Suzanne Robinson (6 page)

There was no particular event or conversation she could point to as the deciding ingredient in her decision to eschew the legalized slavery that was marriage. She’d simply observed her parents. Mother was far more intelligent and sensitive than Father, but because he was a man, Father controlled the family fortune. Father had legal responsibility for their children.

And yet these disparities in legal rights weren’t nearly as humiliating as the small customs and acts that relegated a woman to the rank of a child—Father had to approve the newspapers, books, and magazines Mother read, the clothes she wore, the friends she made. Like a child, Mother rarely saw more than a few pounds of real money at any one time. Father had accounts with merchants, and the bills were sent to him. Georgiana would never forget accompanying Mother on a shopping trip and having to lend her money for ribbons impulsively purchased from a street vendor.

Rebecca brought out several house caps, but Georgiana rejected them in favor of a swirl of silk roses and lace that could be pinned to the back of her hair. Yes, she had been a long time forming her opinions. Having Aunt Livy nearby had offered a glaring contrast. Aunt Livy had been married young to a man more interested in his horses than in her. When he died, she refused to be put on the marriage block again and had lived her life exactly as she wanted ever since.

Society be damned, Aunt Livy had taken to wearing breeches like her friend George Sand. She would have smoked cigars if she’d liked. To Georgiana such a life seemed ideal, for she could think of nothing more deadening to the soul than to spend her time in the aimless and inane pursuits of Society. Aunt Livy called it “balls, calls, and clothes.”

Georgiana was going to do something useful with her life. Jocelin had helped her realize there were too many children with no home, or with homes that were nightmares and unsafe. She was going to make a place for these unwanted young ones, a safe place, a refuge. But first she had to free herself of her parents’ rule. They would never agree to letting her establish and run such a place.

In their eyes her first duty was to marry well and to breed heirs for her husband. They wanted her to spend her life with an unfeeling Narcissus like Silverstone. She’d rather die. And if Mr. Nicholas Ross thought he could order her to abandon her escape plan, he was thoroughly mistaken.

“Rebecca,” Georgiana said, “I don’t suppose Mr. Hyde and Lady Prudence were delayed returning from their calls.”

“I’m sorry, my lady, no.”

Trying not to roll her eyes in disgust, Georgiana stuck out her foot so that Rebecca could lace her kid boot. The Honorable Evelyn Hyde and his wife, Lady Prudence, were the curse of Threshfield. Unfortunately, she’d neglected to account for the Hydes in her plans to gain independence. She hadn’t realized how difficult the earl’s family was until she came for this betrothal visit and met them. Evelyn was Threshfield’s nephew and heir, Ludwig’s father. Not
twenty-four hours had passed since her arrival before Evelyn had attempted to seduce her in the crimson drawing room.

Georgiana hadn’t been fool enough to think Evelyn swept away by her negligible beauty. He’d been out to disgrace her before the earl. Evelyn disliked threats to his inheritance. A young bride capable of bearing sons was the last thing he wanted for his aged uncle.

And Prudence? Prudence had far-reaching plans that ended in acquiring a dukedom for Evelyn. Prudence longed to be addressed as “Your Grace.” She was proof that it is possible to feel hard-done-by even when one has been born to position and wealth. Georgiana usually managed to submerge herself in her studies in the Egyptian Wing, thus avoiding Evelyn and Prudence. Poor Ludwig also took refuge there from his spiteful great-uncle and parents. Together they were cataloging and preserving the earl’s neglected acquisitions.

It was her love of the ancient world that had drawn her into friendship with the earl. Threshfield had a brilliant mind and amazing imagination. Georgiana regretted that he’d allowed bitterness derived from his own uncaring parents, and a love of power over people, to sour his soul. She had a feeling the earl had agreed to her odd proposal of marriage for a cantankerous reason—to torment his family. She also knew he’d grown fond of her because she was one of the few people he couldn’t bully.

As Rebecca held out a cashmere shawl, Georgiana muttered, “Mr. Ross will have an amazingly short visit.”

As she turned to allow Rebecca to put the shawl
on her shoulders, she caught the maid’s pop-eyed expression.

“Is something wrong, Rebecca?”

“Oh, my lady!”

“Yes?”

“Oh, my lady.” Rebecca bounced up and down as she arranged the shawl in folds. “Is he as handsome as they say?”

Georgiana frowned. “He?”

“Mr. Nicholas Ross. Has he really got sunset-blue eyes, and does he look like one of those wild gunfighters from America? Nellie, the upstairs maid, got a glimpse of him. They say he’s got a mysterious past and that he makes ladies and duchesses quiver in their boots when he rides by in Hyde Park.”

Staring at the maid’s salacious expression, Georgiana said, “Heavens, Rebecca. You know who Mr. Ross is.”

“But I never saw him, my lady.” Rebecca pulled the shawl down over Georgiana’s arm as she chattered. “I heard Nellie telling the housekeeper that two years ago Mr. Ross fought a duel on the Continent. Some lord called him out over his wife. Nellie said Mr. Ross refused to fight the man at first. Said he never touched the woman, and that if the lord had done his lovemaking right, he wouldn’t be worried about his wife finding a replacement.”

“You mean he fought a duel over such a distasteful matter?”

“The lord wouldn’t leave Mr. Ross alone,” Rebecca said. “Mr. Ross was finally forced into the duel. Mr. Ross was clever, though. He only wounded the lord.”

“How merciful of him.”

Rebecca nodded violently. “And brave and gallant.”

Her frown deepening, Georgiana held out her hand for her gloves.

“Rebecca, Mr. Ross is a crude barbarian, not some gallant, fairy-tale knight.”

“Yes, my lady.”

She dismissed the titillated Rebecca. She was ready at last and set out for the library downstairs. Her skirts floated around her, swaying gently, and soothed her irritated mood. Many women had embarrassing accidents with their crinolines. Georgiana solved the problem by refusing to wear one as wide as the current fashion dictated. Thus she could pass through doorways with little more effort than a steadying hand on her skirts.

She glided down the stairs, crossed the saloon, and knocked on the library door. The earl usually spent the two hours before tea reading and gazing out the long bank of windows that afforded him a view of the park behind Threshfield. There he and his predecessors had created an almost fairy-tale vista filled with miniature lakes, a Palladian bridge, small replicas of Grecian temples, grottos, and secluded glades dotted with classical sculpture.

The earl’s voice responded to her knock, and Georgiana entered the library. John Charles Hyde, Earl of Threshfield, was near a group of chairs set before the windows that opened onto the terrace. He was standing beside his wheelchair, still tall for a man of more than eighty years. He smiled at her, but his mouth was hardly noticeable below the majestic Hyde nose. With his thick white hair swept back from his forehead, he reminded Georgiana of pictures she’d
seen of an American bald eagle. In his watery eyes was that ever-present glitter composed in part of devilment, curiosity, and cynical amusement.

The earl gave her one of his admiring smiles, the brightest of which was usually reserved for a newly acquired Vermeer or Reynolds. “Georgiana, my dear, you’re as graceful as a Mozart sonata. Is it time for tea already?”

“Not quite. I wanted to speak to you privately.”

Leaning on an ivory-handled cane, the earl lifted a silver eyebrow and gave her a quizzical look. “Privacy? Privacy? What a rare commodity in this house.”

“All the more reason for me to speak at once. Threshfield, have you indeed countenanced the visit of that barbaric Mr. Ross? I know you’ve heard of his absurd arrival and his rudeness to me.”

“Speak up, my dear. I’m afraid my old ears aren’t what they used to be. I haven’t seen Mr. Ross in some time. He made an unfortunate impression upon you, I collect.”

Georgiana helped the earl to his wheelchair. “ ‘Unfortunate’ hardly describes his behavior. He rode up to me on a mad horse, nearly ran me down, and then proceeded to order me home using the most backward and offensive language. He’s intrusive and ignorant. I would despise him if he weren’t such a pathetic creature.” She laid a gloved hand on the earl’s arm and bent down to him. “His manner toward me was intolerable. Please ask him to leave, Threshfield.”

The earl gave her a bleary smile, patted her hand, and glanced aside at one of the wing-backed chairs that was turned toward the windows and away from her.

“What do you say, sir?”

Georgiana gasped as a young gentleman rose and approached her. He was dressed in a Bond Street coat and trousers, pristine linen, and a silk vest as understated and elegant as any in Jocelin’s wardrobe. The picture of London sophistication, he was hardly recognizable as the wild-riding barbarian of earlier that afternoon. His burnished chestnut hair had been trimmed and swept back from his face, which had been shaved. She could smell sandalwood soap, and even more amazing, he moved about the room as if he owned it. Nicholas Ross had transformed himself into a polished aristocrat too much like Rebecca’s fairy-tale knight. She despised him.

“What do I say?” Ross replied to the earl while Georgiana gaped at him and turned pink. “I’d say that Lady Georgiana knows a great many words that begin with the letter
I
—intrusive, ignorant, intolerable. I myself prefer the letter
S
—selfish, spoiled.” He caught Georgiana’s eyes in an unruffled challenge. Gone was the drawl, the ungrammatical phraseology, the slouching posture. “Spiteful.”

“Oh, dear,” the earl said, looking from Ross to Georgiana.

Georgiana turned on him. “Threshfield, for shame. That wasn’t handsome, not handsome at all. And you.” She rounded on the intruder. “Your conduct is consistent with your character.”

She stopped speaking because Ross suddenly left the windows and came to stand on the other side of the earl’s wheelchair. Even with the earl between them, it seemed that he was too close. For some reason she needed more distance from him than from other men. Having him so near made her jittery, and
she had to stop herself from backing away as if threatened.

She hadn’t been raised in a duke’s household for nothing, though. She stood her ground. From childhood she’d been drilled on being suitably distant to her inferiors. That’s what he was—an inferior. A tall, muscled, and impudent inferior. Unfortunately, he had a way of looking at her as if she were a succulent parlor maid and he the lord of the manor.

His stare seemed to peel back the layers of her composure, to shrivel the impervious and refined wrappings with which she protected her dignity. He was grinning at her now, and holding her eyes with his, trying to embarrass her even more than he already had with his forward stare. She tore her eyes from his and snapped at the earl.

“Threshfield, are you going to dismiss this person?” She winced at the earl’s cackle.

“I’m sorry, my dear. Too late.”

“What do you mean?”

Ross walked around the wheelchair to her side and lowered his voice. “He means you’re too late, George old chap.”

“Don’t call me George, sir.” Georgiana gave her betrothed a suspicious look. “Threshfield, what are you up to?”

“Oh, my dear, I can’t offer my hospitality to your brother’s dearest friend and then withdraw it. It’s not in keeping with honor and duty.”

She felt her cheeks grow hot as she realized she’d lost before she’d entered the room. “And his manner toward me is?”

“Mr. Ross has promised to improve. We must
make allowances for a man when he’s spent so long in savage country.”

“There is no excuse for his intrusive and insulting conduct.”

“You really must watch the
I
-words, George.”

“I told you not to call me that, you wretched vermin!”

The earl banged his cane on the floor, causing Georgiana to jump. “That’s enough. Mr. Ross has come to visit and will remain. He has to, because I’m thinking of buying a painting from him.”

“What painting?” Georgiana asked suspiciously.

Ross clasped his hands behind his back and fell to studying the ceiling. “It just so happens that I have come upon an amazing portrait of one of the Threshfield ancestors. A Gainsborough. Quite the epitome of Gainsborough, actually. It will be the showpiece of Threshfield’s new collection. Won’t it, sir?”

The earl shrugged and laid his cane across his lap. “If we can agree on a reasonable price.”

“Of course,” Nick said with a sly smile in Georgiana’s direction. “And agreeing on a suitable price takes time.”

Drawing herself up as if she had a book balanced on her head, Georgiana said, “I see. I didn’t know you were so acquisitive, Threshfield.”

“Of course you did, my dear. How else could I have amassed my Egyptian collection, my classical antiquities, and all those Dutch, Italian, and English masterpieces?”

Georgiana whirled away from the two smirking men in a wave of swaying skirts and offended dignity. “I know what you’re up to, Threshfield, but I doubt Mr. Ross does.”

“What is that?” Ross asked, still smirking.

“The earl has other hobbies besides collecting art, Mr. Ross. His favorite is pricking the sensibilities of his family. Threshfield can hardly wait for tea, because then he can watch his nephew’s apoplexy when he learns that the earl is playing host to a man of ill breeding, a man in trade with the manners of a dockworker.”

She waited long enough to see Ross’s smirk turn to a scowl, then sank in a curtsy and marched out of the library. Feeling as if she were sizzling on a grill, Georgiana crossed the saloon and went outside. Fortunately, tea was being held on the grassy lawn beneath a canopy of sheer gauze that gently fluttered in the breeze.