by Anne Gracie
“I saw her just the other day. She looked terrible. I got the impression she had just days to live.”
His eyes narrowed. His hands tightened on the reins. “You met my mother? How? Where?”
“At her home, of course. Aunt Agatha took me to see her. She’s clearly not fit even to leave her bed.”
His face hardened; his eyes blazed cold and fierce. He said in a clipped voice, “So, you visited her, and talked with her. Can I assume it was the day you changed your mind and decided to marry me after all? The day before I came to arrange the settlements?”
“Yes, but— What are you— Watch out!”
Pedestrians scattered as the duke pulled his horses around in a circle and drove rapidly back the way they’d come. George clung to the side of the curricle. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“Taking you to see my mother.”
“Now? But why?”
He didn’t answer. With a grim expression he wove swiftly through the London traffic. George would have admired his skill with the reins had she not been so bemused by his overreaction to the idea that she’d met his mother. What was so bad about that?
It was only natural that a mother would want to meet her son’s intended.
Or did he not know of his mother’s grave illness? Had she broken a confidence? Nobody had mentioned it was to be kept from him.
“Hold ’em,” he instructed his groom as they pulled up in front of the duchess’s house. The lad jumped down and ran to hold the horses. The duke swung George down, took her hand in a firm grasp and towed her up the steps to the front door.
“What are you doing?” She pulled to release her hand but his grip only tightened.
He yanked hard on the bellpull and a bell jangled loudly inside the house.
The butler opened the door. “Your grace, I—”
“Upstairs, is she?”
“Yes, your grace, in her dressing r—”
The duke pushed past him and, keeping George’s hand firmly in his grasp, took to the stairs. She tried to pull back. “What are we doing here? You can’t go into her dressing room unannounced!” But he kept going and as he didn’t release her, she had no option but to go with him.
He flung open a door. “Ah, there you are, Mother.” With a curt gesture he ushered George into the room. Two elegantly dressed young gentlemen immediately jumped to their feet. They bowed, but George had no eyes for them.
The duke ignored the men as well. In an icy voice he said, “You’ve met Lady Georgiana Rutherford, I gather, Mother.”
The duchess turned toward them, showing no self-consciousness. “Yes, of course. How do you do, Lady Georgiana?”
George forgot to respond. She stared at the duke’s mother, stunned.
The duchess was seated, fully dressed, in front of a large round looking glass where she had clearly been making the final touches to her toilette. Her skin glowed, her cheeks were delicately tinged with color. She was dressed to go out, in an elegant, rose-pink silk ball gown, a lacy shawl draped over her almost bare shoulders, darker pink satin slippers on her feet. A magnificent diamond set graced her throat, ears and wrist. On the dressing table before her lay a pair of long white satin gloves and a painted ivory fan.
She was the picture of health.
The two gentlemen, also in the most formal of dress, were, it seemed, her escorts for the evening. They were about the duke’s age.
George didn’t know what to say. “But you’re looking so well, your grace. I thought . . .”
“It was a miracle,” the duchess said composedly. “Snatched back from the brink of the grave, I was.” She smiled at the two gentlemen, who made sympathetic noises.
The duke said in a hard voice, “You’ve had a lot of miracles in your time, haven’t you, Mother?”
The duchess was oblivious of her son’s sarcasm. “I have been blessed,” she admitted modestly.
He turned to George. “Seen enough? Right then, good-bye, Mother.” And he towed George from the room.
She followed him blindly, her brain whirling. Without a word he helped her into the curricle, took the reins and drove away.
After a while, she gathered her thoughts enough to speak. “You mean her illness was—”
“Faked.”
“I thought she was dying.”
“Yes, she’s good at that.” He gave her a grim, sideways glance. “She’s had a lot of practice. Was it the full scene—candles, incense, all the medicines, the lavish use of cosmetics, the onion in the handkerchief?”
“The onion in—?”
“Helps the tears along.”
He sounded so matter-of-fact—furious, but matter-of-fact—that George was stunned. “Does she often do this kind of thing?”
“From time to time. It’s her way of controlling people. I didn’t begin to see through it until I was fourteen or fifteen.” He paused to negotiate a narrow passage between a wagon and a street barrow. “My father never saw through it at all. He danced to her tune all his life.” His voice was bitter. “Of course, she pulls the deathbed scene only when there’s something she really wants. The rest of the time it’s some imaginary ailment, or simply her ‘nerves.’ We are all slaves to Mama’s nerves.” It sounded like a quotation.
They reached Berkeley Square and he pulled over, on the far side of the square from Cal and Emm’s house. He snapped his fingers and his groom jumped down and ran to the horses’ heads.
He dropped the reins and turned to her. “So that’s how she got you to agree to marry me?” His voice was grim.
George nodded.
“And that’s what caused your change of heart?”
“Yes. My aunt Agatha must have been in on it as well. She took me there. She must have known. She’s known your mother for years.”
“Probably.”
There was a short silence. The breeze picked up, sending the leaves of the plane trees rustling. The sun was low in the sky and she shivered, feeling suddenly cold. Without a word, he bent and pulled a soft rug from a compartment beneath his seat and wrapped it around her. He was still deep in thought, a frown on his face, a grim, faraway look in his eyes.
“I must apologize for my mother’s deception,” he said at last in a cold, clipped voice. “And since she’s the reason you agreed to marry me, I suppose I must release you from your promise.”
George was stunned. It was the last thing she would have expected from him after all the trouble he’d gone through to ensure their betrothal. Perhaps there was a streak of honor in him after all.
She smoothed her gloves over her fingers, giving herself time to think of what to say. “You’re more like your mother than you think,” she said at last.
“What?” His brows snapped together. “I’m nothing like my mother.”
“You are, you know. She staged a dramatic scene to trick me into giving a deathbed promise and make me agree to marry you. Whereas you”—she met his gaze calmly—“you staged a seduction scene in the very place and at the very time when you were guaranteed to have dozens of witnesses—just before the supper interval at Mrs. Gastonbury’s soirée musicale.”
He whitened. His lips compressed.
“And then,” she continued, “you sent off the notice of betrothal to the newspapers in order to force my hand. There was no overeager secretary, was there?” It was a guess on her part, but he didn’t deny it.
He shook his head. “But I—”
“You trapped me in exactly the same way as your mother did, placing me in a position where I had no choice. Oh, your tactics were different, but you and your mother had exactly the same intention—to force me to do what you wanted, regardless of my own wishes.”
He stared at her, stunned by her accusation. “I never thought—”
“No, I’m sure you didn’t. You just saw something you wanted and did what
you had to to get it.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it. A pulse beat in his jaw.
“You could have wooed me, courted me, like any other man might have—”
“But you were adamant you didn’t ever want to marry.”
She tilted her head. “And there it is again, you see? You thought you knew what I wanted but it wasn’t what you wanted, so you just trampled over my feelings, my opinions, my wants in order to get your way. What I wanted didn’t matter to you at all. Just like your mother.”
He stared at her. He was white around the mouth. Her words had shocked him to the core, she could see.
Good. He needed shocking.
She pushed the rug aside and prepared to get down from the curricle.
“I’ll drive you—”
“No, I’ll walk across the square.” Unaided, she jumped lithely down from the curricle. He followed her.
“I will put a notice in the newspapers, canceling our betrothal.” His voice was heavy but sincere. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—I didn’t realize—” He broke off and shook his head. “I have no excuse for my behavior. I’m truly sorry.”
George looked up at him. She’d never liked him so much as at this moment, when she was about to be free of him. “No, don’t do that,” she heard herself saying. “Call on me tomorrow and I’ll tell you of my decision.”
The cynical look returned to his eyes. “Toying with me, are you? Making me wait? Well, I suppose I deserve it.”
Anger sparked. “Don’t ever accuse me of that. I’m not the one who deals in strategies and playacting and lies. What I say, I mean. Please yourself then—call on me tomorrow or send a notice to the papers, I don’t care!” And she stormed off across the park.
Hart drove home in such deep shock that when his horses pulled up in front of his house, he looked around, blinking, having no idea how he’d driven from Berkeley Square to his house. He tossed the reins to his groom and went inside, deep in thought.
He had deliberately distanced himself from his mother over the years, ever since he’d first realized that the various illnesses and disabilities and megrims she suffered from were devices she used to trick people into doing what she wanted.
Her dishonesty disgusted him. He had prided himself that he was nothing like her. And now . . . Georgiana Rutherford’s words echoed around and around in his brain.
You’re more like your mother than you think.
And she’d proved it to him. He had gone out of his way to try to force her into marrying him. He’d been—now he came to reflect on it—quite proud of trapping her, in fact.
Ever since that first kiss at her family’s ball he’d made up his mind to marry her. She was everything he wanted; independent, attractive, wellborn, a girl with a sense of her own future, who would not be looking to him to fulfill all her needs, a woman who would not hang off his sleeve day in, day out.
He’d kissed her, just as an experiment, to see whether she might suit him, to check whether she had an antipathy to men or not. Not that it really mattered to him; sexual preference had little to do with marriage and the procreation of heirs.
But that kiss . . . It had set off a, a conflagration inside him. He’d almost lost all sense of himself. Never had he experienced such a reaction to a simple kiss.
His body had hungered for her ever since.
She’d felt it too, he knew by the way she’d reacted. He’d made up his mind, then and there.
You’re more like your mother than you think.
She was right. Knowing her stated aversion to marriage, he’d set out to entrap her, coolly and deliberately. He hadn’t even thought about the rights or wrongs of it. He was a hunter. Always had been. He’d even thought himself quite clever.
He sat down at his desk and drew out a sheet of paper.
Lady Georgiana had held out against seduction; she’d stood firm against family and society pressure. She had said, over and over, quite openly, that she wanted never to marry, that she wanted to live her life in peace in the country, raising dogs and horses.
She’d only buckled when—no, because he and his mother between them—and damn it for a truth that sickened him—had trapped her.
And society had blamed her for it.
He would write to the newspapers and withdraw the betrothal announcement. He picked up the pen, dipped it in the inkwell and stared at the blank page. They’d blame her for that too. Men didn’t withdraw from betrothals—it was too dishonorable. A gentleman’s word was his bond. Only women could withdraw.
But if the betrothal were cancelled she’d be labeled a jilt. And worse.
He put the pen down and pushed the paper aside. Damn it all, what was he going to do?
* * *
* * *
George was glad of the short walk across the park. She needed the air and the exercise to clear her head. The afternoon sunlight dappled the grass, filtering through the leaves of the plane trees overhead, throwing long shadows. Tiny daisies were scattered across the lawn, like stars in a green firmament.
The duke had offered to release her from their betrothal.
It was the last thing she’d expected of him. She hadn’t even thought it was a possibility when she’d accused him of being just like his mother.
What an appalling creature his mother must be, to lie so easily and often. She hadn’t so much as blushed or batted an eye when her deception was exposed.
The duke had grown up living with that kind of behavior. It explained quite a lot.
His acceptance of her accusations had surprised her. He hadn’t argued, hadn’t made excuses or tried to bluster his way out of it, taking refuge in anger. He’d taken it on the chin, like a man—and he’d apologized.
A man who could accept honest criticism. A man who could apologize. How rare was that?
And he’d offered to release her, which had really taken her by surprise. After all the trouble he’d taken to trap her in the first place. So the apology must be sincere.
She’d told him to wait, to ask her tomorrow. Why? She was desperate to be released . . . wasn’t she?
The breeze picked up, rustling the leaves overhead. She shivered, and picked up her pace, almost running the last few yards before she crossed the street and sounded the knocker of Ashendon House.
It was a few minutes before anyone answered and when the door opened, it was by a very distracted-looking butler. “What is it, Burton?”
“It’s her ladyship. She’s started.”
“Started? What— Oh! You mean the baby’s coming?”
He nodded, and without waiting for any more, she hitched up her skirts and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She found Cal on the landing outside the bedchamber he shared with Emm, pacing back and forth like a caged lion.
“Cal, what’s happening?”
He turned an agonized face toward her. “She’s in there.” He jerked his head. “The doctor’s been and gone. He says there’s nothing to worry about. He brought a midwife, and she’s in there with Emm’s maid and Aunt Agatha.”
“I’m going in.” George tried the door, but it wouldn’t open.
“Locked,” Cal said grimly. “They won’t let me in either.”
She nodded. Men weren’t usually allowed to attend their wives’ confinements. But she could go in, surely. She knocked on the door. There was no answer, so she knocked again, louder.
The door opened a crack and Aunt Agatha looked out. Her face was pale and she looked rattled but determined. “Go away,” she said, addressing both of them. “Childbirth takes time, and there’s nothing you can do.”
“Can I come in?” George asked. “I can help.”
Aunt Agatha snorted. “You’d only be in the way. Besides, childbed is no place for an unmarried gel.”
“But—”
Aunt Agatha
shut the door. They heard the key turn in the lock.
“But—” George stared at the closed door. She hadn’t ever attended a human birth, but she’d helped deliver puppies and foals; and once she’d come across a cow in labor and had helped a farmer deliver the calf that was turned the wrong way around. She turned to Cal and started to say something, but Aunt Dottie appeared.
“It’s no use, my love. Aggie won’t be budged. She insists that only married women—and servants—attend dear Emm, says it’s not fitting for men and unmarried gels to witness.” She snorted. “I might not be married, but it’s a long time since I was a gel.”
“But she’s never had a baby herself, has she?”
“No, but she puts a lot of store in a wedding ring, does Aggie.” She linked her arm through Cal’s. “Now come along, dear boy—it won’t do anyone any good to wait here, wearing holes in the carpet. Come downstairs and pour us all a drink.”
But Cal wouldn’t budge. “I’m not leaving her. I might not be allowed in there—Aunt Agatha says my presence will only upset Emm, and I suppose that could be right—but I’ll be damned if I leave her. I’m going to be right here in case she needs me.”
Aunt Dottie then arranged for chairs to be brought up, and a small table, cards and some wine. “No, don’t argue, dear boy, you won’t help Emm any by fretting. Sit down and let us play a relaxing game of cards while we wait.”
But Cal couldn’t concentrate—he was focused on every little noise coming from inside the bedchamber, so Aunt Dottie played patience, while Cal paced.
George used some of the time to write to Rose and to Lily and Edward, informing them that Emm’s labor had started. She stared at what she’d written, then screwed up the letters. Rose and Lily were too far away to come in time for the birth. Such news would only cause them to worry; better to wait until she had some real news. She prayed it would be good news.
After an hour or so, Finn needed to go outside, so George took him for the fastest walk ever, and raced back . . . to find the situation unchanged.
Darkness fell and the gas lamps were lit.
Some time later a footman arrived, summoned by a bell in the bedroom. Emm’s maid, Milly, opened the door and asked him to bring up a can of hot water and some fresh towels. They fell on her with questions and she did her best to soothe them.