cousin, Mr Wickford.’
‘Serves you right,’ she said, as if she was twelve again. ‘Did you also meet Mrs Wickford?’
‘No. She was upstairs, attempting to make herself presentable.’
‘You had a narrow escape. Though a meeting with Mrs Wickford is exactly what you deserve for—’ She pulled herself up short. For a moment, there, she’d started speaking to him as freely as she’d done when they’d been children. As if she hadn’t worked so hard to acquire the manners of a lady. As if all the slights and betrayals had never taken place.
But they had. Besides, he was the Earl of Ashenden now, not her playmate. And she was just a penniless country miss, who ought to know her place and respect her betters, and all the rest of the things Stepmama was constantly reminding her of.
‘For letting you down,’ he finished her sentence for her, the way he’d always done when her thoughts had become too tangled for her to get them out sensibly. ‘For which I apologise. I told you, once, that you might apply to me should you ever find yourself in need of my help—’
She gasped. She’d thought he’d resented making that promise. That he would do anything to wriggle out of it. And yet now that he’d had time to reflect, it seemed he regretted not being able to do the one thing she’d requested. As though keeping his word was still important to him.
Even if she wasn’t.
‘And the very first time you asked me for anything,’ he was continuing, ‘I let you down. Not,’ he went on hastily, ‘that I have any intention of acceding to your ridiculous proposal of marriage.’
‘Naturally not.’ It had always been a long shot. Her last, desperate attempt to salvage something from the wreckage left in the wake of her father’s demise.
But did he have to look so relieved she’d now said as much?
‘But there are other ways I could keep my promise to...to be your friend, I am sure. Other ways I can repay the debt I owe you.’
‘Debt? What debt?’
‘Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it is not that I owe you anything.’ He paused, frowning slightly, the way he always did when marshalling his arguments. ‘Perhaps it is more accurate to say that I am determined not to break my vow.’
She flinched. Just as she’d thought. It wasn’t she that mattered, but his own honour.
‘Yes, well,’ she said, ‘it is a little late now.’
‘Far from it. There is a great deal I can do, short of actually marrying you.’
Did he have to keep on reminding her that he had no intention of marrying her? He’d made it plain enough already. She wasn’t stupid!
‘There is nothing you can do now,’ she hissed like a kettle coming to the boil, ‘that will make anything right. You cannot get back Whitesocks.’ She poked him in the chest with her forefinger. ‘Or my dowry.’ She poked him again. ‘Or my home.’ He grabbed her hand before she managed to get a third dig into his chest, so that for a moment, anyone looking at them would have thought they were holding hands.
‘Your dowry is gone?’ Something flickered across his face. ‘That is how she could afford the court presentation, I suppose.’
Edmund always had been quick on the uptake. Her father might have despised him for not being keen on what he’d deemed manly pursuits, but even he’d conceded Edmund had a mind like a steel trap. So, because he was sure to work it all out for himself eventually, she didn’t see any point in trying to conceal anything from him now. ‘Stepmama is determined Sukey will marry a viscount, at the very least. Which means we need to be able to dance at ton events. Hence the court presentation.’
She wrenched her hand free. ‘This entire Season has been planned out with the efficiency of a military campaign.’
His eyes flicked once more across the immense expanse of bosom left on show by her scanty evening gown. ‘So,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘rather than don armour, you have decided to use what weapons you possess.’
‘I would say that it is more a case of setting out the wares,’ she countered through gritted teeth. ‘I feel like a...’ She sucked in a sharp breath. She could only think of one horrid, vulgar word to describe how she felt.
‘You look magnificent,’ he said.
‘What? That wasn’t what you said when you first came over here.’ She searched his face for signs of mockery, but could detect only what looked very much like sympathy.
‘I...’ He paused, his lips thinning in annoyance. ‘I forgot, when I first saw you tonight, that you have little choice in what you wear,’ he admitted. ‘This is one of the things you were dreading about the Season, wasn’t it? Being paraded about like a prize heifer at market.’
Bother him, now he’d made her want to cry. Because he’d remembered what she’d said to him, practically word for word. And believed her, unquestioningly.
But before she could do anything so weak as to break down or as foolish as to fling herself on to his chest, Stepmama rose from the card table and headed in their direction with a martial gleam in her eye. Which made Georgiana lift her chin and stiffen her spine, thank goodness.
Just in the nick of time.
‘Lord Ashenden? Why, what a surprise,’ Stepmama cooed. ‘I had no notion that you were a friend of Lord and Lady Havelock.’
‘Why should you?’
Georgiana almost shivered at the chill in his voice. It was as if the Edmund she’d started to become comfortable with again had vanished. In his place stood Lord Ashenden. And she could easily imagine him delivering the kind of remark that had fallen from the lips of Lord Lensborough, earlier. The kind of remark designed to cut down a vulgar interloper and remind her that though she might have wheedled her way inside a house belonging to a member of the Quality, she had absolutely none herself.
Instead, his frosty expression thawed, even though it was only by about half a degree.
‘I have a passing acquaintance with Lord and Lady Chepstow, too,’ he said. ‘Have you met them?’
‘Oh, yes, she is a most charming woman,’ Stepmama gushed.
‘Lady,’ he corrected her.
‘Yes, that is what I meant, of course.’
‘She is also extremely intelligent,’ he said, enigmatically. ‘She was working as a governess, you know, when Chepstow decided to marry her.’
‘Indeed?’ For a moment, Stepmama faltered, unsure of where the conversation was headed. Georgiana could barely prevent herself from kicking him. He was deliberately toying with Stepmama. At least Lord Lensborough’s derision had been obvious, though delivered with brutal swiftness.
‘I heard,’ Stepmama was saying, ‘that they had known each other almost all their lives, that she attended the same school as his sister.’
‘That may be correct,’ he acknowledged. ‘In any case, I find it admirable that she was using the talents God gave her to make her own way in the world.’
‘Oh, yes, most admirable,’ said Stepmama with enthusiasm, though she couldn’t possibly have any idea what she was being so enthusiastic about.
‘Are you hinting,’ said Georgiana, taking pity on her stepmother, ‘that I would be better to go out and work for my living, than attempt to get a husband, my lord?’ Was that what he’d meant about keeping his promise to help her? Since he knew how reluctant she was to marry, was he going to use his influence, and his connections, to help her find paid employment instead?
‘Oh, merciful heavens, how can you say anything so absurd?’ cried Stepmama, rapping her over the wrist with her fan. Quite hard.
‘Is it so