‘Let us talk first,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘I could not set down everything in my letter, for fear of it falling into someone else’s hands. But not here! Come into the parlour where I have been waiting. I shall give you a glass of Madeira and you can warm yourself by the fire for a little while until you feel more the thing.’
She led him up the stairs and into a small candlelit room with a cosy and very welcome fire. She poured him a glass of wine, and he sat down heavily upon the red satin sofa and drained it with a sigh. He was not yet thirty, and his handsome, strong-boned face was of a naturally cheerful cast, but there was little sign of cheer in him now. ‘Thank you! That is better. Now tell me; if what you have to say is worse than what you felt able to set down, I cannot for the life of me imagine what it might be.’
Lady Louisa began her tale with Georgiana’s scandalous meeting with the Duke in London, and went on to describe subsequent events exactly as her niece had recounted them, up until the scene in the garden and the forced announcement of their betrothal. She spoke quietly, without excessive emotion, but if she had thought that this might temper her nephew’s reaction, she was to be disappointed.
‘Christ, Louisa,’ he said blankly when she had done. ‘Good God almighty. Has she run mad?’
‘I don’t think she has. Consider for a moment, Hal, as I have had time to these last days – is anything she has done so very different from your actions last year when you first met Cassandra? Do not tell me that nothing in the least improper happened between you before you wed her, for if you did, I would not believe you. There was a certain occasion – the night of the Windleshams’ ball, as I recall, when the pair of you disappeared for quite half an hour…’
Her nephew blushed like a schoolboy, and did not meet her eye. He did not deny or admit anything, but merely said hastily, ‘Yes, I take your point, but dash it all, that was Cassandra! It’s completely different!’
‘Why?’
‘Because I love her, and she loves me. It’s not the same as letting a complete stranger… I can’t say it to you! I wonder you were able to say it to me, Louisa!’
She smiled a little ironically at her favourite nephew. ‘You love each other now, and I am excessively glad of it. But can you honestly say that either of you felt such an overpowering emotion, or at any rate were fully aware of feeling it, when you first?—’
He cut her off hastily. ‘Let us set that aside, if we may, ma’am, and move on.’
‘Let us, by all means!’ she said drily. ‘What I am trying to say is that you do not think any the worse of Cassandra for permitting you… whatever liberties she permitted you, I am sure I do not wish to know. And perhaps you can extend the same courtesy to your sister where Northriding is concerned. Hal, people of our rank in life have intimate congress with complete strangers all the time; to claim otherwise would be rank hypocrisy. Many men, of course, do so just as often as they are able, as far as I can tell, but both men and women do it as soon as they are married. It is quite usual for a couple to marry, with all that implies, when they have never so much as had a private conversation. Nobody thinks there is anything in the least odd about it. And do not try to tell me you are religious, and that is the nature of your objection to what has occurred, for I know you are not.’
‘I suppose if the fellow had made her an offer in an ordinary sort of way, even after a few days’ acquaintance, I would not think anything of it,’ he said dubiously.
‘As for that, you know he asked her to marry him the night before all this blew up in our faces, Hal. As far as I can see he has been consistent in his desire to marry her more or less since we arrived here. But she refused him.’
Her nephew groaned. ‘His reputation is very bad, though, there’s no denying that. He’s not what I would have wished for her, dammit. That frightful scandal when he was little more than a boy, people still speak of it now… And it’s not as though he has reformed of late, as far as I am aware. Let’s hope he means to! Or what was he doing at a cursed orgy, Louisa, I would like to know?’
His aunt sighed. ‘What do you think he was doing, Hal? For that matter, what was she?’
‘She was tricked there by that pestilential Aubrey woman, though I cannot imagine why. You told me so yourself!’
‘But then she stayed, Hal. She did not flee in horror as another girl might. God knows what would have happened to her there if Northriding had not seen her, and taken her aside.’
He laughed incredulously. ‘What happened to her at his hands – whatever, don’t look at me like that, you know perfectly well what I mean – was not bad enough for you? How much worse could it have been?’
‘Much worse. You know it could have been much worse. You do not need me to spell it out for you, Hal. He did nothing she did not want him to do. He has up to this date done precisely nothing that she has not very much wanted him to do.’
‘That seems to be the root of the problem. If he’s what she wants, and she wants him that badly… I suppose there is no point hashing it over endlessly, is there? The upshot of it all as far as I can see is that she must marry him. I do not see what else is to be done.’
‘But she is not sure she wishes to. She is in considerable distress and confusion of mind.’
‘What would you have me do, then? Of course I will help her if I can, but I have not the least idea how else to set this right.’
‘You cannot make all of them happy, Hal. Not the boys and not Georgie. She needs to work this out for herself, with the Duke, as you did with Cassandra. And what a miserable time we all had of it, while we are on the subject, living in the house with you while you came to your senses.’
He had the grace to grimace. ‘I know. I remember what an awful mess I made of things, thinking the worst, refusing to listen to her when she tried to talk to me. Loving her, torturing myself over it. Are you saying this is in some way the same, Louisa?’
‘I think it might be. I can’t be sure, as I don’t believe Georgie fully knows her own mind yet, and nor does Northriding, though at least give him the credit for being absolutely sure he wishes to marry her and nobody else. He knows exactly what he wants, though perhaps not just why he wants it so badly, which is more than she does. Will you go and talk to him now?’
Hal stood, and stretched his long limbs. ‘I suppose I must. Christ, what a day.’
26
The butler ushered Lord Irlam into his master’s study, and left them alone. The two tall men – effective strangers – stood and studied each other critically across the space that separated them, tension in the air. If Lady Louisa had been there, she might have remarked that they resembled nothing so much as two big, handsome, stupid dogs who happened to encounter each other in the street, and were not quite sure if they should fight for supremacy or decide to be friends.
The Duke moved to greet his reluctant guest. ‘Irlam,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you got here safely at last. Perhaps you might not care to shake my hand, after all that you have heard of me. But I dare say you would be thankful to sit down, and take a glass of wine. You have had a long and weary day of it on my account, and I am sorry.’
‘I thank you, Duke, but my aunt gave me wine, and I do not wish for any more just now,’ Hal said a little stiffly, very much upon his dignity. But he took the chair that his host had indicated.
