by Jane Ashford
This got a reaction. Her mother straightened and turned. “Bothering? They don’t like him?” Her tone was sharp with suspicion. Mama based her initial judgments of people on her dogs’ reactions to them.
“They like him excessively,” Georgina responded. “Aidan and Drustan are…” She never knew what word to use for the dogs’ current activities, with which she was only too familiar. Every choice seemed vulgar. She settled on “applying themselves to his top boots.”
“Rogues,” said her mother indulgently. “I expect the boots are new. There’s something about fresh leather that sets the boys off. I don’t know why. It’s curious, isn’t it? Also, Nuala is soon to go on heat, you know.”
Memories of the sights and sounds that would fill the house when she did rose in Georgina’s mind. She stifled a sigh and said only, “Please come and get them.”
“Very well.” Her mother set the letter aside and rose. “Now that Lord Sebastian is here, we must make a push to plan your wedding, mustn’t we?” She walked a twisting path among the cushions. “You know, Ninian could stand up with you. He is trained to rise on his hind feet.”
Georgina couldn’t decide whether to shudder or laugh. “I’m not sure Papa would like it.” Her father had what could only be described as an uneven relationship with the pugs.
Her mother acknowledged this with a grimace. “Your father cannot wear that tabard at the ceremony,” she replied. “Nor will there be any drinking horns at the wedding breakfast.”
“No, Mama. I was thinking of something very simple. And modern.”
“Very right. Although…” She stopped a few paces away and blinked as if struck by a sudden thought. “What about a sword dance? Like those astonishing Highlanders at the last church fete. Your Sebastian is a soldier, after all.”
Georgina wasn’t certain how the two things connected. “Oh, well, I don’t know.” Setting aside this dispute for another day, she took her mother’s arm to urge her along the corridor.
Sebastian picked the two offending dogs off his legs once again. He held them up by their napes, glaring into first one, then another pair of bulging brown eyes. “You really must stop this,” he said to them. “It won’t do. These are not the manners of a nobleman’s household.” The pugs panted. They really did seem to be giving him mocking smiles. He was not imagining it. The larger dog looked positively gleeful. And unrepentant. He was obviously only waiting to be loosed so that he could go right back to what he’d been doing. “My father’s dogs would cringe with shame at the idea,” Sebastian told him.
A stifled giggle told Sebastian that he was under observation. Two young faces peered at him through the wooden stair rails. “Hello,” he said.
With this encouragement, two girls stood up and trotted down the steps. Golden-haired, in similar simple white dresses, they looked to be in their mid- to late teens. Their general resemblance to Georgina helped Sebastian recall that his fiancée had two sisters. There was a brother as well, he remembered, though he couldn’t bring any of their names to mind just now. He realized he was still holding the dogs. He set them down as far from his boots as he could reach.
“Hello,” said the taller, obviously elder girl. “I’m Emma.”
“I’m Hilda,” said the other. “It’s a hideous Anglo-Saxon name.”
With the intensity of obsession, the two dogs sought to return to his boots. The others continued to mill about Sebastian’s feet, snuffling and yapping as he sidestepped to evade their leaders’ attentions.
“Our mother breeds pugs,” said the younger girl, with no trace of embarrassment over the creatures’ behavior. “They’re very popular. She sells them for fabulous sums.”
“You’re Lord Sebastian,” said the other. “Here to marry Georgina.”
“Finally,” said Hilda.
Sebastian did not often find himself at a loss in social situations. Although never a wit like his brother Robert, he’d found that a warm smile and a compliment could get him through just about anything. But he was nearly at a standstill by this time, and mightily relieved to see Georgina coming down the stairs with a small, older woman in tow. As soon as the latter’s foot touched the stone floor, all the dogs flowed over to surround her. They sat about her feet like a spreading skirt, as if the deity of their little world had arrived. Sebastian heaved a sigh of relief.
“Emma, Hilda, go and fetch Papa,” Georgina said.
She still didn’t sound quite like herself, Sebastian thought. It began to worry him.
“Can’t you just ring?” asked Emma.
Georgina cut her off with a look. The two girls trailed out through a door in the back of the hall as she said, “Mama, this is Sebastian. Sebastian, my mother.”
He made his best bow, sweeping off the hat that no one had taken as yet. “Very pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
Charlotte, Marchioness of Pembridge, looked him up and down. “He’s a handsome lad,” she remarked in a surprisingly resonant voice. Not at all what one expected from such a little woman. “But then he comes of good stock. How is your mother?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“I met her in Bath. It must be, oh, more than twenty years ago now. It was just before I accepted Alfred’s offer. She had the whole raft of you lads with her. Quite a good breeder. A real run of boys, eh?”
Sebastian could think of no reply to this. He cast a glance at Georgina. She wasn’t looking at him. He settled for the smile that usually had a good effect on females. Human females, that is.
“Perhaps I’ll send her one of my puppies, now that we’re all to be family.”
It was obvious that she thought this a great favor. Sebastian knew better than to mention that the duchess disliked lapdogs—particularly pugs, he recalled.
“Are you fond of dogs?” Georgina’s mother asked him.
This one was easy. “Yes, indeed. Of course.”
“Here is Papa,” said Georgina.
Her sisters were back with a big man, nearly as tall as Sebastian. The marquess was square jawed and deep chested, his blond hair in an odd bowl cut. Green eyes twinkled out at Sebastian from under thick brows. Long, drooping mustaches half hid a smile. He wore a hip-length white shirt with wide sleeves over buckskin breeches and top boots. His waist was cinched with a wide leather belt holding a sheathed dagger. Was it some sort of costume? Sebastian wondered.
Georgina’s father held out a hand. Sebastian took it and found his fingers pressed in a firm grip. “Welcome to Stane Castle,” said his host.
“Thank you, sir.”
The marquess gestured. “This is the family. Except Edgar. He’s off on a walking tour of Hadrian’s Wall with some university friends. Met everyone, have you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Sebastian.
“Good, good.” The older man frowned. “He still has his hat and gloves. What sort of hospitality is this? Where’s Fergus?”
“You sent him and Dennis out to measure the Dyke at Knill,” said Hilda.
Sebastian puzzled silently over this sentence. He thought perhaps there were dykes in Holland, but that didn’t seem to apply.
“Ah, yes.” The marquess nodded. “Well, where’s Mrs. Trent, then? We must get our guest settled in properly.”
“I sent her to Leominster to see about more meat,” his wife replied. “For the dogs,” she added when the others looked at her. She frowned as if this should be obvious.
It was a bit like gazing into the face of the largest pug, Sebastian realized. Without thinking, he glanced down to compare. Yes, his hostess looked rather like her dogs. He glanced quickly away. Not a thing to mention, obviously. Or be seen to notice.
“We’ll take him to his room,” Hilda piped up. “We know which one it is. Come on.” She came over and tugged at Sebastian’s sleeve.
He waited for objections to this unorthodox proposal. Why was Georgi
na so silent and distant? Had she seen him compare her mother and the dogs? Did she think him rude?
No one spoke, so he followed the two girls up the stairs into a paneled corridor. They led him to a bedchamber at the back of the modern wing of the castle. His portmanteau sat on an old-fashioned four-poster bed inside. The comfortable room also boasted a wardrobe, a dressing table, and two armchairs drawn up before the hearth. Hangings and a carpet of deep blue lent a bit of color.
Georgina’s sisters came right in with him. Emma lingered by the door, but Hilda plumped down in one of the chairs. “You’re going to marry Georgina soon, aren’t you?” she said.
“Er, early September,” replied Sebastian.
“That’s weeks away!” the girl exclaimed.
He couldn’t help but agree. He’d seen no reason to wait so long. At least, he hadn’t before he arrived here. No, he still didn’t. He was just a bit startled by the unusual family. He’d met Georgina in such a conventional household. He supposed he’d expected more of the same.
“Where will you live when you’re married?” Hilda asked.
It occurred to Sebastian that she sounded like someone deciding whether to buy a horse. But that was ridiculous. What was wrong with him? “I have to be in town a good deal for my duties,” he said. “We’ll take a house there.”
“London,” sighed Emma. “I daresay Georgina will go to all sorts of parties and balls and…everything.”
“As many as she likes,” Sebastian assured her.
“And there are dressmakers and shops and…people,” said Hilda. “All sorts of people.”
“Do you like history?” asked Emma. She fixed him with a fierce stare.
“Me? No.” In Sebastian’s experience, history involved thick tomes and incomprehensible lists and other things that regularly defeated him.
“Good!”
In the silence that followed this emphatic approval, he eyed his two young companions. Both were golden-haired like Georgina, with the same pale skin and willowy frames, though that slenderness was still gawky on Hilda and just beginning to show a hint of Georgina’s allure in Emma. Their faces bore the promise of similar piquant beauty, with large, expressive gray-green eyes and chiseled lips.
All three Stane daughters resembled their father in frame and coloring, but Sebastian could see something of their mother in the sharpness of their glances. The younger ones seemed as intelligent as his intended. He didn’t know why that should seem unsettling. He admired Georgina’s quickness very much. He wondered where she was right now, and why she hadn’t given him just a hint of what was to come before this visit.
Her sisters stayed on, silently gazing at him as if he was a zoo animal. How could he politely be rid of them? “Shouldn’t you go?” he asked finally. “It isn’t really proper for you to be in my bedchamber?” It came out as a question, because Sebastian realized that he had no certain notion what this household might consider proper.
“You’re our brother,” replied Hilda. “Practically.”
“Yes, but, ah, you need to give me time to unpack and…so on.”
“You hardly have any luggage,” observed Emma.
“My valet is on the road with the rest of it.”
“Your valet,” echoed Hilda, seeming to savor the word. “Is he very high-nosed and particular? Will he despise us dreadfully?” She appeared to hope so, for some reason.
“What?” Sebastian was feeling perfectly bewildered. It seemed to him that nothing had made sense since he set foot in this place.
“We’ll go,” said Emma.
“But…”
“Come on, Hilda. It’s too soon. You know Georgina said so. And we promised.”
“Oh, all right.” The youngest Stane jumped up and moved toward the door. “We’ll be seeing you all the time anyway,” she said brightly as the two girls departed.
Sebastian stood in the middle of the room, gazing at the closed door. Too soon for what? What had they promised? And why should the idea fill him with foreboding? That made no sense, surely.
Alone in the front hall, Georgina silently berated herself. She should have had a better plan for Sebastian’s arrival. But there’d been no way of predicting when he would come, or where the servants would be at any given moment. Her parents were always sending them off on strange errands. Which they often prolonged. Staff members at Stane enjoyed such expeditions, or they didn’t stay on.
She wondered what Sebastian was thinking right now. She’d scarcely spoken to him. Had he thought her unwelcoming? She’d been terribly glad to see him—just so occupied with the way things were unfolding. Papa with his dagger… What had Sebastian made of that? She told herself she was being overly sensitive. Or was it cowardly? All families had their oddities. Hers might be a bit more eccentric than most, but she’d heard stories of worse. Wasn’t there some earl in Cornwall who kept a pig in the house?
An image of the Duke and Duchess of Langford rose in her mind. In the few times they’d met, she’d thought them perfect in every way. They were admired, even revered, leaders of society. Sebastian’s oldest brother, Nathaniel, was a pattern card of virtue. His younger brother Robert was elegant and witty and charming, a model for young aspirants to fashion. She didn’t know any of the others well, but she supposed they were equally worthy and decorous.
Georgina realized then that the Greshams had intimidated her. Somewhere deep down she’d formed the idea that Sebastian would expect a family like his own. And so she’d been afraid to try to prepare him for her unique, maddening, beloved Stanes. Yet this was where she came from; these were her people. If she and Sebastian were to marry, he had to accept them. And why had she thought if?
She turned toward the stairs. She had to see him, talk to him. He must be feeling… Well, she didn’t know what he was feeling. And she needed to. Desperately.
Two
When the knock came on his door a little while later, Sebastian answered warily. He was delighted to find Georgina in the corridor outside. She’d tied a straw bonnet over her golden hair and carried a shawl over her arm. “I thought you might like to see the gardens,” she said.
“Yes, absolutely.” At last he would be able to talk to her.
She led him around a corner and down a stair he hadn’t noticed. She didn’t speak as they traversed a stone corridor that several times went up a few steps and then down again in the stitched-together building. Her silence worried him, and he tried to think of the best way to break it.
Before he could, she opened a small door and stepped outside. Following, Sebastian saw that they’d emerged near the ancient tower at the far end of the place. A path led under an archway twined with roses and into just the sort of secluded shrubbery he’d hoped for. A few steps into this sheltered walk and the castle was invisible. Georgina stopped and turned to him. He scanned her face, partly shaded by the brim of her bonnet. Was she distressed? He couldn’t bear that. “All well?” he asked.
“I hope so.”
What was he to say to that? Unlike his brother Robert, Sebastian wasn’t fond of oblique conversations. In fact, he detested them. It was all too easy to misunderstand when people began hinting and saying one thing when they meant another. As far as he was concerned, double entendres simply meant twice the chance of confusion. But then, words had always been one of the least trustworthy elements in his life.
Georgina looked up and held his gaze. Her eyes, that clear gray-green, were bright with intelligence. He could fall into them, trusting that all would soon be explained. Sebastian forgot whatever he might have been about to say.
She came closer, put a hand on his arm. “Is all well with you?”
Her beautiful lips parted a little. Sebastian couldn’t resist. He bent his head. She didn’t draw back but leaned a bit closer. He closed the tiny distance between them and kissed her.
In the whispering refuge
of the shrubbery, Georgina slipped her arms around his neck and moved into the kiss. Sebastian pulled her close, the feel of her body against him a tender flame. It was all he’d anticipated on the ride up to the castle—the freedom they’d never had in London. He savored the sweet taste of her and let his hands roam a little, exulting when he made her breath catch with a daring caress.
All too soon, she pulled back. Sebastian was disappointed, but resigned. They couldn’t continue like that for much longer without going beyond the line. He smiled down at her. They were both breathing more rapidly.
Georgina put her hands to her cheeks as if to press back the heat that bloomed there. “Oh,” she murmured.
Sebastian was rather proud of the dreamy softness in her eyes. A delicious future reeled out before him.
“I-I wanted to talk to you,” she said.
He was glad of it. He hadn’t liked her silence during his arrival and introductions.
“About my family,” she went on, her voice steadying. “We live so deep in the country here. There aren’t many neighbors close by. I’ve thought that the isolation encourages people to…delve rather deeply into their particular…interests.”
Sebastian nodded. That was a clever way of putting it. He’d have to remember the phrase when people asked about Great-Aunt Selina and her button collection.
“Mama has done so with her dogs. My father is very much taken up with local history.”
Her sisters had mentioned history, though not very favorably, Sebastian thought. It was harder to gauge Georgina’s attitude. Did she expect that he would join her father’s studies? He hoped not.
Sebastian was well aware that his education was spotty. Indeed, that was a charitable word for it. He’d spent far more time on the school playing fields than at his books. Sport had been a joy, the classroom a torment. He simply couldn’t master the skills required in those fusty, closed spaces, and he hadn’t been able to make anyone understand why. By the time he was fifteen, he’d fully accepted that he was the stupidest of the Gresham brothers, at the opposite end from Alan, who was some kind of prodigy. And so he’d chosen a profession, and a manner, designed to conceal his flaws.