Miss Durant, the girl in question was laughing at her.
‘You?’ She scanned the stupid mass of curls clustering round Georgiana’s face, the frills and flounces abounding on her fashionable gown and the dainty slippers on her feet.
‘Yes, me,’ protested Georgiana hotly. ‘I might be dressed up like a Christmas goose, fattened for market, but that is only because she is determined to get me off her hands.’
‘I’ve had stepmothers like that, too,’ said Miss Durant with a twist to her lips. ‘Trying to make you into a lady. Strapping you into corsets and swathing you in muslin so flimsy you can hardly go for a decent walk let alone—’
‘Climb a tree,’ Georgiana finished for her.
They sighed, in unison.
‘Do you hate London as much as I do?’ Miss Durant asked.
‘Probably more. At least nobody is trying to make you get married.’
‘No, I shall be spared that for a few years yet,’ Miss Durant agreed. ‘But in the meantime, what is a girl supposed to do? I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad if I could get out for a decent ride, but ladies aren’t allowed to go out without a groom—’
‘Or have a really good gallop.’
‘No. I say, though, does that mean you ride?’
‘Well, I would if I could, only...’
Something must have shown on her face as she silently mourned the loss of Whitesocks, because Miss Durant’s own puckered in concern.
‘What is it? Did they make you leave your favourite hack behind?’
‘Worse. He had to be sold. We are—oh, dear, I’m not supposed to admit this...’
‘Under the hatches?’
‘Oh, no. It’s not as bad as that. It’s just that Stepmama wants people to believe...that is—’ She broke off, aghast at how close she’d come to confiding their financial circumstances to a virtual stranger.
‘Well, never mind that,’ said Miss Durant brusquely. ‘What concerns me is—’ Now it was her turn to break off mid-sentence. And her eyes darted about rapidly, just as though she was scanning several options. ‘Yes, I have it. The perfect solution to both our difficulties. You see she—’ she jerked her head in Lady Havelock’s direction ‘—is always saying I cannot go out riding without a suitable escort. And she cannot ride herself, even if she wasn’t in a condition I’m not supposed to mention—though I cannot think why, since it’s common knowledge she’s breeding.’ She paused to draw breath. ‘And you don’t have a horse in Town, so this will really make me look good, too.’
‘What will?’
‘Why, you will be my suitable escort, of course. I can come round for you first thing, with my spare hack, and a groom, of course.’ She pulled a face. ‘Cannot shake the fellow off, but I suppose it’s probably for the best, the way London beaus carry on if they catch a female on their own.’
‘Even in a drawing room,’ Georgiana agreed bitterly.
‘Exactly. Groom welcome, then. Pistols optional.’
‘I haven’t got a pistol any longer.’ Georgiana sighed, shaking her head. ‘Have you?’
Miss Durant grinned. ‘No, but I’m going to ask Gregory to buy me one. And to teach me to shoot it. And, oh, I say, we could practise together!’
‘I should love that,’ said Georgiana wistfully. ‘Only—’ She darted another guilty glance at her stepmother.
Miss Durant wrinkled her nose. ‘I cannot think why some females are so stupid about that sort of thing. Why shouldn’t we learn to shoot? It’s not as if we are planning to turn to a life of crime, is it?’
‘No, but—’ Georgiana clapped her hand to her mouth.
‘What?’
‘I was just imagining lying in wait, behind some bushes, and leaping out upon...someone.’
‘One of your dastardly suitors? Or, no, even better,’ said Miss Durant, getting into the spirit of things, ‘some drunken bucks. Staggering home at dawn from White’s, or Boodles. Lawks! Only think of what the newspapers would make of that. Footpads in petticoats.’
‘No, no,’ Georgiana protested. ‘You said we were going out on horseback. We’d have to be h-highwaymen in p-petticoats.’
At which point they both collapsed in giggles.
Which made Lady Havelock rise from her sofa and come across the room.
‘I am glad to see you girls getting on so well,’ she said. ‘What are you two finding so amusing?’
‘Miss Wickford was just suggesting...’ Miss Durant began with an impish gleam in her eye which made Georgiana hold her breath. ‘That is, I thought,’ Miss Durant continued, ‘that she might like to come out riding with me some mornings. She hasn’t brought a horse to Town with her. So I could lend her Snowdrop. Oh, do say yes, Mary.’
‘Could you possibly spare your stepdaughter some mornings,’ said Lady Havelock, turning to Stepmama with a winsome smile, ‘to accompany this hoyden for a ride in the park? I am afraid that Julia is finding her stay in Town sadly flat, since I am unable to take her out riding. Lord Havelock and I really would be most terribly grateful if you would say yes.’
Georgiana held her breath. She couldn’t see Stepmama refusing Lady Havelock’s request that she become intimate with a member of such an exalted family. Not as long as Miss Durant said nothing about the pistol shooting. Which was a very real danger, considering how rash the girl appeared to be about voicing her opinion.
‘Georgiana would love that, would you not, my dear? Although...’ Stepmama twisted her hands together ‘...I do not like to sound overprotective, but...and of course I do not mean to sound stuffy, either, but you will provide a groom to attend the girls, won’t you?’
‘Of course. Gregory—that is, Lord Havelock—is terribly strict about that sort of thing. Julia is an heiress, you see, so we cannot guard her too carefully.’
Stepmama relaxed into a smile of genuine delight. Not only had she just discovered that Julia Durant was an heiress, but her own insistence on having a groom in attendance had clearly done her no harm in Lady Havelock’s estimation.
‘Well,’ she said, as soon the last of their morning callers had gone, ‘isn’t it a good thing you have your riding habit with you? Even though we couldn’t afford to stable a horse in London?’
Georgiana bit back the retort that she no longer had a horse to stable anywhere. And that the only reason she had her riding habit was because they’d had to pack all their possessions and remove them from Six Chimneys when her father’s cousin had moved in.
She was not going to say, or do, anything that might induce Stepmama to change her mind about permitting her to go out on horseback. Nor give her cause to suspect she might be taking up an activity of which she disapproved so strongly that she’d
