‘Well, we have become friends because of our morning rides, I suppose. And of course we were previously acquainted in London.’
‘You ride in the morning? Shall I join you?’
‘Unless you mean to ruin a carriage horse, there is no mount for you. Not to match Onslow’s Thunder or Sir Justin’s Solomon.’
‘And you do have such a horse?’
‘I borrow my brother’s Falcon.’ Georgette had a thought. ‘But pray do not mention it, for he is not precisely aware.’
Bellamy gave his friendly laugh at this and then had a thought. ‘Perhaps I could rent a horse from the village?’
‘There is still nothing to match…’
‘Onslow’s Thunder or Sir Justin’s Solomon, I see.’ He looked at her directly. ‘In fact, you do not wish me to go?’
‘Oh, Colonel—’
‘I did not precisely think that you would return my feelings at once, Miss Fortune, but I did not think to find you repulsed by me.’
Georgette, seeing the hurt in those dark eyes and hearing the break in his voice could not stop herself from laying a hand on his arm. ‘Indeed, it is not so.’
He raised his left hand and grasped at the small hand on his jacket sleeve and squeezed it. ‘If it is not, then can you not give me this time to make you understand my feelings?’
Georgette violently pulled her hand away. ‘This is why! Can you not restrain yourself Colonel? Must everything be so … so …’
He stepped back and bowed. ‘Forgive me. It is impossible for you to understand, you who have been distracted by the entertainments of the world, how desperately I have looked forward to this meeting. I had nothing to take my mind from you but business, for I do not much care for society out there. It is so full of young ladies who have been sent to make a rich match that it made me treasure our innocent connection even more. I had no money then, and little prospects, and yet you favoured me.’
‘But I do understand, somewhat, or I would not have sought this meeting.’ She looked off, reminiscently. ‘I know what it is to make a story in your head from a few chance words, to treasure an encounter that means less to the other person. But whether we could be close or not, I cannot fathom at the moment. I feel crushed by your feelings, especially as they show so much on your face. Burdened by them.’
‘Are you saying that we may become closer?’ Once again, the colonel seemed to pounce on her words.
‘Not if you behave as you are now. Let me be frank with you about my family circumstances, Colonel.’ Bellamy listened. ‘We are of an old family, but there is very little money, as is probably apparent to you. Therefore, my father, with so many daughters to provide for, is overly obsessed with marrying them off. If you continue to behave as you do now, he will do so many embarrassing things in order to make you offer. He will pressure you and me in ways you cannot imagine—’ Her voice was failing, she was becoming overwrought and he stepped forward and took both of her hands.
‘Let me speak to him now then,’ he said, passionately.
She pulled away again. ‘Colonel Bellamy!’ She picked up her skirts to leave but he stood in front of her.
‘I am sorry, Miss Fortune! Forgive me — you are not ready. Please tell me what you wish me to do.’
Georgette stopped and turned to him. ‘Do not seek me with your eyes. When we talk with others there, treat me as you do everyone else. Please do not single me out. Do not make us a target of my father.’
‘Then perhaps I will be permitted to be by your side sometimes?’
‘If you can do what I ask, certainly. I do not yet know you, Colonel. But I am, after all, unattached.’
‘Are you? Yet you said your heart was not your own.’
Georgette regarded him. ‘Forget that I said that.’
‘Since I wish to make that heart mine, it is hard to forget it.’ He came forward as one tear dropped from Georgette’s cheek. And Georgette stumbled, falling backwards.
Bellamy was bending down to help her when the sound of horses’ hooves arriving interrupted.
Sir Justin Faulkes dismounted and said, in the coldest tone that Georgette had ever heard from him. ‘Miss Fortune is hurt, Colonel Bellamy. Help me lift her onto my horse.’
‘My carriage is nearby, it will be—’
‘My horse is swifter. I will take her back to the castle. Tell Miss Katerina to run on to her aunt and explain. Do not drive her back.’
Georgette was protesting that she was fine even as she was lifted onto Solomon. At this last sentence, shot out so coldly at Bellamy, she gasped.
Bellamy, engaged in disposing her skirt, turned and said in a shocked tone. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It is a closed carriage, and she will no longer be chaperoned. You may think her a child, but the baron is very strict.’
Bellamy bowed stiffly as Faulkes unexpectedly swung himself behind Georgette on the horse, and rode off.
Sir Justin Faulkes had arrived on horseback in sight of Bellamy and Georgette at the interesting moment when Georgette Fortune felt impelled to lay one hand on the colonel’s arm. It was a consoling moment on Georgette’s part, but the baronet did not know this, of course. Why should Miss Fortune lay this faggot of encouragement onto the runaway fire of Bellamy’s feelings? He was correct in his fears: the little hand was grasped, a few obviously passionate words said by Bellamy, before Miss Fortune pulled herself away forcibly. Sir Justin looked at Katerina Fortune, the titular chaperone, also in sight, who was too engrossed in her book to have seen any of this. He was edging his horse forward, trying to discover if he had any right to intervene, when the colonel possessed himself of Miss Fortune’s hands, and Faulkes stuck his heels in, even before Georgette had had the chance to wrest them away. By the time she had fallen, his horse was upon them, and he was beside himself with rage.
Once he had enacted his little scene with Bellamy and Miss Fortune and he commenced the ride back to the castle, Georgette told him, ‘I am quite alright, you know.’
‘I know, I saw that the fall did not hurt you.’
‘Then why—?’
‘You asked me to shield you.’
‘It was not the colonel’s fault, Sir Justin. I brought it upon myself—’
‘Yes,’ he said. Georgette gasped, and they rode in silence for some time. He added, eventually, ‘I am not master of myself at the moment, Miss Fortune. It is best we do not speak.’
Near the castle door, Onslow was waiting. ‘Help Miss Fortune down, Onslow’ the baronet said shortly. ‘Then wait for me in the small sitting room. We have to talk.’
Georgette slid into Onslow’s arms and put foot onto the ground. He stepped back. ‘My friend is angry. A rare occurrence. What happened?’
‘Nothing, not really,’ said Georgette in a wondering tone. ‘I think Colonel Bellamy is angry too—’ she looked up at Onslow’s eyes, still so cold, and said, ‘I do not know why everyone is so angry—’ she broke away from him, and ran to the house.
She was not in the sitting room, and when Faulkes came in a few minutes he was glad, for his humour was not better.
‘That fellow—!’ he began viciously.
Onslow was disturbed. ‘What happened?’
‘He laid hands on Miss Bellamy, not once but twice. I could not hear what he was saying, but I saw the passion with which he was saying it. I did not move the first time, for it was partly her own fault—’
‘What do you mean?’ Onslow demanded.
‘She put a hand on his arm,’ the marquis made a noise and Faulkes added, in a milder tone, ‘Oh, only lightly, as she has done with both of us, I suppose, but she should not have with him. Bellamy grasped at her hand quite violently, as I saw, but she threw him off. I held back, but when I saw him hold her hands again, while mouthing impassioned pleas no doubt, I came at them with the horse. By that time, she had pulled away once more, but then she fell back as he had come towards her again.’ He kicked at the grate of the fire. ‘I took Miss Fortune with me, for I wou
ld not leave them together alone for a king’s ransom.’
The marquis knew his friend was not given to exaggeration, and it was evident that his own anger was mounting. ‘He had best not hurry back. I cannot think of greeting him in a civilised manner.’
‘Nor I. I have insulted him already. I was barely able to keep my hands from him.’
‘It sounds as though Colonel Bellamy is not to be trusted.’
The baronet turned, suddenly deflated, looking at Onslow ruefully. ‘Not more than any man in love, I fear. I understand that, at least.’
Onslow looked surprised at the change of tone. ‘You do?’
‘It drives one out of one’s mind, I think,’ said Sir Justin. Onslow’s eyebrows shot up. Faulkes gave a twisted smile. ‘When I entertained those feelings, and for the same lady, I almost let myself be led by them. It shames me still.’
‘You did?’ Onslow’s astonishment increased.
‘Yes.’ His friend said simply. Then, ‘There was one evening, after Miss Fortune had rejected me, when I encountered her at a ball. We sat together for some moments, and Miss Fortune, no doubt glad that I did not make a scene, called me her good, calm friend—’
‘Dreadful!’ solaced Onslow, imagining it.
‘I swear I thought of an anteroom where I could take her to show her how very far from calm that I was.’ He sighed. ‘But she did not want me, and now I can meet her with equanimity. But I cannot let another fellow act out his madness just however he chooses.’
‘No,’ agreed Onslow quietly. ‘But you did not because she rejected you. It is possible that Bellamy did so because he is not yet rejected?’
Faulkes thought of Miss Fortune’s hand on Bellamy’s arm. Her understanding face. It did not seem like the face of a woman rejecting a man. There was more to this. ‘Perhaps.’ He sighed again. ‘I wish there was some brandy here, but we dare not look elsewhere, for though I’m calmer, I’m still not fit to talk to society.’
‘I’ll see if Dickson is to be found.’
By doing no more than poke his head out of the door, Onslow achieved his mission. Brandy arrived and Faulkes sipped it, one leg hooked onto the little desk in the middle of the room. It was a lady’s desk, but it supported his weight adequately as he said, ‘As I view it now, there seems little to accuse Colonel Bellamy of except a little force of manner. And I keep thinking, why are we the appointed guardians? With what right do we act?’
Onslow had stretched out in the leather chair beside the small grate, and was sipping too, the beneficial effects of the warm liquid working on him. ‘We, my friend, are her guardians because we have seen that although Miss Fortune is positively dripping with family, surrounded by them in fact, no one else is acting for her. They do not see either what she does for them, or what danger she is in.’
‘We stand then, as brothers to her.’
‘Since her own brother does not, we must.’ He took another swig. ‘I must say George Fortune does not show to advantage at home. He bullies his sisters mercilessly.’
Sir Justin sipped some more and sighed. ‘Miss Fortune is hurt by our anger, I think.’
‘And so she should feel it. We had a right to scold her. The devil of it is, she’s not the youngest, but I would bet on sixteen-year-old Katerina to know how to protect herself better than Georgette Fortune.’
‘But what do we really protect her from, Lucian? Achieving a superior alliance and escaping Castle Fortune?’
Onslow frowned. ‘No. We protect her from her own naivety and from being pressured until she reaches her own decision.’
‘Very well. We will stand her friends. And if Bellamy doesn’t terrify her, he may pay her court as a gentleman should. But I cannot help disliking him, may he be as sincere as he likes.’
Onslow took another sip from the brandy and said, almost to himself, ‘I’m nearly sure I hate him.’
Chapter 18
Georgette was kept busy writing the order of entertainment for the evening, and tried to think of neither the meeting with Bellamy, nor her riding companions’ anger. In most houses, the entertainment would be informal with the head of the house or his wife gently encouraging performances from the assembled company. This was much too dangerous to leave in her father’s hands — goodness knows what scope for thoughtless rudeness this would give him — so at breakfast Georgette had asked Lady Bailey’s advice if making a playbill was suitable in the circumstances. Her Ladyship concluded that it would be a novelty, and found no fault in the plan. She moreover agreed that if George Fortune refused to act as Master of Ceremonies, she would do so herself, so Georgette collected names and made a list.
She knew which of her sisters could play, of course, and agreed to let the twins demonstrate their duet, coming down from the schoolroom before dinner just for this. They would not be permitted to remain, of course, but they were so happy to show off that they did not complain. Dinner was planned, and due to Katerina’s unexpected burst of helpfulness in bringing back more eggs from their aunt’s house this afternoon, the bread pudding was saved. Jocasta could perform well on the pianoforte, Lady Bucknell had offered to play the ancient harpsichord, but it was found to be out of tune, so she decided to sing an aria from Mozart instead. This involved finding someone to accompany her, and Georgette was almost at a loss, until she found that Portia had practised this piece as well. Portia was the most artistic sister, and Georgette was a little ashamed that she did not keep up with her accomplishments. Jocasta played and sang well, and wished to enliven them with some country songs. Lord Bucknell might sing a shanty, he said vaguely, and Maria Bailey quietly offered to accompany him on piano. Katerina, though she could play, declined — but in light of the way that Georgette had been using her recently, the elder sister did not press her. Lady Bailey would sing, accompanied by Amethyst on the pianoforte, who would then play her Handel afterwards. This last couldn’t be helped, of course, but Georgette regretted it, having sat through it on two occasions previously wondering how poor Mr Handel would be suffering in Heaven.
George would sing, as would Onslow and Faulkes. Mr Bellamy would play some Indian music for them, but not too much, he had teased her, as it was an acquired taste. She found this teasing was pleasant. He smiled gently instead of turning hot glances on her. If he had not added, in a low voice, ‘I mean to become one of Miss White’s court this evening. For your sake. Do not misunderstand me.’ She supposed he meant to fool her father, but she had not asked him for so much, was worried about Julia White, and did not wish to conspire with him. She frowned, but turned to Viscountess Swanson to see if she could be recruited.
‘I do not entertain the world, Miss Fortune, the world entertains me,’ that lady intoned.
Why then did she never look amused? thought Georgette.
The playbill was made and given a pretty heading by Portia’s brush and pen, and that evening George Fortune stood before them, some mismatched rows of seats bearing their expectant guests. ‘Welcome to Fortune Theatre this evening,’ (there was a small round of tittering), ‘where we have many delights for your entertainment. The first of these is an extract from a Brandenburg Concerto by Bach, written for four hands, played by the youngest and very prettiest set of Fortune sisters, Leonora and Marguerite.’
The other Fortune sisters, thought Georgette, bore it well. They were used to George’s way with words, increasingly like his father’s, and barely blinked. There was a vague discomfort in other parts of the room, as the twins, whose white-blond hair was held back with identical ribbons, began to play. There were some mistakes, but the girls, in their white dresses and satin slippers, looked so well that the vast majority of the room forgave these easily, and were enchanted. Georgette happened to be standing next to the Honourable Foggy Carswell and he muttered, ‘Well who could have supposed the lion could do that?’
‘Do you speak of Leonora, sir?’ whispered Georgette. ‘That is our name for her sometimes. But you cannot tell me which of the two she is, can you? Very few peopl
e can.’
Carswell had blushed at first but replied soundly, ‘She is the one furthest from us.’ He coughed. ‘Easy to tell. She reminds me of my sister Christiana.’
‘Ah!’ said Georgette, amazed. From this distance, she had difficulty identifying them herself. But he was quite right, she concluded. It seems Mr Carswell had spoken to her sister Leonora already. There were not many who would forget Leonora’s particular personality once they had met her properly.
The evening went better than she could have hoped. Viscountess Swanson, Mrs Hardy and the Alderlys and Lady Bucknell made a formidable first row of non-contributing audience, since they seldom smiled and put their hands together at the end of each piece so faintly that they could hardly be heard. The evening was clearly beneath them, but their dignity was such that if the greatest opera company in the world were performing, Georgette believed they would still be above being pleased. The first row was therefore an intimidating spectacle for the performers, but it meant that the liveliness of the seats behind was increased, for there was no one to frown them down. The Baileys were all willing to be pleased as were Paxton and his sister Lady Sarah, Onslow, Faulkes and Bellamy. The Uxtons, Julia White and even Lord Bucknell — free from oversight of his dear mama — were able to smile. Of the Fortune sisters, Katerina and Portia behaved well sitting either side of Lord Paxton, and though Katerina looked more than usually bored, she applauded when necessary by the deft prompting of Georgette’s elbow.
The aria by Lady Bucknell turned out to be so exquisitely bad that Georgette, seated in a row behind Onslow, was not surprised when he dropped his glove and used the opportunity to find her eye. She was glad not to be too near him or she might have been unable to repress her laughter for the entirety of the tortured rendition. Later, the gentlemen’s singing, accompanied by Lady Bailey’s playing, was very entertaining, and the popular air sung by Faulkes had most of the party joining in. The earl and the rest of the front row probably disapproved, but no one could see their frowns, bar the performers, so no one cared. It turned out that Lord Bucknell was a very creditable baritone, and the passion in his song about the loss of his love filled Georgette’s soul with pity. Had his failure with her sister Cassandra caused this unforeseen depth of feeling in him? Georgette sincerely hoped that Bucknell would find a way to escape his mama.
Georgette and the Unrequited Love: Sisters of Castle Fortune Book 1 Page 16