Now she was wringing her hands like a tragedienne. Ah, it seemed the truth of the situation was finally sinking in. What would she do now?
He was taking a deep draught of his beer when she said, “She is none other than the sister of the Duke of Aldingbourne.”
He nearly spat the beer across the table. He held the liquid back at the last moment and choked, coughed and gasped for air.
Schneider jumped up once more and thumped him on his back.
“Are you all right, sir?”
He lifted a hand. “Shh.”
“You don’t have a single bed for Lady Evangeline Stafford-Hill?” she was saying now, gesturing at the woman beside her.
He hadn’t misheard.
Georg set his mug down so forcefully that the foam slopped onto the tabletop, and he pushed himself up.
Now she was arguing with the innkeeper. Truly, where was he to conjure a room from when there weren’t any available?
He stepped up to them. “She can have my room,” he cut in.
Both the innkeeper’s and the poppet’s heads whipped towards him.
“Lady Evangeline Stafford-Hill?” His gaze swept the taller, quieter woman, who looked up with glassy eyes. “A private word.”
He saw no other recourse than revealing himself to her, but only after he had verified her identity. Julius had, more than once, written to him with considerable frustration that Evie had developed the habit of escaping the governess by climbing out of the window and down the rose trellis, and the woman simply would not learn to take precautionary measures. Like changing the room to one that did not have a rose trellis fixed outside the wall. Georg had read those letters with no little amusement, and come to the conclusion that his betrothed was a girl with spirit.
He’d liked that.
But the woman who claimed to be Lady Evangeline had hesitated and given him an uncomprehending look, at first, and he’d concluded that she was a fraud, not without some inexplicable feeling of relief.
Until she’d taken him aback by unexpectedly coming forth with the correct response, after all.
Then her eyes had rolled back and she crumpled right in front of him. The news of who he was seemed to have, quite literally, pulled the rug out from under her.
If he hadn’t caught her when he did, she would have crashed on the floor.
Disregarding everyone, he’d swept her up and brought her to his room.
“Thus we finally meet, Lady Evie,” he muttered, flicking away a pale strand of hair that had fallen over her eyes. This was the woman with whom he was to spend the rest of his life. The future mother of his children.
Heaven help him.
She had a fine, straight nose, and her pale, crackedlips were slightly parted. She was clearly a well-bred lady, a typical English rose.
Certainly rather pretty, no doubt about that. But he hadn’t been thinking about her appearance when he’d agreed to take her as his bride.
“As long as she has some spirit,” had been his brash response to Aldingbourne, when he’d offered his sister as his betrothed, to seal the blood bond of brotherhood, half a lifetime ago. He’d treated it more as a jest, but Aldingbourne had been rather serious about it.
Georg had thought it over and concluded, why not? Surely there were worse things in life than to be tied in a familial bond to a man like Aldingbourne. If his sister had the same staunch sense of duty, loyalty and outlook in life, all virtues that he admired in him, then he could count himself lucky to be betrothed to her, indeed.
So he’d agreed.
And promptly forgotten all about her.
Quite unforgivable of him, he knew.
Until, of course, Aldingbourne had reminded him of their impending union, asking when he finally intended to marry his sister.
