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. Then I want to buy a red dress.”
“Red!” Theresa gasped. “But the only women who wear red are-” She began to nod emphatically as though pronouncing the words she was too polite to say aloud.
Georgiana laughed but had no such qualms. “A whore. You can say it,” she replied dryly. “I don’t care if a red dress makes me look like a common whore. I want one.”
Theresa looked doubtful and leaned toward her. “You want to look like a whore?” she asked as though Georgiana had taken leave of her senses.
Georgiana laughed. “I want to wear a crimson dress, and lie on a chaise and eat grapes, lots and lots of grapes.”
Theresa grinned. “You will if any of your brothers catch you. They will lock you in your room until they can find someone stupid and reckless enough to take you on, and then you will be done for. They won’t allow you to go for even a walk without having someone with you, and it won’t be me.”
“They are like it now,” Georgiana replied.
Theresa’s off-hand comment stole Georgiana’s enthusiasm because her friend was right. Her brothers would argue, demand, threaten, cajole, and when they didn’t succeed, as they never did, they would send Will to try to persuade her to fulfil their wishes. It galled Georgiana to admit it, but Will always managed to succeed where her brothers’ bullish ways failed. Stupidly, she had always fallen for his pleading; her weak will and even weaker heart having rendered her useless to deny him anything.
Not any longer Georgiana mused sadly.
“It is none of his business now,” she whispered aloud.
“What’s that?” Theresa murmured lazily as she languished in the sunshine.
“I don’t care whether they send Will after me or not,” Georgiana declared flatly.
Theresa turned her head sideways to study her. “They will you know. When your brother’s get nowhere, they will send him.”
“I can only hope that now he is engaged to Penelope he won’t be allowed to come chasing after me. After all, he is to be married soon and I am still a single female.”
“Yes, but you are effectively family,” Theresa argued.
“I am not his family,” Georgiana snapped, her eyes flashing fire.
Theresa looked reprimanded and threw her friend an apologetic glance. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to overset you.”
“He is not family,” Georgiana persisted. “Why does everyone see it in that way? He is from the upper echelons of society; the kind of world Penelope Smedgrove thrives in. Our family is lower gentry; wealthy but impoverished if you know what I mean?”
Theresa nodded not least because her family were even poorer than Georgiana’s. Still, the village saw Georgiana’s family as having close connections to Will and his relations so in everyone’s eyes that made them very close acquaintances. At least socially, if not financially, people considered them to be in the same circle.
Georgiana snorted. “Penelope is welcome to the oaf. I don’t care anymore.”
“Then why are you plotting your own downfall?” Theresa murmured gently.
Georgiana sat up, shrugging off the doubts that began to cloud her thoughts as she considered her friend’s words.
“I am not. I am just not prepared to live a stuffy old life in the middle of nowhere waiting for my parents to marry me off to someone I don’t wish to be with. I want a life, Theresa.” She couldn’t do anything about the whimsy in her voice as she spoke. “I want to be free of the restraints.”
“But if you ruin your reputation, you will never find a suitor,” Theresa protested.
“I don’t want one.” Georgiana sighed and flopped onto her stomach to pluck absently at the grass while she contemplated what else she could do. “I wonder what brandy tastes like.”
“Georgiana!” Theresa gasped.
Georgiana shrugged. “I have tasted it in milk. Cecily swears by it. If anybody is ill, they are always forced to drink it with milk, or with sugar and water. If it doesn’t make you sick, it supposedly settles your stomach.”
They both looked at each other.
“Sick,” they said together and returned to their musings.
“I want to experience what it is like to get drunk,” Georgiana declared with a frown. “Then I want to kiss a total stranger and walk away.”
