“I think it has more to do with you being here than anything else.”
Georgiana looked as if she were going to say something about that, but then the master of ceremonies called out for the dancing to begin.
She glanced up at him, a slightly amused smile on her lips.
“Well, my lord. Last chance to cause a scene before I beg you onto the dance floor.”
“I think I'll be fine. Are you sure that you're all right with it? We Carrows are not known for our exceedingly elegant skills on the dance floor.”
“I think if you can keep from trampling me that we will get along quite well indeed. Shall we, my lord?”
“As you please, Lady Georgiana.”
* * *
Chapter 36
Georgiana could have forgiven him if Tristan if he had actually been a bad dancer. After all, he was right. The Carrows were certainly not puritans, but they were never known to be particularly skilled in the sparkling social skills of the ton.
However, when Tristan guided her on to the dance floor, his touch was light, and he gave no indication of trampling on her feet in their light leather slippers. She was privately glad the waltz was not in vogue in the countryside. Instead, the majordomo quickly went through the steps of a paired Italian dance, and Georgiana's relief quickly turned to ash.
The amarello was a paired dance, one that involved the woman 'running away' in a few quick steps, tracing an intricate pattern in the floor while the man followed her. They danced together, the lady ran, and the gentleman pursued, all over captivating and enjoyable, but Georgiana, perhaps because of the events of the last few days, could not seem to divorce the dance from her own troubles.
Almost as if he could sense her dismay, Tristan squeezed her hand gently. She could feel the great warmth in him as he did so, something he seemed to take such terrible pains to hide from the world.
Tristan gave her a look, as if to say she had done far more difficult things than to dance with a lord at a ball, and she couldn't help smiling in return. She told herself she shouldn't feel guilty for doing so. After all, wouldn't it make things more believable in the long run?
Already, she could feel the weight of the gentry's eyes on her and Tristan. They were already making up stories about the two of them. Those stories would take a swift and unexpected turn in less than an hour, but Georgiana shook it off.
Tristan took her hand as the musicians took up the first measure, and for Georgiana, suddenly, nothing else existed. She put aside all thoughts of her father, her blackmailer, her position, and her reputation. All that mattered as they did the first pass was being here in this elegant brightly-lit hall and dancing with Tristan.
In the first figure, they were allowed to dance with one another, performing passes while never touching more than their fingertips. To Georgiana's surprise, Tristan's step was light, even graceful as he danced with her.
"What on earth keeps you from the balls in London regularly? You are certainly not shaming yourself, Tristan."
He gave her half a grin. "Mostly not having the right partner."
Georgiana considered. "Well, I hope you know that when you find the right one, she will be very lucky. At least on the dance floor."
"And a miserable wretch everywhere else?"
Georgiana smiled a little. "Well, hopefully, your skill on the dance floor will make up for your gloomy disposition."
She would have said more, but the music changed, indicating the 'chase' part of the dance.
Georgiana performed the curling skipping steps that carried her away from Tristan. In a ballroom as crowded as that of the Perrinfields' that meant circling around some of the other men, who like Tristan, were standing stock still. She kept her head held high and her eyes focused somewhere beyond the crowd. Even as she passed men who had partners, she could see their eyes following her. She wondered if Tristan was doing the same with the young women whose paths doubtless coincided with him with purpose. She refused to look.
When the music changed, and the men resumed their places next to their partners, Tristan took her hand again with a slight smile.
"I can't help but feel as if this dance says something about the two of us together."
"That we should relish the time together because most of it is usually spent apart?"
"Perhaps. I find I don't mind chasing you, however, at least in the dance."
The dance went through two more repeats of the chase pattern, and when the music changed to signal the final pass, where male and female partners danced together, Georgiana gave Tristan a determined look.
"I think we should do it right here."
Tristan blinked. "Right on the dance floor?"
"I think it will be the most effective thing to do. Everyone is watching us. Everyone will certainly be talking about it. It is everything that we talked about, isn't it?"
She had thought that when it came to the final culmination of their plan that Tristan would be willing, and even eager.
Instead, he frowned at her.
"Surely not. The middle of a dance floor seems—"
"Gauche? Tasteless? Needlessly showy? Well, you did pretend to get involved with a Martin, after all."
The glimmer of humor at the edge of Tristan's expression was drowned out by something else, something she couldn't name. He inclined his head as the musicians finished the final chorus.
"I defer to your greater wisdom on the subject, Lady Georgiana. Proceed at will."
He bowed to her, she curtsied automatically to him, and she took a deep breath. She had never balked at causing a scene before, and there was no reason it should be different where Tristan was concerned. Still, even as he stood still and the couples around them started to move and shift for the next dance, she hesitated.
"Thank you for an excellent love affair."
Her whispered words made Tristan stiffen, a dark look coming across his eyes. That was perfect Georgiana decided, as she stepped closer to him, her mouth set in a straight line.
"I have never, in all my born days, spent my time with such a determined boor."
Her words were loud enough to puncture the conversations of all the people around them, sending them stock still. The people who had been staring at her and Tristan quietly from behind their fans and out of the corners of their eyes now had permission to do so openly and Georgiana could feel the weight of their gazes.
Will people ever stop looking at me, judging me? I am so tired of it.
It was easier to think about that than to think about what she and Tristan were doing at any rate.
"I beg your pardon, Lady Georgiana? I have offered you no insult."
"No, you certainly have not, and you certainly have not offered me anything else, either, not in the realm of entertainment or comfort or beauty."
Tristan's look was that of a man who had found something unexpectedly nasty in his stew. Instead of responding like a stiff and offended gentleman, he slouched back on one leg, crossing his arms over his chest.
"I have not? I do beg your pardon, Lady Georgiana, but I had not thought you knew anything about those areas. I did not think I had to be skilled in them to keep you interested."
He paused.
"I had thought a fine fortune was all it took."
A gasp went around the room. While most or perhaps all of the unmarried young women had an eye toward making a decent match with a large fortune, to actually speak of it was something unbearably uncouth.
"If you think that it is only money that I am after, my lord, then you will kindly be leaving me alone from this time forward. I have my own fortune to content me, and I certainly need not concern myself with yours."
That should do it.
With her head held high, she spun away from him, determined to stalk away. It was enough to send the tongues of the ton wagging and to spread news of their fight throughout the county and right back to the servants of Fox Hall.
It was a dangerous plan, and not one without risks to her
and to Tristan. They had both assumed that a change in her fortunes like this one, so abrupt and rendering her without an ally, would bring her blackmailer out of hiding, perhaps to send a note or physically threaten her again as he had in Covent Gardens. Then Tristan, who would be lurking in the shadows as he had told her confidently he could do, would appear and bring the blackmailer down.
They had decided that a fight, after which Georgiana would spend a few days moping, would be a good spur to the man, but she had not expected it to be this hard.
Still, at least this part of it is over.
At least, that was what she thought until Tristan grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back toward him. Something in her snapped, and whether it was because of all the stress she had been under or because of some long-unexamined pressures between her and Tristan, she couldn't say. Georgiana acted on instinct. She came to face him again and her hand came up, and she landed a hard slap on his face.
The sound echoed through the gala like a gunshot, and Georgiana froze at what she had done.
* * *
Chapter 37
Tristan's first thought was that Georgiana could hit far harder than she looked, and the second one was a satisfaction that anyone who wanted to attack her would be startled by that strength. His cheek burned where she had slapped him, and when he met her eyes, she looked almost shocked.
Well, that won't do.
"Of course, you resort to violence and ill manners like all of your family. Completely expected and typical of you."
"And you retreat into words and a stance of dignity when you cannot summon an ounce of passion. You are dead inside, and you don't even know it."
"I would rather be dead that spewing my business across a ballroom as you and your brother seem to do."
"My brother, who is married to your cousin, my lord, lest you forget. I do apologize. I suppose that not all Carrows are terrible boors. At least the ones who are not leave your family."
That was probably enough. They were crossing the line between having a lover's spat at a ball to the point where someone might actually challenge him over what they were saying. Dueling was illegal, but it was still a thing that happened from time to time. If anyone was going to dare it, it would probably be one of the insolent young blades who swore they would do anything to protect Georgiana and win her favor.
Despite that knowledge, however, Tristan's next words spilled out.
"Are you going to run away now, Georgiana? It's always been your favorite form of dealing with much of anything. When things get difficult or confusing, you decide the best thing you can do would be to simply leave."
"Running away is better than dealing with a situation where things will never turn out the way you wish. It is far better than hanging on to something that hurts you."
Georgiana's hand came up to cover her mouth, as if she had said far more than she wished. Tristan wasn't even sure that anyone had been close enough to hear her words. The stricken look on her face, however, made him ache, and despite the plan, he reached for her. It didn't matter if this was only a false fight, it did not matter if everyone in the world was looking their way. The only thing that Tristan wanted in that very moment was to soothe Georgiana and to take her in his arms again.
Something about what he intended to do must have been conveyed by his face, because Georgiana took a step back.
"It is easier to love a stone than it is to love a Carrow. I wish I had never laid eyes on you."
There was no bombast to her words, just enough volume to carry across to the people watching them as if at a puppet show. Still, they echoed in Tristan's mind, over and over again until he swore he might hear them on his dying day. He went utterly still, and Georgiana spun around in a gorgeous swirl of inky dark silk. It normally took some dodging and some weaving to make one's way through a crush like this one, but people parted for Georgiana as if somehow afraid of her. Tristan watched her go. He knew it was pure foolishness and that with any luck their plan was working. However, he couldn't help feeling as if she had torn out his heart when she walked away, and all unexpected, he was now living without it.
How is this as bad as the night I proposed to her?
Someone touched Tristan's elbow, and he turned around. At that moment, he felt a violence that he didn't even recognize course through him, and the thought occurred in his mind that this must be how the Martins felt all the time.
He opened his mouth to snarl at whoever had dared touched him at this moment, but he realized that it was only Lord Perrinfield, a gaunt but elegant man with a handlebar mustache. The old man was nearly as tall as Tristan himself, and the expression on his face was stern, but somehow still kind.
"I think it might be best if you and I went for a drink in the library, don't you think?"
His words were courteous, almost gentle, and Tristan nodded. He would have one drink, and then he would follow Georgiana home. After that, the more difficult portion of their plan could begin, though this part had been difficult enough.
As Lord Perrinfield led him off through the crowd, and as people returned to whispering about what had happened rather than simply staring at the scene he and Georgia had made, Tristan resisted the urge to stare and to see where Georgiana had gone.
* * *
Lord Perrinfield's brandy was top-notch, but Tristan sipped it impatiently. It was far too soon for their blackmailer to have heard about the fight, but he absolutely hated the idea of leaving Georgiana vulnerable.
He supposed it had never really occurred to him how vulnerable she was in fact. Thomas had gone, her father was bedridden and sometimes looked as if he couldn't stand the sight of her, and as far as the world was concerned, Georgiana was very much on her own. A new thought occurred to Tristan
Has she always been so alone?
The thought sent a pang through him, and he remembered some of the things she had said when they were younger. Her father had never been the most attentive of parents, and her brother disappeared for days at a time in the London stews, chasing a thrill that she couldn't, for all of her high spirits, share.
Abruptly, Tristan downed his port, giving Lord Perrinfield a curt nod.
"Thank you for your hospitality. It has been without reproach." Tristan heard his own stiff words and winced inwardly. No wonder people thought Carrows were all such sticks in the mud.
Lord Perrinfield eyed him cautiously, as if Tristan was some kind of beast whose good side he would vastly prefer to be on. "Are you quite well, Parrington? That was an impressive dust-up that you had with the Martin girl."
"I am. I only hope it will not cause you any problems as a host."
To Tristan's surprise, Perrinfield chuckled. "Of course not. I can almost hear the buzz of the gossips from here. It will certainly keep things from being boring for some little while, don't you think?"
Tristan didn't know how to answer that, but apparently, it was a rhetorical question. The older lord waved Tristan off.
"Well, the course of true love never did run smooth, did it?"
And sometimes it took five years and a blackmailer to start to figure it out. Tristan didn't say that part, however.
"No, I suppose it does not."
* * *
Chapter 38
Georgiana walked through the crowd with her head held high, aware of two bright and burning spots on her cheeks. She knew she should be at her sharpest right now, ready to face whatever the blackmailer would see as her unenviable change in circumstances.
However, as Tristan's words beat on her very ears, Georgiana realized how very alone she felt. Everywhere she heard people whispering her name, looking at her, watching her as if she were some kind of exotic new animal that they expected to explode at every moment.
It occurred to her at that moment how much she had grown to hate the world she lived in. Before, it was simply the water that she swam, and she had never noticed how cold and cruel it could be. It was enough to make one want to withdraw entirely, to stand above i
t all because standing in it was well-nigh unbearable.
An almost hysterical giggle threatened to burst from her lips, and she had to push it back down again. Was this how the Carrows felt all the time? If they saw all of this as clearly as she knew Tristan could see, no wonder they held themselves back from it, so perfectly stoic and withdrawn.
Georgiana had intended to head straight for the carriage, but then Tabi appeared, slightly out of breath and her eyes bright with worry.
Well, I am grateful that I am not as alone as all that.
"Georgiana! Eleanor came to get me, and she said that you were having some problems with the duke on the dance floor."
Georgiana tugged Tabi into the shelter of a curtained alcove and let the smaller girl hug her tightly and protectively. No, she wasn't alone at all, and she privately thanked her lucky stars for that. "It was... well, I will explain it later."
Tabi shot her a dire look. "Georgiana, I have not been too young to hear things of a social nature for several years. What is going on? You were doing so very well just a short while ago."
Georgiana wanted to fob Tabi off with a lie of some sort, but she had never really wanted to lie to her family. She thought for a moment.
"The best that I can tell you is that it is complicated and that you will receive an explanation for it as soon as I can give you one. Will that satisfy?"
"No, it absolutely will not, but I suppose that is what I have to deal with for now. Georgiana, do you want to leave? We can, in a heartbeat."
Georgiana shook her head. "No, you stay. You were planning to spend the night with Eleanor, doing some kind of research in the morning, weren't you?"
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