Georgiana’s heels clattered across the marble floor of the atrium to the broad sweeping stairway that led to the upper stories and the family quarters.
“Georgiana, I insist you return to your dinner.This is insupportable.”From the third step, Georgiana saw her mother come out of the dining salon, outrage on every fiber of her being.The Duchess glared fire across the atrium.“Is that schoolmaster’s son still here?Has no one thrown him out on his ear?Are there insufficient footmen to remove him?”
Over her shoulder, Georgiana saw Andrew, Richard, and the Duke at the door to her father’s office.“You may rest easy, Your Grace.Mr.Mallet is leaving and will trouble us no longer.”She looked directly at her mother.“And you will be relieved of my presence also.I won’t spend one more day in this house.I am returning to Cambridge.Alone.To live my own life the way I choose.You can finally forget your troublesome daughter entirely.”
The Duchess shook with indignation; her mouth moved as if seeking a retort that would not come.Behind the Duchess, Eloise’s eyes blazed with hatred.
“You needn’t fear, my loving sister.”Georgiana said, her words dripping acid.“The life I live may not be to your liking, but it won’t disturb your serenity.After tonight, you need never see me again.”
“Georgiana!”Her mother’s voice echoed in the vast atrium.She ignored it.She ignored them all; she climbed the steps purposefully, one by one.Behind her, Mountview’s massive front door opened and closed.He was gone.It was over.
* * *
“Do calm yourself.It isn’t like you to enact Cheltenham tragedy, no matter the provocation.”Glenaire’s habitual mask of hauteur and calm irritated Georgiana.She failed to master that particular Hayden trait.She growled in response.
“He chose to leave,” Glenaire went on.
“This time at least he had a choice.He wasn’t given one eleven years ago, was he?”Georgiana tossed a hairbrush into her trunk and followed it with a pile of handkerchiefs.
“You refer to his youthful enthusiasms?”Glenaire showed no surprise about the extent of her information.“My dear Georgiana, that outcome was preordained.He had no choice.He understood that.You should also.”
“Oh yes, I know he believed that.He still believes it.”Her voice dropped to a choked whisper.“I, on the other hand, beg to differ.He was wrong then, and he’s wrong now.The two of you never asked me what I wanted, never gave me any choice, never let me control my own life.”
“Georgiana, you are becoming hysterical.”
The insult impacted her far differently than he intended.“You overreach Richard.I’m not as easily manipulated as the minions who do your bidding.I am a Hayden also, and I will have a voice in my own life.”
“You don’t?—”
“Don’t what?Know what you did to me so long ago?”she demanded.
“Remember your courtesy and stop interrupting me,” he snapped.
She had no idea how any of them had survived the frigid air that passed for family life in in Mountview.Perhaps she hadn’t survived it.Perhaps she was actually dead of the cold.She might have responded differently to Andrew’s proposal if life ran in her veins.
“Very well, Richard.Explain to me why you and Andrew didn’t give me a say in my own life all those years ago.”
“He understood, as you apparently don’t,” Richard began with exaggerated patience, “that without His Grace’s blessing the two of you had no chance to survive.You had no funds of your own—you still don’t.He had none.Father would have made sure he never found employment, never earned a shilling.If you had attempted to live in romantic poverty, assuming for a moment the very poverty didn’t kill your regard for one another, you would have been humiliated and destroyed, unable to return.”
“Did His Grace know?”
“Certainly not.Do you have any idea what they would have done to you if he had learned of your foolishness?I averted further distress only by acting quickly.As a result, you’ve been able to live an independent life, for a woman, free from our mother’s...”His voice trailed off, and a look of understanding passed swiftly between them.“Free at least to pursue your own interests.”
“As long as I remained invisible and silent?”She dared him to deny it.“Free to exist in a gray half-world with my books and my garden, free as long as I didn’t require companionship or warmth?”
“It is more than most unmarried women have.They didn’t force you into the role of maiden aunt, unpaid companion.”
“Only because Eloise wouldn’t have me.She hired help for their children.She didn’t want her impossibly gauche sister in her home.I didn’t even have the affection of nieces and nephews to hold on to!”
He looked as though he saw her for the first time.“Would you have wanted the role of charity-dependent in your sisters’ houses?”His bafflement almost touched her.
“I think sometimes the children would have been worth it, but no.Neither of them would have given me a moment’s peace.It’s irrelevant now.I chose my life in Cambridgeshire, and I was content with it.”
“Was?”
She caught her lip between her teeth for a moment and chose words carefully.“Lately I have begun to see what I have missed and to desire, belatedly, to put it right.”
Glenaire appeared thoughtful.She wished, notfor the first time, she could read his mind.“And now?”he asked.
