A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World (23 page)

Why did he even hope at all?

At least he’d returned her in good spirits. When he’d arrived and wandered the house in search of her, he’d heard gossip. Lady May, too beautiful for her own good. Or that of her husband’s. Not a trace of shame. For all the attention dukes were paying her, he heard people say, she wouldn’t snare one now.

He was particularly concerned by that
now
. It had been as if the scandal were new, not a year old. Where were all her dukes? He faced no competition as he led her into place for the next dance.

Georgia dipped a curtsy, hoping Dracy wasn’t too poor a dancer. She’d needed escape from the situation on the terrace, and sooner or later she’d have to dance with him, but she was prepared for another cause for sniggers from her detractors.

As they completed the first turn, she gave him a scathing look. “Hornpipe, indeed.”

He smiled at her. “I can dance a fine one, but you shouldn’t underestimate a naval officer. We are often obliged to do our duties on shore.”

“Which involve dancing?” she asked, turning in the other direction.

“Pleasing the local population as best we can. Especially the ladies.”

The rascal! “One in every port, I hear,” she said, and danced away in a long hay, touching hands to ladies and gentlemen as she wove through the dance.

Damnation.
Might he take the tone of her comment as jealousy? Rather, it had been pure irritation. Why would no one be what they were supposed to be tonight?

Instead of being tiresomely adoring, Sellerby had turned threatening. Instead of being ill at ease, Dracy was gorgeous, elegant, and even charming! He danced as well as any man here, and many of the women were noting it. If they’d been shocked or appalled by his face,
they’d overcome it. They smiled, they blushed, and a few swayed closer than the dance required. She knew the reputations of those women and had no doubt they were plotting how to get him into their beds. And people criticized her behavior as wanton!

She couldn’t be jealous of a man she didn’t want, but all the same, his words churned in her mind, along with their implications. When the dance brought them together again she said, “I don’t suppose ships are often in port.”

“But when they are,” he said, amused, “it can be for months.”

To add to her strain, Sellerby was standing against the wall, staring at her coldly. Lud! She’d cried off dancing with him and returned with another. That was impossibly discourteous. How could she have been so thoughtless?

When she danced with Dracy again, he asked, “What’s amiss?”

“Nothing,” she said, and moved on in the dance.

When the dance ended, however, he said, “A nothing called Sellerby? He’s been staring at you throughout the dance.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“He offends you?”

He looked so dangerous that she grasped his arm. Then hastily let it go. So many eyes were on her. “I’m at fault. I feigned illness when I was supposed to dance with him. When I returned, it was to dance with you. I will give him the next and my sweet apologies.”

“And charm him out of his sulk.”

“Georgia!” Thank heavens, here came Babs—but her attention was all on Dracy, and she had that look in her eyes.

Georgia wanted to warn him, but warn him of what? Babs was a flirt and adored handsome men, but she was lustily devoted to her husband, even though he was a stocky, short-legged man with a bulldog face. Marital matters were endlessly, frustratingly exasperating.

In any case, Dracy had dallied with women all around the world. Let him handle this.

“Lord Dracy, I believe,” Babs said, eyes sparkling.

“Ma’am,” he said, merely inclining his head. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

“Ooooh! Was I just spanked? Introduce us, Georgia. I want to dance with this masterful man.”

Despite himself, Dracy was looking amused, but Georgia wanted to send Babs to perdition. She performed the introductions coldly, adding, “Where’s your husband?”

“Talking politics,” Babs said, impervious to chill. “Your sister and mother are attempting to harry more men out to do their dancing duty. You should wander by the doors. You’d suck them out like nails to a magnet. But I’m away with my prize.”

Babs hooked arms with Dracy and left. Perhaps he resisted for a moment, but not for long. Babs was probably just the sort of woman he really liked, the sort of woman he’d danced and dallied with in ports around the world, and doubtless done more. Sailors were notorious.

“Now, what has you in a glare?”

Georgia turned to Lizzie. “Men, marriage, everything.”

“Poor Georgia. I need a word with you.”

Now what? Lizzie was worried about something, but Sellerby was approaching. Georgia owed him the next dance, but Lizzie came first.

She gave Sellerby her sweetest smile. “My deepest apologies, Sellerby. My friend has need of me. The next dance—I promise it to you.” She turned to Lizzie. “My room.”

She led Lizzie out of the room and up to her bedchamber.

“Lord Sellerby looked fit to murder you!” Lizzie said.

“And with reason. I’ll appease him. What’s amiss?”

“Sellerby, for one. I’m sorry, Georgie, but he’s implying that you and he are engaged to marry.”

“
What? Devil take him!”

“Georgie!”

“Don’t ‘Georgie’ me. A good curse clears the air. There, I feel better already. I shall return and deny it.”

“That’s difficult until faced with it, so I came up with a plan. As soon as we’re in the midst of people, I’ll mention the engagement and you can be appalled.”

“Thank you. I don’t know how to bring him to his senses!”

“I’m not sure he has any senses where you’re concerned.”

“He needs another object of adoration. I’ve tried to steer him toward Eloisa Cardross.”

“Is love so easily steered?”

“He doesn’t love me or he wouldn’t pester me so.”

“Now, that makes no sense,” Lizzie said. “’Tis the nature of love to pester.”

“Dickon never pestered me.”

“He had no need to. The marriage was proposed and accepted.”

“He did pester me with gifts,” Georgia said. “Truly, Lizzie, I think the world’s run mad! People thinking I would bed Vance. Sellerby talking nonsense. Babs drooling over Dracy.”

“Babs enjoys playing with handsome heroes, but you know she’s madly devoted to Harringay. Lord Dracy is a handsome hero, isn’t he? The scar’s quite shocking at first, but then…it isn’t.”

“If you start flirting with him I’ll know the world’s turned on its axis.”

“You seemed very happy in his company.”

“No,”
Georgia said. “Dracy has many fine qualities, but he’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“He’s poor and a baron. I know it sounds shallow, but I couldn’t be happy in that situation any more than I could if married to a bishop.”

Lizzie chuckled. “I must confess, a less likely bishop’s wife is hard to imagine.”

“You see? I must return and give Sellerby his dance.”

“I’d think you’d want to avoid him,” Lizzie said.

“But I was maladroit. I refused a dance with him earlier on the excuse that I was unwell. I was merely concerned about Lord Dracy, you see. But then I returned to dance with Dracy.”

“Oh, that is bad.”

“So I must dance with him now. What a tangle this is becoming. Lizzie, tell me the truth. How do people regard me tonight?”

“With great interest. I’m sure it can’t be comfortable, but they are only assessing you anew.”

“That’s the sum of it?” Georgia asked, sensing more.

Lizzie grimaced. “Some do think you should still be wrapped in grief.”

“After a year? How long should my mourning continue?”

“I know it’s not reasonable, but remember, no one ever saw you in mourning. Lady May disappeared and now she returns, just as she was.”

“I never thought of that! I did as my parents thought best.”

“And perhaps it was, but it will take people time. Once they see you dignified and poised…”

“Dull, you mean. I think it vastly unfair. Dickon would never have wanted it.”

“Fairness butters no crumpets.”

“Shouldn’t that be ‘fair words’?”

“Both apply. Have a care, dearest.”

Lizzie was serious, which made it worse.

Georgia sighed for her freedom to be herself. Lost, along with everything else, for simple lack of a son.

She knew it wasn’t the time, but she had to talk to someone, and Lizzie would leave at dawn to return home.

She
sat in front of her mirror as if to tidy her hair. “I need to marry again, Lizzie, but I fret about children. What if it was my fault? Men want an heir, and I don’t think I can bear to disappoint again.”

“It could well have been Dickon’s lack. Only consider Lady Emmersham. Ten years barren as Mistress Farraday, but when she married Emmersham, a babe within the year.”

“Within the seven months,” Georgia pointed out. “Lud!” she exclaimed, swiveling to face her friend. “Do you think they planned it that way?”

“Planned what? Waited until…?
Georgie!
”

“Don’t shriek at me. It makes sense. Emmersham needs an heir, and even if he was mad for her, he wouldn’t want to marry a barren woman.…”

“No,” Lizzie said.

“Quite, and so—”

“I mean, no, you must not. You can’t even
think
of trying out a husband before you wed.”

Georgia hadn’t, but now…“If I don’t conceive, I’ve lost nothing.”

“Nothing? Your honor, your virtue. You must not—”

“Stop
must
ing me! In any case, it would be more a case of a potential husband trying out me. Only think, Lizzie. Rather than marrying and then waiting every month. Being disappointed every month. Disappointing…”

Lizzie rushed over to hug her. “I knew it was an anxiety for you, love, but not how much. But you can’t—you can’t. Only think on it. If you don’t conceive with one man, will that settle it? If not, how many men do you sin with and for how long before you resign yourself to being barren?”

Such an ugly word, “barren.”

She pulled free of her friend and fussed with her skirt. “I don’t know, but if that day came, I’d marry a widower who already has an heir. Lord Everdon would do. He’s
wealthy and shares many of my tastes, and he’s not too old. Not yet thirty, I believe.”

“By then he might not want you, nor would any other man. People would be bound to discover a string of liaisons. You could end up too scandalous to wed.”

“Then I’ll be the scandalous Lady May all my life, free as a bird. But then,” she added, regarding herself in the mirror once more, “are peacocks ever free?”

“They’re notoriously foolish, which you are not.”

Lizzie was truly distressed, so Georgia turned to her friend, smiling an apology.

“I’m full of follies and fancies tonight, aren’t I? Don’t fret, Lizzie. I’m sure I don’t mean a word of it. Come, we must return below. Apart from poor Sellerby, if I’m away too long, someone will put a foul interpretation on that.”

They slipped back down so as to reappear as if from the ladies’ room. Georgia looked around for Dracy but didn’t see him. She assured herself Babs was to be trusted, and in any case, she owed poor Sellerby his dance.

Where was he?

Stokesly invited Lizzie to dance, and Georgia suddenly found herself alone, unpestered by a single gentleman anxious to dance with her. She couldn’t remember such a thing ever happening before. Even Sellerby was staying away. She saw him on the other side of the room looking at her in a strangely cold way. He wasn’t the only one.