given her—as though he was disappointed in her. It hadn’t been any such thing. It had been guilt. He had been trying to correct a fault for which he felt responsible...
No wonder he had turned away whenever Stepmama got out the cane. No wonder he had been unable to look her in the eye.
He hadn’t been ashamed of her. Disappointed in her.
He’d been ashamed of himself.
Edmund slid his arm round her shoulder as though he knew how hard she was struggling not to weep. She turned her face gratefully into his shoulder. For all these years, she’d thought first Edmund, and then her father, had turned against her. But it hadn’t been the case at all.
It had all been Lady Ashenden’s work.
‘Why did she do it?’ Once she’d regained control of herself, she lifted her face to Edmund’s and looked beseechingly into his eyes. ‘Why go to such lengths to make us hate each other?’
‘She wanted to make sure the split was permanent.’
Georgie frowned, her confusion only growing. ‘But...why?’
He sighed. ‘She didn’t want me to have to marry you.’
Her confusion only grew. ‘Marry you? Then? But...we were children. Far too young to be thinking of marriage.’
‘Juliet was only fourteen when she conceived her fatal passion for Romeo, I believe,’ he said. ‘When Mrs Bulstrode told her how she’d found us together, I dare say she thought you were more precocious than that hot-blooded Italian. And took steps to prevent me from succumbing to your charms.’
‘My charms? Succumbing? You?’
‘Well, I think that is quite enough of that,’ said Stepmama, who had clearly regained control of her equilibrium. ‘Put Lord Ashenden down, Georgie, there’s a good girl,’ she said firmly.
And because she was in the habit of obeying her stepmother, Georgie, who’d been clinging to him like a limpet, forced herself to do so.
‘And now, my lord,’ she said, going to the door and opening it, ‘if you would care to take tea before you leave, while we discuss the legalities?’
It was framed as a question only out of deference to his rank. What Stepmama was really doing was ordering him out of her room.
‘Leave? No, Edmund...’ She reached for his hand. He couldn’t leave, not as things were. It was all very well to have cleared up the misunderstandings that had blighted their childhood friendship, but if he left it like this, they would end up married. When it was the last thing he wanted.
But Edmund evaded her questing fingers and stood up. ‘Your stepmother is correct. The mode of our betrothal has been unorthodox enough to cause gossip. I shall not subject you to more by doing anything likely to tarnish your reputation further.’
Unorthodox? What an understatement. If Stepmama hadn’t blundered in, or if she hadn’t set up such a screech that it had brought the servants running, there wouldn’t be a betrothal.
But now that Edmund had pointed out the advantages such a marriage would mean for Sukey, Stepmama wouldn’t rest until she’d seen the notice in the Morning Post.
‘No, Edmund, there must be some other way to straighten out this mess.’
He turned to her, his face grim. ‘You regard being betrothed to me in the light of a misfortune?’
‘Of course it is!’ He’d turned her down when she’d all but begged him to save her from having to come to London and go through a Season. Since then, he’d done all he could to teach her how to handle suitors, including getting her to itemise the things that would make some other man bearable as a husband.
Some other man.
‘You know it is!’
He gave an elegant shrug of his shoulders. ‘Nevertheless, we will marry. We have been caught in a compromising position and this is the only way to salvage your reputation, and ensure that Sukey’s remains untarnished. You had better,’ he said, striding to the door, ‘accustom yourself.’
And with that Parthian shot, he stalked out, Stepmama hard on his heels.
Edmund waited until the notice of his forthcoming marriage to Miss Georgiana Wickford appeared in print before calling upon her again. He wasn’t going to give her any opportunity to wriggle free now he’d got her hooked.
Besides which, it turned out that arranging a wedding at short notice required a great many hours of work.
However, he did want to speak to Georgie before the ceremony. He didn’t want her walking up the aisle fearing he had the slightest reluctance to marry her. She had such an expressive face that every member of the congregation would wonder what was amiss. And would start inventing stories that bore no relation to the truth, but would be accepted as gospel simply because the inventor had attended the wedding.
It was a great pity, he mused as he mounted the front steps of her house, three days after he’d invaded her bedroom, that eloping was regarded as being scandalous behaviour. He’d much rather whisk Georgie away and marry her in private.
But on that point both his mother and her stepmother were in accord. Nothing would do for either of them but the biggest, most extravagant wedding that could be arranged in the short time he’d agreed to wait to make Georgie his wife.
‘Good morning, my lord,’ said Wiggins with an avuncular smile as he opened the door. ‘The ladies are all in the drawing room this morning,’ he continued, taking Edmund’s coat, hat, and gloves. ‘I take it you do not require my escort upstairs?’ And then, to his astonishment, the fellow winked.
‘No,’ he said tersely. ‘There is no need.’ He might have imagined it, but he could have sworn the fellow was chuckling as he sauntered off with Edmund’s things.
He mounted the stairs, cursing over-familiar servants under his breath. And was still frowning when he entered the drawing room.
Georgie’s stepmother and stepsister both leaped to their feet and greeted him effusively. Predictably, Georgie sent him a troubled, guilty look before lowering her gaze to a tangle of needlework that lay in her lap.
‘I was hoping,’ he said, once the initial hubbub occasioned by his arrival had died down, ‘that Miss Wickford would be well enough to take the air with me today. I have—’
‘Of course she is!’ Mrs Wickford cut him short. ‘Run along and put on your coat and bonnet, dear,’ she said to Georgie, who rose to her feet with reluctance.
‘I do hope you will not mind, my lord,’ Mrs Wickford added, archly, as Georgie trailed to the door, ‘but Sukey and I will not be coming with you. We are expecting visitors we do not wish to offend by putting off.’
Georgie’s face flushed.
‘I am sure,’ said her stepmother, when it looked as though
