Georgiana’s words echoed through the Hayden family’s massive dining room.Utter silence greeted it.She regretted the urge to defend Chadbourn’s bride from the vicious description her sister had just spewed.Chadbourn’s countess didn’t need her defense, and it had no impact in any case.
Her Grace the Duchess of Sudbury paid Georgiana no heed.A faint pursing of lips was the only indication that she had heard.She nodded to a footman to serve the evening’s pudding, a fine cake with a hot caramel sauce, appropriate for the end of winter.She turned to Eloise, as though Georgiana hadn’t spoken.
“You couldn’t be more correct.The woman is utterly common, not one trace of grace.The entire wedding was an ordeal.”Her fat little hand, heavy with rings, lifted an excessively ornate silver spoon, signaling to the others that they might commence as well.His Grace, regal in habitual silence, sat in the great carved chair at the head of the table.He ignored the women’s conversation.Glenaire, the heir, on His Grace’s left, took his cues from his father.
Georgiana sat adrift in the middle and wondered what Glenaire found to occupy his mind during these interminable dinners.She thought she ought to ask him, as she could use help learning the skill.
Her mind drifted back to Chadbourn’s lovely wedding, and she felt sympathy for the new countess.No, not sympathy.Envy.The bride and groom had glowed with love for one another, and the woman didn’t need Georgiana or anyone’s support.
“One needed to attend, of course.”Georgiana’s mother droned on.“Her Grace of Murnane would invite the world to her brother’s wedding, and one could not refuse.How she could lend countenance to the bride I do not know?”
“His sister genuinely likes his bride, Mother.Imagine it.”Georgiana pointed out.She moved her spoon through the caramel with aimless motions.No one took note of her comment.I am invisible again,she thought.
“Perhaps you needed to attend, but really, Your Grace, was it necessary to involve Ardmore and me?”At twenty-nine, Eloise already wore her mother’s habitual sour expression.“Attending simply lowered oneself.”Eloise’s petulant voiceclashed with her fine lace dinner dress.She looked as if she had encountered an insect in her soup.
It might have done Eloise good to have actually talked to the woman, Georgiana thought.She put her spoon down, appetite fled.
“Chadbourn always tended to be a bit déclassé—as was his father before him.The man practically doted on his children.”The Duchess sniffed as she spoke.
Georgiana’s stomach clenched.Loving one’s children just was notdone.Chadbourn and his lady were utterly besotted and made no effort to hide it, much to her mother’s disgust.Longing overwhelmed Georgiana when Will turned to face his bride in the church, love glowing from every inch of him.Once she wouldn’t have understood what she saw.Once she, too, might have mocked them.Now, she envied them.Now, she knewwhat flowers these roses are.A very private smile crept, unbidden, to her face.
“Really, Georgiana, if you are going to fidget with your food and smile like a buffoon, you may as well leave the table.I command it.”The Duchess sneered down her nose in distaste.
Georgiana began to rise but froze like a frightened rabbit in the face of her mother’s disapproval.She despised herself for it.
Glenaire ignored his mother’s disapproving glare and rose smoothly to assist his sister.“Are you well?”He pitched his voice for her ear alone.Some of the old affection filled her.
“I am well.I prefer my room.Let it go, Richard.”The preference was real; humiliation stung.
Glenaire lifted her hand and kissed the top.“Perhaps tomorrow we can walk.”
“I would like that.”
“Do get on, Georgiana.Glenaire, you disrupt dinner.A gentleman does not disrupt conversation.”Voices faded behind her as Georgiana left the room.She used all her strength to avoid running.
Mountview’s air of menace, the constant threat of maternal abuse, followed her up the stairs.She vowed that when she broke free again she would never let them drag her back.She wasn’t sure what she would do, but she knew she would do nothing that threatened her fragile independence.Nothing.Ever.
Finely waxed floors and priceless carpeting led the way to an over-stuffed room at the back of the house.She knew it was slightly less fine than the better guest rooms, infinitely more luxurious than the upper servants, and a great deal shabbier than the quarters assigned to Eloise and Ardmore.She hated it.
Nothing there raised her spirits.Her notes, scattered on the table, were days old.The steady stream of correspondence with Andrew that flowed rapidly while she had been a guest of the Duchess of Murnane stopped when she came to Mountview.
Here in her father’s house, she feared discovery.Anything sent from this house was vulnerable to prying eyes.She feared that her letters would reflect her love for Andrew.Even if they didn’t, fear of censorship made her reluctant to send her questions and ideas.At best, her work would be mocked.At worst, they might trap her here and attempt to prevent the work from going forward.
Georgiana lifted a fine gold chain from around her neck and pulled a tiny key from her bodice.She leaned under her bed and pulled out a strongbox, glad no servant would bother to interrupt the objectionable daughter while the family was still at dinner.
The box opened quietly.Andrew’s messages lay like treasured love letters wrapped in tissue.Fool!Each was signed simply, “Yours, A.Mallet.”Anyone reading them would know them for the business correspondence that they were.No one would mistake them for love letters.Yet, they lay wrapped in tissue and locked in a small strongbox as if she feared discovery.
Andrew had sent no letters in more than a month.She assumed that he was being cautious also or that he was waiting for her to write.Either way, it was safer, she knew, but she missed his letters terribly.She missed him.
She replaced the box in its hiding place and went to the window, as she did every night, and began to count the miles to Little Saint Mary’s Lane.She pictured the roads.She could be back in Cambridge in two days.Perhaps Glenaire would arrange it sooner.She would ask him again tomorrow.
She didn’t know if the man who wrote those careful, businesslike letters would welcome her.She wondered if he looked out his window and thought of her or if he was absorbed in work.She had hurt him.He might notwish to continue the connection.She did, even if she still had no idea what sort of connection she wanted.
Two days.If she had a carriage.If her father would permit it.If she had the courage to leave.Two days.
* * *
Two nights later,Mountview’s grizzled gatekeeper informed Andrew with exaggerated generosity that, while his chaise wasn’t permitted inside the gate, Andrew might walk to the manor if he chose to try his luck at the servants’ door.
