The explanation had made so much sense it had made him feel like the world’s biggest fool. He should already have learned, from the example of his parents, that men and women never said what they really meant, but only what they hoped would get them out of hot water. But it had been Georgie’s casually broken promise that had made him vow never to trust another person so much that he became that vulnerable, ever again.
And until he’d gone to the stream in answer to her summons, he had kept that vow.
He got to his feet abruptly, waving permission to the hovering footmen to clear the table. There was no clarity of thought to be found in port. What he needed was a good night’s sleep. But he was not likely to get it, not with his head still so full of Georgiana.
So he went to his study, sat down at his desk and out of habit when first considering a complex problem, drew out a fresh sheet of paper and trimmed his pen. But what to write, when it came to Miss Georgiana Wickford?
Why is she angry? he wrote. As though he’d betrayed her, not the other way round. What could possibly make her think that? He hadn’t chosen to leave. To leave her alone. So it couldn’t be that. But...
He closed his eyes, and concentrated. And another inconsistency popped up.
If she was so angry with him, why had she asked him to marry her?
It made no sense.
Especially not when she’d told him she’d almost expected him to wriggle off the hook.
From where, he wondered indignantly, had she acquired such a low opinion of him? He was a man who kept his word. Why, he’d even gone to the stream, in answer to her summons, because of a promise he’d made when he’d been too young to know any better. Even though she’d broken hers to him.
Angrily, he scratched another question mark. And put the matter aside. Because all he was doing, by concentrating on Georgiana, was getting even more angry than when he was trying not to think about her at all.
* * *
The next day, during the hours when he was supposed to be going over the accounts, his mind wandered to Georgiana’s peculiar view of what a London Season would be like. And he got a vivid flash of himself, as a bewildered youth, being put on a coach and shipped off to St Mary’s.
He leaned back and twirled his pen between his ink-stained fingers. She was clearly as scared as he’d been back then, about going to what was, to her, a foreign country. He seemed to recall that he’d even had the odd notion that he was being sent into exile, for some crime he hadn’t been aware he’d committed.
That same fear might explain why she had acted so irrationally and said so many other things that made no sense. Perhaps all she needed was reassurance. Perhaps he would not feel so guilty about not being able to accede to her ridiculous demand she marry him, if he could explain that, for him, going to the Scilly Isles had turned out to be the best thing that had happened to him. Once he’d stopped bewailing her betrayal, that was. Dr Scholes had encouraged him in all his studies, even going so far as helping him catalogue the incredible variety of moths to be found on the Isles at various times of the year. He’d encouraged him to row, regularly, which had improved his physique to no end. He’d allowed him to mix with the locals, too.
There, that was something he could do. Encourage her to look upon her London Season as an opportunity, rather than a form of torture.
Because he couldn’t leave things as they were. His conscience wouldn’t permit it, no matter how often he told it to be silent. It kept reminding him that he’d made a promise. And even though he couldn’t keep that promise in the way she thought she wanted him to, he ought to find some other way to prove he was not the sort of man to wriggle off the hook.
* * *
The next morning, when he was out rowing on the river, he came up with an answer that was so utterly perfect he couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t suggested it to her at once.
There were men who, for various reasons, did seek out the kind of marriage she’d asked him to contemplate. He couldn’t actually foresee that much difficulty in arranging such a match, if she was so sure that was what she wanted.
There. That was something constructive he could do. He could suggest she look, in London, for the kind of man who did want a paper marriage. Perhaps even offer to discreetly put out feelers to that end.
And then, once Georgie’s future was settled, maybe he’d be able to get a decent night’s sleep again.
* * *
Later that day, therefore, he sent for his carriage, heaved Lion up on to the seat beside him and set off for Six Chimneys. Lion had been a great help during their last interview. More than once, the old dog had inadvertently diffused the tension building between the two humans.
Besides which, Lion had enjoyed seeing her and she’d enjoyed seeing him.
It was the only thing about her, apparently, that hadn’t changed since their childhood—her love of dogs.
As the carriage bowled along the winding lanes that separated Fontenay Court from Six Chimneys, Edmund wondered what could possibly account for the drastic changes between the girl he’d loved and the woman who...irked him so much. Yes, irked him. Because, although she looked like a grown-up version of the girl who’d captivated him, she had none of the spark. Miss Georgiana Wickford was all...cool detachment and elegant deportment.
The very minute he’d left Bartlesham it was as if she’d turned into someone else.
Was there a connection between the two? He’d never really considered that the one might have been connected to the other, but it was most definitely the case that a, he’d left and then b, she’d changed. Apparently overnight.
Well, he’d changed, too. He was no longer the wounded adolescent in the throes of what he’d believed was his first and one true love. Even if he had behaved like one down by the stream, by grabbing her and shouting at her, and sending her away in tears.
Today, he was a rational, adult male who was in full control of himself.
And he wasn’t going to let her reduce him to...that state, again.
He gave the Tudor manor house a keen perusal as Benson drew the carriage up by the front gate. He’d never actually visited before. As a boy, he reflected ruefully as he lifted Lion down and strolled the few steps from the carriage to the front door, he’d rarely left the estate except for church on Sundays. As a man, he’d spent as little time as possible in Bartlesham, and—he paused with one booted foot on the front step—he rarely left the estate then, either. He stayed at Fontenay Court only long enough to attend to any urgent estate business, then retreated to London.
He raised the knocker and let it drop. After only the briefest pause, the door was opened by a ruddy-faced housemaid who was completely unfamiliar to him.
‘If you would please to come this way, your lordship,’ she said, bobbing a curtsy, ‘Mr Wickford will receive you in the parlour.’
He blinked. For two reasons. Firstly, though he was sure he’d never clapped eyes on the woman before, she clearly knew exactly who he was. Did he spend so little time down here that he no longer knew who inhabited the place? Georgiana had accused him of being ignorant of things he ought to have known.
It was definitely time to remedy that. The next time he came down here, he would devote at least one day to do a little mingling with the locals. Which would not only enable him to keep abreast of local news, but also convince his tenants that he intended to be an effective, efficient landlord.
Secondly, Mr Wickford? Whenever anyone said that name, he immediately thought of Georgiana’s father. The rather shabby, sporting-mad squire of Bartlesham, who always seemed to have a pack of dogs tumbling round his feet.
He and Lion followed the maid across the hall and into a small, sunlit room, where a short, fair-haired man, who had a vague look of Georgie’s father about his jawline, was standing.