A Daring Liaison(75)
June 7, 1816
Thank heaven the unpleasantness is past. I have spoken with Mr. Hunter, and I believe I have successfully misdirected him by telling him Georgiana is embarrassed by his attentions. My conscience troubles me little over the lie, though I was distressed to see the depth of his attachment. Had I known how close they were growing, I would have ended it sooner. After Georgiana’s encouragement, he had every right to expect a different outcome.
As for Georgiana, I have warned her against fast behavior and told her that Mr. Hunter has lost interest in her. She is crushed, but it is for the best. I simply cannot have her marry into such a family as the Hunters. Despite their country seat, they are city dwellers. Some London busybody would snoop into Georgiana’s past to everyone’s ruin. ’Twill be better by far to have her settled in the country with no one to ask questions. Mr. Allenby seems a good prospect, as he is so smitten that he will believe she is exactly what she appears to be. His parents will not object, owing to the size of her dowry.
If only she would not cry into her pillow every night....
So, after all these years, he finally knew what had happened that long-ago spring. Lady Caroline had betrayed them both. No wonder, then, that Georgiana had been so cool and distant when they’d been reintroduced. No wonder she’d been confused by his thinly veiled anger. She must have thought him quite a bounder. Lady Caroline had driven a wedge between them that would have lasted a lifetime had Wycliffe not coerced him into investigating her husbands’ deaths.
He flipped the pages to the end and read how Georgiana had begged Caroline to recant her engagement to Allenby, and how Caroline had remained firm, nearly pushing her down the aisle. Enlightening, to say the least. Georgiana had not loved Allenby. All the easier for her to kill him?
He shivered. Where had that thought come from? They were married now. And he knew now that she had never deceived him. The time for doubts was past.
He closed the volume, wondering, how much more might he learn from Caroline’s other journals? And where were they? After tonight, he would most especially like to read the account of Caroline’s “accident” and Georgiana’s birth. Though he was fairly certain he knew it, would the name of her father be mentioned?
He glanced at Georgiana again. His earlier suspicion had likely been right. Her spiked lashes were due to tears. He could not imagine the pain of learning that the person she’d trusted most in the world had betrayed her. Had forced her into two marriages she hadn’t wanted.
He opened her bed-table drawer to put the book away, vowing to discuss the matter with Georgiana tomorrow. As he slipped the book into the drawer, his fingers brushed a thick vial. He pulled it out and read the label in the guttering candlelight.
Laudanum. A vague suspicion began to nag at him. Wycliffe had warned him to look for it, and here it was.
Damn. This was not how he’d thought he’d spend his wedding night.
* * *
Georgiana woke and stretched. She sat up in bed and looked around, disoriented. The last she could remember was waiting for Charles. And she’d been reading her... Caroline’s journal. Good heavens! It was gone!
She threw her covers back and dropped to her knees to look under the bed. Had it fallen from her hand?
“It is in the drawer, Georgiana.”
Her pulse pounded and she sat back on her heels, searching the shadows. Something stirred in the chair in the far corner. A dark figure unfolded and rose like a specter. She could only see his form, but it was enough to reveal that it was Charles. Relief washed through her.
“Oh! You frightened me half to death. What were you doing in the corner?”
“Waiting for you to wake.”
She glanced toward the draperies to see a thin line of daylight where they met. “Have you been there all night?”
“Yes.” He came toward her.
Something was wrong. Some change in his manner. Not the slightest bit of warmth in his voice. Her pulse, which had begun to steady, skipped a beat or two. “Why did you not wake me?”
“You looked as if you needed the sleep.”
“I tried to wait up for you, but after all the excitement, I think I was more exhausted than I realized.” She accepted his offered hand and got to her feet.
“I’ve been thinking, Georgiana. I have decided to hold off making the formal announcement that we’ve married. Nor shall I post notices in any of the newspapers.”
Perversely, though that had been her thought last night, she now took offense to it. “Hold off? But I thought that was the whole point of marrying—to alert the villain that I had married again. To draw him out.”