First Comes Scandal (Rokesbys #4)(49)

“Most of the way, why?”

“It’s starting to sound very appealing.”

He made a crooked grin. “That’s because you’ve never ridden in a mail coach.”

“We could take one and elope?” she said hopefully.

“NO!” roared her mother.

And his mother.

Georgie startled. She’d thought she’d been speaking under her breath.

“Banish the thought,” Lady Bridgerton said.

“I was joking, Mama.” Georgie turned to the rest of the table, rolling her eyes. “I was joking.”

No one seemed to be amused. Except for Nicholas, who said, “I thought it was funny.”

“It’s a good thing I’m marrying you, then,” she muttered.

“Tomorrow,” he said suddenly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Tomorrow.” He paused, somewhat dramatically. “We will marry tomorrow. And leave immediately thereafter.”

This was met with immediate resistance, the loudest of which came from his father who said, “Don’t be daft, son. You can’t pack a household that quickly.”

Nicholas shrugged. “Then the next day. Either way, I’m leaving. I must get back. I’d rather not leave Georgie to travel north on her own …”

“She can’t do that,” his mother said.

He smiled. “Then we are agreed.”

And somehow, they were. The parents who had just been arguing that they couldn’t possibly send them off to Scotland in under a week seemed to have no problem with two days’ time when the only other alternative was one.

Georgie stared at him in wonder. He was good. She couldn’t even begrudge his smirk. He deserved that smirk.

Two days. She would be married in two days.

Or to be more precise, she would be married and off to a new country where she knew absolutely no one except her soon-to-be-husband. She had to find a new home, set up a household, make new friends, learn new customs.

She should be nervous.

She should be terrified.

But she wasn’t.

And as everyone talked around her, the parents making plans and Nicholas taking notes, she realized she was smiling. Grinning, even.

This was going to be grand.





Chapter 13





It wasn’t going to be grand.

The wedding was lovely. The wedding breakfast delightful.

But the journey north …

No one was going to come out of it alive unless something was done about Cat-Head.

The other two cats were easy. Judyth had curled up in her basket like a proper feline and gone straight to sleep. Blanche had felt the need to demonstrate her contempt for all humans, so she’d spent a few minutes fussing and hissing before finally parking herself as deeply in the corner of the padded coach bench as possible.

But a furious Blanche Georgie knew how to handle. Blanche would be sullen and resentful, but she was easily bribed with a nugget or two of cheese.

Cat-Head, on the other hand …

Cat-Head moaned.

Cat-Head howled.

Cat-Head made noises Georgie would not have thought possible outside purgatory or hell.

And while Georgie might have been able to withstand such torture on her own, the traveling party had grown to fifteen, and she wasn’t sure how long she could inflict him on the others.

GRAOWWW!

Georgie peered nervously at Nicholas, sitting across from her in the carriage. He was doing an admirable job of hiding his flinches. Much better than— GRAOWWW!

—Marian, Georgie’s trusted maid, who seemed to have developed a tic in her left cheek.

GRAOWWW!

“Cat-Head, hush,” Georgie said, patting him on the head. She didn’t know why she thought that might make a difference. It wasn’t as if she’d met with success the first one hundred and sixty-three times she’d said it.

GRAOWWW!

“How long have we been on the road?” Marian asked.

Georgie attempted a cheerful tone. “I’m not carrying a timepiece.”

“I am,” Nicholas said without looking up from his medical journal. “It’s been three hours.”

“That long?” Georgie said weakly.

GRAOWWW!

Marian’s eye began to twitch.

Georgie gave Nicholas a hard stare, the kind where one widened one’s eyes and jutted one’s chin forward. It clearly meant Do Something.

He returned with the sort of expression where one widened one’s eyes but instead of a jutted chin one tipped one’s head to the side, as if to say a shrugful What?

Georgie jutted her chin.

Nicholas tipped his head.

They both widened their eyes.

“Is something wrong?” Marian asked.

GRAOWWW!

“Besides that,” she muttered.

“Nicholas,” Georgie said pointedly, “perhaps Marian would like a sip of your whiskey.”

He blinked, then gave Georgie an expression she was fairly certain meant—How was I to glean that from your buggy eyes and jutty chin?

“Er, Miss—”

GRAOWWW!

“Miss Georgiana,” Marian croaked. “I don’t know how much longer I can—”

“Whiskey?” Nicholas asked, thrusting a flask in her face.