white. She made a determined effort to relax her grip, even though it felt as though he was the only solid thing left in a world that was splintering apart.

‘Had my mother,’ he said, flexing his hand as his fingers flushed pink once more, ‘by any chance, had a word with him, too?’

Stepmama nodded vigorously. ‘At our first meeting, he told me that Lady Ashenden had felt obliged to warn him that his daughter was on the verge of creating a scandal that was entirely his own fault for bringing her up in such a lax manner. And that if he didn’t do something soon, she—you—would become the talk of the county. Very upset, he was. Admitted he’d made a mull of things. Said he should have seen he needed a woman about the place to teach you how to go on,’ she said, turning to Georgiana.

Lady Ashenden had told Papa he’d been a bad parent? When he’d been so utterly wonderful?

‘Lady Ashenden had told him how well behaved Sukey was and what a good influence she’d be, just by living alongside of you. And said that if I’d brought up one girl so nicely, she was sure I could achieve the same with you. Well, he only had to meet Sukey the once to see the difference.’

When Edmund winced, she realised her grip on his hand had reached painful proportions once more. But her own pain was so great it was a wonder she wasn’t howling.

‘Begged me, he did, to steer you back to the straight and narrow. As well as explaining all...’ she waved her hand at the bed in which Georgie lay ‘...this sort of thing.’

Now, that Georgie could understand. Her father would never have been able to cope with explaining what was happening to her body, when she started maturing. She’d always, instinctively, tried to keep all this sort of thing hidden from him.

‘He said he hadn’t the heart to discipline you for the faults you’d acquired, when he was the one who deserved a beating for not teaching you right from wrong.’

Georgie let go of Edmund’s hand to press her hands to her own mouth to stifle a sob. Because she finally understood why Papa had seemed to suddenly turn against her. Knew what lay behind those looks he’d given her—as though he was disappointed in her. It hadn’t been any such thing. It had been guilt. He had been trying to correct a fault for which he felt responsible...

No wonder he had turned away whenever Stepmama got out the cane. No wonder he had been unable to look her in the eye.

He hadn’t been ashamed of her. Disappointed in her.

He’d been ashamed of himself.

Edmund slid his arm round her shoulder as though he knew how hard she was struggling not to weep. She turned her face gratefully into his shoulder. For all these years, she’d thought first Edmund, and then her father, had turned against her. But it hadn’t been the case at all.

It had all been Lady Ashenden’s work.

‘Why did she do it?’ Once she’d regained control of herself, she lifted her face to Edmund’s and looked beseechingly into his eyes. ‘Why go to such lengths to make us hate each other?’

‘She wanted to make sure the split was permanent.’

Georgie frowned, her confusion only growing. ‘But...why?’

He sighed. ‘She didn’t want me to have to marry you.’

Her confusion only grew. ‘Marry you? Then? But...we were children. Far too young to be thinking of marriage.’

‘Juliet was only fourteen when she conceived her fatal passion for Romeo, I believe,’ he said. ‘When Mrs Bulstrode told her how she’d found us together, I dare say she thought you were more precocious than that hot-blooded Italian. And took steps to prevent me from succumbing to your charms.’

‘My charms? Succumbing? You?’

‘Well, I think that is quite enough of that,’ said Stepmama, who had clearly regained control of her equilibrium. ‘Put Lord Ashenden down, Georgie, there’s a good girl,’ she said firmly.

And because she was in the habit of obeying her stepmother, Georgie, who’d been clinging to him like a limpet, forced herself to do so.

‘And now, my lord,’ she said, going to the door and opening it, ‘if you would care to take tea before you leave, while we discuss the legalities?’

It was framed as a question only out of deference to his rank. What Stepmama was really doing was ordering him out of her room.

‘Leave? No, Edmund...’ She reached for his hand. He couldn’t leave, not as things were. It was all very well to have cleared up the misunderstandings that had blighted their childhood friendship, but if he left it like this, they would end up married. When it was the last thing he wanted.

But Edmund evaded her questing fingers and stood up. ‘Your stepmother is correct. The mode of our betrothal has been unorthodox enough to cause gossip. I shall not subject you to more by doing anything likely to tarnish your reputation further.’

Unorthodox? What an understatement. If Stepmama hadn’t blundered in, or if she hadn’t set up such a screech that it had brought the servants running, there wouldn’t be a betrothal.

But now that Edmund had pointed out the advantages such a marriage would mean for Sukey, Stepmama wouldn’t rest until she’d seen the notice in the Morning Post.

‘No, Edmund, there must be some other way to straighten out this mess.’

He turned to her, his face grim. ‘You regard being betrothed to me in the light of a misfortune?’

‘Of course it is!’ He’d turned her down when she’d all but begged him to save her from having to come to London and go through a Season. Since then, he’d done all he could to teach her how to handle suitors, including getting her to itemise the things that would make some other man bearable as a husband.

Some other man.

‘You know it is!’

He gave an elegant shrug of his shoulders. ‘Nevertheless, we will marry. We have been caught in a compromising position and this is the only way to salvage your reputation, and ensure that Sukey’s remains untarnished. You had better,’ he said, striding to the door, ‘accustom yourself.’

And with that Parthian shot, he stalked out, Stepmama hard on his heels.