That wasn’t his worst idea, actually.
At the door, he patted my back like a nursemaid. “Let usget fast to work on making that heir of yours! No time like the present, eh, cousin?”
No, indeed. A man should feel excited by the prospect. Eager. But I’d been eager once before, and look how that had ended.
This time I would be thoughtful but not overzealous. There were certain things I would look for in a wife: Loyalty. Intelligence. An ability to see reason and act accordingly. Not one to be overtaken by emotion.
Respect, certainly. Friendship, hopefully. Romance? Unnecessary.
I would bait my wife as any man did during the Season—by parading my wealth and status.
I’d buy her a roomful of flowers because that was what a courting man did. Then, after signing a concise yet thorough contract of marriage, I’d seal the deal with Grandmother’s ring.
But first, to Hampshire to get it back.
ChapterTwo
Georgiana
“It was Sister Agnes!” I cried in shock, clutching my book to my chest and falling back upon a dusty pile of hay, swaddled loosely in a thick wool blanket. “Can you believe it, Mercutio?Shewas Signora Udolpho all along.Shekilled the marchioness.”
At my side, Mercutio licked his paws, his dark eyes flicking up to mine as though he’d readThe Mysteries of Udolphoa hundred times and was, as usual, bored despite my enthusiastic revelation.Obviously, Georgiana, I imagined him purring.
But it shocked me to my very core. All this time, I’d thought Emily’s father was the killer. Ann Radcliffe had me in her clutches yet again.
A frigid breeze seeped through cracks in my hideout—a little hay shed adjacent to the stables where Mercutio and his many wives often slept—and I tightened my wool blanket around my shoulders as the sunlit air filled with bits of hay and fur and dust. My new ring snagged on a thread, and I braved the cold to untangle it.
Raised diamonds encircled an emerald ring on my right hand. It was heavy, expensive, and absolutely something the marquis would have gifted his lover.
I, however, did not have a lover. Nor a suitor. Nor any man vying for even a second of my attention. My ring was a gift from my brother, Peter, who had won it gambling in London. His new wife was not overly fond of jewelry, especially the gaudy sort, and for that I was grateful, as I was his second choice for its recipient.
I dearly loved the way the gems sparkled on my finger. It must be worth a fortune, but Peter hadn’t once wondered aloud how much. He’d only hoped it would make me happy. And it did, despite it being from my brother and not an eager, lovestruck suitor.
Love! Pish. In the past eight months, I had trained myself well against it. Romance was no longer something I pined for. Not in novels, and certainly not in real life. No, themysterywas for me. Analyzing characters and their human motivations—thatwas my interest. What makes a person lie? To what lengths will they keep their secrets, and, what, in the end, causes them to unravel?
In truth, I also loved reading about people whose lives were far worse off than mine. What were scandal and rejection from society compared to being murdered by one’s own family?
I lay back in my spot, huddling close to Mercutio for what bit of warmth his little body offered, and distracted myself fromthosememories by bringing the book to my nose. “But if Signora Udolpho—Sister Agnes—is still alive, then who is behind that curtain?”
Mercutio paused his licking, his ears twisting keenly, body tensed. He rose up on all fours, his tail swooping as hepounced down from his perch, shoulders gliding smoothly as he stalked toward a Mercutio-sized opening in the wood door.
And just like that, I was alone.
Abandoned by a cat who likely understood only half of what I told him, and that was being generous. He was now my only friend and confidant, and I spoke more to him than I did to any human acquaintance I had left, including my brother and his new bride.
Amelia Moore.
She’d taken his name now.Ourname, though I felt less and less of a claim on it.
After Sir Ronald’s house party, and the Grand Mistake I’d made there, Peter had married Amelia, and we were a ... family now. I shuddered at the thought. As the months had passed, it seemedshewas his family, and I belonged out here with Mercutio. Away from their jests and laughter, their late-night rendezvous in his study, their pitying glances were I ever to surface in the middle of an intimate conversation that was likely about me andOh, what can we do for poor Georgiana?
The answer was nothing. I had paid my dues. I’d offered my apologies, asked for forgiveness from all parties, and even listened to the vicar’s weekly lectures for a month. And, yes, I regretted what I’d done.
I would haveneverinitiated what had surely become the end of my life in more ways than one had I foreseen the repercussions.
That night had cost me my dearest friend, the one man I had ever imagined a future with. It had cost me every other friend and acquaintance save for the vicar and his patronizing wife. But most harshly, that one decision cost me the goodopinion of theton. Society looked down upon me in a way I’d only ever read about in the papers.
Scandal, they called it.Madness.
