wanted him to love her. The way she loved him. Had always loved him.
Even as children, he’d been her favourite playmate. He’d been more intelligent, more sensible, more...everything than any other child in the area. It was why she’d been devastated when he’d left and apparently forgotten about her at once. Because she’d feared she hadn’t meant as much to him as he had to her.
And when he’d come back, as a handsome and healthy young man, she’d started loving him in a different way. How could she have denied the way her body had leapt to attention whenever she spied him? Only to curl in on itself when he’d looked down his nose at her, reminding her that he was a lord now and not her playmate. She’d told herself she was glad to see the back of him when he’d gone away to university, after spending only a few weeks in Bartlesham. That she hated him.
But it wasn’t true. Oh, it wasn’t true! It had just been easier on her pride to stomp round in a fury than to curl up somewhere and weep.
And now?
As though he was in tune with her thoughts and didn’t like them, he suddenly turned his head so that they were no longer gazing into each other’s eyes. Let go of her hands.
Then she could hear Sukey giggling over something one of the naval officers was saying.
Her cheeks flooded with heat.
‘We should join the others,’ she said through a throat that was squeezing shut with the force of the emotions roiling through her and marched swiftly across the room, not daring to look back to see if he was following. Because he was so clever, he’d surely see the longing, the inappropriate and unreciprocated longing in her eyes. And he’d start avoiding her again. The way he’d done in Bartlesham. Because he’d just told her he avoided the kind of women who stalked him like some form of matrimonial prey.
So she’d have to convince him she didn’t think of him that way.
At least while he thought she regarded him only as a friend, he’d feel safe keeping her company.
But if he ever guessed how she felt about him, he’d run a mile.
Edmund shifted from one foot to the other as he waited for his turn to hand in his ticket to Lady Chepstow’s charity ball. It was no use telling himself that the cause was a good one. He didn’t give a rap for indigent governesses, or whatever it was tonight’s takings would fund. He just wanted to see Georgie again. Ever since the conversation they’d had at Bullock’s Museum, about the way he’d felt when his mother had sent him into exile, he’d been kicking himself for not bringing up the topic of the intercepted letters.
He’d practically accused her of being too cowardly to grow up, yet he’d balked at bringing the truth out into the open. Out of concern for what the result would have been. He’d stood there, wondering if she’d be angry, or hurt, or, if she’d felt as deeply as he had about it, if she might not even have burst into tears. In the museum, of all places.
So he’d changed the focus of their conversation. Talked to her about the suitors she ought to be attracting, for heaven’s sake. When there were already far too many men hanging round her for his liking. With their tongues hanging out.
He slapped his ticket into the hand of Lady Peters, the gorgon presiding over admittance to Durant House for some reason, and then stalked past, ignoring her speech about the premises tonight’s profits would be used to purchase.
He needed to see Georgie for himself. To...
To do what, exactly, he wasn’t sure. He stomped up the staircase that led to the ballroom, his face rigid with self-disgust. Since the day she’d made that outrageous proposal it felt as if he’d abandoned every principle by which he’d ever lived. He might have come to London with the intention of proving he was the better man, by steering her into the kind of marriage she’d said she wanted, but what had he done instead?
Deliberately sabotaged the one chance she might have had at making such a match by warning her stepmother about Lord Freckleton’s proclivities, that’s what. And then, when he’d seen glimpses of the old Georgiana peeping out from behind the curtain of ladylike behaviour, he’d practically dared her to come all the way out, by introducing her to that hoyden Julia Durant. And then, at the museum, telling her outright that’s what he wanted her to do.
He reached the ballroom just as the orchestra was screeching its way to the conclusion of a dance and scanned the couples returning to their seats for a sight of her.
And he saw her. With Eastman. Eastman! Hadn’t his warnings about the libertine been explicit enough? Clearly not, because Eastman was bending over her hand as she sat down and saying something which was making her look uncomfortable.
And her stepmother was smiling up at the scoundrel in an encouraging way, while Georgiana looked as though she was only holding a polite smile on her face with an extreme effort.
Then Eastman sauntered away, in the direction of the card room, leaving Georgiana with her lips pulled tight and shoulders so tense they were practically up by her ears.
He strode over.
‘What did he say to you?’
Georgiana blinked up at him as though in confusion.
‘You know who I mean. Eastman,’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ she replied. Which was obviously untrue.
After he’d continued to glare at her for a second or two, she wilted.
‘Nothing I care to repeat,’ she admitted, lowering her gaze and fiddling with the struts of her fan in a distracted manner.
‘I thought we had agreed you should stay away from him,’ he said.
‘You don’t understand—’
‘Then explain it to me.’
‘He asked me to dance. If I had refused him...’
She didn’t need to say anything else. If she had refused one partner, publicly, she would not have been able to dance with anyone else. He flicked one contemptuous glance at her stepmother. The woman whose job it was to protect her charges from just such a situation by vetoing unsuitable, or unwelcome, men.
‘And he took advantage?’
‘Only to say...something. He didn’t do anything...’
He couldn’t very well. Not on a dance floor. But he could guess what a man like that might have said.
‘I will deal with him,’ he growled. And set off in pursuit.
He caught up with his quarry just outside the card room.
‘Want a word with you,’ he said, just before Eastman went through the door.
‘Me?’ Eastman half-turned to look at Edmund over his shoulder. ‘Cannot imagine what business you would have with me,’ he said, with a hint of disdain.
Edmund ignored the intended insult, since he felt a reciprocal disdain for men like Eastman who frittered their lives away on a variety of trivial, and often immoral, pursuits. Then he stepped a little closer and lowered his voice before speaking again, although it was unlikely anyone could hear any conversation held at a rational level, above the general hubbub emanating from the ballroom. ‘It concerns Miss Wickford.’
‘Oh?’ Eastman’s demeanour underwent a subtle shift. It put Edmund in mind of a hound catching an elusive, yet fascinating scent on the wind. ‘Wasn’t aware you had an interest in the chit.’
If anything could have confirmed his suspicions about the reasons Eastman was pursuing Georgiana, it was his use of such a disrespectful word to describe her. ‘And now you are,’ said Edmund through gritted teeth.
‘Would have thought,’ said