“I thought you might be here when I arrived,” she said, her expression agitated. “I completely forgot about Parliament today, and I was late going to see Amelia after my stroll with Bit. She was holding a luncheon party for her friends, and I don’t know what she might have said to them, but—”
“Just a moment,” Tristan said, sitting back on the arm of the couch. “Could you go back to ‘my stroll with Bit’?”
“Oh.” Humor reappeared briefly in her eyes. “I take it you didn’t know he came to see me, then.”
“He never talks. How am I supposed to know anything?”
“You might have told me that he was held in a French prison and not permitted to utter a sound,” she countered. “No wonder he finds it difficult to do so now.”
Tristan sat where he was, trying to absorb what she’d said and reconcile it with what he’d observed in his brother. “My God,” he muttered.
She touched his arm. “You didn’t know, did you?”
“No. I didn’t. How long was he…”
“Seven months.”
Seven months. “Was he even at Waterloo?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
He fought a scowl, anger at the damned politics which had sent his brother to France and had created a bureaucracy so ineffective he hadn’t even been aware that Robert might have been missing from his company for seven damned months. “Only because they pulled five musket balls out of him, and I’d like to know how they got there. Jesus.”
“Tristan,” Georgiana murmured, “he’s alive, and he’ll tell you when he’s ready.”
Drawing a deep breath, he nodded, wrapping his fingers around hers. “Thank you.”
“No need.”
Tristan shook himself. Bit would come around; Georgiana’s problem was more immediate. “Just tell me you have good news about your mission.”
Concern became exasperation in her green eyes. “You know, when I first saw you and Amelia together I thought that the poor dear didn’t stand a chance, and that she desperately needed to be rescued,” Georgiana said, twining and untwining her fingers with his. “I had no idea she was the person least in need of rescuing in all England.”
“She wouldn’t return your things.”
“Oh, she’s more than happy to return them, once the two of you are married.”
The glance she sent him spoke more strongly than words ever could. She wanted to know if he intended to marry Amelia, and she didn’t want him to do so. Tristan’s heart jolted. It would kill him if she slipped out of his fingers again.
“Then we need an alternate plan, because I am not going to marry that witch.”
“Hm. And what would you suggest?” She smoothed her skirt. “If it’s all the same to you, I would prefer that the…secrecy of our relationship to this point remained secret.”
“The plan I have would make keeping that secret very difficult,” he said slowly, his heart beating so quickly he thought it would burst from his chest.
“Then you must think of something else, Tristan. I couldn’t stand…Oh, it’s all my fault, anyway. Perhaps I deserve to be ruined.”
“No, you don’t,” he said softly, kneeling at her feet.
Her throat contracted as she swallowed. “Tristan, what—”
“Marry me, Georgiana. That news will drown any gossip she might attempt to spread.”
She stood so quickly she nearly knocked him onto his backside. “But that—”
“But that what?” he repeated, standing. “It’s perfect.”
‘But…” She paced to the window and back, wringing her hands. “But when you were so nice to me after…that night, I thought you might be…trying to engage my affections again to get revenge.”
