Last Chance for the Charming Ladies: A Clean & Sweet Regency Historical Romance Collection

by Fanny Finch

  He had been angry with her for her lack of conviction. Surely this showed a bit of that, did it not? Was this not exhibiting the behavior that he told her she needed to showcase more of when they had their last meeting—and their last argument?

  And there was no reason for her to say no to him now, was there? Her father was dead.

  Ah, but there was her brother.

  Robert watched as Mr. Tomlinson danced with Miss Reginald yet again. Twice in one night. It showed his favoritism to her.

  It seemed that Robert had competition. Although not truly. Miss Reginald had said that her feelings for him were unchanged. That must mean that he was ahead of Mr. Tomlinson. A great deal ahead, in fact.

  And Miss Reginald did not seem to be actively encouraging him in his idea of courtship. She was being nice enough to him. Of course she was.

  But he saw no tender looks. No great smiles. Nothing that would encourage him unduly if he were in Mr. Tomlinson’s place and trying to win a lady.

  Then again, Miss Reginald was a withdrawn woman. The other man might not be noticing the difference between her simply quiet nature and her genuine lack of interest.

  Robert had seen her in the throes of great emotion. He knew how she behaved when she was inclined to be in love with someone and when she was not. But Mr. Tomlinson did not know this and therefore might have some cause to hope and continue his pursuit.

  Did Robert want to put a stop to that? Did he want to attempt this courtship again?

  He thought, then, of her brother.

  He remembered the now-duke of Foreshire, then merely Edward Reginald, as a good man. They had enjoyed one another’s company when they ran into one another at dinners and balls.

  But Robert still did not have a title. And he knew that Edward was, in more ways than he wanted to admit, his father’s son.

  Would Edward approve of the match? Or would he provide Miss Reginald with the same ultimatum that her father had?

  Robert could quite easily see it. Edward had to be practical, after all. He had to think about alliances and how he might provide both for himself and for his sister.

  Most members of the nobility still married strategically. Of course it was not so nearly as obvious as it was back in the days of, say, Richard the Lionheart. Nobles had constantly been jockeying for power then. Infighting between them was still common.

  Now, of course, things were more civilized. But marriages among the nobility were not simply out of love. They were to secure fortunes. To protect land. To gain seats in Parliament or gain an ally in political matters.

  Edward would want to use his sister for that, surely. Especially as a young duke still new at this game. His father’s death was sudden. It had to have thrown things into upheaval not just for his family but for all the nobility.

  Robert did not think that Miss Reginald was aware. How could she be? She would not be so bold with him if she knew that she was probably going to need to marry someone else.

  Unless she did know and was throwing in her bid so boldly now so that they might marry before her brother could enact whatever plans he had for her.

  But that would mean she would be going against her brother’s wishes, which Robert could not see her doing. Miss Reginald had obeyed her father because she had no other choice.

  But she obeyed her brother because she loved him.

  Miss Reginald and her brother had always been close. They had been allies united quietly against their father. Supporting one another in whatever ways they could.

  She had often spoken of her brother in her letters to Robert and always with great fondness.

  Robert had admired Edward, and he had enjoyed their time spent together, little as it was. And he had loved him for the sake of his sister and her love for her brother. Miss Reginald loved her brother and so therefore Robert loved him.

  But years could change a man, as could responsibility. Sudden responsibility at that. And could he really say that he knew Edward well enough to state with absolute certainty that the man would allow his sister to marry someone beneath her station?

  He was not so beneath her station as he had once been. He had come up in the world. But for her to marry someone without a title who was also the man that her father had once forbidden her to marry…

  There might even be something in the will of her father preventing her from marrying anyone who did not have a title. Robert would not have put it past the old tyrant.

  Well, it was a sad fact, but it was a true one: Miss Reginald would need permission from her brother.

  And Robert did not think that Edward would grant it.

  Chapter 14

  Georgiana had never wished, so fervently, for a dance to end.

  Captain Trentworth had been about to give her his answer. She could sense it. How she had bared her soul before him! How painfully obvious she had been!

  There were ladies much younger and more ridiculous than she who had not behaved in such a way. Miss Perry had not even been so plain.

  But how else was she to know? How else was she to end the torment in which she had been placed?

  And he had seen it in her eyes. She could not disguise it. Not when she was struggling so hard not to simply tell him in plain speech that she loved him still. That when he had walked through the door last night she had nearly fainted with the power of all that she still felt for him.

  Was she making a fool of herself? Was she setting herself up to be hurt yet again? Would he reject her? Laugh at her for continuing to have such feelings for him, for thinking that she ever had a chance?

  She hung onto hope that she was not sure she deserved. He had not looked angrily or coldly at her. If anything he had looked surprised. Taken aback. Shocked, even. As though he was not sure what to think.

  Well, she could not truly blame him for being so surprised. She had thought she was quite obvious in her continuing affections but did not every person? And after rejecting him summarily previously, how could she expect him to believe her so easily this time? How could he possibly have any hope?

  But she had told him now. The secret was out.

  He must at the very least let her down gently if that was the case. She knew that he would. He was not a vengeful man. At least, the Captain Trentworth that she had known once had not been vengeful.

  Georgiana could hardly think through her dance with Mr. Tomlinson. When she did, it was with a sort of vague distress.

  He had asked her to dance a second time. That was a firm statement of intent, a statement that he liked her.

  When the ball was a small one and there were not many people to be had, then of course men and women ended up dancing together more than once. This was especially true if there were more women than men, as there usually were.

  But in a crowded and public ballroom such as this, Mr. Tomlinson had no small number of options before him. He could select any number of ladies to be his partner. He didn’t have to repeat a single one of them if he did not wish to.

  And yet, with only a couple of dances in between, he had chosen to dance with her twice.

  He was most certainly trying to let her know that he would begin courting her.

  Georgiana could not tell him that her heart belonged to another. After all, if Captain Trentworth rejected her offer then she must marry someone to preserve herself. Mr. Tomlinson was as good of a man as any.

  And he was continuing to ask after her rather nicely. He wasn’t being the completely charming man that she had first been wary of. He seemed genuinely interested in her thoughts.

  She could do worse, couldn’t she?

  But first she had to know what Captain Trentworth would say.

  She could not turn away Mr. Tomlinson firmly. Of course, she could not turn him away firmly even if she already had her answer from Captain Trentworth. There was propriety and manners to be thought about. She could not embarrass Mr. Tomlinson.

  But if she had her answer, she would then know whether to tell the servants tomorrow if t
hey ought to say that she was out of the house when Mr. Tomlinson called. She would firmly tell Julia not to sit them next to or across one another at dinner.

  Then again, if Captain Trentworth’s answer was no, then she would have to do the opposite. She would be sure to stay at home so that Mr. Tomlinson might call. She would ask Julia to sit them together in some way at dinner.

  It was the bargain that she made with herself. She was to blame for her impending spinsterhood, was she not? Therefore, she was going to give herself one last chance. Go all in and risk it and see if perhaps she might win it all.

  But if Captain Trentworth turned her down, then that was it. She must somehow be wholehearted in accepting any man, Mr. Tomlinson or otherwise, who courted her.

  As the dance ended, she took a deep breath and turned to find Captain Trentworth.

  He was standing in the back, against the wall, and speaking with Miss Everett once again.

  Jealousy stabbed at her. Oh, please, do not let her be too late. Do not let Miss Everett already be successful in taking the captain away from her.

  Georgiana approached them politely, curtsying. “Miss Everett, I have scarcely seen you all night. How are you liking the ball?”

  “It is enchanting, as all balls can be,” Miss Everett replied. “And a wonderful opportunity for observing people, as well. I find people quite fascinating to watch, personally. And you, Miss Reginald? I see you have had a livelier time of it than I think you suspected.”

  “It has been a surprising evening in many ways,” Georgiana replied.

  “I will leave you two, now that I am finished keeping our captain company,” Miss Everett said. “I promised a dance to Mr. Norwich and I must not delay any longer in paying my debt.”

  She curtsied to them both and went off.

  “That girl is shrewder, I think, than we have previously given her credit for being,” Captain Trentworth observed. “I do not think she has a dance with Mr. Norwich.”

  “I must thank her in some way, then,” Georgiana confessed. “For if I had to go another moment without knowing your thoughts I would completely lose my composure.”

  Captain Trentworth sighed. “Miss Reginald. I have been made aware of the error of my ways in being so harsh with you all those years ago.

  “But in learning that I was not right to ask you to go against your father, how can I ask you to go against your brother?”

  “What?” Georgiana blinked rapidly, as if trying to reconcile what she saw with what she was hearing. “What on earth do you mean? I do not understand how I would be going against my brother.”

  “I still am without a title,” Captain Trentworth replied. “And at this point I never shall have one. The daughter of a duke, the sister of one, has some expectations attached to her, does she not?

  “I am certain that if I were to ask, your brother would much prefer that you marry Mr. Norwich, who is set to inherit a title. And a rather good title, at that.

  “I would not ask you to betray your family once again. I understand now—or rather I have been made to understand—what a difficult and indeed impossible choice it is for a woman to make.

  “You must forgive me, then, if I am hesitant to speak aloud the things that still dwell in my heart and that try to compel me to answer your words in kind.”

  Georgiana stared at him. Anger, hot and quick, bubbled up inside of her. “Are you suggesting, Captain, that my brother will be like my father? That he will be the same sort of hard and unyielding man that my father was?”

  “I have no reason to believe otherwise.”

  “Were your times together hunting and at balls not enough for you?”

  “Your brother is a duke now. That changes things. He will want to use you to set up an alliance or advantageous partnership of some kind.”

  “If you think that, then you do not know and never have known my brother. He would never use me in such a way. He is the kindest of men and has always respected me.”

  “Are you certain that you are not deluding yourself? We are apt to think more highly of the people we love than perhaps they deserve.”

  “Yes, that is true,” Georgiana said. She knew there was fury in her tone, but she could not keep it out. She would never stand for anyone to think or say such things of her brother. Not even the man that she loved. “It seems that I have thought more highly of you than you have deserved.”

  “You cannot blame me for thinking that your brother would not approve.” Captain Trentworth seemed almost astonished at her daring and her words.

  To tell the truth, Georgiana was a little astonished at herself.

  “I can, and I shall,” Georgiana replied, drawing herself up. “When I had no friends, no suitors, and no one, I had my brother. Our mother and father are gone and it is only the two of us. We have been all that the other one has.

  “And he has always loved and supported me. Even as the rumors started. When other men would grow impatient with their sisters and tell them to marry the next man who came along, demand that they throw themselves at someone, or even arrange it behind their sister’s back… my brother has done nothing but speak to me with patience and understanding.

  “Did you know that he has apologized to me? My brother, apologized! For something that was not even his fault!

  “He blames himself, at least in part, as the reason why you and I did not marry.”

  Georgiana looked around the room to make sure that nobody was eavesdropping, but it seemed that everyone was occupied with other matters.

  She kept her voice low and her posture as casual as she could so that observers might not realize that she was breaking all rules of propriety and starting a spat.

  But her brother was worth starting a spat over.

  “He believes that he ought to have stood up to our father and told him, demanded, that he let us marry. He felt that if he had said such a thing it would be all right.

  “I had always appreciated how he kept out of that matter. It was my problem and not his. I appreciated that he respected my independence and that he let me fight my own battles.

  “When he apologized to me I told him this. But he still, I think, carries some guilt for his lack of action. As though anyone, even his only son, could dissuade my father when he had made up his mind about something.

  “Your words anger me and fill me with dread. For if this is how you so hastily judge my brother, how on earth would a partnership between us last?

  “I am ashamed of you, to know that you have been so unkind in your judgments and so quick to jump to a conclusion. Without genuinely asking me or my brother. Without waiting to meet him and see if he would greet you with open arms as he once did.

  “He would do so again. I know that he would. He cares not for who the man is. Only that the man can provide for me, and that he makes me happy.

  “Do you think that I would even think of encouraging Mr. Tomlinson if my brother wanted me to marry a title? Do you not think that I would have found a way to let him know during our first dance that there was no hope?

  “I do not believe in stringing on a man when there is no happy ending for him at the end of the road. It is cruel and unkind. And at my age I do not have the time for the games of flirtation or the thrill of the chase.

  “I would have found a way to let him know during the first dance. He would never have asked me for a second.

  “But I did not. I did not actively encourage him, no. I did not flirt with him, per se. But I did not actively discourage him either. And that ought to tell you what my brother thinks on the subject.”

  Captain Trentworth was staring at her in frustration and surprise. Georgiana could not even begin to understand what he was thinking.

  After a moment of what appeared to be contemplation, he spoke.

  “I think that you are giving yourself and your kind too much credit.”

  “My kind?”

  “Those with titles,” Captain Trentworth said. “The nobility. To some of you it matters
terribly, of course. I think mainly to the men for they are the ones who hold most of the responsibility when it comes to them.

  “For the men, the title is not just a title. It is land, business, tenants for whom they must care. But for the women, I do not think that you always consider how important and above everyone else you are considered.

  “People who have food do not think about not having it. And people such as yourself who come from nobility do not think about what it is like to not be a member of that class.