Susan? Good God, no! She has a tongue like a—’ He’d only just managed to pull himself up before saying something he would have regretted. ‘That is,’ he temporised, ‘I have no intention of marrying anyone. For some considerable time. I simply wish to ensure that Georgie has the chance to meet the kind of gentleman she might like to marry.’
‘Georgie? You call her by her given name?’
‘What does she look like?’
The pair of them had been grinning like schoolboys at his discomfiture. But at least he could tell they were both considering helping him. So, instead of getting up and stalking out, he’d swallowed his pride and given them some pertinent details.
‘Her name is Georgiana Wickford,’ he’d therefore told them. ‘She is tall, and...robust, with black hair and brown eyes. Her stepmother is Mrs Wickford and her stepsister is Susan Mead, though she’s normally known as Sukey.’
‘No—what, Sukey and Georgiana?’ Havelock had sat up straight. ‘Mary came back from visiting her cousins the other day saying she’d met some girls just up from the country by those very names. I wonder if it could be them...’
It had sounded too good to be true. And yet, after further investigation, Havelock had confirmed that Mrs Wickford had rented a house just off Bloomsbury Square and that her daughter and stepdaughter had already become friends with his wife’s cousins who lived nearby.
‘Doesn’t sound as though they need any help from you finding husbands, though,’ he’d said. ‘They’ve been presented at court.’
‘Already?’ He wondered how Mrs Wickford had managed it. He wondered what it had cost. And why Georgiana had made it sound as though she was about to live in penury for the rest of her life.
‘Tell you what,’ Havelock had said. ‘Why don’t I ask Mary if she’ll send them invitations to a little card party and supper she’s planning?’
‘You would really do that?’
‘Yes. For I cannot wait to see the woman who’s got you so hot under the collar.’
‘She does not have me hot under the collar, as you put it,’ he’d retorted.
‘Ashe, you went pink when we were discussing her. You very nearly raised your voice. That’s as near to getting hot under the collar as I’ve ever seen you.’ Havelock had laughed, slapping him on the back.
He certainly felt a little hot under the collar now. Because, in a minute or two, he was going to see her. Would probably have to stick to a topic of conversation suitable for a polite drawing room, when what he really wanted to do was discuss the conclusions he’d reached since their last meeting. And all the questions that had arisen since, about her finances, her ambitions, her motives, her prospects...
He paused in the open doorway of a large reception room, scanning its occupants for a sight of her face. And couldn’t help recalling that face as he’d last seen it, streaked with tears. Because he’d made her cry. Which was something else he needed to explain. That he hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t realised that a few words designed to cut her down to size would have cut her down completely. Had never dreamed anything he’d said could have had any effect upon her at all, come to that.
But it was Lord Havelock he saw first. He was hovering over the back of a sofa upon which his wife was sitting, deep in conversation with Lady Chepstow. Chepstow himself was sitting on the floor, for goodness sake, gazing up at the woman he’d snatched from her employers during a Christmas house party and subsequently married, with a fatuous expression on his face.
‘Would you care for some wine, sir?’ Yet another smartly dressed footman stepped forward, a tray of glasses held in his hand. Edmund took just one. And congratulated himself on his self-control.
‘You will find a cold collation laid out upon the pianoforte, my lord,’ said the footman, waving to a second room, visible through a set of double doors which stood open.
‘The pianoforte,’ he repeated, eyeing the instrument over which a cloth had been draped ‘Of course.’
‘Her ladyship is quite determined that there is to be no dancing tonight,’ said the footman, with just a trace of a smile tugging at his lips. ‘Though you will find card tables, should you prefer to play, rather than merely converse with the other guests.’
Edmund would never prefer wasting his time in a trivial game when he could be conversing with someone of interest. However, it was not the footman’s fault that he was serving refreshments at the kind of gathering where gentlemen sat on the floor gazing up at their wives and pianos were put into service as tea tables.
So he nodded his acceptance of the boundaries set for the evening’s ‘entertainment’ and stepped fully into the room.
And then he saw her. And something that felt rather like cold rage started burning in his gut. Because she looked...he swallowed. If it had been any other woman, he would have said she looked stunning. Luscious. Her hair was different. She’d had it cut and styled so that wisps curled round her face. But it was her gown that really stunned him. What little there was of it.
Not only did it plunge low at the front, but the tiny little scraps of material masquerading as sleeves did not even cover her shoulders. It made the whole top half of her gown look as though, at any moment, it might slip from her altogether, revealing the figure to which it was clinging so precariously.
To every man in the room.
For a few moments he stood completely still, grappling with the urge to whip off his jacket, march across the room, and fling it round her shoulders. How could she...flaunt herself in that...tawdry excuse for a gown? After saying she couldn’t bear the thought of men...pawing her, that the only kind of marriage she could tolerate would be a platonic one, she was standing there with everything on display, practically begging every man in the room to...lean in and grab a handful.
He downed his drink in one go and slammed the empty glass down on the nearest horizontal surface. Hang offering her his coat to cover herself up. He was going to give her a piece of his mind.
If this was what tonnish people called a ‘small, informal gathering’, then Georgiana shuddered to think what a large one would be like. Since she’d been here, more than fifty couples had wandered in, shaken hands with Lord Havelock, been presented to his wife, taken a glass of wine and ambled out again. They had included a baronet, a viscount and a marquis.
Stepmama had been disappointed in the viscount, since he’d brought a wife with him. But when she’d seen the marquis come in alone and learned he was as yet unmarried, she’d been so excited it was a wonder she hadn’t danced a jig on the spot.
Georgiana had cringed at Stepmama’s attempts to attract his notice and push him in Sukey’s direction, and then winced at Lord Lensborough’s distinctly frosty dismissal.
Her one consolation was that Sukey hadn’t flung herself at him. Far from it. She’d made a beeline for Mrs Pargetter’s daughters, Dotty and Lotty, and stayed glued to them, whether they strolled to the end of the room to select a plate of refreshments, or sat on a sofa to giggle and gossip. Georgiana had no interest in their sort of chatter, and anyway, the sofa on which they’d eventually settled could only just contain the three of them. So she’d made the excuse of needing to visit the retiring room and slipped away from them all.
She’d stayed there as long as she could. It had been so horrid, being in a room full of people who all knew each other, and who had all quickly pegged Stepmama for the kind of woman who would stop at nothing to see her daughters married off.
If only she wouldn’t be so...obvious.
Eventually, Georgiana knew she could not stay in the retiring room any longer, or Stepmama would be sending someone to find out if she’d fallen ill. She looked