“Consequences?”
Again she nodded.
“Then we must marry, and soon,” he said.
“I am so sorry, Jamie,” she whispered.
He reached across the table to take her hand. “Mrs Hastings… Georgie, I should have wished to marry eventually anyway. It is happening a little earlier than I expected, that is all.”
“But you would have married from choice and not merely because we drank too much one night.”
“It does not follow that I am unhappy with the situation,” he said softly, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. “Itis worse for you, with a happy marriage to remember. The last thing you wanted was another husband, and one who cannot compare with the first.”
“Henry was no saint,” she said with asperity. “Far from it.”
“But you loved him.” That brought her close to tears again, and she could only nod miserably. “So,” he said briskly, “I had better go and see the parson about the banns. Or the bishop, for a licence? We need to move swiftly, I think.”
“Which will attract some comment,” she said. “There will be pressure to postpone the wedding until the spring, so it can be carried out with due celebration.”
“There will be comment regardless of how we contrive it, since we have given no sign of an attachment.”
“True, but the Merrington ladies will think it scandalous if I am married without acquiring a suitable wardrobe of clothes for my newly elevated station.”
“From the widow of a gentleman to the wife of a secretary,” he said, with a wry look. “Not much of an elevation.”
“Henry was barely a gentleman,” she said, although she could not help smiling. “He lived on a tiny annuity from his mother, my dowry and the expectation of an inheritance from his aunt, that is all, and whatever he could scrounge from his friends. He called it borrowing, but I never knew him to pay any of it back. Occasionally he would have a big win at the races, but then he would buy ale for all his friends in the tap room, so there was no benefit to it.”
A footman came in just then to see to the fire, so they were obliged to pretend to be working for a while. As soon as he had gone, Georgie burst out, “Jamie… what will we have to live on?”
“A hundred — no, two hundred a year, with board and lodging provided,” he said at once. “The duke will double my salary if I marry. It seemed prudent to raise the subject with him, and he is agreeable to it.”
“You told him about us?” she said, startled.
“No, no! Nothing specific. Very hypothetical… if I should happen to want to marry in the future, that sort of thing. There are rooms on the top floor we can have, where my parents and I lived for many years.”
“I see. And we shall have my fifty a year, too, together with whatever rent I can make from the cottage.”
“That is excellent,” he said, eyebrows raised in surprise. “We shall be rich! Or at least, not destitute.”
“But how is it to be managed without questions being asked?” she said, frowning. “This will come as a great shock to everyone, and if we marry in a hurry, there is bound to be speculation.”
“Hmm. I shall need to think about that, but we need to talk properly, not snatching moments of privacy. Tomorrow is my father’s day for going into Brinchester, so I shall have to call at the cottage to tend the fire. We will not be interrupted there. Come at about noon. Do you know where it is? No? If you cross the river by the old bridge to the woods, but instead of turning to follow the river, walk straight on. It is a good path, and within five minutes or so brings you to the lane where the cottage is. And now, we had better go and dress for dinner.”
“Should we try to sit together?” Georgie said. “It might make our marriage more credible if we show a preference for each other.”
“We can try,” he said.
But in the event, being last into the dining room, as usual, they had to take what chairs were unoccupied, and ended on opposite sides of the table, and after dinner, Jamie was drawn into whist by the duke, and there was no opportunity for any conversation with him.
They would perforce have to wait to begin their courtship.
9: Flirtation
The next morning, Georgie woke late, having lain awake for some hours pondering the problem of how to convince the world that two people who barely knew each other were deeply in love. It was an awkward business. If only she and Jamie had not been so restrained around each other. Apart from their businesslike exchanges in the study, which revolved entirely around the duke’s diaries, they had barely spoken at other times. Now she wished she had taken more notice of him.
But he had always been simply a part of the furniture, no different from Mr Godley or Mr Pyott, although better looking. Even the Merrington sisters, constantly on the watch for likely husband material, had not looked at him. He was a diffident and self-effacing man, easy to overlook. And now he was to be her husband! What a shocking thought.
She pulled her miniature of Henry from beneath her pillow. “Well, my love, you’re to be supplanted. There, I’ve said it, and I suppose you must have guessed it from my silence these last few days. I’m to be Mrs James Hammond and there’ll be a baby inthe summer, so there we are. There is nothing to be done about it.” She gently ran one finger over the outline of his face. “Don’t imagine I shall ever forget you, my dearest one. You’re my first and only love, and Jamie, kind as he is, can never replace you in my heart. And this baby… it will not beyourbaby, with your smiling face and dark eyes and that nose! How you hated that nose, but it was a part of you and I loved it for that reason alone. And it has to be said, if I am being honest, it is the only part of you the miniaturist captured well. Henry, don’t hate me for marrying again. It’s not from affection or even a prosaic need to provide for myself, which might perhaps be understandable, but because… well, you know why. I have confessed it all, for I would have no secrets from you, my beloved. My life is an open book to you, just as yours was to me. You were never perfect, for which of us is, and perhaps you, who enjoyed your drink so much, would understand better than most what happened that night with the brandy. Au revoir, my darling.”
