“How soon do you imagine you might be able to secure these arrangements with your family and friends and travel into Norfolk?”the duke prompted briskly.
“I believe you might write and tell your friend that I will arrive by the end of the month.”
He nodded.“I will, of course, provide a carriage and the necessary grooms to take you there?—”
“But—”
“Lily and Chloe would have my head if I were to allow you to travel all that way by public coach,” he insisted.“When do you intend telling them of your real plans?”
“Not yet,” she dismissed vaguely.“And I would ask that you not do so either.”
He winced.“I will not lie to my Lily or my daughter.”
“This would be by omission rather than telling them a lie.”
“Still…”
“Please.”She gave him her most pleading look.
“Neither of them will be happy with me when or if the truth comes out.”
“AndIwill be very unhappy with you if you tell them of my plans before I am ready to do so,” Georgiana shot back.“Not that it would bother you if I were,” she accepted dryly.“But I would prefer it if you left it to me to decide if there is any necessity to tell Lily and Chloe of my real plans.”
St.Albans continued to frown.“Do you at least have a maid to accompany you?”
She wrinkled her nose.“I doubt any in my mother’s household would wish to leave London.Or, even if they did, they would be willing to be a part of my deception.Besides, if I am traveling under the protection of the Duke of St.Albans, I will not need a maid.”No one would dare to challenge anyone traveling in the carriage of such an important and powerful gentleman.
She had no doubt that her sisters, under the aegis of a friendship with the Duke and Duchess of St.Albans, would both eventually make suitable matches.Even her mother might eventually find happiness, either by making female friends or perhaps by marrying again.But Georgiana really did not wish that for herself.A move to Norfolk, a place she had never been but had been told was starkly beautiful, sounded a far better arrangement for her.
Georgiana eyed the duke warily.“Is there a reason that you have so far referred to this gentleman who resides in Norfolk only as ‘my friend’?”
The duke smiled slightly.“Lily and Chloe have both commented on your astuteness and intelligence.”
“And?”Georgiana was not susceptible to flattery.
He watched her closely.“The name of my friend is Julian Sotherby, the Duke of Moreland,” he announced without preamble.
Georgiana recoiled.
Understandably.
Because everyone in Society knew the name of the Duke of Moreland, even if they had not met him.
As Georgiana, now aged nineteen, had only been eligible to attend the past two Seasons, and the Duke of Moreland had been absent for both of them, she had never so much as seen him, let alone met him.
But she had heard the gossip from other young ladies of Moreland’s roguish good looks and his height of being well above six feet, along with the muscular fitness of his body.
All of which would seem to imply he was not the rotund and elderly gentleman Georgiana had envisaged spending time with as they discussed politics by a fire.He was more likely to be of a similar age to St.Albans’s eight and thirty.
All still spoke of the scandal which had driven Moreland from Society almost two years ago, when his duchess of only one year had mysteriously disappeared, and was now presumed to have died, while they were visiting the Moreland estate in Norfolk.
Despite the handsomeness of the groom and the beauty of the bride, the marriage was rumored not to have been a happy one.Gossip had it that the duke and duchess had been heard arguing several times.Most significantly on the morning of her disappearance.
Extensive searches had taken place for several weeks, locally and farther afield, but no trace of the duchess had ever been found.Indeed, it was as if she had been magically swept away into the ether.
It hadn’t taken long for the gossip to circulate, and reach London too, that as the duchess’s body had never been found, the duke must have killed his wife and buried her somewhere out on the Norfolk fenlands.Where it was unlikely her body would ever be found.
So far, it had not.
