Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(60)



Her life had been so serene, so settled. And now in the course of one weird evening, it had been turned upside down. For a perfectly ridiculous cause. It would have been funny, if it did not include the threat of losing Sebastian. Georgina set her jaw. That would not, could not happen.





Thirteen


By a fortunate coincidence, Georgina encountered Sebastian as she was accompanying her mother to her workroom the following morning. “Come along,” she said, taking his arm.

He hesitated, not offering his usual warm smile. Nor did he meet her eyes. “Is something wrong?” She immediately judged it a silly question. A great deal was wrong, obviously.

“No,” he said. But he still hung back.

Georgina put his reluctance down to the dogs milling around their feet. “It might help if we both talk to Mama,” she explained.

He walked with her then, clearly not in his customary good spirits. Her mother had gone ahead, and they found her sitting at her desk, sifting through a sheaf of papers. “Mama,” said Georgina. She had to repeat it before she captured her mother’s attention. “Our wedding is in less than two weeks’ time,” she said then. She refused to admit any doubt into her declaration.

“Yes, dear. Do you think you would like knots of pink ribbon on your gown? There’s still time to send to Hereford.”

Georgina sighed, wondering if her mother could be doing this on purpose. It seemed perverse to express an interest in dress trimmings—a subject that notoriously bored her—when they had much more serious problems. But Mama was not so sly. “What are we to do about Papa?” Georgina said. “I want him to walk me down the aisle. I want us all to be happy together.”

“Oh, Alfred will get over it,” her mother replied with a wave of her hand. “You know he has these fancies. He throws himself into a subject, and then he abandons it for some new thing.”

It was true. Yet his current obsession had lasted for months and showed no signs of fading. “None of the others involved forbidding my engagement,” Georgina pointed out.

“I set him straight on that,” her mother answered, as if she thought that Papa had listened to her. Then she stood suddenly, seeming to remember something truly important. She strode over to a pile of cushions and picked up one of the pugs lolling there. “Sebastian, what do you think?” she asked, displaying a small female. “I have gone into the matter very carefully, and I believe Fiona here might do for your mother.”

Sebastian started as if he’d been pinched. “What?”

“As a gift, of course. No question of payment.” The marchioness looked fondly down into the small dog’s face. “Even though I could ask quite a sum for you, couldn’t I, my lovely?”

Fiona yipped and licked her mistress’s face.

“Oh, er, well.”

Sebastian’s polished manners seemed to have deserted him. Georgina examined her betrothed. He looked tired and not quite as…capable as usual.

“I’m not sure,” he tried.

With a fleeting sense of what it must feel like to be the captain of a sinking ship, Georgina intervened. “You must ask the duchess first if she wants a lapdog, Mama. Not everyone cares to have one.”

“Oh, but Fiona is a special…”

“And as she doesn’t have one,” Georgina interrupted, “she probably doesn’t want one.” You had to be blunt with Mama. She didn’t bother with subtleties. And she preferred it.

Nor did plain talk offend her. The marchioness shrugged and set Fiona down, turning back to the documents on her desk.

“What are you going to do about Papa?” Georgina asked again. “It is all very well to talk of ribbons, but I want him to be part of my wedding. Gladly.” Her voice quavered on the last word, which was annoying. But it caught both her companions’ attention.

“I’ve told him he’s being a fool,” responded her mother. “I’ll tell him again.”

Which would do no good at all, Georgina thought. Her father thrived on opposition. A current of resentment ran through her. What should have been a happy time in her life was now tense and anxious. And Sebastian was giving her no help at all, standing stiffly at her side as if on parade. Though she supposed she couldn’t expect him to argue with her parents. She certainly wouldn’t have with his. She needed to talk to him alone.

She took his arm and urged him from the room. The corridor outside was fortunately empty, and she stepped quickly into a vacant parlor further along, shutting the door behind them. “Shouting at Papa will only make him more obstinate. Mama can never seem to realize that. We must think of something else.” She looked up at her fiancé and waited.

Sebastian was feeling quite unlike himself. He hadn’t slept well, and he always slept well. Despite performing his usual morning ablutions, he couldn’t shake the idea that he looked rumpled and untidy. But most of all, he was burdened by the notion that not only was he not being honest with Georgina, he didn’t wish to be. It was a dilemma he’d never faced before in his unexamined, openhearted life. And he didn’t want to think about it—or think so much at all, for that matter. He was tired of thinking. Couldn’t people see that he was no good at it? He wanted everything back as it had been, before these unwelcome scruples had risen to plague him.

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