“She’s not my wife,” he heard himself say, and cursed his own weakness.
“There’s where you’re wrong, sir. And I’ve the document to prove it.”
“That scrap of nonsense from Gretna Green is nothing but trash. It’s not real, Danvers. It was a forgery, and not a very good one at that, only I was too naive to know. She lied,” he finished, speaking through his teeth, then glared at Danvers, daring him to deny the truth.
Danvers straightened, his face remarkably unperturbed. “A forgery. I see. I never had occasion to study it.”
“You’ll have to take my word for it, then,” Teddy said. His tone was not at all petulant. Not in the least.
The butler announced, “Be that as it may, the oneIpossess is not a forgery.”
All Georgina wantedupon reaching her family home was to look in on her father to assure he fared as well as her mother’s unflappable attitude would seem to indicate—why her Mama had gone to the trouble of collecting her in the first place was a mystery—and then announce her intention to return to Brighton on the morrow. She did not feel right about leaving Teddy behind, nor about the quagmire in which he found himself, thanks, in part, to her.
She should have told him everything the moment she returned from consulting with her friends.
No. She should have told him the night she realized he’d never needed the prescribed tisane. Instead, she’d indulged her own selfish desire to hang on to the fantasy she’d spun, a little while longer.
“Well. Here we are,” her mother announced in a peculiarly chipper tone.
The carriage jostled with the groom’s movements, as he climbed down from his box to set the step, and Georgina took a hard look at her mother. She looked odd. Anxious. Perhaps her father’s illness was more serious than she’d let on.
Georgina sent her an encouraging smile. “So we are.”
Minutes later, they stood in the foyer, stripping off their gloves, bonnets, and pelisses.
“Shall we go straight up to Papa?” Georgina suggested, already turning toward the grand staircase.
Her mother did not reply.
Their butler did, however, sounding bemused. “I beg your pardon, Lady Georgina, but if you wish to see your father, Lord Belfry is entertaining Mr. Mealy in the drawing room.”
Georgina stifled a groan. The very last person she wished to see atthis moment was their neighbor.
She shot her mother an aggrieved look, and spoke in a low voice. “Entertaining the neighbor? Now? In his weakened condition?”
Her mother blinked rapidly, then shifted her gaze to an object behind Georgina, rather like she did when she was avoiding an unwanted topic.
“Perhaps he’s…er…improved. Come. We mustn’t keep them waiting.”
Shaking her head, but following dutifully after her mother, Georgina’s eyes briefly met those of the old butler who’d served her family for years. Something in his gaze drew her attention back to him. A particular glint of…warning? Sympathy?
She had no time to contemplate which, nor even to ask as he hurried away, his footsteps as brisk as those of her mother heading in the opposite direction.
By the time Georgina reached the drawing room, the door stood open and her mother had disappeared inside. Masculine voices spilled out of the chamber and echoed off the marble tiled floors.
Robust voices, filled with joviality and laughter.
Georgina pasted a smile on her face and stepped over the threshold.
“There’s my girl,” her father said, beaming, his arms outstretched as he moved toward her in warm welcome.
Relief flooded her at the sight of him looking so well. Rosy, full cheeks. Dancing gray eyes. A spring in his step. He looked as he always did. Mischievous and precocious as a garden elf.
He also appeared quite happy to see her, displaying none of the sullen attitude so evident when last they’d been together.
She kissed him on either cheek. “Hullo, Papa. But, you look fit as a fiddle. Not at all under the weather, I’m gratified to see.”
He ducked his head in seeming chagrin. “As to that, well, your Mama and I deemed it a necessary embellishment to bring you home to us.”
