Page 68 of Much Ado about a Widow

“Nine and then some. Good thing your trunk is already aboard the ship. I’ll get your traveling gown out. We’ll have you washed and dressed in no time.” Casting a critical eye over the bed, Clara cut her gaze at her mistress. “Seems like you had a restless night. I’ve never seen your bed so mussed before.”

Georgie bit her lip. “As you say, it’s an important day, Clara. I tossed and turned most of the night thinking about this voyage.”

“Looks like you twisted yourself right out of your nightgown, my lady.” Clara stooped and retrieved the discarded garment from the floor.

Not knowing where to look, Georgie opted for the coverlet, seeing for herself how rumpled it appeared. “I must have gotten too warm and pulled it off during the night.”

“I suspect you may have had help with it as well. Which is exactly why you need me to chaperone you during this journey to Scotland. You don’t want to get yourself talked about, Lady Georgina.”

“There is no one here to see or hear anything to talk about.” Picking up the cup of tea, Georgie sipped it quickly. “Ugh, there’s no sugar in it.”

“It must have settled to the bottom. Give it a stir.” Clara folded the gown over her arm. “You know as well as I do that houses have eyes and ears galore. It’s when you think no one is around that everything gets noticed. Mark my words, if his lordship was here last night, someone knows it besides the two of you.”

Making that pronouncement, Clara opened the door to the dressing room, and Lulu shot out, running around the room barking and sniffing. Clara nodded at the excited animal. “If that one could talk, I’m sure she’d tell a fine tale about last evening.” Clara continued into the dressing room.

“Lulu, come.” Georgie patted the bed next to her, and the little dog clambered up the steps and onto the bed. “Good girl.” She lowered her voice. “You won’t betray us, will you?”

Lulu yipped once, then bared her teeth.

Rubbing the dog under her chin, Georgie sighed. “We really must find a way for you and Rob to come to an accord.”

A loud knocking at the door set Lulu off on another round of frantic barking. “Shhh, Lulu. Clara, see who is at the door, please.”

Before the maid could return from the dressing room, the door burst open.

Mindful of her total undress, Georgie dived beneath the covers just as Jemmy strode in.

Lulu leaped off the bed, barking shrilly until she reached Jemmy’s boots. She sniffed cautiously, then stopped baying.

“Good morning, brother,” Georgie called as he looked around the room. “So nice of you to call before I completed my toilette. I would rise, but I think we’d both be rather embarrassed.”

“You need to dress as soon as you can and present yourself downstairs, Georgie.” Jemmy’s curt command raised an alarm in her.

Heart in her throat, Georgie sat up, clutching the covers to her chest. “What has happened?”

He stared at her, his jaw clenched. “Father has arrived.”

* * *

The formal drawing room on the first floor had been the gathering place for all the family’s after-dinner assemblies since Georgie had arrived at St. Just. A pleasant room, decorated in warm tones of rustic reds and browns, it had been a favorite refuge for her each evening. Never, however, had she approached any chamber with more apprehension than now.

A sound like squawking geese met her before she could even push the door open. Jemmy and Father, of course, arguing so loudly she was surprised she hadn’t heard them in the upstairs corridor. Well, she was not afraid of Father, even now. She had a right to happiness, and, if that made her father unhappy, that was his choice. She would marry Rob, and that was all there was to it.

Pushing the door open silently, she entered unobserved to discover her father sitting in the high-backed chair usually reserved for Rob, as head of the household. That certainly boded ill, for her father would usurp every drop of power he could wrest from an opponent in any way he could. Jemmy stood in front of him, his face red, his hair sticking up as though he’d run his hand through it several times. To her brother’s left, Rob sat in the chair his mother usually took. Upon seeing her enter, he rose and met her near the doorway.

“Good morning, Lady Georgina. I trust you slept well?” Love shone brilliantly in his eyes. Fortunately, his back at that point was to her father.

“Good morning, Lord St. Just,” she replied in hushed tones. “I rested well, thank you.” Not as well as when he’d been in her bed. “I am sorry for bringing this whirlwind down upon your household. I had no idea my father intended to come here.”

“As well to have the final act play out now as later. As long as the outcome is our marriage, I care not if the ceremony occurs here or in Scotland or in the Antipodes.” He took her hand. “If I have to move heaven and earth, I will do it to make you mine.”

“Georgina.” Her father’s gruff voice rose above Jemmy’s.

With a last desperate glance at Rob, Georgie composed her face and walked sedately, step by step, until she stood in front of the man. Her father hadn’t changed an iota from the last time she’d seen him, almost a month ago. Not that she expected any change. He was the same stern monster from her childhood, ramrod straight and stricter than any moralist of the age. A man who gave no quarter, who never changed his mind. “Yes, Father?”

“What the devil have you been playing at? Brack insists that you did not run away yet again, with this popinjay”—he waved his hand at Rob, who grinned and straightened his jacket—“but were instead kidnapped on your way home. If that is true, which I very much doubt, inform me immediately who the kidnapper was, and I will see that he is caught and punished to the full extent of the law.”

“Clara and I were indeed kidnapped on the post road at The Running Horse Inn in Leatherhead. They took us to Portsmouth, although I have no idea the reason why. Clara believed they wished to sell us as concubines to a sultan, but I tried to dissuade her from that.”