Discovering Miss Dalrymple (Baleful Godmother Historical Romance Series Book 6)

by Emily Larkin

  Alexander stared down at his hands. Dirty hands, with a smear of dried blood across the knuckles. “I’m twenty-nine,” he said. “I shouldn’t still be afraid of the dark.”

  “I’m fifty-seven,” Lord Dalrymple said, “and I shouldn’t be afraid of heights, but I am.”

  Alexander remembered the clifftop road and the eighty-foot drop, remembered standing on the very edge and leaning into the wind.

  “Age has nothing to do with it, Alexander. I once saw a man older than either of us faint at the sight of blood.”

  Alexander studied the blood on his hands, and then glanced at Dalrymple.

  “Intelligence has nothing to do with it, either. A chap I was at Oxford with—Smythe’s his name, brilliant mathematician—is terrified of birds. I remember a sparrow flew into the room once, tiny little thing . . .” Dalrymple measured the size between forefinger and thumb. “Smythe completely panicked, ran out of the room with his hands over his head. He was mortified afterwards, poor fellow.”

  Alexander considered this for a moment.

  “We all fear different things, and your fear of the dark is nothing to be ashamed of. Smythe has no reason to fear birds, and yet he does.” Dalrymple’s voice became quieter, gentler: “You have a very good reason to be afraid of the dark, and no one will think less of you because you do. Believe me.”

  For some reason Alexander’s eyes filled with tears. He looked down at his hands again, blinking fiercely.

  Lord Dalrymple was silent for almost a minute, then he said, “Oliver got stuck up a tree once, when he was five. It was Miranda who rescued him, not me. I couldn’t.” Another minute passed, and then Dalrymple said, “There aren’t any words to express how ashamed I felt that day. My own son, and I was too afraid to climb a tree. What you said today . . . it’s what I told Miranda afterwards.”

  Alexander heard his own words replay in his head. No. It’s not all right.

  “Do you know what she said?”

  He glanced at Lord Dalrymple again and shook his head.

  “Pish pash. Stop being so silly.” Dalrymple huffed a laugh. “She couldn’t understand why I was so upset about it.” His face twisted. “Oh, God, my own son.”

  Alexander reached out and touched Lord Dalrymple’s arm. “Sir . . .”

  Lord Dalrymple managed a smile. He laid his hand over Alexander’s. “The point I’m trying to make, Alexander, is that sometimes it’s easier to accept flaws in other people than it is in oneself. You’re afraid of the dark, and you find that hard to accept, but I want you to know that we accept it, and we don’t think any the less of you because of it.”

  Alexander’s throat grew very tight.

  “Do you understand?” Lord Dalrymple asked.

  “Yes,” he managed to say.

  “Good.” Dalrymple smiled, and patted his hand. “I’ve known you since you were seven years old. I think of you almost as my own son. Sometimes I forget that I don’t know you as well as I think I do. I’m sorry about this afternoon.”

  “Don’t be, sir.” Alexander’s throat was still tight. He hesitated, and then blurted: “I think of you almost as my father, too.”

  Lord Dalrymple was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Thank you.”

  “I hadn’t realized all that you’ve done for me until I read my father’s diaries. He said . . . you didn’t send Oliver to school because of me.”

  “Is that what he said?” Dalrymple smiled. “It’s not quite true. I didn’t want to send Oliver to school. Your father’s proposal suited me perfectly.” His smile faded. “Do you know what school taught me? It taught me about bullying. It wasn’t a lesson I wanted Oliver to learn—and he would have learned it, believe me. And you would have, too.” Dalrymple grimaced faintly. “You’re so big now that it’s hard to believe you were the child you were. But you were that child, Alexander. I remember the first time I saw you—so small and thin and pale and . . . and fragile. You would have been bullied, duke’s son or not, and Oliver would have, too, for his quietness, and I was glad to accept Leonard’s offer and have Oliver tutored alongside you. And you can believe Cathcart was glad, too—there’s no way he could have afforded to educate Hubert properly—so don’t think that Cathcart or I made choices we regretted for our sons. What suited Leonard suited us.”

  Alexander stared at him, and then said, “Was it that bad for you? School?”

  Dalrymple grimaced again. “It was an ordeal.”

  “I’m sorry.” He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Such a banal offering.

  Dalrymple shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

  Even so. Thought of this quiet, intelligent man being bullied made Alexander’s throat tighten again. He looked away, and stared across the graveyard. “That’s not the only time you altered my life. I read Father’s diary from 1804. Maria Brougham.”

  Dalrymple said nothing.

  “I should thank you,” Alexander said. “I came very close to offering for her. I might be married to her if you hadn’t . . . intervened.”

  “Meddled is the word you’re looking for,” Dalrymple told him.

  “Meddled, then,” Alexander conceded. “And if I’d known at the time I’d have been furious. But now . . . God, I almost offered for her!” He rubbed his face. His nose hurt. “I wasn’t very wise when I was nineteen.”

  “None of us are,” Dalrymple said.

  “I almost fought a duel over her. Did you know? With Harry Honeycourt of all people.” He grunted a sour laugh, rubbed his face painfully again. “Oh, God.”

  “You were nineteen,” Dalrymple said. “And she was very beautiful.”

  “She wanted a duke. Any duke.”

  Dalrymple said nothing.

  “Thank you for telling Father to get me out of London.”

  “You’re welcome,” Dalrymple said.

  They sat silently for several minutes, while the shadows lengthened on the ground. The last of the day’s sunlight was mellow and golden, looking almost thick enough to touch. Alexander thought about Maria Brougham, beautiful and poisonous, and then he thought about Georgiana, who was pretty rather than beautiful, and who was funny and sweet and thoughtful and wise and perfect.

  Regret gathered in his chest.

  The light changed, became duller, less golden. The sun had set. Darkness would soon descend.

  Lord Dalrymple rose to his feet. “You’ll dine with us?”

  Alexander hesitated. He could wash the sweat and dirt and blood off, but . . . “I’ve had too much to drink. I don’t want Georgiana to see me like this.” And then, because he owed Lord Dalrymple the truth, he blurted: “I know I asked your permission to propose to her, but I can’t. I can’t marry her.”

  “No?” Lord Dalrymple looked down at him gravely. “Because of this afternoon?”

  That was part of it, but not the whole. “Because of everything,” Alexander said. “Because of this.” He gestured at the graveyard. “Because I don’t know what I’m going to do anymore.”

  “Do? About what?”

  Alexander looked away from those too-acute eyes. He kneaded his hands together. “Maybe I’m better being Charley Prowse. Maybe I should give the dukedom to my cousin.”

  “You can’t give it to him. You are the Duke of Vickery. The House of Lords can’t reverse peerage decisions.”

  “Only because it hasn’t been done before. Maybe I could be the precedent.”

  There was a long moment of silence. “Is that what you want?” Lord Dalrymple asked. “To not be a duke?”

  “I don’t know.” Alexander rubbed his face roughly. “I don’t know anything anymore. Except that I can’t ask her. I just can’t.”

  Another long moment of silence limped past. Alexander stared down at his scuffed, dirty boots, acutely aware of Lord Dalrymple standing in front of him.

  “Have your feelings for Georgiana changed?” Dalrymple asked finally.

  “No.”

  “Well, then,” Dalrymple said. “N
o need to make any decisions tonight. Come along, let’s get back to the inn. You look in need of a bath.”

  Chapter Ten

  The inn was so small that it didn’t have a private parlor, but it had a coffee room with a low, beamed ceiling and a sturdy trestle table and a scattering of stools and chairs. It appeared that the locals preferred ale to coffee; Georgie had the room to herself. She paced, trying not to wring her hands, while outside the sky darkened.

  When her father entered the room, she practically pounced on him. “How’s Vic?”

  “He’s . . .” Her father hesitated.

  “What?” she said, alarmed. “He’s not hurt, is he?”

  Her father laughed and pulled her into a quick hug. “Relax, love. He’s not hurt. He’s just . . . unhappy. Confused.”

  “Confused? About what?”

  Her father hesitated again, and then said, “He has some decisions to make.”

  The door opened. A serving maid entered and set to work laying the table for dinner. To Georgie’s dismay, only two places were laid. “Vic’s not dining with us?”

  Her father shook his head.

  Georgie bit her lip, waiting impatiently for the maid to leave. As soon as the door had closed again, she burst out, “Is it because of this afternoon? Because I don’t care about that! As if I would!”

  “I’m pleased to hear it, my dear. But I think you’ll find that Alexander does care about it. It’s no easy thing to have one’s weaknesses exposed.”

  “He’s not weak!” Georgie said. “He’s not. And if anyone dares to say that about him, I’ll . . . I’ll make them eat their words!” She stamped her foot.

  Her father laughed. “Sometimes you remind me very much of your mother.”

  “It’s not funny,” Georgie told him, managing not to stamp her foot again. She crossed her arms instead. “Vic isn’t weak.”

  Her father sobered. “No, it’s not funny. And you’re right: he’s not weak. But—”

  The door opened again: the serving maid bearing platters of food. She set them down on the table and departed.

  “But?” Georgie said.

  “But what?”

  “You were going to say something.”

  “Was I?” Her father shook his head. “I can’t remember what. Sit down, love. Have some dinner.”

  “I’ll go and fetch Vic. He should eat with us.”

  Her father shook his head again. “He wants to be alone now.”

  “But if he’s unhappy, then now’s exactly when he should be with us.”

  “He’s also a little foxed,” her father said.

  “Foxed?” Georgie stared at him, astonished. “Vic is foxed?”

  “Just a little. Sit down, love. Eat.”

  Georgie sat, still astonished. Vickery was foxed?

  The words Vickery and foxed didn’t go together at all, any more than Vickery and angry. Vickery got drunk as often as he lost his temper, which was never.

  Georgie served herself at random and ate without paying attention to what she was putting in her mouth. Her thoughts kept returning to Vickery as she’d last seen him, flushed and damp-eyed and distraught. She wanted to throw down her cutlery and run upstairs and tell him that she didn’t care that he was afraid of the dark.

  But Vic cares. He cares a lot.

  She sorted back through the events of the day, not just the cutting, but what had happened before that. She remembered Vickery reading the entries in the parish register, a solitary figure in the empty church, remembered him standing alone at his family’s grave, remembered him walking blindly away from old Bill Kernow’s cottage—and she wanted even more urgently to run upstairs to him.

  Today’s been awful for him.

  She wanted to help him, but she didn’t know how to.

  Georgie looked down at her plate and remembered kissing Vickery yesterday, remembered his exhilarating response—the passion and the urgency—and remembered what had come afterwards: his obvious shame. She sighed, and put down her knife and fork. “Papa? You said Vic’s confused. What about? Is it something I can help with? Something I can find for him? A person or a place?”

  Her father looked across the table at her, and then he, too, sighed, and laid down his cutlery. “Sweetheart . . .”

  “What?” she said, alarmed by the gravity of his expression.

  “Alexander is trying to decide what to do next. He’s thinking of giving up his dukedom.”

  Georgie stared at him. “But he can’t, can he? I mean, he can’t prove he’s Charley Prowse. No one can. It’s unprovable.”

  “Which he’ll realize himself once he’s had time to think about it.” Her father smiled faintly, wryly. “No, Alexander is stuck with his dukedom, whether he wants it or not.”

  Georgie thought about this for a moment. “Does he not want it?”

  “I think part of him is very tempted by Charley Prowse.”

  “If he wants to eschew public life, I don’t care,” Georgie said stoutly. “It’s Vic I want to marry, not a duke.”

  Her father looked down at his plate and pushed it to one side. “Sweetheart . . .”

  Georgie felt a prickle of foreboding. “What?”

  “Alexander feels that he can’t offer for you right now. Not while everything is so . . .” Her father searched for a word and came up with: “Messy.”

  Georgie stared at him, unable to speak.

  Her father reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. “Alexander’s life has been tipped upside down; he needs time to adjust. I hope that once he has, he’ll make his offer. He assures me his feelings for you are unchanged.”

  There was a cold, numb sensation in Georgie’s chest. “Is this because of what happened this afternoon? Or because of his parents?”

  “Both, I imagine.”

  “But I don’t care about either of those things. We’d be happy together, I know we would!”

  “You don’t need to convince me, sweetheart. I know you and Alexander are well suited. I’ve known it for a long time. The person who’ll be difficult to convince is Alexander.”

  Georgie thought about what her father had said as she readied herself for bed. She knew where Vickery was, her gift told her that, but it couldn’t tell her how he felt.

  Her maid, Geddes, helped her to undress. Georgie donned her nightgown, brushed her hair, plaited it, and worried.

  She imagined Vickery in his bedchamber, struggling with his decisions. And then she imagined talking those decisions through with him, helping him choose the best way forward, finding the solution that would make him happiest: Alexander St. Clare or Charley Prowse.

  She thought about it for a long time, while Geddes tidied away the clothes and bade her good night, while the inn quietened around her. She thought about it until her thoughts were going round and round in fruitless circles—Should I? Shouldn’t I?—and then she decided to stop thinking and just do.

  Georgie picked up her chamberstick and let herself out of her room. The corridor wasn’t completely dark. A thin crack of light showed beneath one of the doors. Vickery’s door.

  Georgie took a deep breath and tiptoed purposefully down the corridor. She knew that what she was doing was very wrong, but she also knew that it was right. She knocked quietly, a light rap of her knuckles, and opened the door. “Vic? May I come in?”

  Vickery was sitting up in his bed, reading a leather-bound book. There were two candles burning on his bedside table, three more on the dressing table, and a cluster on the mantelpiece.

  He looked up at her entrance. His mouth dropped open in shock.

  Georgie closed the door behind her. “Is that one of your father’s diaries?”

  Vickery put the book down hastily. “What are you doing here?” The collar of his nightshirt was unbuttoned. Georgie saw his bare throat, saw the strong lines of his collarbones.

  “Are you trying to decide what to do?” she asked.

  Vickery hauled the bedclothes up almost to his chin. “Get out of
here!”

  “I thought we could talk,” she said. “It helps to talk about difficult decisions.”

  “Not in the middle of the night, it doesn’t!” His voice was low and urgent. “Jesus, Georgie, get out! If anyone finds you in here—”

  “We’re going to get married, Vic. So it doesn’t matter whether I’m in your room now or not.”

  “We are not getting married,” he hissed at her.

  “Why not? Because you’re Charley Prowse? Or because you’re afraid of the dark?”

  Vickery stared at her, as if shocked by her bluntness, and then a blush rose in his cheeks. He looked away from her.

  Georgie interpreted that blush as embarrassment over what had happened that afternoon, or perhaps even shame.

  “I don’t care about either of those things,” she told him. “What I care about is you.” She put her chamberstick on the dressing table. “Father says that you’re thinking of giving up the dukedom. So I thought we could talk about it. It helps to talk, you know. Especially when things are complicated.” She climbed up on the very end of Vickery’s bed and settled herself there.

  His gaze jerked to her. “Get off my bed!” he said in a fierce whisper.

  “Once we’ve talked,” Georgie said.

  Exasperation crossed Vickery’s face. He flung back the covers and made as if to get out of bed.

  “The only way you’re getting rid of me is if you pick me up and carry me,” Georgie told him firmly.

  Vickery froze.

  Her words seemed suddenly very provocative, which hadn’t been her intention. Georgie felt a flare of awareness—awareness of Vickery, awareness of herself. How naked she was beneath her nightgown. How naked he was, wearing only a thin, linen nightshirt.

  Her heart beat a little faster and her breath came a little shorter. She stared at Vickery, at his tousled hair and exposed throat. She wanted to touch him. Wanted to touch that vee of bare skin, wanted to run her fingers through that untidy dark hair, and she wanted him to touch her, wanted him to kiss her as he’d kissed her yesterday, with passion and urgency.

  “You’re welcome to try,” Georgie said softly, and this time her words were deliberately provocative.