by Lex Croucher
Unfortunately, said kiss only took place in Georgiana’s racing imagination; Mr Hawksley only cleared his throat quietly, then released her hand as if she were suffering from something contagious.
‘Sorry. I don’t know what compelled me . . .’ she started.
He had turned to look across the lawn; Georgiana was glad he couldn’t see her blushing furiously in the dark. She felt at a natural disadvantage, sitting next to somebody who could so casually lay claim to approximately fifty hats.
‘There are just quite a lot of very well-dressed people here, have you noticed?’ Georgiana said suddenly, and too loudly. ‘Nobody here looks as if they’ve ever had to groom a horse, or . . . or . . . tie up their own boot-laces. They probably think horses groom themselves with long tongues, like cats – and the idea of a shoelace has likely never even entered their periphery. They . . . They probably just announce that they’re leaving the house, and somewhere far below them a maid does something indecipherable, and then – hoorah, they’re ready to go!’
A slightly stunned silence followed this, which Georgiana thought was fair.
‘I rather enjoy grooming my horse,’ said Mr Hawksley eventually. ‘I find it quite calming.’
‘Well, of course you do,’ said Georgiana churlishly. ‘It’s all very calming when you can choose whether to groom your horse or not. And especially when, even if you do choose to groom him, it’s your only domestic task of the day, after which you can retire to the fireside to . . . I don’t know, drink a bucket of fine brandy, patting yourself on the back for a hard day’s work well done.’
‘Hmm. Are you in the habit of grooming horses, Miss Ellers?’ asked Mr Hawksley.
Throughout the course of their short conversation he seemed to have somehow unclenched, and was now leaning back against the steps with an informal ease. She watched his hand, which he was absent-mindedly running through his hair, and then quickly looked away. It was rather an agreeable hand, but she couldn’t really account for the strength of feeling it roused in her.
‘Well – no. My uncle has a man who does it.’
‘Ah, I see. So these are purely ideological leanings in regards to the politics of horse-grooming, with no basis in the realities of your day-to-day life?’
Georgiana said nothing. He was potentially on to something here, but she saw no reason to let him know so.
‘I know very little about you, Miss Ellers – not who your family are, or where you live, or how you came to be at this party surrounded by people with whom you seem so unimpressed—’ Georgiana made to interrupt him, but he continued. ‘I can’t pretend I don’t share some of your qualms about our present company, but it seems to me that you might want to ask people if they harbour airs of grandeur, or perhaps even engage them in polite conversation first, before you give them up completely as a bad lot.’
He made to get up. Georgiana couldn’t help but feel that she’d said something wrong, but in her present state of mind she wasn’t quite sure what it was. She really didn’t want him to go, now that she was presented with that possibility, but could think of nothing to say to allow her to keep him.
‘I’ll take my leave of you, Miss Ellers. I believe your friends are looking for you.’
Georgiana twisted clumsily to see Frances and Cecily stumbling out of the ornamental garden, loudly hissing her name in stage whispers as they went.
‘Incidentally, while I have never seen a pig-chase, I did see someone racing ducks once. It was quite disturbing. They had little bonnets on.’
Georgiana turned back, smiling, a response to this halfway to her lips – but he was already gone, casting a long shadow as he strode back up the path towards the party.
Chapter Four
A
lthough Mrs Burton had no solid evidence that her niece had spent the evening in undesirable company indulging in illicit activities – Georgiana had found her aunt and uncle again by the very respectable hour of ten o’clock – she tutted down Georgiana’s explanation that she’d simply had too much champagne and treated her to a lecture about ladylike behaviour (and the importance of chaperones, and modesty, and proper introductions) for the best part of an hour on the carriage ride home. Georgiana rested her forehead on the faded interior of the carriage and tried her best to look innocently intrigued, but only succeeded in looking as if she was suffering some sort of intestinal discomfort.
She arose late the next day with a pounding head, emerging just in time for luncheon with her aunt and uncle, the former of whom greeted her loudly and enthusiastically, and then narrowed her eyes suspiciously at her when she winced.
Georgiana still didn’t know exactly what had been in that pipe, but whatever it was, it was certainly not just tobacco; she had never known her uncle to toddle off towards pretty lights or start giggling uncontrollably when he indulged in smoking after dinner, although admittedly he had once shocked her by wantonly undoing the top button of his waistcoat.
The Georgiana who lived with her parents and spent Saturday nights reorganising her books by year of publication would have been absolutely horrified at the idea of smoking mysterious, mind-altering substances with near-strangers, but she was quickly realising that she didn’t have to be that Georgiana anymore. Perhaps this version of herself – the one who could be on first-name terms with Frances Campbell, and keep up with her high society friends, and be welcomed wholeheartedly into a literal inner circle wreathed in rose bushes – was also the kind of person who acted as if such things were no more out of the ordinary than enjoying a particularly well-brewed cup of tea.
Georgiana was picking half-heartedly at her food when Emmeline came to tell them that someone had called for her and was currently waiting at the door – a pretty, dark-haired someone with a carriage so impressive that it apparently warranted extensive description.
‘Oh, my good God! It’s Miss Campbell, isn’t it?’ Mrs Burton said loudly, her hands flying to her face.
‘She can obviously hear you,’ Georgiana hissed back.
The fact that Frances had come to find her – that Frances had discovered her address, had gone to the trouble to actually seek her out – thrilled her to an unreasonable extent, immediately accelerating her heartbeat and slicking her palms with sweat, but there was no time to dissect all of that right now.
A momentary and rather farcical panic ensued, in which Mrs Burton’s immediate instinct was to pick up and hide a block of cheese, while Georgiana rushed to pull on her cloak and bonnet. Mr Burton stayed stoic and stationary throughout, like a mountain in the middle of a hurricane. Georgiana was out of the door with her luncheon haphazardly bundled into a basket for a picnic before her visitor could get a good look inside the house, aided in this endeavour by Mrs Burton, whose concerns about the propriety of Miss Campbell were trumped only by her horror at someone of Frances’s standing seeing the modest and slightly dusty interior of her home.
Georgiana understood; for once, she and her aunt were aligned on the horrors of dust.
Frances seemed politely bemused by the rush to get her away, but accepted the plan for a picnic as it was a fine day. She instructed her driver to take them to a spot Georgiana recommended – a country meadow ten minutes from the house, down the narrow, uneven lane. Georgiana had often enjoyed it alone with a good book, a habit which had earned her a sermon from Mrs Burton on ‘the evils of reading out of doors’. They settled down in the shade, on a rug that had been procured from the depths of the carriage and had the general air of being imported from somewhere.
Frances looked exhausted but happy, reclining nonchalantly back on her elbows, and Georgiana tried to imitate her, as if a million thoughts were not currently rushing through her head; as if she were not so excited to be here, sitting under a tree with Frances, that she felt a little sick.
‘How was the rest of the party?’ she asked casually, squinting as the dappled sunlight flitted across her eyes, sending pain lancing through her head. The discovery that enjoyable but questionable
behaviour had consequences, Georgiana mused, was most disappointing.
‘It was marvellous,’ said Frances, languidly taking off her shoes and stockings. She was still wearing her green and gold silks from the night before, although they looked slightly rumpled. She stretched, catlike, and wiggled her toes in the grass. ‘Jeremiah could barely tear himself away. It all thinned out a little after midnight, but he and I were talking well into the early hours. I slept at Jane’s – these are her stockings. A little tawdry for my taste.’
Georgiana offered Frances a sandwich, which she ate immediately and ravenously.
‘I’m expecting a proposal before the summer is over,’ she said between mouthfuls. ‘Honestly, God himself couldn’t have arranged a more perfect match through divine intervention.’
‘But . . . you mean to say you’re not engaged?’ Georgiana said, her own sandwich faltering halfway to her mouth.
She had just assumed Frances and Jeremiah were engaged from the way they’d been carrying on – how intimate they had been. Georgiana didn’t know what God himself would have to say about erotic hand-fondling before marriage, but she couldn’t imagine it’d be anything good.
‘Gird your loins, Georgiana, for I am about to shock you to your very core – no, we are not engaged,’ Frances said, rolling her eyes. ‘Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’ll happen any day now. I must say, I would find the whole thing more vexing, but the anticipation is quite frankly . . . delicious.’
‘He certainly looks at you like you’re something he’d like to eat,’ said Georgiana; she was treated to Frances’s most mischievous smile.
‘God, I hope he does,’ she replied, and Georgiana snorted with shocked laughter. ‘Come, now, I’m not the only one who’s been frolicking in Jane’s garden – I heard you were making connections of your own, Georgiana. Miss Woodley saw you dallying with our most reticent Mr Hawksley. You know, he’s somewhat of an enigma – but that only seems to make the ladies want him all the more.’
‘Which ladies?’ asked Georgiana, putting her untouched sandwich down.
‘Oh, you know,’ Frances said dismissively, waving a hand. ‘Everyone. He ignores them all, poor dears. Of course, Jeremiah is highly sought-after too – many have tried, and many have failed. I can’t wait to see the forlorn looks on their poor little faces when we announce our engagement. But come now, don’t change the subject – Mr Hawksley. I want all the sordid details.’
‘There isn’t much to tell,’ said Georgiana truthfully, brushing crumbs from her skirts. ‘We just talked about . . . you know, the party and the guests, and a little about . . . horses.’
She was lying by omission, but she didn’t think Frances needed to know how thoroughly she had embarrassed herself in front of Mr Hawksley, or about her insinuation that someone like Frances wouldn’t understand the concept of a shoelace. She had just seen her friend untie her own shoes, after all, so that particular matter was settled in Mr Hawksley’s favour.
It was inevitable, of course, that he had been the subject of female attention in the past – he was wealthy, and mysterious, and had eyelashes comparable to those of a newborn calf – but it still rankled Georgiana, who knew rationally that she had absolutely no claim to him. She wasn’t sure why she was so intrigued by him, but for some reason she longed to be in his good graces.
If she was honest with herself, that didn’t seem particularly likely, unless he had a particular penchant for being insulted.
‘Jeremiah and I were talking of him last night. He actually lives here all year round, you know – he doesn’t just summer here like the rest of us. We used to see more of him a few years ago, he was often in among the rabble at parties, but he vanished some-what mysteriously and has only just re-emerged. It’s probably the most interesting thing he’s ever done, which speaks volumes – I don’t think I’ve actually managed to have a proper conversation with him since. He does have a staggering inheritance, and I know he’s in charge of his family’s business. There was something . . . something about his family that Jeremiah alluded to, but he didn’t go into detail – well, he was distracted.’ She grinned, and Georgiana wondered what exactly Frances had been doing to distract him. ‘The only trouble is, all that responsibility has made him intolerably dull. I fear that marrying him would be like marrying a particularly well-connected broom handle.’
‘He seemed tolerable to me,’ said Georgiana, thinking that he probably couldn’t say the same for her.
‘Really? Well, each to her own. I certainly can’t imagine setting up house and spending a lifetime of parties on the arm of someone so desperately averse to enjoying himself. He barely drinks, he doesn’t smoke. His main hobbies seem to be creating uncomfortable pauses in conversation and looking at his hands. He’s very polite, of course, perfectly nice.’ She shuddered theatrically.
Georgiana couldn’t understand why Frances was so intent on assassinating Mr Hawksley’s character; perhaps she had never been close enough to him to be entranced by his eyelashes.
‘Your other friends – they were very kind,’ she said, keen to change the subject, finally taking a bite of her lunch.
‘Oh, my ladies-in-waiting,’ Frances said, laughing. ‘Jane’s a tough old nut, but she’s all right really. I’ve known her forever – we were children together. I fear she’s getting more and more onerous in her old age, though. She barely seems to enjoy her own parties these days. Cecily is a card. She’s disgustingly handsome, anyone can see that, but she’s not exactly . . . Well, she’s not going to be the first woman in government, that’s for certain. She’s good value, though, always game for anything, and she’s got such beautiful brothers. All married now, of course,’ she said with a wistful sigh. ‘They’re all as tall and fair as she is. I thought the youngest might look my way, but their mother tied them up in engagements with some fresh society girls in London as soon as she could.’
‘Mr Smith seems very fond of you,’ ventured Georgiana. ‘Did you and he ever . . . ?’
Frances looked at her in genuine astonishment, and then threw her head back and laughed.
‘Oh, not Jonathan! Poor man, you slander him. He’s like a brother to me – and I don’t mean to shock you, Georgiana, but I am very much not his type. A confirmed bachelor at the ripe old age of twenty-two.’
Georgiana had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, and didn’t manage to arrange her face to pretend otherwise.
‘He’s a man’s man, Georgiana. “Ladies not permitted”, like at those clubs in the city.’
‘Oh!’ Georgiana said, her face reddening as she finally caught on. ‘You mean . . . ?’
‘I’m pretty sure the last I saw of him yesterday, he was disappearing round the back of the greenhouse with one of Jeremiah’s dreadful friends,’ she said, arching a dark eyebrow.
‘Oh,’ said Georgiana again, her mind racing.
She had heard of such men before – one could not have a basic grasp of classical Greek literature without being introduced to a whole host of them – but as far as she was aware, she had never met one in person before. Mr Smith hadn’t seemed the least bit peculiar or fiendish – or, at least, no more than the rest of them. In fact, Georgiana had warmed to him more than any of the others.
She could only imagine what her aunt would say – his behaviour was against the law, after all – but in some ways Georgiana thought it added a certain thrill of romance to him. He was willing to risk it all, to break the law for love – or for whatever exactly it was people did behind the backs of greenhouses.
Frances looked rather pleased at managing to shock her. Georgiana realised she had misinterpreted their closeness, his frequent glances across the rose garden; his was not a look of longing, but rather a watchful protectiveness over his dear Franny.
‘He’s terribly lucky we’re all so practised at looking the other way,’ said Frances. ‘We actually pretended we were courting, once, for a time. He was trying to throw the dogs off the scent, and people believed us read
ily enough. It was all ruined when a group of us walked in and found him completely nude in the billiard room with this terrible Italian at my birthday party.’ She wrinkled her nose at the memory, and then sighed. ‘He and Christopher are always an inch away from murdering each other. Frankly, I wish Jonathan would just hurry up and garrotte him with one of his own ghastly cravats. Christopher is so wrapped up in the idea of being a ladies’ man, he hasn’t noticed that all women find him repulsive. Honestly, that boy is the Devil incarnate in garish tailoring. We only tolerate him because he’s terribly well connected when it comes to procuring certain vices we all enjoy. He’s a second cousin of Jane’s, or something, and he was at school with Jeremiah. Don’t get into a carriage with him alone, and don’t drink anything he gives you that he’s not drinking himself. Actually, not even if he’s drinking it himself, he’s probably built up a tolerance to fifty sorts of poison by now.’ Georgiana must have looked horrified, because Frances relented a little. ‘All right, he’s not that ghastly. He just gets a little wild sometimes – but don’t we all?’
The wildest night Georgiana had ever experienced had concluded only fourteen hours previously, and had been entirely due to Frances, but she nodded as if she, too, were rumoured to have swum half-naked in a stranger’s mill pond.
‘It’s not always just the five of us, but sometimes people miss a few seasons or accidentally find themselves married. So far this summer, we seem to be the only survivors. Last year we were eight, and we almost burned down Henrietta King’s summer house, so a smaller party is probably for the best. We have acquaintances by the dozen, of course, and there’s Jeremiah’s set – but I do think it best to have a smaller group of really firm friends, don’t you?’