Noted.
“Mr. Edgar Hargrave,” the baroness continued, pausing as if to place him. “Yes. Pleasant enough fellow. His mother is a dreadful bore and dotes on him just a little too much for my liking, but he is harmless otherwise.”
And on it went. None seemed to have any truly dark marks against them. The oldest of them were nearly twice her age,which, given Baron Sharpe’s situation, seemed almost youthful by comparison. The youngest was twenty. One of them, a Mr. John Osbourne, was more taken with horses than people, and another, Mr. Peter Burns, was purported to be the bastard son of the Prince of Luxembourg.
“Now this is interesting,” the baroness said, pursing her lips, leaving Georgie to wonder what could possibly be more interesting than the bastard son of a prince. “Mr. Thomas Worthington.”
Georgie’s stomach dropped even as she questioned her own ears. Surely, after today’s surprise, her senses were playing tricks on her.
“What did you say?”
“The Honorable Thomas Worthington,” the baroness repeated, lowering the page and leaving her lorgnette to dangle from its ribbon. “He’s quite the story. Newly introduced to society, a lost heir to the Worthington title. Word is that he’s quite handsome.”
Devastatingly handsome, in fact.
Georgie bit her lip, even as heat flooded her cheeks. Lily did not miss the reaction, though she was far too polite to address it.
“What is it?” the baroness asked, apparently seeing Georgie’s reaction clearly enough, and not bothered by any coyness to call it out. “Has he done you a harm?”
Georgie paused, then waited a moment while the baroness asked her lady’s maid to leave the three alone. Georgie buried her face in her hands and shook her head.
“No,” she said, turning to her hostess. “Quite the opposite in fact.”
“I see,” she said, eyes narrowing. “Broke his heart, did you?”
“We were both young,” she replied.
“You are hardly old now, mypetite chou,” the older woman replied. “So you bruised his masculine pride?”
It was so much more than that. The way the hurt shattered across his face when she’d refused him had devastated her, even if she dared not show him at the time.
“I told him I couldn’t marry him,” she said. “And I wasn’t kind in my refusal.”
“You are the daughter of an earl,” Lily said, “and he was not a gentleman at the time.”
“I tried to tell him that,” Georgie said. “I know he was trying to rescue me, but I just couldn’t.”
She couldn’t leave Whetherby, and her father, not when everything else seemed to be crumbling around them. She had needed to be the one thing he didn’t need to worry about.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t…” She trailed off. “I don’t think I can do this if he is there.”
“My lady,” Lily said, taking Georgie’s hands in her own. “I know it is not my place, but I have the strongest feeling you absolutely must. Your future happiness is at risk.”
“Indeed,” the baroness said, rising from the settee with help from a walking stick she’d kept nearby. She strode across the room toward Georgie. “If you don’t find yourself a husband, that decrepit Lord Sharpe will fill the role. I have had the extreme displeasure of meeting the man, but once. If you can find the strength to endure a few days of discomfort, you will save yourself a lifetime of it.”
The baroness’s stark assessment of Georgie’s situation settled on her shoulders, dampening the swirl of emotion and turning it into something approaching resolve.
“You are right of course,” she said, nodding to both of them, giving Lily’s hands a little squeeze, then releasing them. “I must think of my future, not my past.”
The baroness looked Georgie up and down, then patted her on the cheek.
“Well now,” she said with a conviction that nearly took Georgie aback, “there’s the fire I knew was in there somewhere.”
Georgie wanted to hug the woman, but instead, she went to the mirror to ensure she was presentable. Satisfied, she asked Lily to help her don her silk cape before the two made for the door. She put her hand on the knob, when one final thought stopped her.
“Does the title need funding, do you think?” Georgie asked, unable to help herself. Why oh why would she ask such a question? While there was many a lord in need of money, she could never imagine Tom wanting hers. Why was he playing a matchmaking game when he could so clearly have any woman he wanted?
“Not that I know of,” the baroness replied. “The Worthingtons are an excellent family. Perhaps—”
