Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(63)

“There are exceptions,” he growled. But he looked away.

Georgina waited a moment, then turned to Mitra again. “Had that…history occurred. If we believed it wholeheartedly.” She paused for Mitra’s nod. “What are we to think if we find that this individual is…is now a fine, young English nobleman?”

“Not so fine, perhaps,” muttered her father, like an unruly schoolboy rebelling against the teacher.

“From a highly respected family,” said Georgina, louder. “With a sterling personal reputation.”

“But who knows what we might not have heard?”

“Papa!”

He sat back in his chair at the snap in her tone.

“Would we not be forced to conclude that this…person has made great progress in his…” She groped for the right words. “His moral character.”

“That would indeed be a plausible argument,” Mitra replied. He smiled up at her.

“That he had improved? Grown, uh, more admirable?”

Mitra nodded.

Georgina’s father made a skeptical sound. “Once a savage, always a savage is what I say.”

Georgina hit the table with her fist, astonishing them all. “Are you listening at all, Papa? I am asking the opinion of your honored guest, the expert you invited here to teach you about these matters. Perhaps you could explain it again, Mr. Mitra?”

“As I have often said,” replied Mitra obligingly, “it is most unwise to draw conclusions from one or two fleeting experiences. We are dealing here with a vast accumulation of circumstances.”

Georgina’s father frowned. “You mean if he’d really been a benighted savage, he’d have been reborn as a beetle or something?” he asked.

Mitra winced. Georgina held his dark gaze, willing him to help her. She watched him struggle with his scholarly need for precision, or perhaps his deeply held beliefs. “Something like that,” he said finally.

“So you’re saying Gresham’s redeemed himself?”

“I don’t care for that way of putting it,” Mr. Mitra began. Georgina frowned. She didn’t want to bully him, but he had promised to help them. The Indian gentleman sighed, bowing his head. “I…grant you could see it in that light. In a way.” He gazed at the tabletop. His lips moved soundlessly. Georgina couldn’t tell what words they formed, or even if they were English. A complaint? A caveat? A prayer?

“Hmmm.” Her father tapped his chin with his fingertips. “Well. I suppose…it’s possible Gresham’s all right then.”

Georgina needed more than that. “I think there can be no doubt,” she said.

“Perhaps.” Her father never liked letting go of a point of dispute.

“Absolutely. And so everything is back as it was. My wedding will go on as planned. Yes, Papa?”

He gestured airily. “Yes, all right. There’s no need to breathe fire over me, my dear. What a great fuss you’ve made over nothing.”

As she could not box her father’s ears, Georgina spoke through clenched teeth. “You will happily escort me to the altar.”

He straightened as if she’d insulted him. “Of course I will. Who else but me?”

“And join in all the celebrations,” she added. “Without any grumbling.”

“Naturally.”

He said it as if the whole disaster had been of her making. Georgina had to stifle something very like a growl.

Her father’s square chin came up, and a new thought lit his green eyes. “We’ll have to organize some proper shooting for Langford’s visit.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully, as if the uproar over the wedding had never occurred. “Do you care for it, Mitra?”

“Shooting what?” the other man asked.

“Birds, at this season. Pheasant, partridge.”

Mitra shook his head.

“Ah, right. You don’t eat ’em. I imagine you don’t shoot ’em either.”

“You are correct.”

Nearly unable to contain her exasperation and bemusement and relief, Georgina left them to it. Outside the library door, she nearly tripped over Hilda, who’d obviously been listening at the keyhole. “How did you even know we were in there?” But it was a silly question. Somehow, even in the confines of her bedchamber, Hilda learned such things.

“You were amazing!” exclaimed her youngest sister. “Heroic. Or…heroine-ic. Is that a word? I want to be just like you when I’m older.”

“Heroic seems a bit strong.” Georgina realized that she was trembling. She’d been all right in the heat of the argument. Now she was ready to sink.

“No, it doesn’t. The way you laid matters out for Papa? I wish Mama had been here. She might have learned something.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not,” Hilda replied. “She shouts at him, but she never bothers to give him proper reasons.”

Embarrassed and curiously flattered, Georgina turned away. She wanted to give Sebastian the good news. And to throw herself into his arms, she thought, if she possibly could. She needed the safety and comfort of that newfound haven.





Fourteen


The Gresham brothers had taken refuge in a reception room on the other side of the entry hall, leaving the door ajar. As the sounds from the library mounted, Sebastian wondered if he ought to charge in on a support mission for Georgina. He hadn’t been any help with her mother. When it was a matter of fencing with words rather than sabers, he was hardly of the first rank.