enough to intervene. He very rarely visited Fontenay Court and when he did, he’d seldom done more than cast a jaded eye over his only surviving child, and perhaps taken a pinch of snuff, before ‘toddling off’ back to London, or the races, or whatever house party would provide him with the most ‘sport’.
Edmund went to the desk, sat down and laced his fingers together on the blotter as his memories carried him back to the winter he’d almost died. Or so his mother had always maintained. She’d kept him not only indoors, but in bed for what had felt like months on end. Even when spring sunshine had started to lengthen the days, he hadn’t been permitted out of that room. She’d come to inspect him every morning, wrung her hands and then, like as not, launched into one of her diatribes against his father.
‘You’d think he’d care that his heir is wasting away—but, no! Too lazy even to bother to reply to any of my letters, let alone actually tear himself away from his latest lover.’
A shuddering breath escaped him. His father hadn’t cared enough to visit him, even when his mother had written to inform him his only son and heir was at death’s door. But he couldn’t say that his mother’s obsession with keeping him alive at all costs stemmed from maternal love. She just couldn’t bear the thought of having to do her duty by a man she’d come to heartily detest. She’d blurted out that little gem whilst in the throes of yet another rant about his father’s failings, apparently forgetting that her audience was a product of doing that very distasteful duty.
Nobody had cared about him, not really him, rather what he represented.
Except Georgiana.
She’d been the only one to care enough to flout his mother’s embargo on visitors. And she’d done it by climbing up the drainpipe at the corner of the house and inching along the crumbling brickwork to his window.
The very last time she’d managed to get in to see him, she’d done it with half-a-dozen jam jars strung round her neck. Jars that had been full of the butterflies she’d spent all day collecting. For him.
‘I wanted to bring you something to cheer you up,’ she’d said with that impish grin of hers as he’d hauled her in over the windowsill. ‘It’s such a lovely day and it must be rotten being stuck indoors when all the world’s bursting into life out there.’
She had certainly been bursting with life. There had been bits of twigs and moss caught in the cap of black curls that crowned her head. Her nose had been sunburnt, her arms and legs scratched from briars and mottled where nettles had stung her.
‘I know how interested you are in all sorts of bugs,’ she said, her dark eyes turning serious. ‘So I thought of bringing you some beetles to add to your collection. Only then I thought I’d be bound to bring the wrong ones. Ones you’d already got, like as not. But then I thought these would be better. And anyway, they’re more cheerful, aren’t they?’ And then she’d grabbed his hand and drawn him over to his bed.
That was probably the moment he’d fallen in love with her, he reflected gloomily. Because he’d been convinced she was the only person in the world who not only cared about him, but really understood him, too.
‘Close the bed hangings,’ she’d said as she clambered up and unhooked the jam-jar strings from her neck. And he’d obeyed her command, meek as a lamb. He’d have done anything she asked of him, back then. Anything.
‘I’m going to perform an experiment,’ she’d said. And then tilted her head to one side, the way she did that put him in mind of a cheeky little robin. ‘No, actually, it isn’t an experiment. You’re the one who does experiments. And anyway, I’m not trying to prove anything. It’s...more of a sort of show for you.’ And then she’d shaken out the jars. And the gloom of his closed-up bed was transformed into something utterly magical as dozens and dozens of butterflies had fluttered up into the air, their wings flashing copper, and blue and white and orange.
He sighed and bowed his head against the memories. He owed it to that girl to see what she wanted of him. Even though she no longer existed except in his memory. Even though he heartily disliked the woman she’d become, that didn’t detract from the fact that he’d made her a promise. That very day. While she’d still held his heart in her rather grubby little fist.
‘If you ever need anything, Georgie,’ he’d vowed from the depths of his sixteen-year-old heart, ‘you know you have only to ask, don’t you? Oh, I know there isn’t much I can do for you now, but one day I’ll be the Earl of Ashenden and then I’ll be powerful. And whatever you need, I’ll be able to get it for you.’
She’d laughed. Making his cheeks heat, though at least it had been too gloomy within the tent of his bed for her to notice.
‘Just be my friend, Edmund, that’s all I need.’
‘I will, I will...’ he’d breathed. ‘Always.’
He stood up abruptly and, grim-faced, strode to the door.
He was the Earl of Ashenden now, he reminded himself. Going to their meeting place, in response to her request, did not mean he’d become a weak and green youth again, an idiot who’d do anything in return for one of her sunny smiles. He’d long since grown immune to women’s wiles. So he had nothing to fear from going to meet her. On the contrary. She was the one who needed to beware. If she wanted him to help her, she was going to have to answer a few questions first.
He paused, his hand on the doorknob. Frowned. Actually, interrogating her over something that had taken place ten years earlier would be an admission that he cared. That he still hurt.
And he didn’t.
He was over her.
Completely.
He was only going to meet her because of the sweet memories he cherished of the girl she’d once been. And because of the vow he’d made.
It was a matter of honour. She was finally calling in the debt he owed her and, once he’d done whatever it was she was about to ask of him, they’d be quits.
And he’d be free of her.
* * *
Where was he? Georgiana paced along the bank of the trout stream, the train of her salmon-pink velvet riding habit looped over one arm, swishing at the dried-up reeds with her riding crop in frustration. Four days since she’d smuggled her note into the pile of his letters waiting for collection from the receiving office in Bartlesham. And every day since, she’d been here, at their stream, at first light.
He must have read it by now.
Which meant she had her answer. He wasn’t coming.
She didn’t know why she’d ever thought he might. She was such an idiot. When was she ever going to accept that Stepmama was right? Men like the Earl of Ashenden didn’t make friends with people of her class. Let alone women of her class. He’d tolerated her when he’d been a boy, that was all, because he hadn’t had any other playmates.
She sank down on to the log, their log, where they’d spent so many hours fishing and talking. At least, he’d fished, she reflected glumly, and she’d talked. She’d chattered, actually, like a little magpie while he’d listened, or pretended to listen, with his eyes fixed firmly on the fishing line. She leaned her chin on her fist, gazing unseeingly at the gravel bed beneath the rippling water that made this part of the stream such a good spot for
