An Inconvenient Kiss

by Carole Kimberly

  Jane returned to the table, a dreamy look on her face. Celia rose and excused herself. “I need to write a letter,” she explained. “But I’ll join you for tea this afternoon, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course, dear,” Jane said, smiling.

  As soon as the girl was out of earshot, Jane turned to Georgiana. “I overheard what you told Celia,” she said. “Thank you for that.”

  Georgiana shrugged, pushing aside her sorrow. “Let’s hope the bonny Lord Bonnefield has the good sense to offer for her. I’d hate for her to suffer more heartache.”

  Jane nodded. “She’ll be fine.”

  “It will help that you’ll be there for her,” Georgiana said to her cousin. At Jane’s surprised look, Georgiana smirked. “I presume you’ll want to go to Calcutta with Grandfather. And Julian.”

  “I hadn’t considered it,” Jane said honestly. “Though I suppose Grandpapa will need assistance presenting his findings to the Asiatic Society.”

  “Of course,” Georgiana strove to keep her tone light. “Professor Thorne will have to go, naturally, as he’s responsible for any information they bring back from the Black Pagoda. But Grandfather will need someone to help him with the other details of his research. And as I’m going back to Cuttack, you are the obvious choice.”

  Jane’s smile faltered. “You’re going back to Cuttack, Gi?”

  “Yes,” Georgiana said. “I need to finish our research there. And I’d like to say goodbye to Baljit. And Nath.”

  Her cousin exhaled heavily. After a long moment, she said solemnly, “It’s going to be much harder than I thought, parting company.”

  Georgiana nodded. “Yes.”

  “You know that you’ll always have a home with me, Gi,” Jane said. “I’m sorry that I said I’d only lived half a life with you and Grandpapa. I’ve lived more deeply with you in the last six years than most ever will in a lifetime.”

  Georgiana waved her off. “As exciting and interesting as it’s been to be world travelers, there’s a bit of emptiness to it too. And Julian is quite lovely,” she teased, refusing to allow herself to be maudlin. “I didn’t realize just how sweet those eyes of his were. Beautiful physique as well.”

  “Hmm, perhaps I don’t want you living with me after all,” Jane pretended to glare at her. “So, when will you admit—”

  “Good morning, my dears,” Sir Jon interrupted, entering the veranda. His face was scrubbed and his eyes looked clear. “I was hoping I might get a cup of something.”

  Georgiana and Jane greeted Sir Jon but exchanged worried looks. Their grandsire was unlikely to rise before noon unless something big was happening in his world. As he fiddled with his coffee cup, Georgiana mouthed “Konark?” to Jane, who closed her eyes and grimaced.

  “Grandpapa,” Jane fluttered. “You’ve just missed Mr. Ashford and Professor Thorne, I’m afraid. They’ve already started out for Konark.”

  Sir Jon grinned into his coffee and took a sip. “That’s odd,” he said, clattering his cup against its saucer. “When I talked to Ashford just a moment ago, he told me they planned to wait until the rains abated a bit.”

  Georgiana cursed under her breath. “Well, sir, we were just discussing out plans for the day. Since we can’t view the festival until the procession, we thought we might try to capture the sights and sounds and overall feel of the people during this auspicious time. We very much could use your guidance.”

  “Excellent distraction, Georgiana,” her grandfather patted her hand. “Divert the old man’s attention and all, eh?”

  “We just don’t want you venturing out into the jungle,” Jane blurted frankly. “We’d like to keep you safe.”

  Sir Jon groaned. “How has it come to this, I wonder? My granddaughters forced to protect me, and not the other way around. It’s time for a change.”

  The two women exchanged glances again. “Sir?” Jane finally asked.

  “You girls are all I have left in the world. When we lost you, Georgiana, I—” Sir Jon cleared his throat. “You mean more to me than legends and lore. I don’t need it and I don’t want it. Thanks to you two I have more than enough research to last me my golden years. With Julian’s help, and yours of course, I mean to compile the excellent monographs you girls have published into some of the most definitive work on those countries to date. I should even be able to parlay our travels and adventures into a successful speaking tour if we decide to return to England. We may never be rich, but it will pay the bills.”

  “Does this mean you won’t be drinking anymore, sir?” Jane asked slowly.

  Sir Jon took a deep breath and looked into his granddaughters’ anxious faces. “Not another drop. I have a pounding headache, and I seem ready to shake right out of my boots, but I must admit it feels good to be awake before luncheon.” He frowned at his coffee. “Though I’m not sure I like this.”

  “I’m told it’s an acquired taste.” Georgiana grinned at him.

  Their grandfather nodded. “Oh, I should tell you one more thing. I told the lads I didn’t care about the Black Pagoda, and I asked them not to go. Thorne’s relics should be ample evidence of the temple to convince the Asiatic Society to consider an expedition to Konark. We don’t need to go mucking around in the jungle anymore.”

  Jane’s breath audibly caught. “And?”

  “They’re still going,” Sir Jon said flatly. “Thorne is convinced there’s something there, and Ashford won’t let him go alone.”

  They sat in heavy silence for a moment. Then Jane cleared her throat and rose abruptly. “Excuse me,” she inclined her head. “I just remembered that I need to discuss something with Professor Thorne.” She scurried off even before her grandfather could find his feet.

  “What about you, Gi?” Sir Jon turned to Georgiana with a knowing look. “Is there nothing you need to discuss with Ashford?”

  “Simon and I had a bit of a falling out this morning,” Georgiana said sheepishly, cursing her voice for shaking. “I’m not sure he’d want to hear anything I had to say at the moment.”

  “Ah, that would explain his mood.” Her grandfather’s voice was kind. “And yet I think he’d listen to anything you have to say.”

  “It’s not that simple, I’m afraid,” Georgiana said. “We’ve had a rather long-running dispute and I don’t know how to fix it.”

  “Nonsense,” her grandfather said resolutely. He poured each of them another cup of coffee, frowning again at it, and then nodded. “Tell me what has happened and we can think of a solution. Start at the beginning.”

  To her great relief and horror Georgiana told her grandfather everything, from that first inconvenient kiss with Simon to the argument they’d had little more than an hour ago. Sir Jon listened attentively, sipping his coffee and asking questions here and there until at last the whole story was out.

  “You slapped him, eh?” Sir Jon said shaking his head. “No wonder he was so ill-tempered when I spoke to him.”

  “Yes.” Georgiana sniffed.

  Sir Jon drummed his fingers on his mug. “Quite a puzzler you have, my dear. Quite a puzzler.”

  They sat in comfortable silence for a while as her grandfather processed everything she had just told him. “So let me see if I have this all straight, Georgiana,” he said thoughtfully “Simon Ashford is the man who was, indirectly and directly, responsible for ruining you.”

  Georgiana nodded. “Yes.”

  Sir Jon scratched his chin absently. “When he tried to make it right by offering for you, you refused him and were sent to Jane.”

  “Yes,” Georgiana said slowly.

  “And when we first arrived in Cuttack,” her grandfather continued, “you didn’t want to face Simon so you deceived him by disguising yourself as Fatima the servant and went gallivanting around a foreign land all alone.”

  �
��A harsh recounting of events, but true,” she agreed.

  Sir Jon shook his head. “I’m personally rather furious about that last part, by the by. Nevertheless, Simon discovered the truth and still agreed to escort you wherever you wanted to go—at the expense of his own work.”

  Georgiana looked at him pointedly. “At Nath’s behest.”

  “Ashford deserves a bit more credit than that,” her grandfather chastised. “Let’s see, what else? He helped save you from a crocodile. He followed you into the jungle on an old man’s whim. He threw himself into a mudslide, wrestled a Dongari tribesman, and now is risking his neck looking for a legendary temple that even I don’t care about anymore. Does that about cover it, dear?”

  “I suppose it does,” Georgiana said stiffly, trying unsuccessfully to shove down her rising guilt. Looking at it in such a way made her realize she had been childish in her actions this morning.

  “He’s done all of that for you,” her grandfather said. “For you, Georgiana. Yet you still doubt his feelings? Poor chap. No wonder he’s in a foul mood. I wonder what more he needs to do to prove himself to you. Divine intervention perhaps?”

  Georgiana hung her head, more ashamed of herself in that moment than at any time during her scandalous past.

  “Please understand I’m not judging you, dear,” Sir Jon said kindly. “But if you’re going to sort this out, I think it’s time to ask yourself some difficult questions. The first, obviously, is do you love him? Nothing else in this matter really merits your time if you’re not in love with him, does it?”

  “That’s true,” she agreed, relieved to have something tangible to work through. She sipped her coffee and examined the tangle of her thoughts and emotions. Usually she could separate her logical self from her emotions by examining each piece, checking the facts, and then making a rational decision. But no sooner had she started working on the knot, a single truth reared up and wiped away everything else.

  She was in love with Simon.

  The realization took her breath away.

  “I do love him,” she whispered, shocked by the force of her discovery.

  Sir Jon smiled. “I think we can skip question two, since it’s clear even to me that Simon shares your sentiment. So I guess the next question you need to consider is why are you unwilling to tell him?”

  “I don’t know,” she protested.

  “Yes you do,” Sir Jon countered. “You’re just not ready to admit it.”

  At her silence, Sir Jon shook his head. “Georgiana,” he said sternly. “That young man has risked his reputation, his career and his life for you. Several times, it would seem. What have you done for him that deserves such devotion?”

  “Maybe that’s it,” Georgiana said slowly, feeling lower than she’d ever thought possible.

  “What’s it?”

  “Maybe I don’t deserve his devotion,” Georgiana muttered softly.

  “Ah,” her grandfather said smugly. “Now we’re getting to it, I think. You feel unworthy of Simon. Why?”

  Georgiana swallowed hard. “Why should he want me?”

  “Georgiana,” her grandfather said, surprised. “Any man would tell you that you are easily one of the most beautiful women they’ve ever seen!”

  “And that’s all I am, Grandfather,” Georgiana said in disgust. “I have no dowry, no income—in fact, I’m pretty sure we’re completely broke. I’m shunned by my own family, except for you and Jane. I love books and research and adventure, all of which makes me a raving eccentric, and I have a reputation as England’s reigning whore.

  “I have a pretty face and a pleasing bosom, and that’s all,” Georgiana continued. “What happens to Simon’s devotion when I get old and wrinkled? Or when I get round with child? Tell me, what happens when the man I adore wakes up and realizes that he can’t stand the sight of me?”

  Georgiana looked sheepishly at her grandfather. “You must think I’m terribly vain.”

  “No,” Sir Jon said, patting her hand. “You’re not vain, just misguided. It comes as no great surprise, I’m afraid. I blame your mother, mostly. It pains me to speak thus of my own child, but she was the worst of the bunch, parading you around as though you were some prized piglet to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. You were the brightest, most inquisitive child I’ve ever known, yet all your lessons were on etiquette and pretty manners. It broke my heart to see you valued for your beauty and chastised for your intelligence.”

  Georgiana frowned. “I only made it worse, you know. Mother was always frustrated with me for questioning everything. I’d start mocking my lessons because they seemed so absurd. When I told her that, she’d remind me that a woman’s mouth was for smiling, not inquiring.”

  “She was afraid for you, Georgiana,” Sir Jon said softly. “She despised her own intellect—it had ostracized her from the other girls during her first Season. Thank goodness your father was a smart enough man to appreciate her wit or she well may have been unmarriageable. It wasn’t until years later that she learned how to hide it to fit in with the peerage. I suspect she wanted to protect you from yourself, so she tried to repress your wonderful curiosity.”

  Georgiana smiled at her grandfather. “But she couldn’t, not completely. Because I had you.”

  Sir Jon smiled back. “In hindsight, perhaps I shouldn’t have encouraged you so.”

  “Nonsense,” Georgiana dismissed. “Your visits were the highlight of my childhood. You were the only one who’d talk to me like I had anything more than fluff in my head. I never had to hide my books when you were around, and you’d always ask me what I was reading. You let me catch frogs and snakes and build ridiculous homes for the forest creatures out of clay and rocks and sticks.” She looked at him with a lump in her throat. “It was the only time I’d feel like myself.”

  “Don’t forget how you were convinced we could catch a fairy,” Sir Jon chuckled. “Your mother would get so mad at me whenever I brought you home. You never failed to be caked head to toe in mud.”

  “You’d tell me the most fantastic stories about far off places,” Georgiana remembered. “Even as a child I sometimes dreamed I was with you, traveling and having all sorts of adventures. I wanted to experience those places for myself.”

  She sighed. “I never imagined I could live such a life—even after I was ruined. I’d been raised to believe that a sound marriage was the grand purpose for my life...and to my regret I didn’t question that thought until Jane was widowed and we were broke. Only then did it occur to me that I might have something different.”

  “You know, my dear,” her grandfather said slowly, “you claim that you didn’t want to marry Simon out of obligation, but I think the truth is that the poor lad was merely a symbol of a life you didn’t want. Marriage, even to someone you loved, meant the end of your freedom—of your dreams.”

  Georgiana felt the truth of his statement like a blow to her stomach.

  Her grandfather took her hand and squeezed gently. “But not anymore, Georgiana. That life is over and done. Now you have the luxury of deciding the life you do want. You just need to be brave enough to make the choice.

  “You’re more than just a pretty face, my dear,” he continued. “You have wit and integrity and spirit. Any man would be lucky to have your heart. Luckily enough, Simon seems to have seen past the pretty long ago.”

  Georgiana rose and kissed her grandfather’s cheek. “I love you, Grandfather,” she said.

  “Hurry now, girl,” Sir Jon shooed her away, “before he gets himself killed chasing fairytales.”

  Georgiana raced into the house and down the hall leading to Julian Thorne’s office, feeling lighter than she had in ages. Georgiana considered her grandfather’s words as she hurried. She’d never been running away from Simon—she understood that with crystal clarity—she’d been running toward her own de
stiny.

  One that now included Simon.

  She burst into the office ready to open her heart to the only man who had ever bothered to look past her pretty packaging. Instead of the hustle and bustle that signaled an impending expedition, there was only Jane. Her cousin was slumped over one side of the settee looking like a wrung-out washrag.

  Jane looked up at her, clearly miserable, and said, “They’ve gone.”

  Georgiana sank into the chair opposite her cousin. “Of course.”

  “Those two stupid men are off in the jungle facing who knows what,” Jane said disgustedly. “Pirates? Khondi? Malaria?”

  “They’ll be fine, Janie,” Georgiana reassured, moving to the settee. She put her arm around her cousin’s slender shoulders. “Julian seems more than capable. And Simon has more lives than a cat.”

  “Did you know their guide is a man who steals artifacts for a living?” Jane asked bitterly. “They have followed a liar and a thief into the jungle. And for what? A child’s bedtime tale!”

  Georgiana’s jaw tightened. Instead of letting her terror show through, however, she busied herself with smoothing Jane’s hair. “I’m sure their guide, despite his...occupation, will be fine. Julian is likely paying him a small fortune to get them to the site.”

  Jane shook her head. “I want to return to Cuttack, Gi. Today. Right now.”

  “Janie, we can’t,” Georgiana soothed. “The roads are impassable. And we have only two marines as escort. It would be beyond foolish, even for us.”

  When her cousin didn’t respond, Georgiana tried another tack. “We’ll never be able to get through the crowds to leave Puri today anyway, so let’s watch the procession from the palazzo’s balcony, just as we’d planned.

  “Today is Tuesday. The expedition won’t return until late next week at best. Let’s sit tight until Monday, give ourselves some time to rest and plan. If you still want to leave, then, come Monday I’ll go with you. The rains have been letting up a bit earlier in the afternoons, so maybe by then we can at least make the trek without drowning.”