She had read in the broadsheets about Lord Fletcher's betrayal. He had been tried for treason and hanged. It was all very sad. There had been no mention of anyone else involved. She supposed that was some relief. Enough scandal attached to her name already.
She scanned the numbers. The last word had to be "o'clock", if she was not mistaken. A time, then.
She took the note up to her secretary, and pulled out a piece of parchment and a fresh quill. It was relatively quick work, and a simple cipher.
HERMIT'S FOLLY
AT FOUR O'CLOCK
She looked at the clock on the mantel piece. Heavens! It was almost four o'clock now.
For a moment she remained still, undecided. Should she go? Who would leave her such a note? This could not be good. No, she would not go. If the man wished to see her again, he could once more visit the house. It had to be him. What if it wasn’t? She was a lady alone. She was done putting herself in dangerous positions.
Right. She would not go. She had learned the lesson of impetuous decisions. There would be no going to the hermit's folly.
Oh, bother. Who was she trying to fool?
She ran out of the house, still wearing her strawberry stained apron. She forgot her bonnet, and her hair began to fly from her pins.
The Hermit's Folly sat atop a small hill behind the house, the product of a previous inhabitant, who had decided to build a cottage and install a hermit in it. There was no longer a hermit, but the cottage remained, a ruin now, an ode to beauty in peril. Georgette frequently walked up to take in the view from the structure.
She ran up it now.
He was standing up on the platform, looking down at her.
"I thought you might not come," he said.
"I strongly considered not doing so," she said. She breathed heavily in and out; glad she was wearing a unrestrictive day dress and apron. "But then I became overwhelmed with hope."
She raised her hand to her hair. "I ran here," she said. "I must look a mess."
"I saw you running and you do not look a mess," he said. "You look lovely."
She laughed. "Liar," she said, but she smiled.
He stared down at her, and then held out her hand to help her up.
She felt the tingle travel up her arm as she touched him. She could not believe he was here. Perhaps she was dreaming him.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"I thought I would see the sights of the area," he said. "Somerset is glorious this time of year."
"Ah," she said. Her heart fell a bit. He was not here for her. What had she been thinking? He would not come here for her.
She had sworn she would never fall in love again. She had sworn she could not bear it. But looking at him, in the afternoon light, the green of Somerset stretching out behind him, she realized she may as well have said she would not breathe again. It was unavoidable. She could not have stopped it.
But this love felt different. Not the same, overwhelming love she had felt for Sebastian. Now that she was older, she could see that as the desperate infatuation of a young girl. What she felt for the man standing in front of her was stronger, and deeper, yet less tumultuous. He did not love her, but she would survive. If you truly loved someone, you could not expect them to love you back. You had to be content with knowing that you loved them, that you would give them your all, if only they asked.
Still. It would have been nice if he loved her back, she could not help thinking.
He shook his head. "That is not exactly true," he said. "I did not come here to see the sights. I came here to see you."
"Oh," Georgette said. Her heart began to beat ever so slightly faster.
"Your cousin and my sister have become friends," he said.
Georgette blinked.
"Are they here?" she asked. She was confused. Was he here because of Fanny and Judith?
"No, I am alone," he said. "What I meant was that Fanny told Judith to tell me to find you. She is still quite set on us making a match, you know."
Georgette nodded understanding. "I would apologize for Fanny," she said, "but you are aware of her determination. You did not need to trouble yourself. She is given to flights of fancy."
“Unlike you.”
“Yes.”
“You are quite the practical woman.”
“Yes.”
He nodded and dropped her hand, which he had still been holding, after helping her up. He strode over to the other side of the folly and looked down. He appeared agitated. What was amiss? Was it something to do with his business for the King?
He opened his mouth and closed it. Then strode to another view. Then back to Georgette, where he stood in front of her, running his hand through his hair. Georgette stood in silence, watching him, wondering what he would say.
"I do believe," he finally said, "that your cousin has a rather good point."
~.~
Chapter Fourteen
Oh God. What was he doing? She didn't want to marry him. She did not love him. She had told him, that first night that she did not ever intend to fall in love again.
Perhaps he could suggest it as a convenient arrangement. He could explain that he wished to have a companion, someone with whom he shared interests.
Yes, he could propose that way. Surely she would be amenable to such a suggestion. If for no other reason than she would be a Duchess, effectively quelling the gossips, and also have companionship.
But now he was pacing in front of her, his stomach full of butterflies.
He swallowed.
"I do believe that your cousin has a rather good point," he said to her.
Silence.
He looked over to Miss Quinby. Her eyes were wide and her lips had parted. They were quite red. Was that strawberry juice? He wondered. She closed her lips and swallowed. He could see a blush creep up her cheeks.
"Oh?" She was trying to sound casual.
She was not unaffected.
How could she be? He knew what falling in love with someone felt like. He remembered it. This was different from that first heady fall he'd experienced with Blanche, but no less right. There was no way he could be experiencing this alone.
"Yes," he said. He came forward and took her hands in his. "I believe both of us once said that we would never love again."
~.~
Both had said they would never love again. He was reminding her. Reminding her that he would never love anyone but Blanche. And yet he had just suggested Fanny had a good point, regarding marriage.
"We did," Georgette said, faintly. "We neither of us wished to fall in love again. Your heart could not bear it, nor could my dignity. It was something we had in common, when you spoke to me at the ball…in the garden."
"It seems so long ago," he said. "So much occurred."
She nodded. "I'm afraid the masquerade got a bit tricky," she said. "The guests believed I wanted to jump, and I allowed them to think so. But then I did not know how to correct the rumor in later days, Your Grace, and so I fled here."
She was so formal. When had she started to call him Your Grace again?
“Dignity be damned,” he said.
She said nothing, but her eyes widened at his frank language.
"I heard Aunt Agatha also appeared," he said.
"She did," Georgette said. "I am banned from chaperoning Fanny."
"And Miss Markham feels quite bereft, as I understand it," he said. "She's even taken to befriending my sister."
Georgette laughed. "If anyone can befriend Lady Judith, it would be Fanny."
"I did try to call on you, a few days later," he said. "But you had already departed."
Georgette wanted to tell him that he could have written, but looking back now she wondered how she would have responded to a letter. She had felt so unmoored after the Fletcher masquerade. Her dignity, her heart, her shock at the actions of Lord Fletcher. In a way, she had needed the peace she had found in Somerset.
"You did cause quite a scandal," he said as un
derstanding came to him. He was indeed an idiot.
"You needn't sound quite so entertained by that," Georgette said, somewhat grumpily.
"You lost your pride then and there," he said.
That was unnecessary, she thought.
"Which is why I, for my part, would like to amend my half," he said.
"Amend?" she echoed. “Your half, of what?” What was he on about? He was speaking of her embarrassment and her destroyed reputation and now he was saying he wished to amend something? She clasped her hands and stared down at them. Her fingers were covered with strawberry juice. She looked like a common farm wench.
"Yes," he said. "If you could sacrifice your dignity once more, surely I could sacrifice my heart?"
"What exactly do you mean, Your Grace?" Georgette said. Her mind was awhirl.
“Eversley,” he said. “No. Charles.”
She stared at him.
"I said I would never fall in love again. Now I would like to say that I will never fall in love again, except with you," he said.
"Except with me?"
"That's right," he said. "Only with you."
"You will fall in love with me?" she asked. Her words felt slow, her mind felt fogged. He would fall in love with her?
"Have," he said. "I have fallen in love with you, Miss Quinby."
He loved her. He loved her. He loved her. Oh Good God, he loved her. He was standing in front of her and he was real and this was not a dream and he was saying that he loved her.
~.~
She stood there, looking dazed. He could hear a bird call, the sound of cows mooing. The summer sounds of Somerset. What if she told him to go to the Devil? What if she told him she wanted nothing to do with him?
Oh God, what if she was in love with someone else?
Then she raised her face to him, smiling. "I like that amendment," she said. "I like it very much."
His heart started beating again.
"You do?" he asked.
"I do," she said. She laughed. "You see, it is past tense with me as well. I've fallen in love with you…Charles."
She looked so beautiful, so happy. Her hair was tangled, and she was wearing a apron smeared with what he hoped was juice or jam. She had recent freckles on her nose, and her smile was so true and genuine and real that for a moment he lost his breath.
She was real. She was real and she loved him.
He grasped her hands and pulled her towards him, and she looked up at him trust in her eyes and was that strawberries on her cheek?
"I am terribly relieved," he said. And then, with one final tug, he drew her into his arms and kissed her. She smelled of strawberries. She tasted of strawberries.
~.~
Chapter Fifteen
Fanny Markham closed the letter she had only just received and grinned to herself. If anyone had been wandering by, they might have said that Miss Markham looked distinctly pleased with herself. She bit her lip, trying to contain her glee.
The letter, posted from Somerset, contained the very happy information that Miss Georgette Quinby, more recently known to the ton as the Mad Heiress, had accepted an offer of marriage from the Duke of Eversley.
"And they shall love one another for the rest of their lives," Fanny said out loud.
And she was right. She only hoped that she could be so lucky in love.
~.~
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Continue reading for a SNEAK PEEK of the next
Regency Romance Novel by Isabella Thorne
The Duke’s Wicker Wager ~ Lady Evelyn Evering
The Duke’s Wicked Wager
~Part 1 ~
Promise Me a Handful of Horses
Chapter One
Lady Evelyn Evering did not mean to eavesdrop—well maybe she did. It was hard not to. The door was cracked open and the voices inside were too loud to ignore. One of the voices belonged to her brother, Frederic. If he had a quieter way of speaking, she would have never heard the conversation. In the hallway, she crept closer and pressed her ear against the doorframe, holding the somewhat frayed ruffled hem of her mauve dress back so it would not be seen.
“She will not like this plan, Evermont.” That was The Duke of Pemberton, George Pender. George was her brother’s friend, acquired during their mutual pursuit of mischief.
“And yet, she will have no choice in the matter,” Evelyn’s brother, The Marquess of Evermont, said. “It is her duty to marry, and she will do it.”
“Have you no kindness for your sister? She is an odd one, true, but does not seem to be a shrew. It would not be a bother to find her a husband she could grow to love. She does have a certain…grit.”
There was a long pause, filled only by the just-audible inhales and exhales of cigar smoke. She could smell the earthy plumes of it wafting into the hall.
“It is marriage in a hurry or ruin for our family name” Frederic said at last.
“And this has naught to do with your latest flame, dear Adele? That pretty little actress is costing you a fortune to keep.” The Duke replied.
Frederic snorted a laugh. The clink of crystal was followed by the sound of liquid pouring, and Evelyn could imagine the amber drink flowing from the decanter into their glasses.
“But Adele is worth every penny, my dear friend, for when I have done something to please her she will do her damnedest to please me.” Frederic’s smug smile was evident from his tone. “Isn’t that the entire purpose of the gentler sex?”
Evelyn’s cheeks burned at the rude talk and she spun away from the door. Servants edged out of her way, pressing back against the wallpaper to let her pass in a flurry of lace and ruffles. The house was not as staffed as it had been only a year ago, when her father still lived. They had been forced to let go some of the maids and footmen, but they managed. It was quieter without them, and without her father’s booming laughter.
Her lip trembled as she stepped out of the house and made her way to the stable. It was some distance from the house, an immense, quadrangular structure that had at its prime housed sixty horses. Only a handful remained, but they were the twenty finest horses Evermont had ever boasted. Still, it was a sad state of affairs, and the beautiful white-stone complex seemed wasted for want of activity.
One of the grooms worked Valiant in the corral, putting the blood-bay through his paces. The stud was retired from his racing days but his elegant body still rippled with muscle beneath the dappled coat, and he sired the finest foals in all of Norfolk. She paused a moment to watch the stallion kick up the sand beneath his hooves. His steel shoes caught the sunlight. Her father had purchased Valiant when she was only a child but she could still remember the day the stallion had come home, all fire, calming only under her father’s touch. He had been a master horseman, and a wonderful father. She missed him so. She brushed back the tears, determined not to cry again.
“A fine day for a ride, My Lady,” said the stable master, Stanton, coming up beside her where she stood at the rail. “Shall I have Bellona saddled for you?”
Evelyn was tempted by the offer, smiling at the thought of the beautiful gray filly, but she was not dressed in her riding habit and that would require going back into the house with her brother.
“No, thank you, Stanton.”
He reminded Evelyn of her father, though whether it was the similarity in their appearance or only that the two men had spent most of their days together and thus adopted similar mannerisms, she could not be certain. Regardless, his presence soothed her as her father’s had.
“An inspection of the mares in foal, then?” he asked, gesturing toward the barn. At her nod, Stanton led the way out of the dusty yard and into the coolness of the stone building.
The empty stalls dampened her spirits. They were swept clean, but Evelyn could picture every horse that should be there—horses that were already sold although their presence still filled her heart. Not ghosts, quite, but something like them filled the space now, as her father’s memory did the house, a presence felt, but never seen. She could close her eyes and picture them, so many born right here at Evermont.
Modeste, a chestnut mare with an obscenely bulging belly, nickered at their approach. She was a placid, sweet-tempered thing, even in foal. Evelyn offered her palm to the mare and she pressed her white blazed nose there, snuffling for treats. Evelyn smiled at the feel of her velvet nose on her hand.
“Expectin’ the birth this week now,” Stanton said, reaching up to scratch the mare’s neck. “An old pro, she is, should be no trouble at all.”
“Let us hope for a colt. We cannot expect Valiant to live forever, though if any horse shall manage, it will be him.” Evelyn patted Modeste in farewell and checked in on the other two pregnant mares.
They were not so far along as Modeste, but in the next few months they would have three new additions to the barn, if all went well. Two would need to be sold just after weaning, and potential buyers had already made offers. It pained Evelyn to part with any of Valliant’s get. His line belonged at Evermont, but those were the ways of the past. She fingered the amethyst bracelet at her wrist, nodding as she half-listened to Stanton as he talked about the mares. A mark of her mourning, the bracelet felt as heavy as the burden of grief.
She had lost not only her father, but her betrothed as well. It had been a dark year at Evermont. Her fiancé had been killed in battle, a noble death for an officer, but one that had left her in shock. Their love had been a quiet one, of friendship rather than passion. He was eight years her senior, but he had been a kind, gentle man and she held him still in the greatest affection. Evelyn’s father had made the match, selecting for her a husband with a love for horses and an open mind, a man who would not try to temper Evelyn’s spirited ways. She had lost them both within a month of each other. What else could fate throw at her?
The Mad Heiress and the Duke – Miss Georgette Quinby: A Regency Romance Novel (Heart of a Gentleman Book 1) Page 14