A scratch at the door indicated the presence of the butler before he opened it and stepped into the room.
"His grace, the Duke of Sindalton, is here to see you, my Lady."
She nodded, smiling at the anxious look in the old man's eyes. The earl was away from home and all the staff knew his feeling about the duke. Yet they all knew the gossip, just as well as the ton, and she had a feeling the old man didn't want to stand in the way of a love affair, if that was what this was.
"It's quite alright," she said, giving him a reassuring smile. "Please show him in."
"Should I send Miss Sarah to accompany you, my Lady."
"No, thank you. His grace is quite the gentleman I assure you."
The butler looked totally unconvinced by this statement and she knew he was quite right. She should not allow Sebastian to be alone with her in the circumstances, but he went away and did as he'd been instructed.
She took a breath and smoothed down the silk of her Mexican blue morning dress. It was trimmed with white Peruvian lace and she had been more than pleased with the effect when Sarah had arranged her hair and added her favourite slim row of pearls around her neck. She had dressed with care, bubbling with excitement at the expectation of his call upon her. But now she was not certain whether to be furious or disappointed, or every bit as anxious and happy as she had been on waking.
She stood and dipped a curtsey as he entered and on looking up was arrested by the look in his eyes.
He gave a little surprised huff of laughter and shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said, smiling. "I am just struck every time I see you. I think each time we part that I have committed every particular of your beautiful face to my mind, and every time I see you I find you far lovelier than I remember."
"Perhaps you just have a poor memory," she replied a little sharply, though in truth she was charmed by his words. But his behaviour as reported in the scandal sheets could not be forgiven without comment. How could he have been so thoughtless?
His smile fell away and he stepped a little closer to her.
"I cannot be surprised that you're angry with me," he said, his voice quiet. "In truth you cannot be more furious than I am at myself. I ... I'm afraid I was very drunk, not that it is any defence, but Beau and I argued and ... I'm afraid I was extremely jealous. The idea of you with him ..." His voice became harsh and he shook his head, turning away from her. "I've made everything worse I know. But I am here and if you think you can forgive me for my terrible behaviour, there ... there is a question I would ask you."
Her breathing hitched and she watched as he turned around to face her again.
"Ask it," she whispered.
He smiled and crossed the room, his hands finding her waist and pulling her closer to him, their bodies almost touching.
"Georgiana," he whispered. "I have loved you since the day you scolded me so soundly in that cave. I love you to distraction, to the point where I wanted to murder my best friend for daring to consider he could make you his. You're mine, darling. We belong together." His grip on her waist tightened as she stared up into his eyes which were grave and more serious than she had ever seen them.
"It won't be easy, my love, my ... my mother is going to make life hard for us I'm afraid but ..." He took a deep breath and sank to one knee, and he took her hands in his. "Please, Georgiana, tell me you're brave enough to face it all. Tell me we can laugh in the faces of our parent's scandal and bring something good and right out of the chaos they threw us into. I love you, with all my heart. Please, love, marry me and make me the happiest of men."
He looked up at her, anxiety and expectation in his dark eyes as she gave a little choked laugh and nodded as her eyes blurred.
"Yes," she said, her voice thick. "Yes, yes, of course yes!"
He laughed and got to his feet, pulling her into an embrace and kissing her. His lips were tender and she felt the smile against her mouth as she heard him laughing again.
"Thank God," he whispered. "I was so afraid I'd ruined everything."
She clung to him, her head on his shoulder as the enormity of what they faced filtered through to her. "Will your mother be very angry?"
He was silent for a moment and she knew then that Beau had been right. He was afraid of what the news would do to her.
"Yes," he said, his voice full of regret. "Though I'm not sure anger is the right word." He looked down at her, his handsome face troubled. "She's not a strong woman, Georgiana, and ... I'm afraid to tell her."
"Would it help her to meet me, do you think?"
"My God, no!" he exclaimed, letting go of her and turning away.
"She'll have to, sooner or later," she said, dismayed by the vehemence of his reaction.
"Yes, of course she will," he agreed. "But I need time to talk to her, to ... to try and make her understand."
There was such anxiety, such obvious doubt in his voice that she knew just how unlikely he believed the possibility of her ever understanding was.
"Can you really do it, Sebastian?" she asked, terrified that he would change his mind even now. Her hands clutched at each other, the fingers twisting together as she began to fear he couldn't face hurting his mother so badly. "Can you really tell her you'd make Lady Dalton your duchess?"
He swung around then and any doubts fled as he closed the distance between them and kissed her. His kiss heated her skin and set her senses on fire as desire blazed to life. She had longed for this for so long. This was what she needed to know. Nibley had offered her security and friendship, Beau a sensual world of physical pleasure devoid of love, but this ... this was everything. Sebastian was everything they offered and more. She liked him as fully as she loved him. She felt safe in his arms and wanted to tear the clothes from his back with a passion even Beau couldn't have aroused because there was nothing headier than friendship between them.
Her awareness in Sebastian's arms seemed heightened and dulled at one and the same time. She was acutely aware of him, of the heat of his mouth, the insistent slide of his tongue as he wrapped his arms around her body, and pulled her as tight as was possible without squeezing the air from her lungs. She was aware of the weight of him, the disparity of his harder, larger body crushing her own softer frame and the urgency of his hands as they slid over her. Yet everything beyond him and his touch fell away. The sound of the world beyond the walls of this room, the ticking of the clock on the mantle, the impropriety of kissing him with such passion in Falmouth's home ... all of that was gone.
He released her with obvious reluctance, his breathing as harsh as her own.
"My God, Georgiana, we must marry as soon as it can be arranged," he said, the frustration in his eyes almost comical and indeed she struggled not to laugh.
He huffed out a chagrined chuckle of his own as she'd patently failed to disguise her amusement.
"Did I answer your question fully enough, love?" he whispered. "Do you see that we cannot be parted? I'll face anything for this, anything at all. Wouldn't you?"
"Yes!" she exclaimed and then stilled as an awful thought occurred to her and she felt the colour drain from her face.
"What is it?" he demanded, taking her in his arms again, clearly shocked by her sudden pallor. "What are you thinking?"
"This is how they felt," she whispered. "Your father, my mother ... this is what drove them."
"No," he said, his voice implacable, his strong face full of surety. "It won't happen to us. We are both free agents. We are hurting no one save my mother and I will do everything in my power to make it easier for her, as will you I know. It isn't the same, love. You know it isn't."
She nodded and smiled at him, trying to feel reassured by his words, but the sense of unease lingered and only grew once he had left her alone.
Chapter 28
"Wherein madness is inevitable."
As Sebastian headed up the steps of the house in Grosvenor square, his harassed looking footman, powdered wig askew, emerged from the front doors. Forcing on his hat a
s he closed the doors and shrugging into his coat as he ran, he was clearly on some errand of urgency. His face cleared in an almost comical manner as it landed on his Master.
"Oh, your grace!" he said, with such obvious relief that Sebastian was struck with an immediate sense of foreboding. His staff never exclaimed nor expressed curiosity or any emotion unbecoming in a member of his household. So the footman's lack of propriety could only mean something of a very grave nature had occurred. "I was just on my way to find you."
"What is it, Benson?" he demanded, ushering the shaken looking fellow back inside the house before anything could be made of it by anyone else.
Once the door had closed Benson seemed to remember his position and straightened himself.
"It is the dowager duchess, your Grace. But I assure you we had no idea she would ever ... I mean to say, your Grace ... As you know it is her habit to stay in her rooms until noon so the staff, none of us expected ... that is to say ..."
"Say what? Are you half-witted man? I never heard anyone say so much and tell me so little!" he exploded, fearing the worst.
His fears seemed to be confirmed by the grave look in his servant's eyes. "We were unaware that her Ladyship meant to visit the breakfast parlour, your Grace. If we had known we would of course have taken pains to have removed ..."
"She saw the morning papers," Sebastian supplied for him with a grim expression.
The footman nodded, his face one of terrified pallor. "I-I must take full responsibility, you grace ... I should have ..."
"Nonsense," Sebastian replied. "I may be exacting, Benson, but I don't believe I have ever demanded my staff to have second sight."
The relief of the man in front of him was palpable and marked. "Thank you, your Grace," the man replied, with deep sincerity.
"Don't thank me yet," Sebastian said his face grim as he put his coat and hat into the care of the second footman. "It means you're still a member of this household and in a situation which may yet be our undoing. How is my mother now?"
Benson blanched a little as a crash of china came from above stairs.
"Never mind," Sebastian said, his heart sinking to his boots where he had no doubt it was likely to remain for the rest of the day at least. He began to run upstairs, calling back to Benson. "And call Doctor Alperton, tell him it's an emergency." He had just reached the top when there was a scream and Lady Rush, his mother's companion, flew through the doors as though pursued by the devil. She ran helter skelter down the corridor to her own rooms, wailing hysterically all the while as Sebastian cursed and ran to his mother's door.
She was pacing and muttering, her long grey hair loose and dishevelled about her shoulders, her black bombazine skirts crumpled. Seeing him enter the room her febrile gaze turned to one of fury and she ran for the mantelpiece and snatched up a Staffordshire china dog, one of a pair that had been in his family for generations. Not for much longer though as she lanced it with considerable force for a woman of her meagre frame. With surprising accuracy too as Sebastian was forced to duck as the vacant-faced canine missed his head by a hair's breadth and exploded against the wall.
"Devil!" she screamed, running to snatch up its china companion and throw it in the same manner. "How dare you!" The china dog shattered at his feet this time as she looked for another missile. "How dare you come from your whore to me? You'd ruin us for that red-haired witch, that slut ..." To his astonishment she gave up her search for a weapon and flew at him instead, scratching at his face, trying to claw at his eyes as he was forced to hold her off.
"Mother!" he shouted. "Stop this!"
"Wicked, wicked man ... oh, Sindalton, Sindalton, how can you ... with that evil ... evil creature! Do you not care for your own son?"
With growing horror Sebastian realised that it wasn't him she was seeing but his dead father all those years before. She subsided as he held her wrists in his strong grip and she crumpled to the floor. Sobbing and raving, she cursed his-red headed whore with vicious and crude words that he had never believed his mother even knew.
By the time doctor Alperton was shown into his study some hours later Sebastian had managed to find a measure of tolerable calm. His mother's behaviour had become increasingly erratic and volatile as the years passed, but this had truly shocked him. By now though he was composed enough to face the man who had delivered him into this world and knew as much of their family scandal as there was to know. A short and rather portly man with a terrible and frivolous taste in waistcoats for a doctor, Sebastian had always thought him a rather frippery fellow. But he was always very solicitous and if Sebastian felt he rather indulged his mother's fits of anxiety, he was grateful beyond measure for his discretion and the quiet dignity with which he now spoke. There was real sorrow in his eyes as he went to shake Sebastian's hand.
"Your grace," he said, his expression serious. "I cannot tell you how sorry I am to find your mother in this state. I have sedated her of course and I'll return first thing in the morning."
"Will ... will she recover?" he asked, hardly daring to hear the answer.
The doctor sighed and gave him a crooked smile. "You know I cannot give you a certain answer to that, my Lord, much as I wish I could."
"Then what is your feeling on the matter?" Sebastian demanded in obvious bad temper, knowing he was being unfair; the man wasn't God after all. "Because if she doesn't I fear I have done far worse than kill her with my own hands!" He stopped and went to pour himself a drink and another for the doctor. "It's my fault you see. I ... I have offered for Lady Dalton ... I needn't ask for your discretion in this I know after all these years, but Mother saw the wicked gossip in one of those damned rags this morning ..."
He broke off and downed his drink in one large swallow before handing the other glass to the doctor.
"May I speak frankly, your Grace?" the doctor asked, his voice gentle and a surprising amount of sympathy in his eyes.
"Of course," Sebastian replied, taking a seat beside the fire and gesturing for Alperton to do the same. "You've known me all my life, and you knew my parent's before. There's hardly anyone I'd trust more."
The doctor smiled at him. "You have no idea how much that honours me, your Grace, and so I'll take advantage of that familiarity if I may." He smoothed a hand over his rather plump belly, which was covered by a truly garish waistcoat as he gathered his thoughts. "I knew your parents before they married as you know, and to be frank a worse match it would have been hard to countenance." He broke off, his smile for Sebastian warm and genuine.
"Your father was a fine man, but he was betrothed to your mother when they were little more than children. As they grew it became clear that your mother was perhaps ... rather high strung to say the least. She was never in the most robust of health and she was spoilt by over indulgent parents. She was prone to fits of temper and ... and irrationality. She was, however, quite a beauty in her young days and, well to be frank your father was too good natured to cry off."
Sebastian felt a knot of tension begin to unravel a little at the doctor's words.
"I didn't drive her to madness?" he asked, his voice rough.
"No!" the doctor exclaimed, shaking his head with vigour. "The truth is that your mother has always been of a nervous and rather unstable temperament. In all honesty she drove your father away. He was lonely, especially after you were born. The experience of child birth ... well it did not sit well with your mother. She doted on you but she would never let your father touch her again."
They were quiet for a while as the doctor allowed him to digest this new and revealing piece of information.
"He was a good man," Sebastian said, his voice quiet.
"He was indeed," the doctor replied smiling. "And he was so very proud of you. Prouder than you perhaps realise."
Sebastian felt a lump form in his throat and had to look away, staring into the fire as the smiling face of his father came to mind.
"He loved you," the older man said. "And he loved Lady Dalton."
<
br /> Sebastian looked up, and he found the man's kindly eyes on him. "He would never have done it if he'd have realised what it would mean for you, of that much I'm sure. But he loved her, that I do know. And she loved him."
Sebastian closed his eyes and let out a breath. "Thank you," he said.
"There is nothing to thank me for," Alperton replied. "They are only the reminiscences of an old man after all. But none of this is your fault, and nor is it any of your young lady's. I can't tell you if your mother will recover her mind or not, your Grace, but I will say this much. Don't let their tragedy be yours. Don't let history repeat itself. Your mother has lived her life as she saw fit and this is the result. Don't change your life to try and create another generation of misery, not to appease someone who can never be truly happy, no matter what you do."
Chapter 29
"Wherein farce and violence are the order of the day."
Georgiana flung her needlework aside as howls and barks came from below stairs. Alex and Céleste had gone to lunch with his Aunt Seymour but the old lady had been taken ill while they were there and they had sent a message to let her know they wouldn't be returning until the next day. It was nothing serious, but Alex wanted to wait to see the doctor and reassure himself his aunt was in good hands. They had been due to attend a masked ball tonight, but Alex had arranged that Lord Nibley and his sister should take her, a fact that made her smile.
She wondered if Alex believed he was match making, though it did give her an opportunity to tell poor Percy that she had reached her decision. But her hosts absence meant she'd been left alone which suited her well. She'd barely managed to set a stitch that wasn't crooked but she didn't care a jot. Sebastian had asked her to marry him. The delicious words of his proposal, the passionate manner in which he had kissed her, all of it was examined and replayed in detail in her mind's eye, to the detriment of her stitching. She had hoped to hear from him today, if not see him in person but she knew he must be spending time with his mother, trying to help her come to terms with his impending nuptials to a woman she couldn't help but despise. She would see him tonight though, at the ball, and the idea made anticipation burn with pleasant warmth through her veins.
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