“I don’t need anyone,” she announced.
“Good to know,” he said gravely.
“Particularly not you,” she added, but if she hoped to crush him, or at least damage his amour propre a bit, she was doomed to failure.
“As you wish, Miss Georgie,” he said gravely, and there was nothing Georgie could do but beat a hasty retreat.
She flounced off, there was no other word for it, turning on her heel and moving toward the stairs. When she turned back to see how he was appreciating her high dudgeon, he was gone.
Chapter Eleven
Rafferty made his escape, cursing himself as he went. It was all perfectly well to keep Georgie away from Norah’s biting tongue—the young woman was a menace.
What made less sense was his efforts to keep her away from Andrew Salton. He wanted her to marry someone, didn’t he? Salton should be exactly who he’d want for her. Salton could take good care of her without crushing her spirit, and Rafferty wouldn’t have to worry about her or even think about her anymore.
Salton had brought her flowers, though that scarcely improved him in Rafferty’s eyes. Baby pink roses, innocent and sweet, and all Rafferty’s protective instincts were aroused. Georgie deserved peonies, pink and flush and luscious, though Rafferty had no idea whether they were grown in hothouses or not. But Andrew Salton saw what he wanted to see when he looked at Georgie—a simple, shy young lady cut from the same cloth as everyone else. She was no ordinary young lady of the ton, she was so much more, she was?—
He cursed as he made his way to the kitchen. Bertha glowered at him from her seat at the table, a cup of tea in front of her.
“What’s wrong with them?” she asked suspiciously as he tossed Salton’s flowers into the trash.
“They have bugs,” he lied. He wanted Georgie to find a good man, he truly did. Just not this one.
But none of the other hopeful young men who’d crowded around Norah today would do, either. Georgie deserved better than that, and he had every intention of finding the perfect man for her. No matter how long it took.
Bertha looked him for a long, silent moment. “I just hope you know what you’re doing,” she said finally, and he knew she wasn’t talking about the flowers.
“I always do,” he said, and wondered if that were true.
“She’s a piece of work!” Martina announced as she flounced into the kitchen.
“Which one?” Bertha asked. “Miss Norah or Miss Georgie? They’re all crazy if you ask me.”
Martina cast a sly glance in his direction. “All of them?”
“Miss Georgie’s the worst. Not a practical bone in her body.”
But Rafferty wasn’t about to react to this provocation from the women staring at him so meaningfully. “I’ve yet to see any sign of it,” he said blandly.
“I was talking about that Miss Norah. Miss Georgie is an angel.”
Rafferty gave out a derisive laugh.
“You’re not fooling me, young man,” Bertha said.
“I’m thirty-one—hardly young,” he protested, ignoring the main question.
“Oh, don’t be stupid, Rafferty,” Martina said as she took a seat opposite Bertha and poured herself a cup of tea. “You know perfectly well that the girl’s in love with you. Head over heels, in fact.”
“Which one?” he said, deliberately obtuse.
“You know who I’m talking about,” Martina chided him. “I tried to warn her.”
“Try harder,” he grumbled. “And she’ll forget about me as soon as an acceptable young man shows up. The right one,” he amended, thinking of Salton.
“You underestimate your allure,” Martina said. “She sees you as some romantic figure.”
“No one finds their butler romantic.”
