Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(59)

Georgina stared at her. So did Emma, with rather more apprehension. Hilda gazed blandly back. Her youngest sister was well on her way to becoming a force to be reckoned with, Georgina thought. Did Mama have any notion? And was she really going to invite her to London? It was becoming clearer and clearer that looking after Hilda wasn’t a task to be undertaken lightly.

“So, I was thinking, what if we fed Papa a drug?” Hilda continued. “When the kitchen maid had the toothache, they gave her a draught to help her sleep. It made her so muddled she hardly knew where she was. Or who she was. There’s some left.”

“How would you know that?” Georgina wondered.

“I make it my business to know things,” was the worrying reply. “I know where the bottle is kept, too. We could dose Papa and then hold the wedding before he regained his senses.”

“No, we couldn’t.” Georgina didn’t know whether to laugh or shudder.

“Why not?”

Georgina couldn’t help but envision her father stumbling about in a drugged haze before the entire Gresham family. She did shudder. “It wouldn’t be… We just can’t, Hilda.”

Hilda heaved a great sigh, like a workman delayed by petty objections. “Well, that would be easiest. Because the dose is right here, you know. But…all right. My other plan is to send Randolph to town for a special license. You get them from bishops, don’t you? He’s a clergyman; he must be acquainted with any number of bishops. He could bring it back and then just perform the ceremony himself before anyone caught on.”

“But Georgina wants to marry with all her family around her,” Emma said. “She just said so. And I think she’s very right.” She gave Georgina a sentimental glance.

Hilda grimaced. “We are facing an emergency here, Emma. It may be necessary to cut corners. Mama could be present. And you and I.”

Emma tossed her head, refusing to be overborne by her stronger-minded sister this time. “That’s not what Georgina wants. Anyway, don’t those license things cost a great deal of money?”

“Georgina is an heiress,” Hilda replied. “She has heaps of money.”

“Not in my pockets,” Georgina replied. As it happened, oddly, she knew quite a bit about special licenses. During the London season just past, she’d become acquainted with a young lady who’d fallen in love with a man her parents found unsuitable. Selina had looked into every alternative for marrying and poured out her findings, along with her woes, to Georgina.

“Well, duke’s sons must have some money,” added Hilda. “Randolph could pay.”

“It’s not so easy,” Georgina replied. “I am not twenty-one until December. So to get a special license, Randolph would have to swear, before the Archbishop of Canterbury at Doctors’ Commons, that he had our parents’ consent. He would not wish to offer a false oath. Especially in those circumstances.” Indeed, she was certain he’d refuse. “As is only right,” she added dutifully.

“Both parents?” Hilda asked. “Or would just Mama do?”

“I…don’t know.” Georgina’s legal knowledge didn’t stretch that far.

“I wager Mama would be enough. I could get her to write a letter.”

“You could not,” said Emma.

“Of course I could.” Hilda was scornful.

Georgina decided not to ask how she could be so certain. “I don’t think Randolph will be swayed by…technicalities. He knows very well that Papa does not consent.”

“Oh, pooh. He mustn’t let a little thing like that stand in his way. I’ll explain it to him,” Hilda said.

“Please do not! Promise me you won’t.”

Hilda sulked. “Somebody has to do something!” she declared after a while. “We can’t just droop about like simpering ninnies and let all our hopes…collapse. While we die of boredom.”

“I told you, Sebastian is making a plan.” Georgina wondered again where he’d gone in such a hurry after the reading. “And I would hardly call these last few days boring.”

“That’s true.” Hilda smiled. There was a gleam in her eye that Georgina didn’t care for at all. “I shall offer Sebastian my help. If I explain it to him very carefully, I wager he can convince his brother to adopt my scheme.”

Georgina thought that extremely unlikely. “You are not to plague Sebastian,” she ordered.

“I’m not going to plague him,” Hilda began. “I daresay he will be very glad of a…little boost.”

“No,” replied Georgina. “You should both go to bed. It’s late.”

Hilda hopped down with suspicious docility. “You must check the corridors as we go, Emma. To make certain no one sees me.”

Emma stood up, but crossed her arms over her chest. “I am not helping you any more. Not ever.”

“I am only going back to my room,” Hilda wheedled. “Where I am supposed to be.”

“Yes, but…”

“So you would be helping me obey Mama and Papa, in this case.”

Watching Emma puzzle over this distinction, Georgina didn’t hold out much hope for her future entanglements in Hilda’s pranks. She would have to keep a close eye on her youngest sister. And warn Sebastian. And speak to Mama. And rein in Papa. And what else?