His mother looked down again and began to sew furiously. "I might have known that marriage would do you no good," she said. "You are too young and too impressionable, Ralph. I should have taken you in hand for another few years. You are becoming as wild and as headstrong as your wife."
Ralph went very still. "As my wife?" he said. "What has Georgiana done?"
"What has she done!" she repeated contemptuously. "Sometimes, Ralph, you are the merest child. Everyone else noticed. Stanley certainly did, and Gloria must have, though she will not say anything. Your wife behaved in a most disgraceful manner last night, flirting quite openly with Roger. She was with him for a whole hour and danced with him for only part of that time. I thought I would faint quite away when she disappeared with him into the refreshment room, and I was never so mortified in my life as when she sat alone with him in that alcove for fully half an hour, making eyes at him. Everyone knows what a dreadful rake Roger is."
Ralph was on his feet. His face was paler than before, though his mother did not look up to observe the fact. "You have said enough, Mama," he said, his voice agitated rather than angry. "Pray, no more. I will not hear anymore against Georgiana. Roger is her cousin now too. Of course she will show him civility. She danced with any number of men last night. It would have been quite unseemly if she had been unwilling to leave my side. I saw nothing indecorous in her behavior, and I would thank Stanley to keep such insulting suggestions to himself. I will talk to him."
"You would do better to have words with your wife, Ralph," she said. "She will be making a fool of you, and heaven knows it is easy enough to do. I am beginning to wish that I had gone into society for a while and found out about her myself instead of taking Eugenia 's word for her respectability."
Ralph, who had been pacing the room, came to a stop before her chair. "Mama," he said, "I will answer for the respectability of my wife. I will not allow even you to call her honor into question. I do not wish to hear you talk about her in this way ever again. Or to her. I presume it is because of what you have said to her that she is in her own rooms?"
The dowager countess bundled her sewing on to a table beside her and got to her feet, her hands to her cheeks. "I never thought to hear any of my own offspring speak so undutifully to their own mother," she said, "And it is all on account of that dreadful girl. Oh, if Chartleigh were only here still! You will oblige me by sending my maid up to me. I am too distraught to ring for her myself. I am deeply, deeply hurt."
She stumbled from the room. Ralph made as if to go to her support, but he held himself back. He stood looking at the door, which his mother had closed behind her, for several minutes before following her out and ascending the stairs to his wife's apartments.
Georgiana was in her sitting room, curled up on a chaise longue, a book open on her lap. She was not reading it. She was torn between rebellion and remorse. It had been bad enough to have Stanley at the breakfast table asking how she liked their rakish cousin and inquiring how Ralph had approved of her spending so much time with him the night before. She had handled him with dispatch by replying that she liked his cousin quite well enough since he had conversation that consisted of more than unpleasant innuendo. She had added, as she got to her feet and dropped her napkin onto the table, that he might ask Ralph himself the second question, as she could not be expected to speak for him.
But her mother-in-law! The woman almost never came out with an open attack. Georgiana had noticed that. She would know how to deal with that approach. She occasionally enjoyed a good verbal battle, especially since she had been blessed with a ready wit and a caustic tongue. But how could one fight against hints and suggestions, all very kindly meant, according to the dowager herself? How could one hold an adult discussion with a woman who treated one as a child, and a rather naughty, rebellious child at that?
She was the Countess of Chartleigh, Georgiana reminded herself crossly, and she had let herself be forced into retreating to her own room just as if she really were still a child. And she knew just what would happen next. Ralph would come home and his mother would fill his ears with her poison. Then he would come to her- he was probably on the way right at that moment -and he too would have a talk with her. He also would be very kind and assure her that he was not angry with her at all. And then he would go on to hint and suggest that perhaps she had been indiscreet and that perhaps she should not be seen with Cousin Roger in future. It suddenly struck her how like his mother Ralph was, once one got to know the two of them.
She would love to have a raging, screaming row with him. She would love to throw things at his head. The only trouble was that she was not quite conscience-free. Shehadbeen flirting with Roger Beauchamp until he put a stop to it. And as usual, she had done quite the wrong thing and got herself into a public scrape. The flirtation scheme had seemed to be a good one. What she had not once considered, of course-so typical of her, she thought ruefully -was that if she were to flirt enough for Ralph to notice, she would be doing so for everyone else's eyes too. At least, she thought, she had considered the possibility. She had decided not to go so far as to cause a scandal. But how could one flirt just a little bit, just enough to arouse one’s husband’s jealousy, but not enough for anyone else even to notice? She must be quite mad.
So now she had won everyone's disapproval. Plus she had probably made Ralph look a little foolish. And she could not give herself the satisfaction of ripping up at him when he came to scold her. In fact, he might have some of the less pleasant characteristics of his mother but even so she was quite unworthy to be his wife. He never got into scrapes. He would never flirt with another woman. Of that she was convinced.
Georgiana sighed and tried yet again to concentrate on her book. But she put it down with a resigned air of gloom when a soft knock sounded on the door.
Do come in, Ralph," she called.
Chapter 10
Ralph opened the door and smiled at his wife. "Hello, Georgiana," he said. "How did you know it was I?"
"Oh," she said airily, closing her book and tossing it onto the cushion beside her, "I have been expecting you."
"Have you?" he asked, closing the door and crossing the room to sit in a chair close to her. "I hope I have not interrupted your reading."
"Not at all," she said. "I have been all of one hour trying to read through a single paragraph. I am not in the mood for books."
"Are you upset?" he asked. "I gather Mama has been talking to you."
"Of course she has," Georgiana said. "And she has really said everything that could possibly be said, Ralph. I do not believe that she has left one single word for you to add."
"She has upset you," he said, concerned. "I am very vexed that she should have done so, Georgiana. I wish you will not let her words prey on your mind."
"Why?" she asked curtly, swinging her feet to the floor and smoothing the muslin of her day dress over her knees. "Did you wish to have a clear field, Ralph?"
"I am not at all angry with you," he said. "I know you were not flirting with Roger last evening. I trust you more than to believe that of you. You have a good heart, and you are a good wife to me. Better than I deserve, I think."
"But you would still like it if I were just a little more discreet," Georgiana said, looking up into his face and staring at him with stony eyes. "Lord Beauchamp, after all, has something of a reputation as far as ladies are concerned; and one has to be doubly careful not to encourage him, or who knows what sort of a wrong impression one might give to the gossipmongers? And I have the illustrious name of Chartleigh to uphold now. I cannot behave with the same careless freedom as when I was merely Georgiana Burton. Not that you are at all suspicious of me, of course. But still and all—"
"Good God!" Ralph leapt to his feet .and looked down into his wife's cold eyes in some horror. "Is that what Mama said? Georgiana, they are not my words or my sentiments. I trust you. And I trust Roger. He is my cousin. We have always been very close despite our age difference."
"Well," Georgiana said, "am I not fortunate to have chosen to flirt in such a vulgar manner with your cousin? Perhaps you would be less trusting had I spent as much time last evening with a stranger."
"No," he said, coming and kneeling in front of her, the better to see her face. "That makes no difference, dear. I have seen nothing to disapprove of in your behavior. Please do not upset yourself. Come, smile at me and let me see the sparkle in your eyes again. I do not like to see you look so unhappy."
He smiled warmly up at her and held out a hand for hers. She did not respond to either invitation. She kept her hands folded in her lap and looked down at them.
