“You will not. She doesn’t wish it. She doesn’t wish dealings with a schoolmaster’s son.”
A flicker of doubt burned like acid at Andrew’s heart; it eroded his confidence. He knew that he could lay this man flat and let the devil take the consequences. He would have if he had been sure she wanted him, but he wasn’t.
He knew the Duke could be telling the truth. She had refused his hand; she hadn’t written in three weeks, and she had walked past him in the entrance. In Cambridge she had wanted him badly enough to invade his house. He had no way to know whether or not she still wanted him or on what terms?
He opened his mouth to deny her refusal, but before he could reply, another voice spoke behind him.
“She doesn’t wish it.” Softer but equally aristocratic, Glenaire’s voice cut in. Andrew turned awkwardly, leaning on his cane. He made no pretense of disbelief. The look he turned on his one-time friend held anguished questions and agonized longing. He found no mercy. Richard Hayden stood with calm dignity in the doorway.
“Andrew, whatever affection she may feel or have felt, she understands that it will not do. Go. Don’t make this worse for her.” His eyes urged compliance.
“Go now, or I’ll have you thrashed and removed!” the Duke of Sudbury said in a voice constructed of ice shards. “Immediately.”
Andrew’s hand itched to lash out in one great sweep of his ebony walking stick. His common sense told him it would do no good. A dozen footmen were at their command. Lashing out would bring only his injury and her humiliation.
“I have something for her,” he said.
“I’ll see that she gets it.” Richard reached for the parcel. Long years of experience told Andrew it wouldn’t be wise to let go of the manuscript. The Haydens knew little of Georgiana’s skills and her work, and what they did know they despised. He wouldn’t entrust this to them.
Georgiana may not want him, but she wanted the manuscript. He hugged the portfolio closer.
“No. I don’t think so. I have no wish to complicate her life, Richard. If she is content to stay here, so be it, but I’ll keep this.”
Andrew couldn’t read Glenaire’s face. Both men knew they had decided this once before.
“It’s for the best,” Richard said. Andrew nodded. He would leave it for now, but this time he would keep the work they did together.
Andrew turned to go. A vision of wrath confronted him. Georgiana stood just inside the door—her face a mask of rage.
“Have you gentlemen finished arranging my existence, then?”
“It’s for the best,” Georgiana heard when she slipped into the room. Just as they had before, her brother and Andrew planned to make decisions for her. Rage flooded her veins.
Andrew opened his mouth to speak; she stopped him with her eyes.
“How dare you come here without my consent?” Never mind that I longed for you every day. Fairness be damned! “‘It is for the best?’” she mocked. “You always know what is best for me, don’t you, Andrew? Richard? Did you know that, Your Grace? You needn’t stir yourself or worry about my behavior. These two gentlemen have my life well in hand. They always did.”
“Georgiana, I–” Richard spoke soothingly. Andrew, she noted, was mute.
“Mr. Mallet was just leaving.” His Grace’s cold eyes never left Andrew.
“I’m sure he was. Mr. Mallet always does what is best for me, doesn’t he?” Her eyes dared him to deny it.
“Georgiana, this isn’t the place,” Andrew said.
“If it isn’t the place, Andrew, why did you come here? You asked for me. You spend five minutes with His Grace, and you change your mind. Why? Because it is for the best? Whose best, Andrew?”
He looked about to speak, but her anger urged her on. “In Cambridge you thought marriage was for the best.” She saw her father’s face darken dangerously. “In London you thought the army was for the best—and look what it got you. Now what? I stay at Mountview, and you slink back to Cambridge? Then what?”
She wheeled on Richard. “And you brother? Are you satisfied with your investigations? Have my servants reported my every move? Why did you bring me here? To remember who I am? Lady Georgiana Hayden, child of peerage and power, ornament of aristocracy, ivory icon of superior breeding?”
She faced her father at long last. She didn’t—couldn’t—care about the Duke’s stony face. Not this time. “I am sorry, Father, for this scene you so detest. You and Richard believe you can control my very life–with Mr. Mallet’s collusion, of course. I won’t have it.”
The old man’s brows rose; his eyes blazed, but she sped on before he could speak. “I will have my life the way I wish it. I won’t stay at Mountview one day longer. You can arrange transportation back to my house—the house Aunt Sephronia left me—or I will take the first post in the morning.”
Words rushed from her, driven by rage and the remnants of fear. “Yes, I know you pay the bills. You needn’t worry. I will burden you no longer, and neither will I dance to your tune. All I want from you is to be returned to my life. My. Life.”
“As to you, Sir.” She looked fire and sulfur at Andrew. “We agreed that when we completed the work we would talk. Very well, we are talking. Here is what I have to say: I find your services are no longer needed. When I return to Cambridge, I expect to find my notes, my translations, and any contributions you made to my work back at my house. Our partnership is at an end. There is, of course, no question of a relationship of any other kind.”
She turned on her heels, too angry to say more, and swept past him. She didn’t want to see his face, didn’t want to know the pain there. She wanted to pack and be quit of Mountview.
Georgiana’s heels clattered across the marble floor of the atrium to the broad sweeping stairway that led to the upper stories and the family quarters.
“Georgiana, I insist you return to your dinner. This is insupportable.” From the third step, Georgiana saw her mother come out of the dining salon, outrage on every fiber of her being. The Duchess glared fire across the atrium. “Is that schoolmaster’s son still here? Has no one thrown him out on his ear? Are there insufficient footmen to remove him?”
Over her shoulder, Georgiana saw Andrew, Richard, and the Duke at the door to her father’s office. “You may rest easy, Your Grace. Mr. Mallet is leaving and will trouble us no longer.” She looked directly at her mother. “And you will be relieved of my presence also. I won’t spend one more day in this house. I am returning to Cambridge. Alone. To live my own life the way I choose. You can finally forget your troublesome daughter entirely.”
The Duchess shook with indignation; her mouth moved as if seeking a retort that would not come. Behind the Duchess, Eloise’s eyes blazed with hatred.
“You needn’t fear, my loving sister.” Georgiana said, her words dripping acid. “The life I live may not be to your liking, but it won’t disturb your serenity. After tonight, you need never see me again.”
“Georgiana!” Her mother’s voice echoed in the vast atrium. She ignored it. She ignored them all; she climbed the steps purposefully, one by one. Behind her, Mountview’s massive front door opened and closed. He was gone. It was over.
“Do calm yourself. It isn’t like you to enact Cheltenham tragedy, no matter the provocation.” Glenaire’s habitual mask of hauteur and calm irritated Georgiana. She failed to master that particular Hayden trait. She growled in response.
“He chose to leave,” Glenaire went on.
“This time at least he had a choice. He wasn’t given one eleven years ago, was he?” Georgiana tossed a hairbrush into her trunk and followed it with a pile of handkerchiefs.
“You refer to his youthful enthusiasms?” Glenaire showed no surprise about the extent of her information. “My dear Georgiana, that outcome was preordained. He had no choice. He understood that. You should also.”
“Oh yes, I know he believed that. He still believes it.” Her voice dropped to a choked whisper. “I, on the other hand, beg to dif
fer. He was wrong then, and he’s wrong now. The two of you never asked me what I wanted, never gave me any choice, never let me control my own life.”
“Georgiana, you are becoming hysterical.”
The insult impacted her far differently than he intended. “You overreach Richard. I’m not as easily manipulated as the minions who do your bidding. I am a Hayden also, and I will have a voice in my own life.”
“You don’t—”
“Don’t what? Know what you did to me so long ago?” she demanded.
“Remember your courtesy and stop interrupting me,” he snapped.
She had no idea how any of them had survived the frigid air that passed for family life in Mountview. Perhaps she hadn’t survived it. Perhaps she was actually dead of the cold. She might have responded differently to Andrew’s proposal if life ran in her veins.
“Very well, Richard. Explain to me why you and Andrew didn’t give me a say in my own life all those years ago.”
“He understood, as you apparently don’t,” Richard began with exaggerated patience, “that without His Grace’s blessing the two of you had no chance to survive. You had no funds of your own–you still don’t–and he had none. Father would have made sure he never found employment, never earned a shilling. If you had attempted to live in romantic poverty, assuming for a moment the very poverty didn’t kill your regard for one another, you would have been humiliated and destroyed, unable to return.”
“Did His Grace know?”
“Certainly not. Do you have any idea what they would have done to you if he had learned of your foolishness? I averted further distress only by acting quickly. As a result, you’ve been able to live an independent life, for a woman, free from our mother’s …” His voice trailed off, and a look of understanding passed swiftly between them. “Free at least to pursue your own interests.”
“As long as I remained invisible and silent?” She dared him to deny it. “Free to exist in a gray half-world with my books and my garden, free as long as I didn’t require companionship or warmth?”
“It is more than most unmarried women have. They didn’t force you into the role of maiden aunt, unpaid companion.”
“Only because Eloise wouldn’t have me. She hired help for their children. She didn’t want her impossibly gauche sister in her home. I didn’t even have the affection of nieces and nephews to hold on to!”
He looked as though he saw her for the first time. “Would you have wanted the role of charity-dependent in your sisters’ houses?” His bafflement almost touched her.
“I think sometimes the children would have been worth it, but no. Neither of them would have given me a moment’s peace. It’s irrelevant now. I chose my life in Cambridgeshire, and I was content with it.”
“Was?”
She caught her lip between her teeth for a moment and chose words carefully. “Lately I have begun to see what I have missed and to desire, belatedly, to put it right.”
Glenaire appeared thoughtful. She wished, not for the first time, she could read his mind. “And now?” he asked.
“You heard what I said downstairs. Now I wish to be left to my own life.”
He examined her face, reading every detail. “Very well, Georgiana. If it’s what you wish, go back to your books and to Helsington. You were at peace there. Go back.”
“Oh, I intend to. I’ll go back to Cambridge but not to how things were.” Nothing would ever be the same. “I am finished with being under someone’s control. I will sell Helsington.”
“You can’t!”
“Sell it? You forget–I own Helsington Cottage, not His Grace.”
“How will you pay your servants, your green grocer?” He asked it calmly, but she thought he knew the answer. Helsington was large and well-appointed. Proceeds from its sale would keep her for a very long time, perhaps as long as she lived. She would find ways to supplement those proceeds. She might publish. A chill froze her bones at that. She wouldn’t think about it now. Their eyes held for a long time. He knew her plans as though she spoke them out loud.
“Will you take me then?” she asked.
“You’ll have the solitude and none of the comfort. Even the garden may not be possible.”
“I’ll manage. At least I’ll have my independence. Will you take me home then?”
“This is—” He meant to say “home,” but it wasn’t, of course. Cambridge was home, and she was determined to make her own way.
He nodded sadly, but even as he did, she saw his mind at work. She had no illusions that he would stop his interference for good.
Chapter 21
Despair froze Andrew’s heart, and disgust clawed at his stomach. Georgiana couldn’t–wouldn’t–break free of her toxic family. She clung to comfort and her work. She no longer wanted him, and she didn’t need him.
Anger drove him in a wild frenzy away from Mountview, down pitted country lanes until he reached the Brighton Road where he turned away from the Sussex coast and north toward Cambridge. Twenty miles of blind rage and bone-rattling speed later, he slowed his chaise. The road led to Cambridge, but it passed through London.
London. The road aimed directly at London. The red fog that choked his mind began to clear, and an idea crystallized in its place. She may not want him, but she wanted her work. Very well, Lady Georgiana, I will give it to you.
She told him to send her notes back when he got to Cambridge. She didn’t specify the form. Andrew resolved to give it to her as a printed book. Why not? He was a partner in the enterprise. It was his work too. Besides, he had burned his bridges with Selby and Cambridge. It may be all I have to show for my work.
The idea steadied him. He’d publish the book on his own, and they’d be done. He drove on to London in the dark. By the next morning, Andrew had put up at the Pulteney Hotel, taken a suite of rooms, sent for Harley, and begun to search out printers.
One week and seventeen rejections later, he found himself in the hotel dining room glowering at Jamie Heyworth over dinner, a black mood wrapped around him like a cloak.
“You say you’ve been in town for over a week? You might have called.” Jamie’s affront looked sincere, but it didn’t hinder his appetite. He reached for another chop at Andrew’s expense.
Andrew’s glower deepened. Jamie did Glenaire’s bidding again. Damn Richard Hayden. Even when Andrew turned on a whim to make an unplanned journey to London, Glenaire managed to know about it. Every innkeeper in England must be in his employ. Andrew may as well accept that he would never free himself of Glenaire’s interference and stop blaming Jamie.
“You would have welcomed a visitor?” he ground out grudgingly.
“My rooms aren’t much, but I’d have been happy to welcome you. Of course, with pockets to let, I’m not much of a host. Perhaps you knew that. Jamie’s charm hid a storehouse of insecurities. A deadbeat father and bankrupt estate were heavy burdens. Andrew tried to make amends. “I don’t care a fig for the state of your rooms. I’m just preoccupied. Came to town on business, not to socialize. Sorry to neglect old friends.”
“Can’t blame you, though. The damnable Haydens keep me tied up in their affairs.” Jamie looked shamefaced. “I can’t blame you if you’re angry.”
“What does Richard want this time?”
“Naught, I swear it. At least naught that he’ll tell me. I think sometimes he asks me things so he has an excuse to give me money, not because he needs my help. Saw him yesterday. He mentioned he thought you were in town. Didn’t ask for anything. Knew I’d track you down, though. I can’t afford to lose old friends. New ones are all puppies who don’t know what’s up or understand what it was like out there.”
That much was true. Waterloo and what passed before marked everyone who fought there. Andrew’s scars were visible; Jamie’s were no less real. The young bucks of London had no idea.
“Andrew! Are you woolgathering or wishing me to perdition?” Jamie didn’t sound offended. He rarely did.
“Woolgatherin
g. I warned you I was preoccupied.”
“How is your business faring?”
“Doesn’t Richard know?”
“Give it over, Andrew. He never said why you’re here, if he knows.”
“He doesn’t.” He knew this probably was not true. Andrew took fresh horses at the Frog and Porter and turned directly to London. Somehow, Glenaire knew that much. Jamie’s comments made it clear. Glenaire probably had him followed while he searched out every publisher and printer he could locate. He probably knew everything.
“It hasn’t gone well–my business, I mean.”
“Sorry to hear it.” Jamie helped himself to more capon. “You look dog-tired.”
Andrew grimaced. “Beyond tired,” he said. “I’ve been searching for a printer for over a week. Most won’t touch the work. Not enough popular appeal.”
“Scholarly stuff?”
Andrew didn’t dissemble well either. Glenaire probably knew in any case or would soon. “It isn’t my work, at least not entirely. It’s Lady Georgiana’s.”
“Odd’s blood! No wonder Richard has been in a bother. Lady Georgie’s scraps and bits are to be made into a book?”
“Most of the major printers won’t have it. They say it’s too esoteric. That is when they’re being kind. When gentlemen want translations, they look for books by University scholars.”
“Are they right?” Jamie didn’t read enough to have an opinion.
“To a point. This work is unusual. I suggested that ladies might be interested. One said ‘novels’ were the thing. ‘Ladies read Byron, but that’s for his good looks and reputation, not his poems,’ one said. Damned insulting.”
Dangerous 01 - Dangerous Works Page 20