She smiled for him and turned back to see her mother regain her seat.
“Then we are all agreed,” Georgie said, still sounding oddly calm to her own ears. “There will be no more attempts to…benefitmy daughter in any way. She stays with me, no matter where I am. You have no right to terrify her that way.”
Still her father fought the inevitable. “I am the head of this family. I haveeveryright. I will not see it sullied by your mad starts.”
“Then you will not see me or my daughter ever again. It is your choice.”
The marquess became alarmingly red. “I could find you anywhere.”
“But you won’t,” Adam said quietly. “Or else you will discover the power of a duke, especially when he is telling the story of how without the intercession of a very large dog and an entire loyal estate staff, a little four-year-old would have been grabbed from her own home and carried away—alone—from one end of the island to the other…or does Aunt Marguerite live in Southampton?”
Georgie’s parents’ silence said it all.
“Georgie’s marriage, father,” Jack said from the facing chairs. “What are we to do about it?”
“There was no marriage,” the marquess insisted.
“If you wish to see your granddaughter made a duchess instead of a scandal,” Georgie retorted, “you will acknowledge that wedding. This matter needs to be settled this afternoon, sir.”
The marchioness nodded. “We will acknowledge the marriage and be done with it.”
The marquess stared at her as if she had started speaking in tongues. “Madame…”
“Enough, Wyndham,” she snapped. “Georgiana is correct. We skate perilously close to scandal, and I won’t have it. We will raise the child here where she can acquire the skills she needs.”
The marquess seemed to swell. “That is not a matter for you.”
“It is not a matter for either of you,” Georgie retorted, finally losing control of her voice. “Lully stays with us. She can either do it as a duchess or she can do it without the grandparents who will be outcasts for the way they have treated their children.”
The marquess huffed. “That is blackmail.”
Georgie shrugged. “It is better than kidnapping, no matter where you intended to send her.”
“Georgie has given you a choice,” her brother Jack quietly said. “I will stand with her. I have already told you quite clearly that if you attempt to interfere in our lives again, I will separate us from you, and we will never cross this threshold again until you are dead, and I assume the marquessate. Did you think I was bluffing?”
The marchioness blanched and turned a condemning eye on her lord. “You would risk losing your heirs? You would send Jamie away again?”
“This has nothing to do with you,” his father told Jack.
Jack Wyndham sneered at his father. “Oh, but it does. I won’t waste my time appealing to your family feeling. As mother has said, you are far more interested in reputation. Consider this, though. If not for Georgie, you would have no heir of your blood for the title. She kept Gervaise from murdering your grandson. And do you really believe Gervaise would have stopped at Jamie and me? He would have gone after Ned next so that the title would have gone to Gervaise, who wasn’t fit to clean out your stables. Now, by all that is holy, father, get off your high horse and make it clear to all and sundry that you always approved of Georgie’s marriage, or you will be the loneliest, most despised peer in the realm.”
“If it means that much to you,” Georgie added, “you may comfort yourself with the knowledge that if he had lived, Jamie would have been Duke of Kintyre. I should think that would be notable enough even for you.”
“A Scottish title,” her father scoffed.
“A dukedom older than the Wyndham marquessate,” Georgie retorted.
Good heavens. She was actually beginning to enjoy herself. It truly was all right to rely on someone else, especially someone you loved. She gifted that someone a sly smile to see the pride in his eyes and hung onto his hand for a little extra strength.
“Doyou have my marriage lines?” Georgie asked her father, standing as tall and proud as any in the room as she faced him. “Will you finally heal the breach, or will Jack be correct? I would very much like you both to know your granddaughter. But not if it puts Lully in any danger. And just to make certain, if you aren’t certain how well my child—and Jack’s, come to think of it—are protected, ask young Jem about our Murphy, who is up with both children in the nursery right now, not to mention the dozens of staff who serve Jack and the local villagers who seem to love your granddaughter more than you do. I will no longer live every day in terror that you will hurt my child.”
The marquess actually looked stricken. “I would never hurt a child. Youmustknow that.”
“How could I?” she demanded. “First you disowned your granddaughter and then you tried to kidnap her. Exactly what type of kindness is that?”
“Just so you know, Wyndham,” Adam said, dropping a kiss on Georgie’s hand, “your daughter and granddaughter have an even greater protector than that great beast upstairs. In exactly three days, she will be a duchess with all the power and resources incumbent. She is no longer alone.”
Georgie wished she were surprised that her mother immediately brightened. It seemed a dukedom salved all wounds.
