and at the Major for...being the Major. ‘You were smiling at him,’ he found himself growling, rather than saying anything to the point.
She frowned at him in confusion. ‘Who?’
‘Gowan,’ he snapped. ‘While you were dancing.’
‘Why should I not have been smiling at him?’
‘No reason, if you actually liked him. Which I thought not to be the case.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said through a grimace that showed all her teeth in the parody of a smile, ‘beggars cannot be choosers.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well,’ she said, dipping a curtsy as the music began, ‘do you see any other suitors clustering round me?’
He’d seen Freckleton. He would be a much better match for her, in some respects, than the Major. Not that he was ever going to let her find out, he decided as they formed a square and honoured their partners to the diagonal.
‘You have been in Town less than a month,’ he said when they next came close enough for him to say anything without the words being heard by the others in the set. She crooked one eyebrow at him as she turned and went back to her place.
‘You have plenty of time to meet eligible men,’ he said the next time he got the chance.
‘You know very well,’ she said with a brittle smile, ‘that I have no interest in meeting eligible men.’
‘So you intend to marry that great lump of beef then, do you? Oh, this is intolerable.’ One could not hold a rational conversation whilst dancing and this one went on for another three hours. Or at least, that was what it felt like. The moment it ended, he took Georgiana’s hand in a none-too-gentle grip and towed her in the direction of the refreshment room.
‘You are supposed to return me to my stepmother,’ she hissed up at him.
‘After two dances with the Major, and one with me, you are entitled to a drink of lemonade.’
‘Well, yes, I would be, if I wanted one,’ she pointed out.
‘Don’t be facetious. You can see I wish to talk to you. And one cannot hold a sensible conversation whilst capering about like a...like a...cricket.’
‘What,’ she asked as they passed through the doors that led to the refreshment room and took their place in the queue, ‘did you wish to talk to me about?’
He scanned the room for signs of either the Major or Freckleton, but there were none. They’d either gone to the card room, or left altogether. Both of which suited Edmund equally well.
‘Husbands,’ he said grimly. ‘I thought you did not wish to get married, but now you are positively encouraging the first man to show a decided interest in you.’
She shrugged her shoulders. Looked at a point somewhere beyond his left ear. ‘I have to face facts. I am going to have to marry somebody. And since there doesn’t seem to be much difference between one man and the next, I thought I just might as well get it over with as quickly as possible.’
‘Georgie, no.’ He gasped, his stomach roiling at the thought of those meaty great hands getting hold of what they so clearly wanted to grope. Of those blubbery lips slobbering all over her. Her face, her body...
‘No,’ he repeated, more decisively. ‘It is intolerable to think of you in his keeping.’
‘Well, I thought so at first, but then...’ she sighed ‘...upon reflection, I think he might not make a terrible sort of husband.’
‘How can you say that?’ The queue shuffled forward. And there were couples behind them now, as well as in front.
‘Well, he does appear to be a fairly decent sort of man, from what Stepmama has been able to discover. He isn’t terribly clever, but then wouldn’t that be to my advantage?’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, I could... That is he’d be easier to...um...manage than a more intelligent man.’
The expression on his face must have clearly conveyed what he thought of that, because her stubborn chin went up and her eyes flashed defiance.
‘And at least he would understand my need to go riding. I’m sure he’d let me have as many horses as I wanted.’
‘As many as he could afford, you mean, or, to be more precise, his father could afford.’
‘I know he doesn’t have what you would probably call a great deal of money,’ she said defensively, ‘but then I’m used to living fairly simply. And he’s a second son, too. Told me outright that it meant he could marry to please himself, so long as his bride didn’t mind living on his income. Which means he must really like me, mustn’t it? I mean, a lot of younger sons go after fortunes and even he must have realised by now I don’t have two brass farthings to rub together.’
‘That doesn’t mean you have to settle for him,’ he snarled as they reached the table where footmen were ladling out drinks from a variety of cutglass bowls. Edmund procured a glass of cloudy-looking lemonade for her, then took one from a bowl that most of the gentlemen ahead of him seemed to prefer. It was a rather more propitious shade of amber.
‘Have you no higher ambition from a husband than that he would like you tolerably well and would permit you to have a horse?’
She shrugged morosely. ‘You know very well that I don’t wish to marry at all. The whole notion of...’ She shuddered and then took a gulp of her drink, as though to wash away a nasty taste. ‘But I don’t have the luxury of choice. I have to get married, or face...’ She shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know what.’
‘You have no home to go back to, I do know that, now. But surely your father did not leave you unprovided for?’
‘He left it all in Stepmama’s hands, saying she was the most capable person he knew of to handle a girl’s future. And she firmly believes the best way to invest my inheritance is by launching me into society as lavishly as she can, so that I can find a good husband.’
‘To say nothing of her own daughter,’ he snarled.
She shrugged again.
‘That is preposterous,’ he said. ‘There must be something else...’ But of course, there wasn’t. Not for a girl like her. Of good family, but limited education, what could she do but marry well? Now was the time he ought to tell her about men like Freckleton. Men who would agree to a marriage on her terms, because just having her at their side would disguise their true inclinations.
Why on earth had condemning Georgie to such a fate seemed like a good idea, back in Bartlesham?
She was already struggling to be the kind of female her stepmother wanted her to be. Marrying a man who would use her as a sort of smokescreen would mean she’d spend the rest of her life pretending to be someone she was not.
At least Major Gowan appeared to like her enough to actually consider her likes and dislikes. He would attempt to make her as happy as he could, in his bumbling, fumbling
