“George, come now. No one expects—”
“Ah, but they do! You should have heard Lady Belmont in the carriage, all the schemes that worthy lady has planned. And it occurred to me that she has been making these plans for twenty-one years. Twenty-one years, Fitz! Do you truly thinkIam the sort she envisioned hosting a wedding breakfast for? Giving her daughter to? And Lucilla, she…”
“She what? What is it between you two so suddenly? Did you think pledging yourself to a woman was going to be easy? That you would not have to change at least in some measure?”
“Well… Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps…” He scowled and sniffed again as his eyes dropped to the floor. “Perhaps what I really ought to have been looking for has just come back into my life, just waiting for me to recall.” He lifted his gaze to me slowly, and one eyebrow quirked.
My stomach plummeted through the floorboards as an appalling suspicion took form. Surely even besotted George would never risk... Blindly, I seized his collar, dragging us nose to nose. “Bloody bullocks,thatis what you are about. The muddy boots, your hair torn by the wind. Tell me straight, George, are you arrived from Farthingdale just now?” At his mute glare, my fingers tightened to bite the fabric. “Damn your eyes, speak! Have you left Lady Lucilla at Matlock while you—”
“Why shouldn’t I?” He wrenched my hand off his collar and jerked backward. “Lizzy understands me. She wouldn’t ask me to become something I’m not.”
“But you made a promise to Lady Lucilla! Good heavens, I cannot even begin to imagine the breach of promise lawsuit Belmont could bring to your door, if you disappoint his daughter.”
“You said it yourself. Belmont is so far above me, the whole thing was laughable anyway. They’re better off. I’ll just… I’ll go propose to Lizzy. That’s what I’ll do.”
“You will do no such thing. Break both their hearts and disgrace yourself in the process? What will Elizabeth think when she learns the truth—that you only came to her because you were too much of a coward to face up to your previous commitments?”
He stiffened. “I am no coward. I just changed my mind.”
“A man does not have the luxury of ‘changing his mind,’ George! You gave your word! I warrant you have said nothing to Elizabeth of Lady Lucilla. Does she know you are engaged?”
“Gads, no, unless you told her. Why would I say something like that?”
I wanted to punch him. “Because it’s the truth! And it is not my place to tell her. It is yours. If you force me to, George, I will ride to Farthingdale right now and tell her all, but it will bemeshe despises, not the man who fooled her!”
“Ah, and so you would have her despisemeinstead?
I clenched my fists. I was going to do it, God help me… “I want you to tell her the truth. Both of them! Have you even spoken to your betrothed about your change of heart?”
He ground his teeth and stared at the window. “Look, I said she’d be better off without me. I never said I did not… Oh, buggar off!”
“Would that I could! Tell me the truth, George. Have you already compromised Elizabeth? Have you seduced her?”
He glared at me. “Like anyonecouldseduce Lizzy. She was always two steps ahead of either of us. I say ‘tis the other way round, you know. She has been trying to seducemesince that day in Lambton!”
I rolled my eyes. “She has hardly played the temptress.”
“That is because she does not have to. All she has to do islookat a man, and… egad, if I thought she was enchanting at thirteen, I was a bloody fool. Have you evenlookedat the woman now?”
I crossed my arms as my stomach turned an odd flip. “I have eyes, you know.”
“Eh? Then you know what I am on about.Nobodyhas eyes like Lizzy, and when she laughs, it is like my own heart is singing. But that is nothing to her tears, and when I think…”
“Enough, George!” I spun him around and marched him toward the door of my study. “Go upstairs and let your valet have a go at you. And as soon as you are decent, you are going to ride directly to Matlock and make yourself agreeable to the woman you proposed to.”
He turned around slightly, a morose look now overtaking his countenance. “Will you come, Fitz?”
“No,” I growled. “You must face this as the man you claimed to be.” Besides, I had just got an idea.
If Elizabeth’s sweet smiles and sparkling eyes had been leveled at George to smite him with all the efficacy of one of Bonaparte’s canons, perhaps… Perhaps I could give her a different target. At least until her uncle had carried her away from Derbyshire, and George had safely overcome whatever this nonsense was.
Heaven help me.
Elizabeth
SunbeamsfilteringthroughMrs.Westing’s cheerful kitchen seemed to mock my chaotic emotions. I attacked dough for the third batch of rolls with vigor directly proportional to turmoil since George’s abrupt appearance that morning.
Kissing, his arms around me, that impassioned plea… all taunted my focus away from the mundane tasks occupying my hands. Never in seven long years had I permitted such unchecked romantic fancy about first love blossoming anew. And that was saying a great deal, indeed!
