“Flowers?” Poppy exclaimed. “Why, that doesn’t sound awful?”
“They aren’t awful unless they come from him. He’s simply mocking me,” Bea insisted. “They weren’t even roses. They were peonies.”
Georgie stifled a laugh. “I thought you two merely disagreed on policy, not flowers,” she teased.
Bea’s lip curled faintly. “We disagree on everything,” she said flatly. “Including the weather, should the topic arise.”
Poppy leaned forward, huffing. “Well, I’d gladly trade you Nicholas Archer and his flowers if it meant my mother would stop telling everyone she intends to waltz at Almack’s in a sheer Turkish robe this Season. A sheer Turkish robe,” she repeated, throwing her hands up in quiet despair.
Georgie laughed outright at that, the sound bubbling up before she could stop it. “That does sound rather…scandalous,” she admitted.
Poppy groaned and dropped her head into her hands. “She claims it will ‘rekindle her spirit.’ I claim it will cause a megrim in the patronesses,” she muttered into her gloves.
Bea merely arched an eyebrow. “I expect it will do both.”
Georgie pressed her fingers to her lips to stifle another laugh but found herself sobering as the conversation shifted.
At some point, somewhere between Bond Street and tea at Gunter’s, she’d repeated to Poppy what the dowager had said in Madame Duval’s shop, that Jason only married her to atone for his sister, that he “collected strays” to salve his conscience.
Bea’s mouth had gone thin and sharp, her eyes flashing. “I told you the dowager was a snake,” she’d said crisply.
And then Georgie had told them both what Jason himself had said last night at dinner—about Evelyn, and how he’d refused to share more.
That part had come out in a whisper, her gloved hands knotted in her lap, her gaze fixed on the table so she wouldn’t have to see their faces.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Poppy had reached over and squeezed her hand.
“Did it occur to you,” she’d asked gently, “to…ask him why he doesn’t want to talk about it?”
Georgie blinked at her, taken aback. “Ask him?” she repeated blankly.
“Yes,” Bea said, leaning back in her chair, her voice cool but firm. “You know…words. Directed at his face. In the form of a question.”
Georgie stared at her friends, feeling vaguely foolish. “Isn’t that rather…forward?” she asked at last. “He said he didn’t wish to discuss it.”
Bea had snorted at that, and Poppy rolled her eyes.
“Georgie,” Poppy said with a faint smile, “you married him. You can certainly ask him whatever you wish.”
Bea nodded.
“And frankly,” Poppy added, “if he cares even half as much as he appears to, he’d probably rather you did ask him than continue to flinch every time he looks at you.”
Those words had lodged in Georgie’s chest and echoed all the way home. Could she truly ask him—and have him answer honestly? The very idea felt foreign. She’d grown up in a household where lies and deceit were the currency of daily life, where questions weren’t asked with any expectation of a forthright reply. And one certainly didn’t press further after being curtly told a subject was off-limits. Was Jason the sort of man who welcomed such openness?
But now, as the coach clattered to a halt outside Pembroke House and the footman swung open the door, Georgie lifted her skirts and stepped down carefully. She was considering it.
The air was cooler this late in the day. It bit pleasantly at her cheeks as she glanced up at the grand facade of the house, warm light glowing from behind the tall windows.
For the first time, she thought she might have a choice—whether to allow secrets and distance to keep them separated, or to face her new husband and ask for the truth.
She adjusted her gloves, squared her shoulders, and climbed the front steps.
At the top, she paused before the door.
And drew in a long, steadying breath. She would do it. She would ask again for the truth.
Chapter Thirty-Six
