The servant was closing the doors when Georgia turned.
“Before you go, Harris. I should very much like to speak to the Duke on a matter of great urgency.”
Uncle Benjamin had seated himself on the edge of an armchair, but now he came to his feet as though stung.
“What? Why? It is bad luck, you cannot see the groom before the ceremony,” he remarked.
“It is bad luck forhimto seeme. Which he will not,” Georgia assured, “but I wish to speak to him, and there is nothing in traditions that says I cannot.”
Harris nodded, unable to refute the logic, and ignoring Uncle Benjamin’s stammered protests, he departed, closing the doors behind him.
“I don't know what you're up to girl, but there is no getting out of this,” the owl-faced man hissed when they were alone.
Georgia simply wandered around the room, running her fingers along the bound spines of the books, examining the titles. She smiled once or twice, but it was to hide the nerves that made her hands shake. Touching the books, seeing familiar titles that she had also seen in her brother's collection, reassured her somewhat. She heard her Uncle striking a match and then smelled the sour stench of tobacco.
She lost herself among the shelves, among the forest of books and memories of her brother.
The library at Marsham had a collection of maps, marked with places he had traveled to and annotated. What I would give to see those notes again. Perhaps there is a clue among them.
Presently, she heard a door open, and her heart quickened. But then came Aunt Clarissa's shrill voice, demanding to know where Georgia was. Georgia walked further into the narrow aisles made by some of the freestanding shelves, not wanting to be found for the moment. Time enough for that when the Duke arrived.
At the end of the aisle, she came to a door and half turned to go back when Aunt Clarissa's sharp summons echoed to her from the other side of the library.
Dash it all! I am not going to come like an obedient hound. If this place is going to be home for the next month, then I had better start exploring.
She turned back and tried the door handle. At first, it seemed that it must be locked. Then it shifted. It was stiff, she realized, and put both hands to it. It eventually cranked down, and she opened the door. Beyond was a dusty, stone staircase, narrow and twisting, leading up. Georgia smiled to herself at the consternation her Aunt and Uncle would feel at her disappearance. The Duke too. It would do them all good to realize that she was not a meek lamb.
She followed the staircase, emerging on a long hallway of dark panelling and ancient-seeming tapestries. Tall windows lookedout over a quadrangle below, benches set out beneath the shade of rowan trees that grew to the height of the windows.
She walked along, examining the tapestries, turning a corner, and finding herself faced with a set of double doors. One was ajar, gently stirring in a breeze. She crept along and looked inside. What she saw drew her into the room in fascination…
A large table occupied the lion's share of the room, atop which was what seemed to be a map, but one which had been rendered in three dimensions, not two. She pored over it, trying to discern what it depicted. She saw mountains and what she took to be forests. Rivers had been carved into the wood and roads. Towns and villages were also marked as stylized collections of buildings.
A sound reached her from a door on the other side of the room just then. Looking through, she saw the Duke. He was dressing, clad only in breeches and stockings, bare from the waist up.
He faced the door, and she marvelled brazenly at his physique. His abdomen was sculpted and rigid, lacking any fat at all. His chest was broad and heavily muscled. His upper arms bulged and, combined with his long, fair hair, he seemed the very image of a Viking conqueror.
“You were admiring my map, Miss Roseton?” he said, suddenly.
Georgia jumped. Then she remembered his sense of smell. She was wearing perfume again, the only bottle she owned.
I will not let him put me off guard with these party tricks of his.
“Yes, Your Grace. I have never seen the like,” she said in a voice that she hoped was not surprised.
“I had it made from my own recollections of travels in the highlands of Scotland in my youth. So that I may explore the glens once again,” he continued as he shuffled through some cravats in his hands.
Georgia looked at his hands. Those fingers seemed dextrous and nimble. She had an image of him running those hands over the map, visualizing in his mind the image they conveyed. That would also be how he would learn people's faces, she reasoned.
“This is unconventional,” the Duke noted, “we are not supposed to meet before the wedding.”
Georgia smiled. “As I informed my Uncle, the tradition is that you are not supposed toseeme.”
“Is that intended as a jest at my expense?”
“No!” she burst, suddenly seeing how her comment might be taken, “No, no! Simply that we are in no danger of bad luck. If you are superstitious, that is.”
“I am not,” he commented, selecting a cravat and discarding the rest to the floor.
