"Who?" she asked.
"Standen," he said. "But something happened, and she was forced to marry his brother."
"How strange," she said. "I would say she has made the wiser choice, though, even though Lord Standen is vastly more handsome than her husband."
He turned his head and smiled down at her. His cheek brushed against her hair for a moment. "Did you like them?" he asked. "I was afraid for a while that you would be dreadfully bored, Georgiana."
"I would not have minded," she said gallantly. "You like that sort of gathering, do you not, Ralph? I think you must be very intelligent and have a very superior education. I must seem very dull to you. I have not read very much, and I have never thought very deeply about any really important topic."
"Georgiana!" he said, turning toward her in the darkness of the carriage and squeezing her hand. "Do not belittle yourself. You have not had occasion, perhaps, to think a great deal on serious matters. But you have qualities of character that I find most enviable. You have the courage and the warmth to show to advantage in almost any situation."
"Oh," she said. "Ralph, when I talk to someone like Sylvia Broome, I think of how very useless my life has been. And I do admire her tremendously. But I do not believe I could live her kind of life. To have one's home invaded by boys from the street! I think I should become cross beyond all belief and be screeching at them like a barn owl before a day was out."
He laughed and drew her arm through his so that her shoulder rested comfortably against his arm again. "Then I must be careful never to suggest opening a school for boys in Middleton House," he said. He added quietly, "But I must find something to do, dear. I am not quite sure what. Will you mind?"
She shook her head and gave in to the temptation to rest her cheek against his shoulder. They rode home in companionable silence and climbed the stairs together to their rooms. Ralph stopped outside her door and looked down at her.
"I hope it has not been a dreadfully dull evening for you," he said.
How could she convey to him the fact that any activity this evening would have been a delight provided only she could see him and be in the same room as he?
"I have enjoyed it," she said. "I think I have learned something about your life, Ralph."
He smiled and brushed the fingers of one hand against her cheek. "You are a very sweet person, Georgiana," he said.
She felt herself become breathless. What stopped her from reaching out and putting her hands against his chest or around his neck? Or from taking his hand and opening the door of her bedchamber as she had the night before in a different house? And what prevented him from taking her in his arms? Or leaning across her and opening the door himself? What was it that was between them when there was no apparent reason for any barrier at all?
They looked into each other's eyes only long enough to know that there was no breaching that invisible wall yet. He bent his head and kissed her very softly on the lips.
"Good night, dear," he said.
"Good night, Ralph."
The formality of their words rang in Georgiana's ears as she stood on the other side of the door a few moments later, leaning back against it, the tears wet on her cheeks.
For the next two days Georgiana was very restless. It seemed to her that the time would never come when Roger would again take her to Kensington, and she would again don her disguise for her meeting with Ralph. She was all impatience. In the meantime she tried to interest herself in what was going on around her. She went shopping with Gloria for more bride clothes, visited Lady Beauchamp with her mother-in-law, visited her own parents on the occasion of her father's birthday, and wandered around Middleton House, examining each room with a critical eye and imagining how it would look with some changes.
She was only just beginning to digest the fact that this house was now hers, that she was its mistress. It was a magnificent house, but the furnishings were heavy and old-fashioned. Georgiana hated furniture loaded down with ornate carvings and gilt trimmings. She much preferred simple elegance. And reds predominated far too much in the house, she felt. She would like softer tones to make the rooms lighter and more airy. She would like to see all the family portraits arranged in the upper gallery, where there was light and space enough to show them to advantage. If she had her way, they would all be removed from the living rooms and replaced with landscapes.
She wondered what Ralph would say if she told him of her ideas. She certainly foresaw battles with his mother, who could not seem to accept the presence of Georgiana in what she still considered as her own home.
And Georgiana had a visitor. Dennis Vaughan called on the first afternoon and stayed for a whole hour. She heard someone else at the door while he was with her and was disappointed to discover that it was not Ralph. She would have liked her old friend to meet him. They would have nothing in common, of course. Dennis would appear quite trivial-minded beside Ralph. She even admitted to herself with a little twinge of surprise that she wanted Dennis to see that she had married someone above the ordinary touch. She recalled feeling just before her marriage that she would be ashamed for her friends to see the sort of man she had been forced into accepting.
It was Stanley who had come in. He came and talked with Dennis for a while before leaving the room again. Georgiana was starting to feel rather uneasy around Ralph's brother. He was always civil, but she had a feeling that he disliked her and disapproved of her. He could not possibly be more unlike Ralph. She put him from her mind.
She spent a pleasant evening with Ralph the day after the Standen party. The rest of the family had been invited out after dinner, and Georgiana followed her husband to the library.
"Do you mind if I sit in here to do my embroidery?" she asked. "I shall not disturb you."
"Of course not, Georgiana," he said. "I merely came to choose a book. I intended to join you in the drawing room."
"Would you not prefer to stay here?" she asked. "It is a much cozier room."
And they sat, one on each side of the fire, for an hour or more, she sewing, he reading, with scarcely a word passing between them. Just like an old married couple, Georgiana thought with deep content. So life should be at times. One could not forever be going out, searching for any activity that might alleviate boredom for a few hours.
She looked up under her eyebrows at him a few times. He was quite engrossed in his reading. She might have felt some resentment against his books, which could take him so completely away from her. But he looked very endearing, slouched down somewhat in his chair, one elbow propped on the armrest, his hand pushing at his hair, which was looking more disheveled than usual. His face held a slight frown of concentration.
Men must be very different from women, she concluded. He seemed utterly absorbed in his book, just as if he had never visited a certain house in Kensington two nights before and just as if he had made no plans to go there again the following night. Had it really meant so little to him? Was it perhaps just a light flirtation for him, something he would have indulged in even if their marriage was a normal one? She did not care to investigate that thought further. Or did the meetings mean something to him, but he had the ability to put them out of his mind? Could men compartmentalize their lives, love and all its associated emotions being but one compartment? That thought too was not an attractive one.
