Acknowledgements
Special thanks to my critique partners, Jody Vitek, Kim Owen & Joyce Proell, fabulous writers all who make me a better one, and to my editor Lea Burn for all her help.
Dedication
For those who have ever hoped for a second chance.
Chapter One
The home of the Duchess of Bridgewater
Grosvenor Square, London
Early June 1821
The sum of her personal possessions filled only a few crates. Granted her clothing would take a dozen or more trunks and her books a few dozen more, but the things that truly held any meaning for her…well, it seemed there weren’t many.
For a wealthy duchess who’d spent the majority of the last two decades occupying this room, the realization came as something of a surprise. Sitting on the floor of her bedchamber amidst the random piles, Georgiana Egerton sorted through the items, separating them among the boxes.
“Oh, how lovely.” Her daughter Maisie held up a tiny white christening gown trimmed in long layers of lace. The heirloom had been passed down in her family for generations. “Perhaps I should just take this with me?”
“You won’t need it for some months yet. I’ll keep it safe until then.”
With a moue of disappointment, Maisie handed over the frock, and Georgiana added it to a crate containing other mementos of her life as a mother of two. Baby clothes, drawings, amateur watercolors, leaves and flowers given to her by her son pressed between the pages of his favorite childhood book. Samplers stitched in various levels of skill by her daughter through the years laid out carefully so they wouldn’t be creased.
Twenty now, Maisie was a far more accomplished seamstress than these childish works of embroidery suggested. She’d soon be stitching her own child’s clothing. Georgiana would be a grandmother well before she was forty. She smoothed her palm over the delicate embroidery-edged sleeves with a slow exhale.
Her daughter misinterpreted the sigh. “You don’t have to do this, Mama. David would never force you to leave.”
“I know he wouldn’t,” she said with a slight smile. “But your brother’s eighteen now and the Duke of Bridgewater. He’s well prepared and has an able steward in Guthrie to assist him. He no longer needs his mother’s coddling. I intend to let him make this house, and indeed his life, his own. Besides, one day his wife will occupy these rooms.”
“He’s hardly left university,” Maisie protested. “I doubt he has any intention of rushing to the altar.”
The thought stretched Georgiana’s smile wider. Her son, who’d been so solemn since his father’s death the year before, had definitively emerged from his mourning period with a vengeance and leapt headlong into the life of a buck about town. Many expected him to wed with due haste and sire an heir for the dukedom, but she didn’t mind if he waited a few years before he contemplated settling down. “He deserves a spot of fun, I think.”
They all did.
“In any case,” she went on, “it’s not as if I’m consigning myself to the dower house. I fully intend to enjoy my life as well.”
“In Bath.” Maisie clucked her tongue. “The Season isn’t even over yet, and Bath is so terribly passé, Mama. Why not wait and come with us to Brighton next month?”
“I’ve a perfectly good townhouse in Bath I haven’t visited in years. Besides, I wouldn’t dream of sharing an address with my daughter during her first year of marriage.” She laughed. “Ardmore is a dear, but I daresay, no new husband would tolerate his mother-in-law underfoot for long.”
“But what about when the babe comes? I couldn’t bear it if you weren’t there.”
She couldn’t bear it either. It would be harder than she’d imagined leaving her daughter to her own devices. Converse emotions tore her in two directions. At once urging her to smother her child in her protective embrace and pledging to let her daughter stand on her own two feet. Only through grim determination was she letting the latter inclination prevail. Maisie possessed two full decades of her mother’s teachings to guide her and had a young, handsome husband who adored her to care for her as well. While Georgiana would love to stay close, to hover and mother them to death, she intended to give them time and space to become dependent on one another before old age left her reliant on them.
“You’ve many a month to go before you’ll need me,” she finally said aloud. “I promise I will be there when the time comes. In the meantime, you know I prefer a more tranquil environment.”
“You’ve lived in London for years. It’s hardly a place for peace and quiet.”
“Yes, but I only moved to town permanently when you made your debut. Before that, I stayed only for the Parliamentary sessions and Season with your father. I rarely left Somerset otherwise.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
Maisie continued emptying the wardrobe, arranging the contents in neat piles on the floor around her. Georgiana hummed to herself as they worked, packing her crates. Finished with the upper shelves, Maisie dropped to her knees to clear the bottom shelves of the winter stockings and woolen drawers stored there.
“Mama?” She withdrew one final item from the cupboard before shutting the door. “What is this?”
“What?” Georgiana looked up, and her lips parted in an involuntary gasp that stole her breath as she recognized the long, fabric-covered box in her daughter’s lap.
Maisie swept a palm over the frayed blue silk of the lid. “I’ve never seen this before.”
“It’s…” The word croaked from her suddenly dry throat but Georgiana cleared it away. “It’s nothing. Bring it here…no, don’t open that.”
But her daughter already removed the lid, setting it aside. A heartbeat later, she was leafing through the items inside. Georgiana closed her eyes, a mental inventory of its contents playing through her mind without having to look. A few dried flowers, an embroidered handkerchief, a length of green ribbon, and the letters. Dozens of them.
“Mama? What is this?”
“It’s nothing. Please put it away.”
Maisie ignored the faint appeal. “Are these love letters?” She fanned one back and forth before her mischievous grin. “Did Father write you love letters? I would never thought him capable of it.”
The crinkling of paper shot Georgiana into action. Shoving the clothes in her lap to the side, she leapt to her feet only to trip on the hem of her skirts. The sharp jerk brought her down again, leaving her to struggle forward on her hands and knees. Hardly a dignified moment for a duchess of her years.
Her skirts continued to impede her frantic scramble to grab the letter her daughter was now opening. The heel of her slipper caught on the hem. The deep melodrama of Maisie’s voice drowned out the tearing of the silk flounce.
“’Tis been but a day since we last met yet it seems forever, an eternity since I’ve seen yer bonny smile. A lifetime since I’ve heard my name on yer lips or touched them wi’ my own. But that eternity, that lifetime is but a wee price to pay for a chance to hold ye in my arms again. How I love ye, my sweet Georgie lass…” She trailed off, her face infused with color. “Well, that’s…” Again she paused as her eyes scanned down the page. “Mama? What is this? This isn’t from Father.”
Still on her hands and knees, Georgiana fell on her elbows and hung her head. There should be some shame, she supposed, over someone reading aloud those private words. Some horror at being discovered. All she knew, however, was the rush of her pulse, the gooseflesh dancing over her skin. The dreadful contraction of her chest as the heartache of twenty years past reared its head.
“Mama?” She heard the confusion in her daughter’s voice.
The betrayal. Georgiana knew all about that. Too well. Not in being betrayed but ra
ther in being the betrayer.
“Mama, who is this Mal?”
“Oh, darling, he’s no…” The renunciation stuck in her throat. She couldn’t say he was no one. Nobody. Not even now, after all this time. Not when the mere thought of him was everything. Nevertheless, she strove for nonchalance, not wanting to hurt her child or create a lie to a lifetime of Maisie’s memories.
“It was noth—” No. Georgiana tried again. “He was just…”
She couldn’t do it. Lying about what she’d experienced would be the greatest act of perfidy of them all. Georgiana pushed herself to a sitting position, tucking her skirts around her legs and plucking at the blue threads of the torn ruffle, studiously avoiding her daughter’s avid gaze all the while.
“I’d forgotten those were in there.”
True enough. Georgiana would have packed the wardrobe herself if she’d recalled the box’s hiding spot even five minutes earlier.
“But who is he?”
Inwardly, she pleaded with the Fates that Maisie would let the matter lie, but Maisie was her daughter through and through. Curious. Tenacious. She’d never relinquish the topic without an answer.
“Mal…” The name was wrenched from her lips like tearing a bandage from an unhealed wound. A name she hadn’t said aloud in over two decades. “Malcolm MacKintosh was a beau of mine,” she supplied at last, praying it would be enough to satisfy her daughter. “Before I married your father.”
Maisie idly twisted a dark lock of hair around her finger, as she often did when she was thinking. “I never knew you were courted by other men.”
“I was the daughter of a duke.” Georgiana fiddled with the tear in her skirt again. “I was courted by dozens of men. Just as you were before you settled on Lord Ardmore. Truly, darling, it was a lifetime ago. I’ve all but forgotten it. Now, please, give me the box.”
But she should have known Maisie, with all the idealization of a woman in the thrall of first love, wouldn’t let it go. “But you kept these letters. All this time.”
Her daughter fanned out the dozens of letters on the carpet between them. Against the yellowing paper of the envelopes, the scrawl of black ink set Georgiana’s pulse racing even now. As it had each time her maid had slipped one into her eager hands so long ago. How could it still stir her so? Still rouse such sorrow?
“Such a romantic letter. And this one? Long I’ve wandered wi’out purpose, my bonny lass. I might ha’ rambled through my days aimless, lost, if I hidnae found ye. My star, my light. Even more tender. He wrote that he loved you. Did you love him as well?” Maisie bounced on her knees like a child in her excitement. “Oh, Mama! Did you?”
Yes.
The word resounded in Georgiana’s mind, the final crescendo of a hundred-piece orchestra. She had loved him.
She did.
None of the emotion raging in her heart was uttered by word or sigh; her daughter heard the silent answer anyway.
Maisie clasped her hands to her chest with a gasp of delight. “How romantic! When did you meet him? How? You must tell me.”
“It cannot be a story you want to hear.” Georgiana brushed away the tear welling in her eye. “Surely you’d rather hear how I met your father instead?”
“No, Mama, tell me,” her daughter begged, green eyes wide with interest. “You know how I adore such tales.”
“You read far too many gothic novels for your own good.”
“Mother.”
Georgiana sighed in defeat. Combined with Maisie’s redoubtable tenacity, she’d also inherited a strong streak of romanticism.
And it was, after all, a tale of love.
Chapter Two
Bath, England
March 1800
“There you are, Bernie.” Georgiana hurried across The Circus, Bath’s most congested roundabout, and into the public garden at its center to her friend’s side. She clasped her reticule tightly to mask the anxiety she always felt among large masses of people. “I’m sorry I’m late. Why are there so many people here today?”
“I have no idea.” Bernie’s family lived in one of the many arcing rows of townhouses ringing The Circus. “Must be something uncommon to gather so many. Are you ready to go then?”
“You didn’t get it yet?”
“Not yet. I’ve been waiting for you before I went on. Where have you been? My new bonnet is calling to me.”
“Enduring another lecture from Father about the evils of keeping company with Mrs. Montagu.” Georgiana pulled the wide brim of her chip straw, coalscuttle bonnet forward as if it might insulate her from the crowd. “He believes she’s going to make a bluestocking of me.”
“Make you one?” Bernie laughed aloud. “A bit too late for that, I’d say. He should have sacked your governess years ago for failing in her duty to foster a proper duke’s daughter. He’s right about one thing, though. You spend far too much time with that old lady. She’s a crashing bore.”
A moue of disapproval tugged on Georgiana’s lips. It didn’t please her when anyone, be it friend or father, belittled her elderly neighbor in any way. She savored each moment of Elizabeth Montagu’s company. For years, Georgiana had watched her literary salons from the gallery overlooking the lady’s drawing room until she’d been old enough to attend. Afterwards, they’d spend hours together in lively, lovely debates over the day’s topic. Now well into her eighties, Mrs. Montagu’s health was faltering.
“She’s retiring to her home in Portman Square in London soon. I fear she hasn’t long left.”
Bernie flicked her a glance of genuine regret. “Oh, dear, I am sorry. I know how you adore her.”
“I do,” she agreed. “I shall miss her.”
“At least Mr. Anstey will remain in town to provide you literary diversion,” Bernie said, referring to the poet, Christopher Anstey, who lived at No. 4 of the Royal Crescent next door to Georgiana’s father, the Duke of Wharton, at No. 3.
A lifelong friend and excellent company when it came to shopping and more equestrian pursuits, Bernie freely confessed her disinterest in any topic that might be found between the pages of a musty old book. Despite her disinterest, she accepted Georgiana’s love of them and never begrudged her the long hours she spent with her more scholarly acquaintances.
Though she swore she’d never comprehend why Georgiana would rather shop for books than…well, almost anything else.
With that inner reminder, Georgiana slipped her arm through her friend’s and turned toward the street that extended from the opposite end of The Circus. The sooner they finished Bernie’s errand, the sooner they could trade the busy street and the usual bustle of the adjacent shopping district for the peace of Bernie’s sitting room.
“Should we go on then? Mr. Sutton isn’t going to hold that bonnet for you forever. Bernie? Bernie? Whatever are you looking at?”
A parade of sorts had begun around the circle. Regiments of uniformed soldiers led by a flagman and fife and drum marched rank and file through the area, explaining the gathered crowds. Bernie’s blue eyes brightened with anticipation matched by her dimpled simper. That eagerness wasn’t for any bonnet in Sutton’s window, however.
“Oh, Georgiana, don’t you see them?”
“See who?” She scanned the street where Bernie’s gaze was firmly pinned.
“Officers.”
One measly word, but it held a wealth of captivation.
Enough to snag her full attention as well. “Where? Whe—Oh!”
There.
For all her aspirations to become as renowned for her scholarly inclinations as Elizabeth Montagu, Georgiana could admit that at seventeen she was still enough of an impressionable young lady to thrill at the sight of a bright red jacket.
It was their common opinion that all gentlemen were dashing in their regimentals and the three swaggering down the street behind those marching were no exception. Having become quite the authority on the insignia of the realm over the past year, she easily identified the golden markings on their should
ers despite the distance. A lieutenant and two captains.
Their uniforms were even easier to place. The crisscross of white harnesses was common to many battalions, but those towering black beaver hats and mesmerizing plaid kilts belonged to only one outfit Georgiana knew of.
The 42nd Highlanders. Also known as the infamous Black Watch.
A glimpse of knees bared between the swishing kilts and the white spats set her heart aflutter. Any one of them could set a girl into a swoon. Bernie appeared well on the way, fanning her flaming cheeks as she swayed from side to side. Given her broad grin and ill-contained giggle, though, Georgiana knew there was little to fear on that front. No doubt her friend was merely contemplating the best way to cast herself prettily across their path.
“Oh,” her friend sighed, “but they are so…so…”
What was the word the Scots used? “Bonny,” Georgiana supplied when her friend failed to summon the appropriate word.
“Aye, lass,” Bernie agreed in an exaggerated Scottish accent and fell into a bout of giggles that Georgiana was helpless to resist.
Hiding her smile behind one hand, she clung to Bernie with the other as they watched the officers’ approach. They were all tall and broad through the shoulders, with bayoneted rifles slung across them. One must have told a joke for they all laughed.
In that moment, she didn’t see three officers any longer. Only one. The lieutenant threw back his head, his husky chuckle filling her ears. A brilliant ray of light, his smile speared its way through the clouds in the overcast sky.
And like a summer sun, it warmed her through. But unlike a too-bright sun, she couldn’t look away, though it nearly pained her to stare. She’d never before seen a man so dazzling, not among Bath society or any of the other officers who passed through town now and then on their way to Portsmouth or London.
So enthralled by him, she hardly cared about the pressing crowds any longer and barely noticed when Bernie tossed her handkerchief out into the street as they neared, hoping one of them would be gentleman enough to stop and retrieve it.
Once Again, My Laird Page 1