“I am, thank you.” Mother sat once more. With a quick widening of her eyes, she signaled for Caroline to do the same. The gentlemen could not, after all, be seated if the ladies were not. “Mr. Downy tells me your Shropshire estate is doing well.”
Mr. Downy.Mother never referred to Father so properly when only the family was about. Until this visit, George had been considered near enough to family to be included in that exception.
“Yes.” George flipped the tails of his jacket upward as he sat in the spindle-back chair. “The tenants are prospering. The neighbors seem pleased to have someone in residence.”
Mother nodded her approval. “An empty home can be a burden when a neighborhood has been accustomed to a full selection of company.”
“Indeed.” George punctuated the response with a quick incline of his head.
Behaving so formally with a gentleman with whom she’d once spent rainy afternoons splashing in mud puddles was a decidedly odd thing. She’d suspected interactions between them would be a bit awkward, especially at first, but this was worse than she had anticipated.
She folded her hands primly on her lap. “Why, Thomas, is this not the mildest weather you ever remember experiencing in November?”
Tom could always be counted on to join her for a lark. “Indeed, sister dearest. I shudder to think what lies in store come winter. I may need to invest in new woolens.”
“Why, Thomas. How scandalous of you to discuss such a thing.”
“I offer my most humble apologies, sister dearest.”
Mother’s eyes darted from George to the others and back again several times. “Behave,” she whispered harshly. “We have company.”
Tom, bless him, laughed out loud. “It’s only George, Mother.”
“He is your sister’s betrothed.” Mother’s eyes darted between them all. “If we misbehave so very much, he is likely to change his mind, and then where will we be?”
“Very well. I will postpone the eulogy until after he’s permanently shackled to her.”
Tom’s humor didn’t often fall short of its intended mark, but it did in that moment.Eulogy. Shackled to her.If Tom were to be believed, her goal of simply being content in her match was doomed to failure. George, who had once been her friend, would come to resent her.
“How pleased we are that you are to be part of our family, George.” Mother’s attempt to salvage the conversation was not terribly graceful. “We knew Caroline would have to marry at some point, but I confess I had assumed she would make a far less pleasant match, someone older and not terribly picky.”
Being discussed as if she wasn’t present was always a wonderful experience.
“Then allow me to confess something as well,” George said. “I am yet in shock at my tremendously good fortune. Your daughter might have married any number of gentlemen with far more to recommend them.”
Mother seemed to find that declaration nothing short of inexplicable. She sputtered a moment. “Well, Mr. Farber was on her father’s list of gentlemen he meant to speak with on this matter, and Mr. Farber is both wealthy and significant in the eyes of theton.”
“Don’t forget his legendary love of brandy,” Tom added with a laugh. “Besides, Mother, Farber is at least as old as Father. Surely Caro wasn’t so desperate as all that.”
Mother turned wide eyes to Tom. “Oh, but she was. Without a dowry, how else was she to secure an offer from someone better?”
Caroline stood, offering a benign smile. “I feel a bit of a headache coming on, and I mean to go lie down for a bit. Once the lot of you decide if I am to be declared fortunate or desperate, do send word with one of the maids, as I would very much like to hear the verdict.”
She held her head high as she made her way toward the door. It was likely a more dramatic departure than she ought to have indulged in. But, heaven help her, the past month of knowing she’d been handed off to the highest bidder had proven a difficult reality to embrace. That weight only grew having George here speaking of her in much the same dismissiveway, as though she really were a commodity to be traded and evaluated. George, who had always treated her as a person worth knowing. Who had never seemed to devalue her because she was female. Even he seemed to have changed.
In light of all that, she had earned a touch of drama.
Chapter Three
That had not gone well.
“Do you really wish to endure that sort of display for the rest of your life, George?” Tom’s customary grin sat firmly in place. “Women are deucedly dramatic.”
“Do not use cant, Thomas,” Mrs. Downy scolded. Her gaze darted from George to the now-empty doorway a few times before settling on him once more. “Please do not hold this outburst against her. She has not quite been herself this past month, not since…” The sentence dangled unfinished, but George knew perfectly the words she’d left unspoken.
Not since she learned of our betrothal.He had worried that the manner in which the match had come to be would give Caroline the wrong impression. But when Edward, the oldest of the Downy children, had told him his father had come to London with the express purpose of finding someone willing to offer a bit of much-needed income to the family in exchange for Caroline’s hand, George had panicked.
His plan had always been to court her once she had her Season, to make his case in the traditional way, to convince her of his love and devotion. But she never had a Season, and her family had left her no opportunity to be wooed.
