She threw herself down at her dressing table, searching her reflection. She didn’t have Norah’s elegant nose—hers was more the upturned sort. She didn’t have Norah’s mysterious lavender eyes—her own were blue and guileless. Her hair was an unremarkable brownish-blond, and brunettes were in style this year, and it seemed every year. She wasn’t petite and slim—she’d been looking like an overgrown schoolgirl for so long that the young woman looking back at her was a stranger.
She tugged at the neckline again. It wasn’t that low, but she wasn’t used to so much being on display. Most women had much lower necklines, but most women didn’t have her curves.
And Rafferty couldn’t care less about her curves. He wanted to foist her off on some marriageable man—why? So he wouldn’t have to worry about her? But then, why was he? She was the patron, he the protégé. She should be worried about him.
Not that she needed to be. He was the best butler they’d ever had—her mother flirted with him, her father liked him, even grumpy Bertha seemed to have a soft spot for him. Only Norah disliked him, and as far as Georgie was concerned, that was a point in his favor.
In fact, his only flaw was his sudden interest in seeing her married, when such a thought hadn’t entered her mind. She didn’t want to marry a...what did Rafferty call him...a suitable young man. She didn’t want to marry anyone, she wanted to have her own household with Rafferty taking care of her. He could be her butler, or her friend, it didn’t matter. She just didn’t want to be saddled with anyone else. She stuck out her tongue at her reflection, only to jump when she heard a pounding on her door.
Norah flung it open, eyeing her with a malicious gleam.. “Had a fight with your little darling?” she cooed.
Georgie made a face. “What little darling?”
“Your new house pet, Rafferty. He won’t stay long, you know. We can’t pay him, and we’re too much trouble. He must hate you fawning all over him.”
“I don’t fawn over him!” Georgie shot back, glaring back at her. “He’s my?—”
“Yes, he’s your protégé. You’ve already told me that, several times. Much as it pains me to tell you, but a protégé is not quite what you think. Not nowadays.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about! Oh, do go away, Norah!” she said in frustration. One of Norah’s favorite pastimes was to goad Georgie, to remind her of just how unattractive she was, but Georgie was no longer so vulnerable. She’d learned that if she didn’t respond with tears, then Norah grew bored quite quickly.
Norah moved closer into the room, a spiteful expression on her beautiful face. “Every time you call him your protégé, you’re telling him you expect his services,” she hissed.
Georgie sighed. Norah was in one of her moods, and her only choice was to ride it out. “I do expect his services,” she said flatly. “He’s the butler, after all.”
“That’s not the kind of service I’m talking about.”
Georgie swung around on the padded bench to glower at Norah. “Then what are you talking about?”
But Norah simply gave her a cat-like smile. “You are such a child. I wonder that Father allows you out at all. A young woman should be discreet, innocent, charming...”
“You’re playing off half the men of the ton. Why don’t you marry and save us all the worry?” she snapped back.
“At least I’m not trying to seduce the butler,” Norah said sweetly.
Georgie was shocked into silence. “Seduce?” she echoed.
“You heard me. Men don’t like that sort of thing—they find blind adoration tiresome.”
“They do?”
“Of course they do. They want to be the pursuer, not the pursued. They want to feel as if they’ve won the woman, not that they themselves were the prize.”
“That has nothing to do with Rafferty and me,” Georgie said firmly.
“Doesn’t it?” Norah arched one perfect eyebrow, a trick Georgie had tried and failed to master. “You’re embarrassing yourself and us with your fixation on Rafferty, the way you look at him and follow him around.”
Georgie had had enough of her game. “You’re being ridiculous. Rafferty wouldn’t look at me twice.”
“True enough,” Norah jumped in.
Georgie turned to look at her reflection in the mirror. It was the sad truth that Rafferty wouldn’t be interested in such a plain Jane. He might think he could marry her off, among all his other extraordinary accomplishments, but she knew just how unlikely that was.
“I’m going downstairs,” she said smoothly, rising from her table.
She was hoping she could glide past Norah, but her sister reached out to pinch her arm, hard, another bad habit.
“You’ll always be in my shadow,” Norah hissed. “They may look at you, but they’ll want me.”
