style="font-size:15px;"> ‘I can be discreet,’ Havelock had said, affronted.
Edmund had sighed. He had forgotten just how swiftly Havelock’s temper could be roused. And by the most innocuous of remarks.
‘I am sure you can be,’ he had said in a placating manner. ‘Now, to the nub of the matter. This young lady does not move in the circles we generally inhabit. Her stepmother is...’ He’d paused, briefly. He was loathe to speak ill of any lady, even though his opinion of Mrs Wickford had been getting worse by the day. But he had very nearly blurted out a most unflattering description of her character. ‘According to rumour, her father was a grocer in some nondescript town,’ he’d said, determined to stick to the facts of the matter, and only the facts. ‘Her first husband a mere tailor.’
‘The daughter ain’t trying to hide from you, is she?’ Havelock had leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.
‘Nothing of the sort! This...grocer’s daughter happened to marry the widowed master of the hunt, from Bartlesham, the village where I spent my boyhood, since my principal seat is located nearby. Now that he’s died, they have had to vacate their home, since it was entailed. She has brought her...daughters to London hoping to find wealthy husbands for them both. I simply wish to...to help them, if I can. And to do that, I need to know where they are living and with whom they are mixing.’
‘They sloped off without telling you their direction?’ Havelock was still frowning.
Edmund had felt his cheeks heat. ‘I meant to call on them before they left Bartlesham. I was...distracted by...other matters and left it too late. By the time I went to enquire after them, they’d already left. And I feel it would be remiss of me not to do something for them, behind the scenes, in a...disinterested sort of way, since they are in the way of being neighbours.’
‘Sounds like a hum to me,’ Havelock had persisted. ‘Why don’t you just tell us the truth?’
‘You are interested in this girl from your village, aren’t you?’ Unlike Havelock, Morgan appeared pleased that Edmund had inadvertently made it sound as though he was in hot pursuit of some innocent country miss. But then everyone knew he had a sister to marry off this Season, a sister he wished to keep away from anyone with a title, for some reason known only to himself.
Edmund had, he believed, shut his eyes at that point and swallowed convulsively at the choices he was going to have to take—either to let them go on believing they were abetting him in the pursuit of unwilling prey, or to confess that Georgiana’s proposal had rattled him so badly he hadn’t been able to think clearly for several days. Eventually, he’d come up with an answer that spared him the necessity of doing neither.
‘I am not...interested in her,’ he’d said, a little testily. ‘She is totally unsuitable. Apart from her background, she is a complete hoyden, besides being horse-mad and...fickle.’
‘Is she intelligent, though?’ Havelock had asked with a grin. ‘I seem to recall that was the only factor you insisted I should include on my own list of wifely qualities. So that you wouldn’t have to...what was it...forfeit your bachelor freedoms only to sire a brood of idiots?’
Morgan had slapped the tabletop at this point and laughed. ‘That was exactly what he said. I remember now! Which is why so many people seem to think you might be about to make a match of it with Lady Susan Pettifer.’
‘Lady Susan? Good God, no! She has a tongue like a—’ He’d only just managed to pull himself up before saying something he would have regretted. ‘That is,’ he temporised, ‘I have no intention of marrying anyone. For some considerable time. I simply wish to ensure that Georgie has the chance to meet the kind of gentleman she might like to marry.’
‘Georgie? You call her by her given name?’
‘What does she look like?’
The pair of them had been grinning like schoolboys at his discomfiture. But at least he could tell they were both considering helping him. So, instead of getting up and stalking out, he’d swallowed his pride and given them some pertinent details.
‘Her name is Georgiana Wickford,’ he’d therefore told them. ‘She is tall, and...robust, with black hair and brown eyes. Her stepmother is Mrs Wickford and her stepsister is Susan Mead, though she’s normally known as Sukey.’
‘No—what, Sukey and Georgiana?’ Havelock had sat up straight. ‘Mary came back from visiting her cousins the other day saying she’d met some girls just up from the country by those very names. I wonder if it could be them...’
It had sounded too good to be true. And yet, after further investigation, Havelock had confirmed that Mrs Wickford had rented a house just off Bloomsbury Square and that her daughter and stepdaughter had already become friends with his wife’s cousins who lived nearby.
‘Doesn’t sound as though they need any help from you finding husbands, though,’ he’d said. ‘They’ve been presented at court.’
‘Already?’ He wondered how Mrs Wickford had managed it. He wondered what it had cost. And why Georgiana had made it sound as though she was about to live in penury for the rest of her life.
‘Tell you what,’ Havelock had said. ‘Why don’t I ask Mary if she’ll send them invitations to a little card party and supper she’s planning?’
‘You would really do that?’
‘Yes. For I cannot wait to see the woman who’s got you so hot under the collar.’
‘She does not have me hot under the collar, as you put it,’ he’d retorted.
‘Ashe, you went pink when we were discussing her. You very nearly raised your voice. That’s as near to getting hot under the collar as I’ve ever seen you.’ Havelock had laughed, slapping him on the back.
He certainly felt a little hot under the collar now. Because, in a minute or two, he was going to see her. Would probably have to stick to a topic of conversation suitable for a polite drawing room, when what he really wanted to do was discuss the conclusions he’d reached since their last meeting. And all the questions that had arisen since, about her finances, her ambitions, her motives, her prospects...
He paused in the open doorway of a large reception room, scanning its occupants for a sight of her face. And couldn’t help recalling that face as he’d last seen it, streaked with tears. Because he’d made her cry. Which was something else he needed to explain. That he hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t realised that a few words designed to cut her down to size would have cut her down completely. Had never dreamed anything he’d said could have had any effect upon her at all, come to that.
But it was Lord Havelock he saw first. He was hovering over the back of a sofa upon which his wife was sitting, deep in conversation with Lady Chepstow. Chepstow himself was sitting on the floor, for goodness sake, gazing up at the woman he’d snatched from her employers during a Christmas house party and subsequently married, with a fatuous expression on his face.
‘Would you care for some wine, sir?’ Yet another smartly dressed footman stepped forward, a tray of glasses held in his hand. Edmund took just one. And congratulated himself on his self-control.
‘You will find a cold collation laid out upon the pianoforte, my lord,’ said the footman, waving to a second room, visible through a set of double doors which stood open.
‘The
