had been draped ‘Of course.’
‘Her ladyship is quite determined that there is to be no dancing tonight,’ said the footman, with just a trace of a smile tugging at his lips. ‘Though you will find card tables, should you prefer to play, rather than merely converse with the other guests.’
Edmund would never prefer wasting his time in a trivial game when he could be conversing with someone of interest. However, it was not the footman’s fault that he was serving refreshments at the kind of gathering where gentlemen sat on the floor gazing up at their wives and pianos were put into service as tea tables.
So he nodded his acceptance of the boundaries set for the evening’s ‘entertainment’ and stepped fully into the room.
And then he saw her. And something that felt rather like cold rage started burning in his gut. Because she looked...he swallowed. If it had been any other woman, he would have said she looked stunning. Luscious. Her hair was different. She’d had it cut and styled so that wisps curled round her face. But it was her gown that really stunned him. What little there was of it.
Not only did it plunge low at the front, but the tiny little scraps of material masquerading as sleeves did not even cover her shoulders. It made the whole top half of her gown look as though, at any moment, it might slip from her altogether, revealing the figure to which it was clinging so precariously.
To every man in the room.
For a few moments he stood completely still, grappling with the urge to whip off his jacket, march across the room, and fling it round her shoulders. How could she...flaunt herself in that...tawdry excuse for a gown? After saying she couldn’t bear the thought of men...pawing her, that the only kind of marriage she could tolerate would be a platonic one, she was standing there with everything on display, practically begging every man in the room to...lean in and grab a handful.
He downed his drink in one go and slammed the empty glass down on the nearest horizontal surface. Hang offering her his coat to cover herself up. He was going to give her a piece of his mind.
If this was what tonnish people called a ‘small, informal gathering’, then Georgiana shuddered to think what a large one would be like. Since she’d been here, more than fifty couples had wandered in, shaken hands with Lord Havelock, been presented to his wife, taken a glass of wine and ambled out again. They had included a baronet, a viscount and a marquis.
Stepmama had been disappointed in the viscount, since he’d brought a wife with him. But when she’d seen the marquis come in alone and learned he was as yet unmarried, she’d been so excited it was a wonder she hadn’t danced a jig on the spot.
Georgiana had cringed at Stepmama’s attempts to attract his notice and push him in Sukey’s direction, and then winced at Lord Lensborough’s distinctly frosty dismissal.
Her one consolation was that Sukey hadn’t flung herself at him. Far from it. She’d made a beeline for Mrs Pargetter’s daughters, Dotty and Lotty, and stayed glued to them, whether they strolled to the end of the room to select a plate of refreshments, or sat on a sofa to giggle and gossip. Georgiana had no interest in their sort of chatter, and anyway, the sofa on which they’d eventually settled could only just contain the three of them. So she’d made the excuse of needing to visit the retiring room and slipped away from them all.
She’d stayed there as long as she could. It had been so horrid, being in a room full of people who all knew each other, and who had all quickly pegged Stepmama for the kind of woman who would stop at nothing to see her daughters married off.
If only she wouldn’t be so...obvious.
Eventually, Georgiana knew she could not stay in the retiring room any longer, or Stepmama would be sending someone to find out if she’d fallen ill. She looked warily round the huge reception room before stepping fully back inside, looking for the safest place to go. In her absence, Stepmama had gone to the card tables, where she was currently frowning over what looked like a hand of whist with Mr Pargetter. The poor man had, earlier on, looked as out of place as Georgiana had felt, amidst all the titled, privileged guests. It was good to see he looked much more at ease, now he was playing cards. And being much more useful, to Georgiana’s way of thinking, by keeping Stepmama occupied.
She gave a sigh of relief, fixed a smile on her face and sauntered in the general direction of Sukey’s sofa. As soon as Stepmama had noticed her, nodded her approval and returned her attention to her hand, Georgiana veered off towards the furthest, quietest corner of the room. She had just turned and leaned back against the wall, when the footman stationed at the door announced the arrival of yet another guest.
‘Lord Ashenden!’
For a moment, a wave of such raw fury gripped her that she forgot to breathe. And it wasn’t just because of the way he’d rebuffed her proposal. It was all the years and years of rejection that had come before. Which brought on a wave of pain so intense it made her throat close up.
And then she went light-headed.
Then the fear of fainting away and humiliating herself in front of all these sophisticated people, just because Edmund had walked in, got her breathing again. And firming her knees and her spine. And schooling her features into an expression of what she hoped would pass for indifference.
She was only just in time, too. He’d been looking idly round the room, but his cool grey gaze snagged on her in recognition. And then, as if it wasn’t enough that he was actually here, his lip curled in distaste as he raked her from head to toe.
He couldn’t have hurt her worse if he’d slapped her. Come to think of it, he couldn’t have hurt her at all if he’d tried anything like that. She’d have had her guard up and deflected the blow.
A reflection that served to turn the knife in the wound. For he’d been the one to teach her how to defend herself, and, remembering how close they’d been once only made her more painfully aware of how far apart they were now.
Oh, Lord, why did he have to be here tonight, when she was wearing a gown that made her feel like a...a trollop?
Trollop. The accusation rang in her ears. It had been Edmund’s housekeeper who’d first used that word to condemn her behaviour, when she’d found her in his sickroom, that day she’d spent collecting all those butterflies to cheer him up. Which had been the last time she’d ever managed to sneak into his house. Nobody else had ever called her that name again, but whenever she’d heard anyone else called a trollop, in connection with some scandalous behaviour, it had felt as though they were raking their nails across her skin.
Now, the way he was looking at her made her wonder if he’d thought it all along.
She gasped.
Was that why he hadn’t written to her, even though he’d said he would? Had someone persuaded him, between their exchange of notes and his arrival in the Scilly Isles, that he’d do better to cut the connection? She’d always just thought he’d forgotten all about her once he’d left the country, that he had found more interesting companions, but...it might explain everything. It would certainly explain the way he’d behaved when he’d come home. Instead of going straight to their usual meeting place by the stream, or tucking a note between the loose stones by his gate post to explain why he wasn’t coming, he’d completely ignored her.
Stepmama
