True Born

by Lara Blunte

  True Born

  Lara Blunte

  One. A Race

  England, 1758

  "There will be a race!"

  The girl who made this announcement would have kept running through the lawn of Halford Castle, if Miss Georgiana Blake hadn't grabbed her by the arm, "A race?"

  "A horse race!"

  The girl managed to free herself, and ran on. Several other girls and children, who had been holding a picnic on the lawn at the Earl's invitation, were rushing towards the river bank, where the ground was flat.

  But how utterly absurd! Of course John will win! Georgiana thought.

  She quickened her pace in as dignified a manner as she could, so as not to be taken for a foolish girl or an eager child, when she was a woman seventeen years of age. The older ladies walking alongside her were already voicing their concern that some back, leg, or neck would be broken, while by the river ten young men were in their shirtsleeves, holding their horses and mares by the bridles.

  Georgiana could see that John was not among them.

  She did see John's half brother, Hugh Stowe, Viscount Montrose, leering openly at her with a glint in his pale eyes that seemed to say that she would be his, whether or not she liked it.

  She did not like it, and she would not be his.

  Georgiana looked away and kept walking, her parasol and the large brim of her hat hiding her annoyance at Montrose, and her impatience as she scanned the crowd for the only man she cared to find.

  It was Ned, Montrose's younger brother, who addressed her as she passed. At fourteen, he wouldn't be riding, but he had a mischievous smile for her. "Are you looking for John?"

  "Why ever would I be?" Georgiana replied loftily.

  Ned ignored her denial and motioned with his head in the opposite direction.

  Georgiana didn't turn back, feigning unconcern over John's whereabouts. But she did eventually make a circle and change direction, pretending to be following a child, and then a dog. She knew, however, that it wouldn't be long before the race began, and again she quickened her step.

  And there he was, John the bastard, looking as handsome as the day as he lay under a tree while his black horse grazed nearby.

  His eyes seemed to be closed, but as she approached she heard him say, "If you think I am going to race with your silly ribbon around my arm, Miss Georgiana, you are mistaken."

  Georgiana stopped and looked at the man she loved, wondering if he did not love her. But then he opened his eyes, and his smile told her that he was teasing her.

  "I don't suppose you will, with that poor old horse, and you so slow. Montrose will win, anyway."

  His smile deepened. "You will have to do much better than that."

  He had stood up because she was near him now, and courtesy demanded it. She had approached his horse and was caressing its muzzle. "I don't know what you mean," she told John, her small nose in the air.

  "I mean that if you want me to win the race for you, this false disdain won't be enough to tempt me."

  She looked at him with her fine dark eyes, made more beautiful by her elegant winged brows. "What will be enough, then?" she asked in a sudden businesslike tone.

  "For first place?" he asked, leaning against a tree.

  "By the length of a horse!"

  He laughed. "You never want to win by just a little..."

  "No, I want it to be splendid!"

  John was looking at her in a way that made her breasts rise and fall quickly under the sheer white muslin that was covering them. She loved how he wore his hair, almost carelessly, tied with a simple black ribbon, a dark lock falling over his eye. She sighed: the bastard John was an irresistible bastard.

  "I will win by the length of two horses if you pay me with the length of two lips," he told her.

  "You're mad!" she cried, trying to hide a smile.

  He shrugged, "Then go, and watch Montrose win."

  Her face fell. "You won't ride at all?"

  "What amusement would it afford me?" He took the bridle of his horse to lead it away. She walked alongside him.

  "Why, all the men are racing, and it's good sport!"

  "Both your lips on mine and I win by the length of two horses, and the girls will titter all afternoon about it and envy you."

  "They do that already." She threw him a naughty look. "Why would I need…"

  "Good afternoon, Miss Georgiana."

  "Oh, no, but wait!" She put her hand on his arm to detain him. "What if you win by the length of one horse, and I kiss your cheek?"

  He laughed in derision. "My mother kisses my cheek every day."

  "Oh, but John, you know well I can't kiss you! Not on the lips!" she told him with sudden childish apprehension.

  "I am going to war, you know," he said, with an air of feigned tragedy. "I would take the feeling of your lips to my grave."

  "Don't talk of graves!" she frowned. "Don't talk of war!"

  "I was talking of kissing," he said.

  And then he suddenly took her by the waist, tilted her parasol so no one would see them, and gave her a kiss like nothing that she had expected.

  She didn't know how long his kiss lasted, she only knew that when he let her go she stood with her eyes closed and her body bent backward, a tear of delight running out of the side of her eye.

  "Have you not heard that I am an impatient man?" John asked, and grabbed the lace handkerchief from her hand.

  "You took your reward before the conclusion!" she managed to say. "And if you lose?"

  "I will have to give your kiss back!"

  He jumped on his horse with a smile and rode towards the other young men. After a moment she followed, her heart beating wildly for many contradictory reasons. This time she shut the parasol, tucked it decisively under her arm and, gathering her skirts, began to run in earnest, leaping over tree trunks and roots, and only slowing to a walk when she approached the site of the race.

  There were wagers being made by the girls, promises given to the men on their horses, handkerchiefs and favors handed over. Georgiana stood with the others, a pink flush making her more beautiful than usual, something that Montrose noticed. He also saw that she had eyes for no one but his bastard brother, and marked the lace handkerchief that John had tied around his arm. Scowling, Montrose bent to take the flower bracelet being offered by the second prettiest girl in the group, Georgiana's own sister Bess.

  The men were ready, the sign was given by Ned, and the riders urged their horses forward. Grass and earth flew in the air as they thundered away.

  John, John, John, Georgiana whispered.

  They rode fast, so fast they made the ladies gasp and cry out, and Montrose bent as low as he could over his saddle to catch up with John, his face as determined as if his life depended on winning.

  It was no good: John won by the length of more than two horses, and Montrose couldn't find enough sportsmanship in himself to hide his fury. He threw the reins of his horse to a groom and Bess' bracelet on the ground, stomping towards the castle.

  Bess looked humiliated, but all Georgiana could think was that John had won for her. Furthermore, he had kissed her, and he wouldn't have done so lightly, because he never did anything lightly.

  He had kissed her, and that meant that when he returned from the war they would be married. And she could not wait to be his wife, and to be kissed again.

  Two. A Circle

  Georgiana wrote a note to John the next day, and had it delivered at the house where he lived with his mother, within the Earl's vast estate.

  In it she said, with impish humor and imaginative spelling (since she much preferred the outdoors and dancing to studying) that he had defyled her and she was now unmarrigeble, and a laffingstoke to all because he had kissed her, and that he was a Rogue an
d a Cad.

  She waited for an answer with the whole of the little patience that she possessed, shaking her foot as she drank her tea, running to the door at every noise outside, and pacing in front of the window.

  "Pray be still!" her older sister Virginia said in a shrill voice from the sofa. "Or take yourself elsewhere. You are giving me a headache!"

  "Why don't you take your headache elsewhere?" Georgiana asked, never one to back down before her ill-tempered sisters.

  "She is out of countenance," Bess said with a malicious smile. "Because John does not send word before going off!"

  "While Montrose has been so attentive!" Georgiana replied, knowing that Bess was still smarting at the way the Viscount had thrown her favor on the ground, and all but stomped on it.

  They stuck their tongues out at each other.

  "Both of you are ridiculous," Virginia said with disdain. "And you should know better than to wait by the door for a man's note, Georgiana!"

  Georgiana might have had much to say about this, as she knew that Virginia encouraged notes and even long letters from Christopher O’Malley, a penniless but handsome Irish schoolteacher, when she was engaged to marry Henry St James, a more wonderful match than the Blake girls might have expected. It was a good thing that they were all pretty girls, in the absence of dowries.

  But just then the bell rang, and Georgiana flew to the door past the maid.

  It was a note for her, from John. She took it from the messenger with hurried thanks, shook it in Bess' sour face and climbed the stairs two steps at a time to lock herself in her room. In spite of their relative lack of money, their house was large and comfortable, and each daughter had her own room, thus slightly decreasing the reasons for conflict among them.

  Georgiana tore the note open. There was only the drawing of a circle on it.

  Puzzled, she frowned over it until she understood, and when she did she leapt up from the bed with a cry of joy, and kissed the paper a hundred times.

  It was the drawing of a ring: John was asking her to marry him!

  At least -- at least that is what it must be! Her mind feverishly sought another explanation, some piece of mischief from him: perhaps the circle meant a cipher, but what would that signify? And John was the last man in the world who would play with her emotions.

  It was a ring, and he was asking her to marry him!

  She rushed to her little desk and took up the quill, and thought of how she could answer him. Finally she started to draw the figure of a man, and gave it a little paunch, a hat, a wig and a walking stick.

  Underneath it she put a question mark.

  It meant: When will you ask my father?

  Her impatience only increased once the note was sent off, and she scowled so much at her sisters that none dared tease her in the slightest, not even arrogant Virginia or envious Bess.

  She did prepare herself with care as she waited, for John was capable of simply appearing and she must look her best. She curled her hair and topped it with a flirtatious white cap, and wore a dove grey gown with pink flowers which she knew especially flattered her complexion.

  However, John didn't come, and the messenger only brought a note that said: When I come back alive and whole.

  She almost wept at this, but turning the note she read, And only if you come and kiss me goodbye.

  Georgiana beamed. She was not the weeping kind of girl, and John had made a promise. He was a more serious man than the fashionable fops who bowed and paid her a million compliments, and meant nothing but to dally and play. She might be young, but she had always been too wise to be tempted by any of them.

  She folded both of John's notes and put them between her chemise and her dress, against her heart, and when her father came out to the garden, where she was walking and dreaming, he said, "I have a daughter who sulks inside, another who smiles outside. What is happening?"

  Moving towards her father, Georgiana put her arms around his neck, and her cheek against his. Mr. Blake looked much like her drawing of him, a man of medium height with a little honest paunch, obtained through eating too many potatoes with his roast beef or lamb, and drinking a small glass of wine with every meal, and being somewhat fond of tarts. He also did have a walking stick which he used to help him on his daily walks over the rolling countryside, and a hat to shield him from the sun. He was only missing a wig, which he rarely ever wore. Though a gentleman, Mr. Blake did not like to give himself airs, and wigs were expensive. He had five daughters to care for, three of them at the age of needing finery, so he was happy to do without any for himself.

  Mr. Blake had been, until recently, the great love of Georgiana's life. At thirteen, however, she had developed an overwhelming admiration for John Crawford, who was six years her senior and had not much returned the feeling. John had only begun to take notice of her in the past year, when she had suddenly grown into a shapely woman, and a flirting had developed between them which was so cautious that it could not have been called a courtship. Yet, as soon as he had been called for service in the army, their feelings had flourished like a wild vine wrapping itself around a strong tree and bursting into flower. They had spoken little of it, but had had eyes only for each other, and then there had been the kiss by the river, and a note with a ring drawn on it.

  Georgiana knew that love was something that could be multiplied, and she would be able to include her husband in her affections without feeling any less for her father, or for her younger sisters Cecily and Dorothea. There would even be some sort of exasperated affection left over for Virginia and Bess.

  Their mother had died three years before, and the closeness between Georgiana and her father, which had always been great, had only increased since then. With her strong character, her good head for household affairs and her generous heart, she had been a great consolation to Mr. Blake. And, while all his other daughters had taken after him with their fair hair and blue eyes, Georgiana was the spitting image of her beautiful dark-haired mother -- the black sheep, as Bess called her, when she wanted to be especially nasty.

  Her nickname had become Blackie, but her father only used it when they were alone, so as not to increase her older sisters' jealousy.

  "There has been a great deal of bell ringing and feet running up the stairs today," Mr. Blake said in an amused voice. "And a great deal of smiling from you now. Am I losing my Blackie to a certain young lieutenant?"

  Georgiana's arms tightened around her father. "How could you ever, ever lose me, when I love you most of all?"

  "You should not marry to love your father all!" Mr. Blake said, with nevertheless a pleased twinkle in his eye.

  She knew that he was quoting King Lear, as he read Shakespeare to her so often that she could give him the response as Ophelia, Cordelia, Desdemona and Lady Macbeth by heart, without looking at the text; it was a game they loved to play. She felt her throat tighten at the sight of his white hair, the laugh lines around his kind eyes: he wasn't Lear's age, but he was getting on in years, and she would certainly be the best daughter in the world, Cordelia without her pride, even when she married.

  Only John could tempt her two steps away from her father.

  "Papa, we must not speak of marriage yet, though..."

  She stopped and bit her lip.

  "Has he asked you?"

  "Not in so many...words." She smiled again, thinking of the drawing of the circle.

  "Ah! " Mr. Blake patted her hand. "John has a hasty head, but also a wisdom to him. I suppose he will not ask you before he returns?"

  She shook her head.

  "Well, then I like him even more than I did a few minutes ago, for he is thoughtful and considerate of you."

  "But papa, do you?" she asked eagerly. "Do you like him?"

  "I always have!"

  "But do you like him as a husband to me, when...you know..."

  Mr. Blake took his daughter's hand as they walked under the willow trees. "I have many daughters to marry, and scarcely any dowry to give them," he
said. "I can hardly pick and choose, but even if I could, John would seem like a good husband for my Blackie, and you know I wouldn't give you away lightly."

  Georgiana put her head on her father's shoulder, very happy at what he was saying.

  "Thankfully Virginia is to marry St James, and that will be of great help to all of you. At least none of you will starve! Silly Bess, of course, hopes to entangle Montrose somehow, but he will marry some Catholic girl with enough pedigree to be countess. I dare say Bess may also do all right for herself, if she aims lower, as she is not bad looking."

  "If she manages to hide that insufferable character..."

  "Well, Virginia managed!"

  They both had a laugh over this.

  "I have no doubt that John will make his way in the world," Mr. Blake continued. "He will rise in the army, I am sure. He has discipline, though I suspect obedience to be a hard thing for him. But he has something in him which will command respect even from his superiors. I think that he will make a splendid officer, if only he learns that a little fear is sometimes a good thing."

  Georgiana smiled still, pleased with her father's praise of the man she loved, as Mr. Blake went on, "He will have a good living, between his career and what his father will certainly leave him. I imagine the Earl has breakfast and supper every day wishing John had been born in wedlock and Montrose right out of it!"

  "Can you blame him?"

  "It's still too bad that John is not the sort of man to go for the church – as a father I would rather wish you married to a vicar than to a soldier..."

  "John, a vicar!" Georgiana laughed out loud at the thought.

  "I know, as impossible to imagine as you playing the vicar's wife. But the army..." Mr. Blake stopped and took Georgiana by the shoulders. "Be cautioned against too much fondness. John is not asking for your hand because he knows..."

  Georgiana raised her hand and placed it softly over her father's lips. "Papa, let's not talk of this. I am too fond of him already!"

  Mr. Blake sighed, then took his daughter's hand, tucked it under his arm, and kept walking. "All right, my dear. We won't talk of anything sad. When John comes back and asks me, he shall have this little hand, though I shall sorely miss it."