Page 3 of Scandal’s Daughter

Chapter 2

“Wherein we meet our heroine, as yet blissfully unaware of the future.”

Georgiana strode into the house, flinging her bonnet onto a chair in the hallway and calling for her uncle. An excitable black dog of indeterminate parentage followed her, tongue lolling after a morning of great exertion. Making her way down a slightly shabby corridor with a worn carpet and a draft coiling around the window that made her shiver, she gave a peremptory rap on the study door. Entering a moment later, she found her uncle with his head bent over an enormous medical text.

With a sigh her relative glanced up and gave her a look of reproach as she flung herself down in the chair in front of his desk. She blinked up at him, wondering what she’d done now and raised an enquiring hand to her hair to find it had, as usual, escaped all her pins and was in a tangled mess of fiery locks about her shoulders.

She gave him a sheepish grin and shrugged. “I took the medicine to the Farley’s. They say the boy’s fever broke last night like you said and he’s sitting up and complaining fiercely about being an invalid.”

Her uncle, Doctor Joseph Bomford, a small but stocky man was blessed with a mild manner and a pleasant face with neatly trimmed white hair and sideburns. He nodded and removed his spectacles, placing them carefully on the pages of the massive text book.

“I thought as much. Well thank you for running the errand. Did you tell them I’d call in tomorrow to see how he goes on?”

“I did.” Georgiana nodded, grimacing as she tried to pin her hair back into something Aunt Jane wouldn’t scold her for. She looked up to see Uncle Jo watching her with affection. He gestured to her right shoulder, one eyebrow raised.

“You missed a bit.”

“Oh, thank you.” She grinned, tucking the errant strand back up with the rest. Getting to her feet she went to stand beside the fire, which was lit even in August due to the terrible lack of any real summer and commenced absently picking horse hair off the fine merino wool of her riding habit. Though more than two seasons old and a little frayed, the olive green sat well with the shocking blaze of her red hair, and unlike most of her clothing, she tried her best to keep it in good order.

“I’ve been wanting to speak with you,” her uncle said, making her look up. “You’re not to go riding out alone towards the Gower estate for the next few weeks.”

Georgiana frowned with annoyance. Some of her favourite places were along the land that bordered the neighbouring estate. “Why ever not?” she demanded. “Old Gower said I could go where I liked, you know he did.”

“Old Gower may well have done,” he said, a stern look on his usually mild face. “But old Gower is not in residence, young Gower is, and from what I’ve heard of the goings on up there you’ll keep well clear and that is my final word on the matter.”

Georgiana opened her mouth and closed it again. Her uncle and guardian was the sweetest and kindest of men and she had never felt the lack of a father for he filled the role in every way that anyone could hope for. But she well recognised the set of his jaw and doubted she could change his mind. Indeed, she considered herself more than fortunate that he and his wife, her Aunt Jane, had been kind enough to take on their orphaned niece. They’d had no children of their own and doted on Georgiana as though she was their own daughter. Nonetheless, she was sorely disappointed that some of her favourite riding country was now out of bounds.

She huffed in annoyance and folded her arms. “So, what dark doings are going on up there then? Orgies I’ve no doubt,” she muttered, wondering why on earth that should stop her from going where she pleased.

“Georgiana!”

She looked up to see her uncle staring at her in shock and bit her tongue.

“Sorry, Pops,” she said, using the pet name for him that never failed but to soften his eyes. He had refused to let her call him father when she was a child, deeming that it wasn’t his right, but he had allowed the affectionate nickname and she knew it pleased him. She grinned and he rolled his eyes at her.

“I’m going to take every one of those wretched novels away from you if you don’t have a care and curb that tongue of yours,” he scolded, tutting at her. “Orgies indeed. As if you have the slightest idea ...”

“Oh of course I do!” she replied, choking with laughter. “It’s like a great party where ...”

“Georgiana!”

She smacked her hand over her mouth, trying and failing to hold back her laughter while her scandalised uncle looked at her in horror. He picked up his spectacles and waved them at her.

“You will stay away from the Gower estate and if the word orgy escapes your lips in your Aunt’s hearing, you’ll get everything that’s coming to you. I give you a great deal too much freedom, miss. Allowing you to go racketing about the countryside with none but that idiotic dog for company.”

He tutted and Georgiana looked down at the far from idiotic dog who had raised his head and thumped a happy tail on hearing himself referred to.

“I know, Conrad,” she said as the mongrel scurried to his feet, tail wagging with enthusiasm and gazing up at her with adoration. “You are a very fine guard dog, aren’t you? Why just this morning he saved me from an attack by a very vicious hare, didn’t you, love? Yes, I know,” she crooned, stroking the ecstatic hound as she pulled his soft ears in just the way he liked.

Her uncle heaved a sigh.

“Conrad,” he repeated, not for the first time. “If ever there was a more ridiculous name for a dog I’ve yet to hear it.” He shook his head and waved his hands at her. “Now run along, foolish girl, and find your aunt. I’ve no doubt she can find something more productive for you to do than ride about the countryside like a hoyden or sit here and annoy me,” he said, though the warmth in his words dispelled any possible notion of a real scolding. “Off you go now, and mind what I told you about the Gower estate. You stay away. And no more talk of orgies!”

“Yes, Pops,” she replied, casting an impish grin over her shoulder and calling Conrad to follow her as she closed the door and left her uncle to his studies.

Her uncle, Doctor Bomford, was a very respected man in the area. In fact, the Earl of Falmouth himself had sought a second opinion from him before now when a wound had gone bad, having had no great opinion of the doctor who had historically treated him and his family since he was in short trousers.

The doctor’s wife, Jane - Georgiana’s aunt - was from an old and very wealthy family and when she disobliged them by marrying beneath her, they had cut her off without a penny. Happily, it was a love match and while Georgiana might see her aunt sighing with longing over the fashion plates in the latest copy of La Belle Assemblée and wondering how she was going to remake an old dress to look like a new one, she never believed she had for a moment regretted her decision. Georgiana only hoped that she might one day find a man as agreeable as her uncle, and as happy to turn a blind eye to her habit of racketing about the countryside alone.