sabotaged the one chance she might have had at making such a match by warning her stepmother about Lord Freckleton’s proclivities, that’s what. And then, when he’d seen glimpses of the old Georgiana peeping out from behind the curtain of ladylike behaviour, he’d practically dared her to come all the way out, by introducing her to that hoyden Julia Durant. And then, at the museum, telling her outright that’s what he wanted her to do.
He reached the ballroom just as the orchestra was screeching its way to the conclusion of a dance and scanned the couples returning to their seats for a sight of her.
And he saw her. With Eastman. Eastman! Hadn’t his warnings about the libertine been explicit enough? Clearly not, because Eastman was bending over her hand as she sat down and saying something which was making her look uncomfortable.
And her stepmother was smiling up at the scoundrel in an encouraging way, while Georgiana looked as though she was only holding a polite smile on her face with an extreme effort.
Then Eastman sauntered away, in the direction of the card room, leaving Georgiana with her lips pulled tight and shoulders so tense they were practically up by her ears.
He strode over.
‘What did he say to you?’
Georgiana blinked up at him as though in confusion.
‘You know who I mean. Eastman,’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ she replied. Which was obviously untrue.
After he’d continued to glare at her for a second or two, she wilted.
‘Nothing I care to repeat,’ she admitted, lowering her gaze and fiddling with the struts of her fan in a distracted manner.
‘I thought we had agreed you should stay away from him,’ he said.
‘You don’t understand—’
‘Then explain it to me.’
‘He asked me to dance. If I had refused him...’
She didn’t need to say anything else. If she had refused one partner, publicly, she would not have been able to dance with anyone else. He flicked one contemptuous glance at her stepmother. The woman whose job it was to protect her charges from just such a situation by vetoing unsuitable, or unwelcome, men.
‘And he took advantage?’
‘Only to say...something. He didn’t do anything...’
He couldn’t very well. Not on a dance floor. But he could guess what a man like that might have said.
‘I will deal with him,’ he growled. And set off in pursuit.
He caught up with his quarry just outside the card room.
‘Want a word with you,’ he said, just before Eastman went through the door.
‘Me?’ Eastman half-turned to look at Edmund over his shoulder. ‘Cannot imagine what business you would have with me,’ he said, with a hint of disdain.
Edmund ignored the intended insult, since he felt a reciprocal disdain for men like Eastman who frittered their lives away on a variety of trivial, and often immoral, pursuits. Then he stepped a little closer and lowered his voice before speaking again, although it was unlikely anyone could hear any conversation held at a rational level, above the general hubbub emanating from the ballroom. ‘It concerns Miss Wickford.’
‘Oh?’ Eastman’s demeanour underwent a subtle shift. It put Edmund in mind of a hound catching an elusive, yet fascinating scent on the wind. ‘Wasn’t aware you had an interest in the chit.’
If anything could have confirmed his suspicions about the reasons Eastman was pursuing Georgiana, it was his use of such a disrespectful word to describe her. ‘And now you are,’ said Edmund through gritted teeth.
‘Would have thought,’ said Eastman, turning to face him, ‘that her stepsister was more in your style.’
He bit back the retort that immediately sprang to mind, since it was entirely his own fault everyone assumed his tastes ran to diminutive blondes, when every mistress he’d had since attending Oxford had conformed to that type.
‘I have known Miss Wickford since we were children,’ he therefore said, deciding to get right to the nub of the matter.
‘Indeed? She hails from Bartlesham, then? I was not aware.’
‘Yes. Her father was the master of the local hunt.’
‘That would account for it,’ said Eastman, propping himself against the panelling and folding his arms across his chest.
‘Account for what?’ replied Edmund against his better judgement.
‘Her rollicking sort of air. Can just see her riding to hounds. A bruising rider, I’d wager. Eh?’
‘I haven’t come here to discuss her prowess on horseback.’
Eastman laughed. In a distinctly dirty manner.
‘Ashenden, you astonish me,’ he said, reaching into his waistcoat pocket for his snuffbox with a sly grin.
‘I do not—that is, Miss Wickford is—’
‘Makes no difference to me,’ said Eastman casually flicking open the lid.
‘What makes no difference?’
‘Her virginity. Or lack of it,’ he said with a shrug.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Edmund couldn’t believe his ears. Even though this was what he’d suspected all along.
‘No need,’ said Eastman, taking a pinch of snuff between his thumb and forefinger. ‘I don’t mind not being the first. She clearly still has much to offer a man, being so, ah, spirited. I shall look forward to...taming her,’ he finished with an evil smirk. A smirk that Edmund simply had to wipe from his face.
Before he knew it, he’d clenched his fist and lashed out.
And Eastman went down like a felled oak, snuff exploding in all directions as the enamel box went flying.
For a moment, Eastman simply lay there, looking as stunned as Edmund felt.
‘Good God,’ he gasped, lifting a rather shaky hand to his nose, which was bleeding. ‘You knocked me down.’
‘So I did,’ said Edmund, reeling. And not just at the fact he’d just done something so rash, without a moment’s hesitation. Nay, not even so much as a moment’s thought. But the fact that it would mean a duel. Nobody knocked a man like Eastman down and got away with it.
Edmund would choose pistols, he decided. He’d be a fool to fence with a man whose reach was so very much longer than his own. Pistols would make the contest fairer.
Having reached that decision, Edmund felt a surge of anticipation stirring deep within him. It would give him a great deal of satisfaction to blow a hole
