An Elegant Façade (Hawthorne House Book #2)

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Instinct said he should offer aid to a crying woman. Apparently there was a reason important enough to drive him into her chambers.

  With a deep breath and a plea for God-given compassion, he crossed the threshold.

  Georgina stabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. Stopping the tears would leave her face red and puffy, so she knew better than to try. When tears came it was best to give them rein, mop up the mess, and move on as if it never happened. Most of the time she even felt better afterward.

  No, there was nothing wrong with crying, as long as one only allowed the perceived weakness in private. How many times had she cried into Harriette’s shoulder, despairing that she would ever learn to cope with her imperfection?

  While she had dampened Harriette’s shoulder on countless occasions, she hadn’t cried in front of anyone else since she was a little girl. Not since she’d found Harriette and the two of them had made their plan, determined to fool everyone into thinking that Georgina was as bright as any other aristocratic young lady.

  At such a young age neither girl was able to comprehend what they were making Harriette give up. The sacrifice had been so great, and where had it gotten them? Harriette was working as a lady’s maid, nursing a swollen ankle, mind muddled with laudanum, while Georgina sat in the midst of a possible emergency but without a way of discovering what the problem even was—much less come up with a solution.

  She’d gone to Harriette, but there was no breaking through the laudanum-induced stupor. Even when Harriette managed to open her eyes, she seemed to think Georgina was twelve and they were plotting to fool the governess into thinking Georgina had written the essay on Greek history.

  Georgina remembered that essay. Harriette had enjoyed writing it, gushing to Georgina about all she’d learned. When it came time to hand them in, Harriette hadn’t even blinked as she placed the paper with Georgina’s illegible writing attempts into the governess’ hand with Harriette scrawled across the top. She hadn’t flinched when the governess called her stupid or when the woman lamented having to teach a wretched village girl because of Georgina’s strange insistence.

  Harriette had even smiled as the governess scooped the beautifully written essay off Georgina’s desk, praising the penmanship, the opening lines, and even the choice of subject matter.

  And now, it could all be for naught. All the mislaid insults, all the hiding. What would become of it now? Because it was either maintain the façade that Harriette had given everything to build, or break it down on the chance that Jane was truly in trouble.

  How horrible would it be if Jane’s urgent message was merely another brilliant idea for her Friday salons? Despair brought a fresh wave of tears to Georgina’s eyes.

  She felt a little guilty sending Margery from the room in tears, but what choice did Georgina have? The tears had been burning her eyes, threatening to spill over at any moment, and she couldn’t let the maid witness them. She didn’t trust Margery like she trusted Harriette.

  Georgina searched for a dry spot on her handkerchief to catch the new flow of tears. What could she possibly do without Harriette?

  “May I be of assistance?”

  Georgina gripped the handkerchief tighter. The lightly tamed brogue traveled from her ear across her entire body. Even her toes went on alert, curling tightly in her slippers. She was not in the proper frame of mind to deal with this man.

  If he was even real. The blasted man had been the voice of her conscience more often than not lately.

  “Lady Georgina?”

  She turned on the stool, surprised to find an expression of concern on his face and a clean handkerchief dangling from an extended arm. He wasn’t going to chide her? Make a subtle insult about her intelligence or lack of ambition? She narrowed her eyes, searching his face for a hint of his thoughts. Had he come in when he heard her crying? Or had he been there long enough to see her struggle with the letter?

  Because the sodden mess in her hand was useless, she accepted the offered handkerchief. “Thank you.”

  He shuffled his feet and cast a glance around the room as she dabbed at her eyes, more delicately than she had when she thought herself alone. There was no need to impress Mr. McCrae, but some habits were too deeply ingrained to ignore.

  “May I be of assistance?” he repeated.

  “You have provided a clean handkerchief. That is a gentleman’s duty when a lady is crying, is it not?” He had to be talking about the crying. She would never be able to face Harriette if this were the man to finally bring them down.

  “Yes, of course.” He looked at the writing desk and the letter she’d been trying to make out moments earlier. His eyes traveled from the letter to her quill and on to her face before returning back to the letter.

  Her tears dried instantly.

  Everything in her dried. Her heart was pumping shards of glass through her veins, cutting her to ribbons from the inside out.

  He knew.

  What was she going to do? What was he going to do? He’d made no secret he disapproved of her calculated hunt for a husband. If he wanted to, he could make all of her work for naught. No one would want a wife who couldn’t read the household accounts, keep up with her own correspondence, or even accept an invitation on her own.

  Spots danced before her vision, reminding her to breathe, even if the act was painful.

  After another look around the room, Mr. McCrae rubbed a hand along the back of his neck and sighed. He hooked his foot around a leg of the nearby straight chair and pulled it over. The chair scraped along the floor, jarring Georgina’s nerves once more.

  He sat, his knees almost brushing her own.

  She watched his face, looking for a clue, an indication of what he meant to do. Because sitting beside her at the writing desk wasn’t what she expected.

  Then he picked up the letter.

  He cleared his throat and shifted his weight in the chair as if he couldn’t get situated. Georgina knew it to be a most comfortable chair, which meant the situation had him out of sorts.

  It was confusing her as well, though she managed to maintain proper posture. A hollow victory at best.

  “‘My dearest Georgina,’” he read.

  Heat swelled from Georgina’s ravaged middle to her cheeks. He was going to read her the letter.

  “‘How you will laugh when you learn what I have done. (I loved that line, didn’t you?) You always said we’d have to be great schemers to land ourselves the best possible husbands.’” Mr. McCrae speared Georgina with a scathing glance.

  His condescension was oddly comforting. It felt a great deal more normal than his assistance.

  He cleared his throat and continued. “‘Well, I’ve done it. I have truly done it, and we leave tonight for Gretna Green.’”

  “What?” Georgina and Mr. McCrae uttered the question in outrage at the same time.

  His eyes went straight to the bottom of the letter to discover the writer’s identity.

  Georgina knew the writer to be Lady Jane, but she desperately needed to know who made up the other half of the “we” headed to Gretna Green. She prayed it was not Lord Howard. If there was a God in heaven, surely He would protect Jane from that scoundrel.

  Unable to wait for Mr. McCrae to keep reading, she snatched the letter from his hand and searched the words, desperately hoping a name would form amongst the swirling letters.

  But no. The more she tried, the more they swam, changing on her even as she tried to read them, blurring and moving until she wasn’t even sure where she was looking. Then the word would disappear completely and she’d be left blinking away spots.

  She pushed the paper back to Mr. McCrae, who was still blinking in surprise. “Who?”

  He pointed to the bottom of the note. “Lady Jane Mulberry.”

  “I know it is Lady Jane, who is the man?”

  “Oh, uh . . .” He looked over the letter. Jealous bile rose in Georgina’s throat at the obvious ease he felt searching the words for the desired info
rmation.

  “Her mysterious H?” His handsome face scrunched into a frown of confusion.

  Georgina groaned and popped up from the stool to pace the room. “Does she say when she was leaving?”

  Another glance at the letter. “Eight o’clock. Her father thinks she is going to a party in Hampstead Heath, so they’ll get many miles from town before he knows they’ve fled.”

  Georgina’s eyes flew to the clock, grateful that letters were the only thing that spun around when she looked at them. It was nearly nine.

  She swiped the handkerchief over her cheeks to rid herself of any lingering tears. “Come along.”

  It was possible Mr. McCrae was in too great a shock to follow her immediately, but he would catch her soon enough. Curiosity alone would spur him to follow her, so she flounced from the room without a backward glance.

  Later she could worry about the ramifications of him knowing her secret. Just thinking about it made her breathing quicken, and right now she needed all of her faculties to be in working order. She would try to simply be thankful he’d happened along when he did and keep him too busy to do anything about what he’d learned.

  Once Jane was safe at home, then Georgina could panic.

  There had to be a way to get Jane safely home. Georgina had begun to suspect that Jane’s mystery man was none other than Lord Howard. The man had been a simpering fool at the poetry reading and he’d sought Jane out at every ball for the past two weeks. Even if the man had ideas of settling down, he was first and foremost a cad. If he thought he could get something from Jane, he wouldn’t hesitate.

  Not that it would be difficult. Hieing off to Gretna Green probably seemed incredibly romantic to Jane.

  The chime of the large clock in the downstairs hall echoed up the stairs marking the ninth hour. There was still time to save her friend, but just barely.

  Chapter 18

  Colin trotted after Georgina, the preposterous letter gripped in his fist. Did women really write this sort of thing to each other? Telling each other in advance of their plans to ruin themselves? And Lady Jane expected Lady Georgina to be happy about it.

  Thank goodness she wasn’t. The squared shoulders marching down the corridor did not belong to someone reveling in her friend’s good fortune. Lady Georgina appeared so determined that he could almost forget how dejected and broken she’d appeared earlier. Almost.

  “You.” She snagged the attention of a footman carrying a pitcher of water down the passage toward the bedchambers. “See that the traveling coach is brought round fitted with our sturdiest, fastest horses. The one without the crest.”

  She continued walking before the servant could stammer out, “Yes, my lady.”

  Colin lengthened his stride to keep up with her. How was she moving so fast? She was practically running, but you wouldn’t know it to look at the perfect posture gliding down the stairs. The hem of her dress was barely fluttering.

  A maid carrying candles across the front hall scurried to the side as Georgina flew down the last few steps. “Pack me a bag.”

  “Me, my lady?”

  “Yes, you. Or Margery, if she thinks she can do it right. Just a small bag. Simple things. Country clothes. Ones I can manage myself.”

  Colin took pity on the panicking maid and relieved her of the candles.

  “Bless you,” she whispered before hustling to the back of the house. If she were running to get Margery, Colin could only wish her the best of luck. He assumed Margery was the crying maid he’d encountered earlier. If she’d curled into the darkest corner to lick her wounds Colin wouldn’t be surprised.

  He dumped the candles on a nearby table and jogged across the large front hall to catch Georgina’s retreating form, skidding to a halt as she came to the same doors Trent had disappeared through earlier. She wasn’t going to tell all of those people, was she? Lady Jane would be ruined before she lost sight of London.

  Lady Georgina poked her head in the drawing room. “Griffith?”

  Colin blinked. The tone was honeyed and simpering. Gone was the steadfast general, ordering the servants to prepare for battle. In its place was the softer posture of a woman who knew her welcome and believed it her due. No one in that drawing room would know anything untoward was going on.

  “Brother, may I have a word with you?”

  “Georgina, we have guests.” Riverton’s voice was equal parts exasperation and condescension.

  Realization crashed through Colin. Georgina wanted her brother to see her as a child, to treat as if she were incompetent. How many things had she avoided because the family simply assumed she wouldn’t or couldn’t do them?

  Respect, something he never thought to have for the young lady, bloomed in his chest. None of the spies he knew, not even Ryland, could switch character as fast as Georgina. He found himself in the surprising position of being awed by more than her appearance. It was disconcerting.

  Riverton stepped into the hall, pulling the drawing room door closed behind him. The indulgent look on his face was now equal parts love and exasperation.

  Georgina grasped his hands. “You have to leave right now. You have to save her.”

  Concern replaced the underlying irritation on Riverton’s face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Jane has run off. You have to stop her, Griffith, catch her and bring her home before she ruins herself.”

  Riverton’s eyes glazed over. Colin had sat across from that look on more than one occasion as the duke considered a new business opportunity. No doubt he was thinking through all the complications and possibilities. “When? Who with? Where was she heading? Did she go on horseback or by coach?”

  Colin winced. He’d never got to finish reading the letter to Georgina. She wouldn’t know the answers to those questions. While he couldn’t begin to understand why or even how she’d kept this secret from her family, this was not the best time to be forced to reveal it. Time was of the essence.

  Should he step in? Offer what he knew?

  Before he could make a decision, Lady Georgina started to cry.

  She ripped the letter from Colin’s hand and shoved it at her brother’s chest. “Here.” She sobbed. “Everything I know”—hiccup—“is in here.”

  Colin gave her a mental round of applause. If she ever decided to throw propriety to the wind, she could find a career on the stage.

  Trent stepped into the hall. “What’s going on?”

  “Lady Jane is making a colossal mistake.” Riverton waved the letter in the air. “I’d send round to her father, but they’ve already been gone an hour.”

  “Not to mention her father is rubbish on horseback and doesn’t own his own coach.” Trent grimaced as his eyes flew over the letter.

  “Who is her ‘mysterious H’?” Griffith looked disgusted by the secretive pet name.

  Lady Georgina hiccupped. “Lord Howard. They’ve been inseparable for weeks.”

  Colin glanced back at Georgina, sniffling delicately into a handkerchief. He knew his mind should be consumed with the problem at hand, but it was stuck on the fascinating revelation about Lady Georgina. How had she reached adulthood without learning to read? Why?

  Riverton folded the letter, using his thumb and finger to sharpen the creases. “I have to go after her.”

  “And let the biggest gossips in London wonder what took you away?” Trent took the letter back. “No, I’ll go. No one will miss me.”

  Georgina’s hand tightened on her handkerchief until the knuckles paled. “We have to hurry. She could be halfway to Scotland by now.”

  Riverton shook his head. “No more than a few miles down the road, assuming she actually left when she said she would.”

  The glare from Lady Georgina’s narrowed eyes would have gored a bloody hole through Riverton’s chest if he gave credence to the intangible. Colin leaned against the wall, watching the family byplay with increasing interest.

  Lady Georgina sniffled. “Regardless, we should depart immediately.”

&nb
sp; Trent’s eyes widened. “We? I’ll travel much faster without you.”

  “And once you’ve found her? How will you get her home?” She jabbed her fists onto her hips.

  With a frown, Trent conceded the point.

  The footman Georgina had sent for the coach entered the hall, trying desperately not to appear curious, and failing. “My lady—”

  “Charles, have the traveling coach brought round. The unmarked one,” Riverton said.

  Alarm and confusion filled the footman’s face as he looked back and forth between the brother and sister. Colin pressed a fist to his mouth, hoping the sharp pinch of teeth against lips would keep the threatening laughter contained.

  Georgina lifted a single brow.

  “Right away, my lord.” The footman scurried away.

  Colin shook his head. When he’d walked in the house an hour ago, he’d have said Lady Georgina was riding the tide of her brother’s influence. It was very obvious now that she was controlling her own destiny in this family, despite what many would term a shortcoming.

  Did that mean he was wrong about other things when it came to this woman?

  Trent ran a hand over his cravat. “I’ll change coats and cravats. Everything else will pass well enough, but we don’t want to make it obvious that we’re leaving town in a hurry.”

  “I’ll pack a bag.” Lady Georgina followed Trent across the hall to the stairs.

  Riverton looked to the drawing room door, no doubt dreading the curious people he’d face when he returned.

  “What will you tell them?” Colin asked.

  Riverton’s eyes widened in his serious face. He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Nothing.”

  What would it be like to walk in a room and not strategize his way through the evening? “Must be nice to be the duke.”

  “It has its moments.” Riverton straightened his jacket and reached for the drawing room door as Lady Georgina scampered back down the stairs.

  Riverton looked at the bag with raised eyebrows but said nothing before he returned to the gathering.

  Colin debated joining him, just to witness the men trying to get the duke to gossip like a society matron. Colin’s sudden presence would no doubt add to the speculation. Fun though it would be, he didn’t need his name in the gossip mill. When people were talking about you, they were less likely to talk to you.