Big breath in. Georgie reached for the rituals of parlors all across the country, questions and practices which normalized everything. Even the most dire and awkward of situations like hers. She would be the perfect sister-in-law and look to him for clues as to what her betrothed would be like, similar surely?
“Please be seated. Can we offer tea?” She motioned him to a chair giving her a chance to look at him more closely. Long muscular legs, narrow hips that flared into a broad back stretching his military uniform in a very flattering fit. In those seconds as he moved to the chair, she took in every detail that might give her indication of what his brother would look like, what the man who had no interest in her would look like. Then he turned as he sat, their eyes connected and just like that he set her skin aflame again.
Georgie couldn’t help herself, she leaned toward him peering at his face, it was uncannily similar to his brother’s. Naturally, she expected her betrothed to look like him. Maybe her ridiculously exaggerated response to the General was because of the family resemblance to her betrothed.
“Do you resemble your brother?”
“Georgie.” Her father warned, she was supposed to exhibit her training where she was courtly and witty. Personal questions were not asked, neither were direct queries which did not pertain to refreshments, the weather, and light topics of interest.
The General held up his hand silencing her father, “Naturally Miss Georgina will have questions. We are to be family. This more open discussion is allowable.” He returned his regard to her and that strange zinging sensation rippled through her again. “We have a clear family resemblance. And Coffee would be welcome.”
“Coffee?” She’d had the house stocked with every Russian tea imaginable.
“Coffee is my preference ….” Their eyes locked and the intensity of him sent that sizzle through her body yet again. Would his brother impact her in the same way? “However, if there is none in the house?” Those eyes locked with hers seemed to indicate he knew how he was unsettling her yet, if she had an impact on him, she was yet to see any indication of it.
She broke their gaze and sat straighter, ringing for service. “Of course, we have many of the continent’s offerings, General Demetri.”
She ordered a tray of….coffee in Russian. A totally redundant thing to do as she had to repeat her instructions again in English for the staff.
“Your accent is excellent.” His eyes now looked …softer…or something like that, something other than unreadable.
“Georgie has been tutored since the commencement of the betrothal,” her father said with clear pride. Bless him but she was an idiot. This wasn’t her betrothed.
The unreadable veil again shuttered across the General’s eyes.
“That is to be commended, Miss Franklin.” He indicated with a bow of his head.
“You are Prince Vladimir’s twin brother?” she asked, needing to check yet again the uncanny resemblance and at this point not caring what impression she was making.
“No.” He adjusted himself in the small chair.
“You look identical to the miniature I was sent,” she pulled the most recent one from her skirt pocket. “Perhaps you sat for them in his stead because he had matters of state to attend to?” The annoyance finally returned, giving her some backbone if a little late.
An uncomfortable silence filled the air. She ignored her father’s finger as it moved side to side in their signal that she should manage herself. However, things had to be said and as she had already made such an idiot of herself, she may as well ask what was really on her mind. “We expected your brother to send word,” she said, and her father sighed audibly. She turned to him, “Well we did…” They had in fact waited for years! She turned back to the General, squaring her shoulders.
“I thought a visit would be more familial.” The smile, although devastatingly charming, didn’t reach his eyes. Georgie creased her brows at him. He would be a fool not to know the impact of his unannounced call but clever him for referring to them as already family and thus permitting the familiarity.
“And familial we are.” Her father chimed as she slipped the miniature back in the small pocket where it resided during the day.
“You keep his portrait on you?”
Damn, the last thing she needed was for either Petroski to know the extent of her attachment to it and by extension to her betrothal.
“No,” she lied. “Only recently. I was terrified I would accidently overlook him in the street.” Foolish girl, she had carried his small miniatures around every day since the first one arrived on her ninth birthday. Those damn miniatures knew all her secrets, her hopes and fears as the man they portrayed would never know and never care.
And there went her father’s hand again signaling she should ease off. Her jaw tightened. Maybe because she had had enough of those sizzling sensations and feeling off balance, or maybe because the balance was finally tipping. Why should she swallow each and every slight and the Petroski brothers be tiptoed around? If they had the gumption to turn up unannounced and gallivant around London, then she could ask questions. In fact, her questions required answers if she was going to even remotely consider marrying anyone.
Chapter 3
That unwanted sensation curled around his chest again as Demetri saw Miss Georgina Franklin’s brow crease. He hadn’t been prepared for her, hadn’t expected to find her so breathtakingly attractive. Another time, another place, another set of circumstances and he would give her his undivided attention, make the effort to get to know her. However, those were not their circumstances. No. He sat in the room with a man who had blackmailed his father into a betrothal which no one wanted upheld. His father had died shortly after the announcement and, even though he was only just eleven, his mother had set him straight on what had happened to them and his filial duty to restore the honor of his family and his own.
He and his brother were here with one purpose: to have the betrothal annulled. To that end his brother, the natural libertine of the family, was masquerading as her betrothed while he did the delicate task of navigating the end of the said betrothal with the father and daughter.
Demetri could have played himself in this masquerade, but he would never dream of delegating to his brother a task as delicate as destroying his own betrothal. His brother who was doing what he did best, bounding about the Salon and no doubt the brothel circuits of London, all in the name of Prince Vladimir Petroski. As much as the indiscretions under his name irked him, it suited this specific purpose. If the family Franklin thought Prince Petroski a cad, all the more reason for them to rethink launching their seemingly delightful daughter his way. She would call off the betrothal and he and his family would be free from the shame of blackmail, a situation which had caused his mother a great deal of ill health over the years.
“And what of my miniatures? Do you know if your brother received them? I received no word.” The beat of her heart at her clavicle, the soft touch of pink at the base of her neck alerted him to the importance of the casual question.
Of course, he had received them and…never opened them. In the family’s cavernous library was a drawer in the desk where he did his lessons and now attended to matters of state, in which he’d placed each and every one of the miniatures, unopened. His responsibilities had been made very clear on his father’s death – end the betrothal. There had been no need to put a face to the betrothal. No need to know who he was betrothed to, only that he had to find a way to be released from that shameful event.
“Men do not bother themselves with such matters.” He clipped out and regretted it as he saw the impact of his words on her face. A face which apparently held no secrets, something very unusual where he came from.
The uncomfortable sensation was back in his chest.
It was one thing to plan his exit from the betrothal and another thing altogether to come face to face with the person most affected by his plan. The most enchanting Miss Georgina Franklin.
Gi
lded eyes held his. “What are men interested in when it comes to matters concerning their betrothed?” They were framed in thick long lashes that would rest on her cheeks when she slept, like black newborn bird’s feathers which curled at their tips. “Perhaps a brother’s advice might lend me more success.”
He wanted to shake his head as she viewed him through those lashes like a siren, unaware of the power she had. And yet for such a woman she had not thrown him out. In Russia, he would not have had to come to the house, the betrothal papers would have been returned and the person delivering the papers would have been given instructions to burn them at his door if not in his face. In England it seemed, women were far more forgiving. Or was it something more…that miniature in her pocket…she had formed an attachment, of course she would have. His chest warmed despite himself.
“A man is more interested in what’s in front of him than painted. The artist is, after all, paid by the sitter. A self-commissioned portrait has often been overly kind.” He adjusted his posture again in the chair.
She leaned forward, the light through the window caught the side of her face, pale, smooth as cream and her hair, like tangled fire. It would be like this, so ironic that the one woman he was honor driven to reject, required to repel, was turning him inside out. Had made his heart thunder in his chest as if some primal roar was about to burst from it and announce his claim to the world. He had no claim he intended to keep. The last fourteen years had seen his betrothal come up at small family gatherings, a mark of shame as his mother told the story of how their father had foolishly allowed himself to be blackmailed, had given his eldest son as compensation, that the shame on the family name was not to be borne.
“Were mine overly kind?” That vulnerability crossed her face again, “Did your brother show them to you?” She was twisting him in knots. She shifted in the chair.
“No.” He hardened himself.
“No?”
He crossed his legs. Then his arms. The small chair creaked. “That’s correct.”
She reached back into her pocket and took out the image of him which he sat for two years past. She was killing him.
“Is this an accurate rendering or would you say it is overly kind to the Prince’s likeness?”
He reached out and took the miniature, warm from her body. He didn’t look at it. Of course, he didn’t have to. It was a good likeness of him. Instead, he held her gaze as its soft warmth sat in his closed palm.
Her eyes held his, brave and vulnerable. He had never realized the wonderful appeal of freckles. She looked young and fresh, as if the summer sun had left messages on her skin to remind those who beheld her that it had passed over her, that it had trailed it’s heat over her skin and left reminders that when the winter was done the sun would again return. A man could find himself tracing them under fingertips, with the tip of his nose followed by lips.
She looked away. He opened his palm and looked at the image. He saw what she obviously didn’t, the resentment and anger to yet again have to sit for a miniature which was to be sent to a betrothed he had no intention of ever marrying. Now that he’d met her those years of anger at her felt misplaced. After all, she was not responsible for the betrothal. In fact, she was betrothed to someone who had neglected her. His wished that she had had another, someone who would have made her feel cherished, twisted oddly through him.
“It’s a good likeness,” he said curtly.
“Is he always so serious?”
He nodded. “He has often been told he needs to relax more.” And he had. His brother and mother said he worked too hard, should take more time to relax and enjoy life.
Miss Georgie’s eyebrows rose. Her father coughed. Ah yes, his brother was painting London red in his name. That wasn’t his real, austere character. Yet it was the person he needed her to think he was. He needed her to believe her betrothed was an unreliable libertine and call off the betrothal despite the allure of those freckles and her Lady Godiva hair.
Across from him his betrothed rearranged herself on the spacious sofa. His insides softened. He was a military man; he knew the signal for a charge when he saw one and she was like a dove preparing to charge a falcon. He may not want to admit it but he admired the gumption, admired and wanted that courage to somehow be encourage.
Her face turned and her gaze locked with his. That unexpected flutter went through him like the first time their eyes connected. Coming to meet her in person had clearly been a strategic mistake.
“Matters of state you say?” Her eyes pieced him with that striking shade of amber even as her face and body managed to portray a relaxed demeanor.
“Yes, so I understand.” He consciously unlocked his hands and placed then casually over his crossed knees.
His betrothed turned slightly towards him. Here it comes.
“Prince Vladimir is most fortunate indeed to have access to Madam Debuverey’s salon in which to conduct his meetings.” Not even an innuendo, a hint at the indiscretion. No. To her great credit, the lovely Miss Georgina dived straight in.
“Georgie, Georgie hush.” Her father stood.
“I should be overjoyed to have such a resourceful husband,” she continued, “who can find ways to take his family’s advice to relax and enjoy life as well as conduct important matters of state.”
“Georgie.” The warning in her father’s voice was clear. She gave a stubborn tilt of her chin. A man would come to watch for that in a marriage with a woman like her. Give him fair warning of a blast to come, but not him. He had other plans than being wed to this surprising woman.
He motioned her father to sit, the man who was the orchestrator of this blackmail debacle. The man who was the ultimate cause of the hurt that now befell his daughter.
“Perhaps, there is something else you’d like to say Miss Franklin? I am willing to take even the gravest of news to my brother.”
Her facial features didn’t change. Demetri cast a glance at her father whose face now looked as men look in business. At least that man understood what he was saying. Georgina looked at her father and pressed her lips together. It took a moment to process; she was so vulnerable he had overlooked that they could be in collusion. And sure enough, she did not say what he would have expected any other debutante to say.
“What I have to say is between myself and my betrothed.” Her chin lifted and pushed forward. A stubborn determined posture. And yet her eyes still struggled to cover her hurt. Was it something she would only say directly to her betrothed? That could prove awkward.
The coffee tray came in and, with a great deal of elegance, his betrothed poured their coffee. Her posture warned him she was gearing for another attack.
“Perhaps you and Prince Vladimir could come to dinner? Surely now that he is in London a meal with his betrothed is not too much to ask?”
“I am not privy to my brother’s schedule.”
“Surely the matters of state in the salons could be postponed for an hour or two?” She smiled the smile of politics at him.
“I am not disposed to agree on his behalf.”
“As a gesture of atonement?” her eyes narrowed.
He picked up his coffee and drank. Clearly there was nothing he could say.
They sat in silence, Mr. Franklin filled in the space with well-known newspaper topics, topics that usually rolled out in front parlors.
“How long is the trip?” She finally asked.
“We will allow a week.” He had made plans in case this part of his plan was unsuccessful although he still held hope that they would not be used. The wall clock chimed the hour. He’d stayed long enough to be polite.
“I assume Prince Vladimir will accompany me as he also has to return to St Petersburg.”
He coughed. The ongoing discomfort he was feeling, making excuses was total unexpected. “Absolutely.”
“Perhaps he could visit prior to the trip for tea if not dinner?” She angled her knees.
He firmed his resolve. “I am not in the privi
leged position to know your betrothed’s schedule.”
She leaned forward and it wasn’t to pick up one of the small sweets on the tray between them. “Yet you know how he will travel back home.”
“Yes.” Seeing an opportunity, he leaned forward and selected a shortbread and took a bite. It was rude to question someone who was eating. Father and daughter watched as he masticated and swallowed.
“Perhaps you would like to join us for dinner.” Her father suggested with a gesture suggesting his acceptance was required.
He took another bite and chewed the shortbread slowly. It irked him to agree to anything their family’s blackmailer suggested, yet one look at Georgina and he didn’t have the heart to refuse. He swallowed, brushed the crumbs off his trousers, picked up his coffee and then replied.
“I would be delighted to accept an invitation.”
“Excellent, excellent.” Her father said, standing and reaching over to remove the coffee cup from his hand and placing it on the table. “I’ll see you out.”
The daughter shot her father a scowl, her probing cut short, as was his chance to guide her into the cancellation of the betrothal.
“I am in no hurry,” he protested.
“Oh, no, no, better you come back later.” There was that shrewd business look again.
Georgina stood, a somewhat determined expression giving him warning. “I will show him out father.”
His heart did a strange skip when she slipped her hand through his arm and rested it on his forearm as she led him from the room. He looked down and saw the show of pink at her neck, the tremor in her fingers.
“That’s not necessary, dear.” Her father hovered and yet he stayed in the parlor as Demetri was shown to the foyer and his horse sent for.
Once Upon a Christmas Wedding Page 168