ChapterSixteen
Georgiana
My hands were fists at my sides.
What did she just say?
“We won’t tell a soul,” Miss Grandy whispered. Her friend, Miss Spellman, grinned like a cat. “Just tell us the truth.”
I glanced sideways, but Maggie had stepped out of earshot. I’d conversed with both of these women at the Waymonts’ party. They’d called upon me at Ashburn Abbey. I’d called back with Her Grace. I’d thought we were making progress. I’d thought we were ... friends.
What did you have to do to earn the duke’s favor?was the first question they’d asked when they had me alone.
“Are you inferring that I have loose morals?”
The girls drew back, laughing as though we three were privy to some inside trickery. Miss Spellman squeezed my arm. “Come, now, Miss Wood. You are so good at pretending. We know what you did to try to force Sir Ronald’s hand. What did the duke require? Was it quite the chore? We won’t judge you for it, will we, Rachel?”
Miss Grandy pursed her lips. “But we would like to know how you’ve managed it.”
Emotion boiled in my veins. Anger for their horrible assumptions, fear that I’d act on that anger, and sorrow that what I’d hoped for seemed farther out of reach than ever. These women hadn’t believed my friendship with the duke for a second. They’d seen it for what it was—a means to an end. They were wrong about thehow,but they were not wrong about the pretending.
Foolish of me to hope that they would ever see me as anything more than the one grand mistake I’d made.
Might as well shock them. It was what they wanted, wasn’t it? I tilted my head at them and forced a smile. “Let me assure you, ladies, it wasn’t a chore at all. The man came to me.” Their jaws dropped as they gasped, and I turned on a heel. “Mrs. Drexel, I am overtired. A headache ails me.”
Maggie tsked and squeezed her friend’s arm. “Please excuse us, Mrs. Grandy. Farewell, girls.”
“Please take me home,” I whispered as Maggie laced her arm through mine.
“That bad, is it?”
I nodded, rubbing my temples. Maggie did not want to interrupt the duke and Lady Diana, so we tore Gabriel away and the three of us hired a hackney.
Ashburn Abbey felt like a refuge. But it wasn’t home.
The closest I’d felt to home was in the library with Marlow. And in the stables. He’d become a truer friend to me than anyone else in London, but he was the last person I could talk to. The last person who would want to hear my self-inflicted grief.
Gabriel had the hackney take him back into Town, though he didn’t say whereabouts.
Maggie sighed heavily and gave her hat to Toole with mine just as her husband, Thomas, came out from the drawing room. “Darling?”
She fell into his arms.
My heart ached for a similar reprieve. Someone, anyone, who cared for me as much. I could think of only one place to go. I backed up a few steps and slipped right out the front door.
The air was warmer in the stables. In daylight, though the sky grew more golden as the hour turned, the space seemed magnificent in size. Details I hadn’t noticed before—ropes, harnesses, feed buckets, tools—drew my attention, distracting me every few steps. Half the stalls were empty. But Flora was there. I didn’t say a word. I sat on the floor just outside her stall, watching her through the slats. She watched me, too, settling on the hay.
I lay my head against the wooden wall and squeezed my eyes shut. I would not cry. Not over this. I’d already spent enough tears.
I missed home. I missed Mercutio. I missed Peter, and heaven help me, but I even missed Amelia.
My gaze landed on a bucket of oats, and I scooped up a handful, offering it to Flora from under the high door. I moved closer, petting her nose as I fed her.
What do I do now?
Would Society ever forgive me for what I’d done? I doubted it. There would always be questions in their minds—What kind of person is Georgiana? What more has she done?
Time might prove my character, but the truth was, even with the duke by my side, their opinions were unchanged.They simply acted as he expected them to. That is, until he was out of sight.
