by Anne Gracie
The duke returned with a footman bearing a tray with a variety of drinks. “Did that woman do that to you? Let me see.”
He reached for her hand, but George pulled it away. “No, it’s nothing.” She pulled her long satin evening glove back on and selected a glass of lemonade from the footman’s tray. They stood, sipping their drinks, observing the people at the party.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” the duke asked after a minute.
She gave him an incredulous look, then snorted. “Oh, yes, I couldn’t think of a more delightful way to spend an evening.”
He grimaced. “Like that, eh? So Lady Salter was correct.”
George shrugged. “She occasionally is.”
“Was that woman—La Threadgood—typical?”
“About average. The consensus seems to be that I have entrapped you into marriage. Some resent it; others are congratulating me on my ‘cleverness.’”
She directed an accusing look at him and seemed to expect him to say something.
“I see.” Hart could see she was angry, but there was nothing he could say to her that would mitigate the gossip. “I thought you didn’t care what society thinks.”
It was the wrong thing to say. She turned her head sharply. “Why would you think that?”
“In the conservatory that time—with Mrs. Threadgood and her friends—you said as much.”
“Oh, them—they only thought I was odd. I don’t care about that kind of thing. A lot of people think I’m odd.” She made a careless gesture. “I suppose I am.”
“Then how is this any different?”
“Because this time they’re calling me dishonest, saying I’ve been deceitful and devious and hypocritical and immoral. It’s insulting.”
He didn’t say anything, so she added, “Don’t you see? They’re accusing me of entrapping you, of catching myself a rich duke by devious means. Accusing me.”
“I see.”
She rolled her eyes.
He frowned. “But you know you haven’t done any of those things, so what does it matter?”
She eyed him with exasperation. “It must be so nice to exist on your rarefied mountaintop, looking down at the rest of the world from your superior position, untouched by what people say about you.”
“People talk about me all the time,” he said coolly. “I have learned to ignore it.”
She bared her teeth at him. “Well, I’m still learning. And I don’t really mind if people talk about true things about me—it’s the lies that make me angry.”
He could see that. She was in an invidious position—and his actions had put her there. So it was up to him to do something about it. “There is no point trying to argue against ill-natured gossip—the harder you oppose it, the more it will confirm in people’s minds that it must be true.”
She sighed. “I know. I just have to be patient and hope the gossips move on to some other scandal. But I hate waiting! I just want to hit people.”
His gray eyes glinted. “I would not advise it.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I particularly feel like hitting people who stay unnaturally calm, especially people who got me into this horrid position in the first place.” She flexed a gloved hand and said reflectively, “I’ve never hit a duke before.”
“Possibly it is a treat in store for you in the future. In the meantime, let us demonstrate to the ignorant that we are in this together.” He presented his arm, and, with a cautious look she slipped her hand into the crook of his arm.
He led her forward a few steps, then paused and looked down at her. “And you’re not odd. You’re an original.”
He led her in a slow stroll around the room. He greeted people, sometimes with just a nod, and sometimes he stopped to chat with the more influential members of society in attendance, presenting her as his betrothed each time.
George remained fairly silent, speaking only when spoken to. She kept a pleasant expression on her face, but underneath she was still seething. Naturally the compliments and congratulations held no barbs—hidden or blatant—this time around.
She wasn’t sure whether she was relieved to have the slings and arrows stop, or even angrier at the hypocrisy that would happily attack her but pour the butter boat over him for the same thing.
Not that many people actually addressed her; she was merely the appendage on the duke’s arm. Was that to be her future? she wondered. Not if she could help it.
All the time they circulated, she was horribly aware of the warmth of the duke’s arm under her palm, his strength. The faint, distinctive scent of his shaving cologne teased her senses, making her want to lean closer and inhale him. Inhale him? She caught herself just in time.
It was still happening, she thought gloomily. When would this wretched state come to an end?
After an hour, Aunt Agatha glided up and indicated that it was time to leave. George was never more thankful of anything in her life. The duke escorted them to the carriage, bowed over her hand and then strolled off into the night. George watched him go. It was so unfair. Men had so much more freedom.
* * *
* * *
George and Aunt Dottie went shopping for a wedding dress the next morning. Aunt Dottie was particularly eager to go. She’d heard about the House of Chance from some of her friends, and in particular from an old crony, Beatrice, Lady Davenham, who ran a kind of literary society. Lily often attended it when she was in London, and after Aunt Dottie’s first visit, she’d become a regular attendee. As was, surprisingly, the dressmaker, Miss Daisy Chance.
As expected, Aunt Agatha declined to accompany them on the excursion, saying in her lofty way that she quite washed her hands of them and would take no responsibility for Georgiana’s final outfit.
“Why should you?” George asked her. “You’re not the one getting married.”
With a sniff Aunt Agatha swept regally out.
Aunt Dottie giggled. “She wouldn’t want to take responsibility for what I’m planning to buy either.”
“What are you getting?” Emm asked curiously.
“Bea Davenham showed me the most delightfully naughty nightdresses and bed-jackets that Miss Chance made for her. Did you know Miss Chance and her husband and little daughter live with Bea—they’re some kind of family connection, I believe. Anyway, I want some of those nightdresses, and a couple of bed-jackets—so pretty they are.”
Emm smiled. “They are indeed. I have several. One of my former students sent me the most beautiful nightdress from Miss Chance for my wedding. That’s how we met her, in fact. She was the only dressmaker we knew in London.”
“Except for Hortense,” said George, pulling a face. “And we didn’t like her at all.”
Miss Chance was most enthusiastic about the plans for a wedding dress for George. She drew out a sheaf of designs she’d sketched when she’d first seen the betrothal announcement in the newspaper.
“Something simple, like you usually like, Lady George, only I wasn’t sure if you’d prefer something light, or something a bit heavier in a rich fabric—we’re gettin’ into summer, and you don’t want to be hot. Then again, knowin’ London weather, it might be freezin’.
“And what jewelry will you be wantin’ to wear? Pearls is the usual thing for brides. Would you want pearls sewn onto the bodice, like this one”—she showed George a design—“or something like this?” She pulled out another sketch. “Or do you want embroidery—because, if so, we’ll need to decide pretty quick so that my girls can get started on it. Three weeks ain’t very long, you know.”
Everything was in white or cream, which George was heartily sick of. And she’d rejected out of hand the idea that she would wear silver tissue over white satin, which Princess Charlotte had worn to her wedding, poor lady.
But Aunt Agatha had stated, and Emm and Aunt Dottie agreed, that it was vital that
she marry in white, given the rumors and gossip. George comforted herself with the reflection that after this she’d never have to wear white again.
Miss Chance then left George with a pile of designs to examine at her leisure while she took Aunt Dottie to another room where she had a display of the kinds of nightwear that would gladden Aunt Dottie’s heart.
George leafed through the various sketches, discarded the more elaborate designs and quickly narrowed the choice down to two of the simplest designs. No frills, no lace, no pearls.
But which of the two? The hail-spotted white muslin with the tiny puffed sleeves? Or the one in cream silk with piping around the hem?
Her inability to decide annoyed her. What did it matter what she wore? This was not a dress to celebrate in. She should simply toss a coin to decide.
But for some reason she couldn’t make herself do it.
“Why don’t you take them home for Lady Ashendon to see,” Miss Chance suggested, finding George still trying to decide. “As long as you don’t want lots of embroidery or beading or pearls sewn on—and I can see you don’t—we have plenty of time to get it made.”
“Oh, lovely idea,” Aunt Dottie said immediately. “Poor Emm is feeling so out of everything with this confinement of hers. I’m sure she would love to see these designs.”
So that was that. Miss Chance placed the sheaf of designs in an elegant folio and handed it to George, while Aunt Dottie hugged to her bosom a fat squishy parcel, tied with ribbon. “She had some already made up that were a perfect fit for me,” she confided to George in an excited whisper. “I’ve ordered some more.”
“Oh, but, Aunt Dottie,” George began. Miss Chance had a peculiar rule, that her customers had to pay for their clothes before taking them home. She claimed that toffs were bad at paying bills. But before George could explain, Aunt Dottie pulled a wad of banknotes from her reticule.
“It’s all right, my dear, Bea warned me about it. I find it refreshingly straightforward. I’m forever forgetting to pay bills.”
They left, promising to come back in a day or two with a final decision.
Chapter Twelve
I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes . . . in a total misapprehension of character at some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why, or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided . . . by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge.
—JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
The barbed comments continued to fly. It seemed there was no way George could escape them, except by hiding at home all day and night or by having the duke at her side, and she wasn’t going to resort to either stratagem.
But each day her temper was sorely tried.
She and Aunt Dottie went to the Pantheon Bazaar to shop for stockings and other bits and pieces. Waiting in line to pay for their purchases, George heard a woman behind them saying, “That’s the jade who snared the Duke of Everingham in her web.”
“Take no notice, my love,” Aunt Dottie said in a crisp, audible voice. “The woman is ignorant as well as ill-bred.”
Another woman elbowed George as she passed, hissing, “Jezebel!”
George gritted her teeth and held on to her temper.
In the park, people who used to smile at her now eyed her thoughtfully and failed to meet her gaze. She didn’t receive the cut direct from anyone, but it wasn’t pleasant.
Wherever she went, whispers followed her. She had entrapped the duke. She was a hypocrite, a liar, a shameless hussy who’d taken advantage of an honorable man. She was carrying his child.
George got more and more furious.
She went to Hatchards to buy a book for Emm, who was feeling housebound, and two ladies on the other side of the bookshelves were talking. George could see them through the shelves.
“There she is, the one who seduced the Duke of Everingham and got him to agree to marry her.”
“Not as pretty as the first one he was going to marry, is she?”
“I suppose that’s why she had to seduce him.”
To the discomfiture of the ladies George pulled out a couple of books, and through the gap in the shelves bared her teeth in a smile. “Shocking isn’t it, ladies? I’m not nearly as pretty as Rose. Obviously I had to do something!”
She bought the book for Emm and sailed out, angrily aware that she should never have lost her temper and that behind her a fresh buzz of gossip was brewing.
“I know it must be infuriating, George, dear, but gossip grows stale quite quickly, as long as it is not fed. You must try to rise above it,” Emm said when George confided in her. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t hit anyone, tempting as it might be.”
But it was the duke George wanted to hit.
“Tedious as it may be,” Aunt Agatha said, “you must realize that the rumors are merely a reflection of your triumph.”
“Triumph?” George repeated incredulously.
“They are gnashing their teeth with jealousy,” Aunt Agatha said loftily. “You have what they could not achieve.”
I have what I never did want. But she didn’t say it aloud.
* * *
* * *
It was a warm afternoon and the duke had invited George for a drive through the park at the fashionable hour. Since she knew that he disliked the slow pace and the constant greeting and gossip sharing that was the park at that time of day, she realized his purpose was to present them to the ton as a couple yet again.
He arrived on time, driving a very smart curricle pulled by a magnificent pair of matched bays. A liveried groom was seated behind.
Leaving a mournful Finn behind, she allowed the duke to assist her into the curricle; she could have climbed up easily if it weren’t for these wretched skirts.
They said very little as he negotiated the busy London traffic; horse and carts and wagons and barrow-boys and piemen and urchins and dogs, all hurrying in different directions. But once through the gates of Hyde Park it seemed somehow calmer, even though it was crowded in a different way, with elegant ladies twirling their parasols, gentlemen with canes as well as fine carriages stopping to take people up for a short time and put them down again.
It took nearly twenty minutes to pass through the first hundred yards, what with everyone wanting to congratulate George and quiz the duke on finally being caught—ha ha.
“Lady George, you clever creature. Fancy you being the one to lead our elusive duke to the altar.”
“And all the time we thought you meant it when you said you never wanted to marry.”
“Still waters run deep, eh?”
“How does it feel to be caught in parson’s mousetrap once more, your grace?”
By the time the crowd had thinned out a little, George was ready to spit. She was fed up with the insincere compliments, the veiled accusations of her having trapped the duke into marriage, the indirect—and some quite blunt—accusations of hypocrisy.
The idea that he was the one who’d been caught, and that she’d done the catching, infuriated her.
She glanced at the duke to see if he felt the same, but as usual, his face was like a graven mask; she could read nothing, no emotion on it.
“Shall we take this path?” he asked, and without waiting for her response, turned the curricle down a less used pathway, away from the fashionable press. They drove in silence for a while, and George gradually calmed, lulled by the golden afternoon and the breeze in the trees and the quiet. There were only a few pedestrians here and there, and one or two people on horseback, who nodded but didn’t stop for conversation.
“I’m taking you to Venice for the honeymoon,” he said after a while.
“What? No.” She turned to him. “I mean, it’s a nice idea, but I can’t
leave Emm until she’s had the baby.”
“I’ve made all the arrangements.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “Why do you need to be there? You’re not a midwife, are you?”
“No, of course I’m not, but I’m not leaving her anyway.”
“Why, what can you do?”
“I don’t know. Be there.”
“For heaven’s sake,” he said, exasperated. “Your uncle is besotted with his wife. She will have the finest medical attention available.”
“Princess Charlotte also had the ‘finest medical attention’ in the kingdom, and look at what happened to her, poor lady.” Princess Charlotte had died in childbirth, surrounded by the most highly regarded physicians in the land. Of course the finger-pointing and blame happened afterward, but George didn’t know or care who was at fault—she wasn’t going to leave Emm until she was safely delivered of her baby. “So you can go to Venice if you want; I’m staying here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“In any case,” she added, “should you be thinking of traveling out of the country? What about your mother?”
“What about her? She’ll get along perfectly well without me, I assure you. In fact, the less my mother and I see of each other, the happier we are.”
She stared at him in disbelief. To speak so about his dying mother. She was deeply shocked. “You really are heartless, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “Hence the sobriquet the ton has bestowed on me.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know how you can even think of leaving your mother in her condition.”
There was a short silence. “What condition would that be?”
George couldn’t believe her ears. “Surely you know. She’s dying.”
He gave her a sharp look. “What makes you think so?”