ChapterSixteen
Georgiana heard the sound, the scurrying of mice feet, the telltale rustle of an eavesdropper, the traitor, the spy.
Andrew bent over his writing.He picked up a passage in Greek and pretended to study it.She could see the pretense in the quiver of his hand.
He had almost kissed her again.He came so close she felt his breath hot on her mouth.He stopped when she pointed to the door.He stopped—drat him—and he probably thought it noble.Nobility was cold comfort, no use to her whatsoever.
Andrew.She spoke, but no sound came out.
“Andrew.”She managed a hoarse whisper.He kept his eyes down and pretended not to hear.Resentment began to build in the pit of her stomach.She cleared her throat and attempted hauteur.“Mister Mallet, you—”You pigheaded beast.
“You are quite correct, my lady.We have overrun our time.”
Hauteur failed; resentment rose, built stone on stone with rising anger.She was beyond speech.
Andrew shuffled papers into a haphazard pile, a sham of order.He still wouldn’t look at her.“I’ll call for my chaise and?—”
The slap startled Georgiana.She felt her hand, hard against his ravaged face, so hard the ridge of his scar left a line across her palm.One moment she stood still, the next her hand stung with the pain of her attack.She remembered no thought, no intention, only violence, and the rage that drove it.The silent echo of the slap resounded in the workroom.
He looked at her now, unable to ignore her, but he didn’t speak.His crooked mouth, with its scar-torn corner, pulled tight with emotion, but no reprisal rose in his dark eyes.Deep pools of sadness filled them.She thought she might drown in them.She wished he would answer her anger with anger of his own to feed her hurt, to justify her rage.
Andrew took a step, his uneven gait more pronounced than she had seen it in days.Her heart drummed against her chest until her throat hurt from the pounding.Fear compounded her anger.
“Andrew,” she said in a shaky voice when he took one step closer and then two.He looked at her but didn’t speak.“Please,” she begged.
He slid past her, the rich wool of his jacket brushing the front of her dress, and walked toward the door.She heard him whisper, “Not here.Notnow.”
The hard pound of his boots echoed in the hall and then she heard no sound at all.She stood for a moment, willing him back, willing him to speak to her, and knowing it was futile.
One explosion of movement, one sweep of her arm, sent papers, books, and other tattered remnants of their shared labor flying across the carpet to lie in ink-splattered disarray.Pens scattered in three directions, and a bottle shattered against the hearth tiles, staining them black.If notnow, Andrew, when?If not here, where?
There was no one to answer.She heard only the gasping of her breath and the pounding of her heart.In suffocating silence, anger drained from her body.Her hand, fluttering in the aftermath of rage, blindly sought the back of a chair and gripped it for support.
In one long silent minute, the stillness of her perfectly run establishment reasserted itself, wrapped itself around her, and began to squeeze the life from her lungs.
A voice at the door spoke in tones that left no ripple in the still pool of order, “Chef Henri informs me that tea is ready, my lady.Miss Williams regrets that she is indisposed and begs permission to remain in her quarters.Does my lady wish to take tea here or in her sitting room?”
Georgiana heard Chamber’s voice as though it came from a great distance.For a moment she couldn’t respond.
“What does my lady wish?”Her butler expertly skirted a narrow line between subservience and disapproval.He would brook no disorder in a ducal household.
Georgiana called on seven hundred years of aristocratic breeding, raised her head slowly, and stood erect.If the servants could act as if she had real power, she could maintain that pretense also.She turned with exquisite slowness and stared down her regal nose.
“I will take it in my upstairs sitting room.You may inform Miss Williams her presence is not required.”
Chambers gestured to an unseen footman.
“That will be all, Chambers.”
Chambers hesitated, eyes scanning the room, and began to bow out.She interrupted him.
“One other thing.There has been an accident here.See that all sign of it is removed.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Georgiana walked from the room, head high.Her graceful, steady tread would have made her governesses proud if they had witnessed it.Even her mother might have approved.Feet of lead, however, and the weight of silence made her performance miraculous.She managed to sustain the illusion of control during her entire walk across the parquet foyer and up the swath of marble stairs to her sitting room.
Two footmen, alerted by Chamber’s gesture, appeared from the servants’ stairs, bearing her tea.The Duke of Sudbury’s servants were trained to be invisible.Neither man spoke to her; neither looked at her.One held an enormous tray while the other laid the table with fine linen.They worked with economy of movement and were done within moments, leaving her with pastries baked by the finest chef in Cambridgeshire, a tea service worth a small ransom, and solitude.
