Page 35 of Wedding the Widow

“Will you write a note to Jemmy before you sleep? He is truly worried about you.” Georgie rummaged in the small writing desk in the corner and withdrew pen, ink, and paper, and returned to the bed looking like a hopeful puppy.

“All right. If I cannot see him, I can write, but only to say I am not ill, only fatigued, and he is not to worry.” She took up the pen, using The Monk as a makeshift writing desk. “And I will ask to see him first thing in the morning,” she said, scratching quickly across the creamy paper. “However, you must promise me you will tell him nothing of what I have confided to you. This news must come from me and no one else.” She wafted the notepaper to and fro, then folded it in quarters.

“I promise, on my honor, not to say a word, even though it will be direst torture for me to do so.” Georgie took the letter, that dreamy look coming over her face once more. “How peculiar that I know I am to be an aunt before Jemmy knows he is to be a father.” Beaming at Elizabeth, she fluttered her hand and hurried out the door.

Elizabeth fell back on the pillows, quite as exhausted as if she’d danced every set at a ball. Something told her that feeling would not disappear for a very long time to come.

* * *

Staring into the amber swirls of his third whiskey since the wedding, Jemmy had to close his eyes against the dizzying speed. He’d be too foxed to go to Elizabeth if she did ask for him. Where the hell was Georgie? The clock ticking on the library’s mantel piece read just after four o’clock. His sister had been gone at least an hour. He couldn’t take much more of this waiting. The towering shelves of tomes that lined the room’s walls seemed to be closing in on him.

His companion, Lord Lathbury, stared into the fire from the tall-backed leather chair across the room, a similar libation clutched in his hand. Probably his fourth of the afternoon. Lathbury hadn’t said a word after the ceremony, although beforehand he’d been quite jovial. Jemmy had seen him talking very animatedly to Lady Stephen after they’d put Elizabeth into the carriage. He’d been distracted by Elizabeth’s illness, but not so much that he didn’t recognize an argument when he saw one.

Now the tall, square-shouldered earl sat in morose silence, drowning his sorrows, whatever they were, much like Jemmy. At least Wrotham had looked happy today, as a groom should. Jemmy only hoped he’d get the chance to find out himself.

Glancing at the clock again—only five minutes had passed, which had to be wrong—he swore he’d throttle Georgie if she ever made an appearance. At least those thoughts kept him from dwelling on what might be happening with Elizabeth.

His heart must have actually stopped when she collapsed into the aisle at St. George’s. Wrotham had gotten to her first, sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her into the vicarage just behind the church.

Jemmy’d waited an hour in the cold until she emerged, pale but walking on her own, with Lady George Tarkington at her side. He’d tried to get to her, but Georgie had restrained him. Irritation had mounted when he had arrived at Lyttlefield Park, only to be banished to the library to drink and wait. He took another sip. At this rate, he’d be bedding down here in the library, unable to make it to his room, much less Wrotham Park for dinner.

The patter of running feet brought him to attention a moment before Georgina burst into the room waving a piece of paper.

“Jemmy, Jemmy, oh, Jemmy.” She skidded to a stop in front of him. “I beg your pardon, Lord Lathbury. I didn’t know you were still here.” She curtsied to the brooding man, then looked to him expectantly.

Lathbury rose to his full six-foot, three-inch height, bowed to them, and stalked out of the room, glass still clutched in his hand.

Georgie’s eyebrows rose to new heights.

“Don’t pay him any mind. Love trouble, if I don’t miss my guess. A hazard for this particular party, it seems.” Jemmy shook his head. Mistake. He set the glass down on the mantle. “Is that for me?”

She nodded, eyes twinkling a fetching shade of green. “Do you want to know what it says?”

He held his breath and nodded, his heart in this throat.

“Well, I can’t tell you.”

“What? Why not?” Was Elizabeth playing games with him with Georgie as a go-between?

“Because I don’t know what she wrote, silly.” She held out the letter, and he snatched it, like it was a burning raisin in a game of Snapdragon.

“Brat. You should be sent to bed without your supper.” He unfolded the note, trying to steady it enough to read.

“You had best go change if you want to dine, brother. Besides,” her eyes twinkled mischievously, “I know more than what’s in that note.”

“You said you didn’t know what was in it.”

“I don’t know the exact words, but I know the gist of it and more.”

“You do?” Jemmy read the note, drinking in the words like a man dying of thirst, only to stop short of the first sip. “She says she cannot see me tonight.” He had known she had not been well ever since that swoon.

“She needs her rest, Jemmy.”

No, she needed to see him, dammit. Unwillingly, he came back to earth. “I suppose she does need that. Did Putnam see to her? Did you learn anything else about how she does?” He stopped reading, only now realizing his sister’s earlier boast.

“No and yes.” She put her hands behind her back, as though she was reciting in the schoolroom.

“Georgina Celeste Abigail Cross Kirkpatrick, I will take a birch to you if you don’t tell me this minute—”