ChapterONE
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN, SEVEN YEARS BEFORE…
Georgie stared up at the strange building while her stepfather’s latest dour housekeeper supervised the unloading of her things from the back of the hackney.
It didn’t look like a school.
A school would surely be more imposing than this neat white townhouse on the unfashionable outskirts of Mayfair. At least, unfashionable was what the driver had claimed it was when they had swapped conveyances from the Ipswich post an hour ago, although the area still looked very smart to her. Certainly smarter than she was used to, at any rate.
“Well, what are you waiting for, girl?” The housekeeper waved her forward. “Knock on the door and go in! I haven’t got all day.”
Georgie put her foot on the first step, then paused, anxious. “Are you sure we have the right address?” Only this cheerful four-story residence, with its shiny black railings, pristine lace curtains, and sparkling windows did not seem to be the sort of place her miserlystepfather would send her to. But then again, her being sent away to school in the first place had been grossly out of character for him too because the colonel did not believe in the education of girls, so this was all as bizarre as it was sudden. His housekeeper clearly agreed that something odd was afoot as she pulled the folded piece of paper from her reticule to check, then glanced up at the nearby street sign to be sure.
“Number three Half Moon Street is what it says here, so this is definitely it.” Even so, the older woman still searched for a plaque of some sort and frowned when she found nothing. “This is your home now.”
Was it?
The colonel had neglected to mention that when he had informed her she was going off to learn how to be a governess so that she could earn her own living one day. It wasn’t as if Georgie was his, after all, so she could hardly expect him to be responsible for her in perpetuity.
“Will I be going back to Ipswich to visit for Christmas, at least?” Not that she really had a connection with anyone, bar a few of the friendly servants in his latest house, thanks to the nomadic life they lived due to his always more important military career. Nor was there any love lost between her and the man her mother had been forced to marry after she had been left a penniless widow, but still… Having all her flimsy ties cut with the place that was currently “home” was beyond daunting.
“You’ll have to take that up with the colonel. My only instructions were to ensure that you got here in one piece.”
The coachman placed Georgie’s trunk on the pavement beside her with a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure it’ll all be all right, miss.” His wink did little to reassure her. “This is Mayfair after all, so how bad could it be?”
No sooner had he tipped his hat than the housekeeper had already turned back to the hackney, ready to climb inside.
A wave of panic hit her. “Aren’t you staying with me for a bit?” Georgie had loathed the housekeeper for the entire two months she had known her, but right now, she wanted to cling to something familiar for as long as she could before she was cast adrift into the unknown again. This time completely alone.
“I’ve got to get back.” There wasn’t an ounce of compassion on the woman’s pinched face. “I’ve got the colonel’s house to run, so I don’t have the time to mollycoddle you.” She curled her lip in disgust in the exact same manner as the colonel always did whenever he deigned to glance her way. “You’re not a child anymore, Miss Georgina. You turned sixteen today, it’s long past time you grew up.”
With that heartfelt happy birthday, the door slammed shut and the carriage lurched away.
Left by herself on an alien pavement, with not a single soul in the world who cared one jot about her, Georgie had the sudden urge to weep. In case she did, she sat on the tatty old trunk filled with all her hastily packed belongings and sucked in a calming breath.
She hadn’t had a soul who had cared in six years, so that was nothing new, and thiswasvibrant Mayfair, after all, and not a joyless army barracks, so how bad could it be?
For good measure, she clutched her mother’s locket as if her life depended upon it. Usually, despite having only fading memories of her mama, the dented gold pendant soothed her, but today, even that precious talisman wasn’t working. She was too scared. Too confused by where she was and what lay ahead to find any comfort. Three days ago, before he had unexpectedly shipped her off, all the colonel had barked was that he was finally getting shot of her, which hardly filled her with any hope that her miserable lot in life was about to improve—even if thiswasMayfair.
A big, fat tear drizzled over her cheek, and she let it fall. It felt like a final act of rebellion as the colonel had never had time for tears. The only emotions he made time for were disdain, disappointment, disinterest, or his customary outright disgust whenever she dared to open her mouth. She had concluded long ago that, seeing as any word she uttered, no matter how innocuous, seemed to infuriate him, she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, so she had made sure each word counted. Defiant pride and rebellion were the only weapons she had in her pathetic arsenal, so she had honed both to cause the maximum impact. She had assumed that was how things would be until she reached her majority and had lofty plans of making a rousing, vitriolic speech before she flounced out of his oppressive house on the day she turned one and twenty. However, had she known that her recent outspokenness and tendency to poke fun at his pomposity would have ended with her swift banishment, she might have curbed her tongue and her redhead’s temper.
Might have.
Even now, in enforced exile on this faraway pavement, she had to scoff at the preposterousness of that ludicrous thought. Curbing her tongue for that humorless, granite-hearted despot would have felt too much like surrender, and it would be a cold day in hell before she ever allowed that to happen. She didn’t only hate him for herself—but for the complete disregard he had treated her dear mama with too, so good riddance to him! Good riddance to his frigid, disagreeable character and his latest soulless household and all his stupid, pointless rules! If the colonel was glad to finally be shot of her, she was gladder to be shot of him. In fact, if she ever saw him again, it would be too soon!
She steeled her shoulders and swiped the second tear away before she remembered that she was crying to spite him, and thendecided that she would howl like a baby right this second, simply because she could. And she would have, too, if the shiny blue front door to the supposed school hadn’t opened to reveal three beaming female faces, which were all about the same age as hers.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Georgina Rowe by any chance, would you?” A pretty blonde was the first to bound down the steps.
She nodded. “I am—but I prefer Georgie to Georgina.” Her stepfather had hated that nickname with a vengeance and had forbidden anyone to use it after her mama had passed, so it felt good to resurrect it. A fresh start for… whatever this was.
“I’m Lottie.” The blonde grabbed her hand and shook it firmly, as if they were two robust gentlemen rather than two young ladies. “Well, it’s Charlotte really, butCharlotteis much too formal and proper and I’m not quite ready to behave like a young lady yet.”
“By that, she means that she doesn’t knowhowto behave like a young lady because she has grown up in a house full of men and would still be wearing the beloved breeches she turned up in if Miss Prentice would let her get away with it.” A brunette stepped forward and held out her hand. It was covered in ink stains. “I’m Portia.” Her handshake was exactly like a young lady’s should be, but as she let go, she winced at the navy ink all over her fingers and shrugged. “I am in the midst of writing a treatise reiterating everything Mary Wollstonecraft argued inA Vindication of the Rights of Woman, as I find it staggering that over two decades have passed and still nobody has thought to reform Parliament.”
“She’s our resident bluestocking.” The other, slightly darker brunette pushed between her friends to shake Georgie’s hand too. “And I’m Kitty—the resident disaster.”
“Because she daydreams all of the time,” said Lottie with a roll of her eyes. “That is how she spotted you out here during our firstdeportment class. She was gazing out of the window rather than at the tutor. She seems to do that a lot. I’ve only known her two days and I swear she’s spent half of them wool-gathering.”
