“Handsome, perhaps,” George said. “And moody is right. He’s also cold, haughty, rude and arrogant. He looks down that long, aristocratic nose of his as if we’re all worms, beneath his notice.”
She’d only met him a handful of times, while his marriage to Rose was being arranged—and what a lucky escape for Rose that had been!—but she’d disliked him on sight.
“His friends—and he doesn’t seem to have many of them—call him Hart—his surname is Hartley—but he’s known in the ton as Heartless, and doesn’t that tell you something? Rose made a lucky escape, and I’m dam—” She broke off and glanced at Emm. “I’m blowed if I’ll be the sacrificial lamb in her place.” She clenched her fists. “Aunt Agatha had no right!”
“No, she didn’t,” Emm agreed. “And nobody will force you into marriage, dear, if you don’t want it.”
“No. But Aggie means well,” Aunt Dottie said, and at George’s look of surprise, she added, “Oh, I know she’s bossy and interfering and thinks she knows better than anyone what needs to be done and that we’re all sheep who need to be herded. But she does mean it for the best.”
George’s jaw dropped. “How can you say that?”
“To Aggie, marriage is the be-all and end-all. And she thinks it is for everyone. But . . .” Aunt Dottie sighed. “She made three marriages and not one of them brought her happiness. Wealth, yes, but happiness?” She shook her head.
Emm touched her belly. “You mean because she never had children?”
Again Aunt Dottie shook her head. “Children are a blessing, of course, but happiness is another matter entirely. I never married and never had children, but my life has been—and still is—a happy one. The trick, George dear, is to know your own heart and decide accordingly. I made my own choices in life, and have no regrets.”
And seeing her tranquil face and serene smile, George could believe it.
But she wasn’t Aunt Dottie and didn’t have her gentle, accepting temperament. Aunt Agatha’s interference made George want to scream. Or to hit someone—preferably the duke who’d so smugly rejected her—when she’d never wanted him in the first place! She was as tense as an overwound clock. She needed to get out, to escape from this smothering attention and breathe.
But the afternoon’s obligations stretched ahead of her. Morning calls, endless and unbearable, with coy questions about male attentions, and about Rose’s husband’s incredible return from the dead—that seven-day scandal still wasn’t over—and delicate and less-than-delicate inquiries about how the poor duke was taking it. A duke, pipped at the altar by some scruffy nobody—so scandalously delicious.
And then there were the gentlemen pursuing George . . . Cal dealt with the obvious fortune hunters pretty swiftly, but still, there were several gentlemen who, like Aunt Agatha, refused to believe she was serious about not marrying.
At the best of times George found morning calls difficult. Today they would be unbearable.
“I need to go out,” she said abruptly. “I want to take Sultan for a ride.” To get away.
“You already rode this morning,” Cal said, reentering the room.
“I need a longer ride.” She glanced at Emm. “As long as you don’t need me for anything, Emm.”
“No, you go and ride the tension away, George dear. Everything’s under control here; the last responses to the invitations are dribbling in, Burton has all the arrangements for the ball under control—he’s in his element, I suspect—and Rose is fully occupied getting the new house ready to move into—”
“Harrying hapless workmen,” Cal said with lazy amusement.
“And Lily’s off with her husband, I know not where,” Emm concluded. “You are free to do whatever you want.”
“As long as Kirk goes with you,” Cal added, naming the dour Scottish groom he employed to keep an eye on the girls when they rode out.
“Yes,” Emm said. “Because Cal is about to accompany me on a short walk in the sunshine, while it lasts.”
Cal blinked. “I am?”
“Yes, across the park to Gunter’s.” She dimpled. “The baby desires some more of that delicious pistachio ice cream they make.”
“Oh, the baby does, does it? Well, in that case . . .” Cal rose and helped his wife to her feet.
At the door, Emm turned back to George. “And after my walk I plan to have a nap, so go on, my dear, escape the irritations of polite society, take your dog and your horse—”
“And Kirk,” Cal reminded her.
“And run wild for a time,” Emm finished. Dear Emm. She always understood.
“But not too wild,” Cal added.
Chapter Two
He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather coldhearted, and rather selfish, is to be ill-disposed . . .
—JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
“Of course the old harridan was trying to play me—she’s my mother’s godmother, and I wouldn’t put anything past the two of them. Expecting me to believe that the girl has no interest in marriage.” Hart snorted. Would need to be dragged to the altar indeed! He hadn’t included that bit when he’d told his friend Sinc the story. It was all rubbish, of course, and Sinc was a good fellow, but his tongue tended to be rather loose, especially after a few drinks. Hart wasn’t going to have that little morsel spread around the ton.
His friend Sinc—Johnny Sinclair—had called in shortly after Lady Salter’s departure, on his way to Jackson’s boxing saloon, and had stayed for a spot of lunch instead. “Lady George, eh? Splendid girl. The sort of girl a fellow can feel comfortable with.”
“Comfortable?” The ice in his voice took Hart by surprise.
Sinc was oblivious. “Yes, no pretense about her at all. Says exactly what she thinks, so a fellow knows exactly where he stands. Not on the hunt for a husband. Makes no secret of it. Plans never to marry. Wants to live in the country and raise horses and dogs—well, can’t argue with that, can you?”
Hart could, actually. “So she’s an eccentric.”
Sinc shook his head. “Wouldn’t go that far. She’s marriage shy, that’s all. According to m’sister, who knows her family quite well, her father abandoned her and her mother when she was a baby. Mother died, Lady George left to grow up alone and in poverty. Disgraceful business—daughter of an earl and she didn’t even know it! Left to starve in a cottage.” He drained his glass and held it out for a refill. “Didn’t even know she had any living family until Ashendon discovered her and brought her to London and launched her along with his half sisters.”