Page 34

Well, some men—men like her dead father—did not hesitate to inflict their will with their hands.

She had seen the bruises Mama tried to hide.

Suddenly feeling quite like a bird in a snare, Georgine shot a glance toward the entrance.

Where were Matilda and Regina?

Did they have to milk a cow for the tea today?

“Georgine. Are you listening?”

Robyn scrubbed a hand down his face.

The poor man was truly in a dither.

“Mrs. Wynecott saw you in your night attire.” He acted as if Georgine had been caught nude.

“Because I am recovering from a wound.” No one could fault her for that.

“Exactly. Flushed. Disheveled. Alone with me…” He let out a short, humorless laugh. “And I was on my knees.”

“Retrieving a book I dropped.” Georgine lifted her good shoulder. “Perfectly innocent.”

“That’s not what Mrs. Wynecott saw.” He gestured vaguely to the room. “Or rather, not what she chose to see. And when you delivered that brilliant set down…”

In Latin, no less.

“Because she has a filthy mind.” Georgine bit her lower lip.

Mayhap she had been a touch too quick to offend the woman.

No.

No, she had not.

Mrs. Wynecott hadn’t hesitated a jot to impugn her. “And she went on to call me your mistress.”

Her cheeks burned hotly upon saying the words.

As if she would ever agree to be any man’s mistress.

Robyn’s mouth thinned. “Which she is now likely repeating to every gossipmonger within a twenty-mile radius.”

“But Robyn, as I’ve already said,” Georgine adjusted her sling to ease the increasing ache in her shoulder. “If she is known as a horrid gossip, who would believe her?”

“Half the ton, I expect. The other half won’t need to. The image alone—me kneeling before you, you in your nightdress, flushed and breathless—it will be more than enough.”

“I was not breathless.” Perchance a little flustered at having a man’s head so near her lap.

A perfectly natural reaction.

“I doubt Miss Twigg will risk dismissal quite yet.” Genuine remorse shadowed Robyn’s face and darkened his eyes to a deep coffee. “She’ll remain silent, which will only add substance to Mrs. Wynecott’s fabrication.”

Only too true.

Companion positions were as scarce as invitations to Almack’s Assembly Rooms—something Georgine had never received and was not likely to. Not that she desired an invitation.

“I was surprised by her barging in unannounced and uninvited. It flustered me.” It seems Mrs. Wynecott appeared precisely where she was least desired, much like a gale sweeping in from the Channel—only louder. “That is why I appeared flushed.”