Georgiana frowned. "How can you say that?" she said. "I have always found him perfectly friendly. And he has always been polite to you, Vera. He has danced with you, and I have seen him conversing with you on several occasions. Why, he even came here today to take you walking. I believe if I were in your position, I should feel flattered."
"You mean if you were three-and-twenty and unattached and very plain," Vera said, " you would welcome the attentions of a handsome, charming rake."
Georgiana looked at her sister in surprise. Vera was always so placid, so sensible. Now she sounded cross, almost spiteful. "You have such a low opinion of yourself, Vera," she said. "I have always told you that you are not plain at all. And your single state is of your own choosing. I know for a fact that you have turned down at least two offers. And Roger is not a conceited man. He cannot help the fact that he has been blessed with extraordinary good looks."
"He treats you with too great a familiarity," Vera persisted. "He calls you 'Georgie.' Why, even your husband does not call you that. I believe his intentions toward you are not honorable."
"Stuff!" Georgiana was shocked enough to say. "Roger does not flirt with married ladies. He told me so himself."
"You see what I mean?" Vera said, pausing in the process of pinning her hat to her hair. "What on earth was he about, to even mention such a thing to you? I hate to say this, Georgie, but I love you and I shall say it anyway. I think you are rather struck with Lord Beauchamp. And it is a shame. You have a husband whom I believe to be a fine young man. I am disappointed to see your eye roving already."
Georgiana jumped down from the bed and smoothed out her skirts with angry hands. "It is not so," she said. "I am true to my husband, and I appreciate his good qualities quite as much as you, Vera. Roger is merely a friend. I had not expected you to accuse me. It is bad enough to have Ralph's mother and brother insinuating such things."
"Oh, Georgie," Vera said, her face full of concern. "Have they noticed too? Do have a care. You know how thoughtless you can be sometimes and what scrapes you can get into as a result. But this would be much worse than usual, you know."
"We are keeping Roger waiting," her sister said stiffly.
Lord Beauchamp appeared to notice nothing amiss in the atmosphere around him as he took a lady on each arm and led them in the direction of the park. He conversed amiably with both and soon restored Georgiana at least to good spirits. She was strolling along the edge of the grass beside the main pathway, swinging her reticule, when she suddenly stopped, pulled her arm from Roger's, and shrieked in most unladylike fashion.
"Dennis!" she yelled, and picking up her skirts, she began to run toward a curricle which was approaching from some distance. The driver stopped his vehicle, swung himself down from the high seat while flinging the ribbons to his tiger, and broke her headlong flight by catching her in his arms and swinging her around.
"Dennis Vaughan, you are back!" Georgiana announced rather unnecessarily. "You have been gone this age. And I have so much to tell you."
"So I gather," the young man replied, doffing his hat to reveal a shock of bright red hair. "Not the least item being that you have got yourself married since I left, Georgie. Most unsporting of you, you know, without giving the rest of your admirers fair warning so that they might have made their own counteroffers."
"Oh, nonsense!" she said. "You know you would not have offered for me, Dennis. You have said yourself that you will not marry until you are well past thirty, and you are only seven-and-twenty now."
"Eight," he corrected her.
"And anyway, we would make a dreadful match," she told him cheerfully. "We do not have a sensible or stable thought between us. We both need someone to control our madder impulses."
He grinned and chucked her under the chin. "And is that what you have found in Lord Chartleigh?" he asked. "I confess I have never met him, though I have heard that he is bookish and indecently young."
"You must not say anything about Ralph that even borders on criticism, you know," she said, "or you will have my wrath to deal with."
"Dreadful!" he said, cringing back from her. "A love match, is it, Georgie? Pardon me, Miss Burton. I am being dreadfully ill-mannered. How d' ye do, ma 'am? Beauchamp?" Bows and greetings were exchanged.
"If you are walking, I might as well join you for a while," Dennis said. "I need the exercise."
He gave directions to his tiger to take his curricle to the gate and wait for him there. He offered his arm to Georgiana and the two of them strolled on ahead.
"So, Miss Burton," Lord Beauchamp said, taking Vera's hand and setting it inside his arm again, "you find yourself trapped into being alone with me after all. My commiseration, ma’am."
"Thank you," she said, "but I find walking in the park with another couple quite respectable exercise, sir."
"Ah," he said, patting her hand, "I see. It was to walking alone with me here that you objected when I first made the suggestion, was it? Did you fear that I would give in to my baser passions and take you behind a tree to taste of your lips, perhaps? You malign me, ma'am. I shall choose a far warmer and more comfortable setting in which to do that when the time comes."
"Do you talk to all ladies this way?" she asked in a suffocated voice. "I find your conversation quite shocking and insulting."
"No," he said, "in fact, I do not. Now, what is it about you that gives me the irresistible urge to shock. You have an air of great calmness and self -control. Admirable qualities, doubtless. But does that manner reveal the whole of Miss Burton? I think not. If you wish to be left to your quiet existence, you must curse the fate that gave your face that trick it has of transforming itself when you forget your ladylike dignity. And those eyes of yours, my dear. They tell me that you are a woman of deep feeling and passion. They excite me. There, have I succeeded in paralyzing you with shock?"
"If your purpose is to seduce me," she said, her voice low, her eyes firmly fixed on the ground ahead of her, "I must tell you that you waste your time, my lord. You are a type of man I despise."
"A type?" he said. "You could scarce have wounded me more. Do I have no individuality, ma'am?"
"No," she said, "I think not. There is a certain type of man who has good looks, charm, and wealth, and believes that the world is here to cater to his every whim and that every female must be falling over her own feet to attract him. You are such a man, I believe. But I am not such a woman."
"Indeed," he said, and the teasing note in his voice had been replaced by a somewhat biting edge. "You almost tempt me, ma'am, to go to work to proving you wrong. But, alas, it has never been my practice to seduce either married ladies or virtuous unmarried ones. That principle has left me a very obvious choice, has it not? No, my dear, my intentions toward you-if intentions I have-are entirely honorable. I do not, by the way, call a kiss a seduction, do you? I fully intend to kiss you before the winter is out. I have a notion that it will be an interesting experience."
