Suzanne Robinson (30 page)

I
admire Nick Ross above all men, Georgie. He has my greatest affection, and I would like nothing better than to be able to call him brother
.

It was then that Georgiana had realized Jocelin was giving his blessing. Somehow he had guessed what had happened between her and Nick. She had raced back to the house to find Nick, regardless of the courtesy she owed to Mr. Meredith, but Pertwee had packed all his master’s possessions and left with them. Nick was gone.

Tears stung her eyes as Georgiana remembered how desolate she’d felt upon learning of Nick’s abrupt departure. Why, why, why had he left? Had he grown weary of waiting for her to come to him? He had tried to come to her, and she had been too much a coward to see him. It was all her fault, and now she’d lost him. He probably hated her.

Rebecca appeared with the heavy jet necklace and placed it around Georgiana’s neck. Georgiana stared through the window at the black, starless night. The vast, dark emptiness reminded her of the emptiness she felt inside.

It was an emptiness born of not hearing Nick’s teasing voice call her “young George,” of longing to see his lips part in astonishment while she prattled about the beauties of an ancient statue with the body of a man and the head of a baboon, an emptiness fed
by the knowledge that he might never again give himself to her as he had done that night in the cabinet.

Why hadn’t he waited just a little longer? Did she dare go after him? Her father watched her every move; she couldn’t go after him openly. Could she persuade Mr. Meredith to find him? For the first time since learning of Nick’s absence, Georgiana brightened.

Rising from the dressing table, she hurried downstairs in search of the American. She met Aunt Livy on her way to the drawing room, where the family gathered before dinner. All the other guests had departed, and the company would be limited to the Threshfields, the Marshals, and Dallas. As she and her aunt reached the ground floor, Georgiana pulled Livy around to the relative seclusion beneath the staircase.

“Aunt Livy, do you think Mr. Meredith could find Nick for me?” Georgiana whispered, wringing her black lace handkerchief in both hands.

“I knew it!”

Georgiana jumped at her aunt’s loud tone and glanced over her shoulder and up the stairs. “Shhh. Please, Aunt.”

“I knew you’d come to your senses eventually.” Aunt Livy snapped open her fan and spoke behind it. “Mr. Ross is twice the gentleman of any of the lot your father had prowling around you and your fortune. It’s taken you long enough to realize it. Do you know how hard it’s been to keep out of the way so that you two could be together?”

“Aunt Livy!” Georgiana cried in dismay. “Why didn’t you say anything if you liked him so much?”

“Would you have listened?”

“Oh.”

“Precisely. And I think Mr. Meredith could find anyone he wanted to find. Come on, now. We don’t want to leave the Threshfields alone to greet your father. No telling what disgusting lies they’ll tell.”

In the black-shrouded drawing room they spent a few minutes in strained conversation with Evelyn and Prudence. Looking like a small black football in her huge crinoline and mourning gown, Prudence was beaming in anticipation of playing hostess to the Duke of Clairemont. Hitherto she’d been spending much of her time in her room grieving for Ludwig, but the arrival of so prominent a guest banished all sorrow within her maternal breast. She hardly noticed Dallas’s arrival in the drawing room, which gave Georgiana the chance to pull the American aside.

“Mr. Meredith, I have a great favor to ask of you.”

“I am at your service, ma’am.”

“I must find Mr. Ross at once, and I can’t do it myself as long as my father is about. I wonder if you can help me?”

“It would be an honor to come to the aid of such a lovely lady.”

Georgiana gave him a pained smile. “You seem to know a great deal about my private affairs, sir, so there’s no need for flattery. I’m hardly the dainty, delicate lady.”

“I’m not in the habit of spewing false compliments, ma’am. And as for your lack of daintiness …” Dallas looked down at her from his greater stature with a quizzical expression.

“I reckon old Nick’s glad to have found a lady he doesn’t have to pick up to speak to.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, ma’am, Nick and I are about the same height, and neither of us enjoys getting a crick in the neck trying to talk to ladies of diminutive height.”

“Are you teasing me, Mr. Meredith?”

“Maybe just a little, ma’am.”

Before she could reply, the butler announced her father, and the atmosphere chilled as the duke walked into the room. Clairemont nodded to his host and hostess with glacial reserve, then greeted his sister.

“I would like a word with you, Lavinia.”

“Fine.”

“A private word.”

“Oh, do get on with it, Clairemont. You look like a bishop who’s just seen the pope on his chamber pot.”

The duke looked as if he were suffering some great intestinal pain. “Very well, we will discuss your shortcomings as a chaperon later.”

Georgiana sighed and glanced at Dallas.

“Now he’s done it,” she said.

“Clairemont,” Lavinia purred, “I like Mr. Ross, and I have no intention of letting you ruin Georgiana’s chances with him. Be civil or I’ll box your ears as I did when we were children.”

“Really, Lavinia, you’re hardly the person to speak about civility. I’m going to see to it that Georgiana is married to a satisfactory young man.”

“Oh, no,” Georgiana muttered.

The butler forestalled further argument by announcing dinner. At the same time a distant boom could be heard rolling down the hall and into the saloon. It was a wonder the statues didn’t crack in their alcoves.

“What was that?” the duke demanded.

“It sounded like the front doors,” Evelyn said.

As he finished, Georgiana heard a loud bellow magnified by the marble and alabaster in the hall. The growling shout grew louder.

“Clairrrrrre—mont!”

Georgiana jumped to her feet. “Nick?”

The doors to the drawing room burst open, kicked by Nicholas Ross, who slammed them aside and strode into the room. He stopped when he saw the duke. Everyone stared at him wordlessly, including Georgiana. Nick wore only a dirty, torn shirt, muddy riding pants, and equally soiled boots. He was breathless and sweating, his face streaked with dirt and blood. His hair was damp and dark except for its red-gold sun streaks. He was holding a pistol.

Georgiana was the first to recover from astonishment and rushed to his side. Putting her hand on his arm, she searched his face, alarmed at the rage she beheld.

“Nick?” she whispered.

The hard menace in his expression softened for a moment as he glanced at her. “Hello, love,” he said softly.

Then he rounded on the duke, who was facing him with his hands clasped behind his back. Nick’s East End accent was harsh.

“You bloody bastard, you tried to kill me,” he said with a calm that alarmed Georgiana more than his rage.

The duke lifted one brow. “On the contrary. If I had tried to kill you, you’d be dead.”

“Oh, no. You wouldn’t dirty your hands with the job, but you shouldn’t have picked such stupid coves
for it.” Nick touched the pistol in his belt. “Snead tried to slit my throat. He’s dead.”

Georgiana heard those words and began to feel as if she were in a waking nightmare. And she was growing more alarmed the more she saw of Nick’s wounds. Touching a wisp of red-gold hair, she turned her gaze from the disturbing sight of his blood. “Father, what is he talking about, and what happened to him?”

“Tell her,” Nick snapped.

The duke shrugged. “I had Mr. Ross detained.”

“He had me jumped and beaten up, the sodding coward.”

Georgiana stared at her father, shaking her head. The duke hadn’t taken his eyes off Nick. Before she could ask for more details, Nick gently removed her hand from his arm.

“This time it’s going to be you and me, Clairemont.” Nick wiped blood from the side of his mouth. “Take off your coat and put up your fists.”

“I don’t engage in brawls with gutter rats.”

“Father!”

“Too bad, old cock,” Nick said with a grin. “Because that’s what you’re going to do, whether you like it or not.”

Georgiana put a forestalling hand on his arm again and whispered, “Nick, don’t.”

“Bloody hell, woman, it’s too late for manners and dithering.”

Evelyn marched over to Nick. “I say, Ross, this is too much.”

Ignoring Evelyn, Nick glanced around the room, then went to a wall display beside the fireplace and removed two swords. He threw one at the duke, who caught it.

“No!” Georgiana cried.

Dallas spoke for the first time over the protests of Prudence and Evelyn. “Ross, this isn’t the way.”

“I’ll deal with you after I’ve finished with Clairemont,” Nick said.

Dallas looked surprised. “Me?”

“You needn’t be concerned,” the duke said to Dallas. “I won’t kill him.”

Dallas shrugged. “I was worried about you, Your Grace.”

“Both of you stop,” Georgiana said. “Father, don’t you come near him with that sword.”

Nick gave Dallas a look, and the blond man caught Georgiana’s arm and pulled her back from the two men.

“Let me go, Mr. Meredith.”

“Sorry, ma’am. I can’t do that.”

Georgiana yanked her arm with no success. “Men! You’re all lunatics.”

While Prudence gasped and fluttered her bejeweled hands, Nick and the duke began to circle the room. Evelyn, Aunt Lavinia, and the butler shoved furniture aside. The duke closed in on Nick.

“This will be over shortly,” he said. “Then you can summon the authorities to arrest this creature, Threshfield. I’m surprised you haven’t already.”

As he finished, Clairemont suddenly jabbed at Nick. Georgiana cried out as Nick danced aside and thrust at her father. The duke pulled back barely in time to escape Nick’s blade. Startled at Nick’s expertise, Georgiana clamped her mouth shut for fear of distracting him. She spared a glance at Dallas, who seemed unworried.

During that brief glance she heard her father
swear. There was a high, hissing sound, and Georgiana saw Nick’s sword rapidly clash with the duke’s before swirling around and around the blade until it caught the guard. The duke’s sword flew from his hand and crashed against a wall. At the same time Nick stuck the tip of his blade under Clairemont’s chin. Georgiana hardly breathed, and even Prudence grew quiet as the duke lifted his hands in surrender.

Nick looked at his opponent down the length of his blade. “Nobody kicks me in the head and gets away with it.”

“I should think you’d be used to it, given your low origins,” the duke said.

Georgiana gasped and pulled her arm free of Dallas’s grasp. “Father, for shame.”

Shaking his head, Nick threw down his sword, took three steps, and punched the duke in the stomach. Clairemont dropped to his knees, wheezing, his face crimson. He clutched his gut and coughed. Nick planted his boot on the duke’s shoulder and shoved. The duke landed on his ass, moaning.

“Some people just don’t learn without encouragement,” Nick said lightly. “Now, you listen to me, Your High-and-mighty Grace. I ain’t going to marry Georgiana because I ain’t going to dishonor her and Jocelin, not because you don’t want me to. And the next time you try anything with me, I’m going to kick your gut into your throat.”

“Marry?” Georgiana heard her voice climb the scale. She rushed over to Nick, her whole body shaking from anxiety and outrage. “Am I to understand that you two have been fighting about me?”

“Course we been fighting about you,” Nick said.

“I—you—oh!” Georgiana clenched her fists and
counted to ten. It didn’t help. “By heaven, how dare you, Nicholas Ross?”

“What?” Nick demanded as she began to stalk back and forth between him and her moaning father.

Drawing herself up to her most erect and regal posture, Georgiana said, “Now I understand.
You
decided not to marry me all by yourself, without asking me how I felt about it. Of all the high-handed effrontery. You decide what is honorable. You decide what is best for me. You decide whom I should marry. You decide whether I am to risk Society’s disapproval. And what makes me even more furious is that you have decided that I haven’t the character to recognize that honor, bravery, kindness, and loyalty can flourish in St. Giles as well as Grosvenor Square.”

“I was only—”

“You were only deciding the course of my whole life for me, Nicholas Ross.”

“But—”

“What if I don’t care about Society, or Father, or anyone else but—but you—and me. Did you ever in all your prejudiced deliberations think to ask me how I felt?”

“Well, no.”

“There!”

Nick spread his arms in dismay. “I thought I knew how you’d feel.”

“Don’t ever try to hire yourself out as a reader of minds,” Georgiana said. Suddenly she felt tears building. Blinking rapidly, she lowered her voice. “If you had bothered to ask me to marry you, Mr. Ross, I would have said yes.”

“You would?” Nick asked in a disbelieving tone.

“No, she wouldn’t,” the duke said from his perch on the floor. “I won’t allow it.”

“Oh, shut up, Clairemont,” Lavinia said.

Georgiana ignored them. Holding back her tears, she whispered, “But you never asked, Mr. Ross. And you still don’t believe me. I don’t think you’ll ever believe me, because in spite of everything, you still think I’m like all the other trivial-minded young ladies in Society. You’re a snob, Nick. A bloody snob.”

Without warning Georgiana again imagined a lifetime without Nick, alone, desolate, full of the agony of his loss. She gave a small cry filled with misery and rushed from the room. She heard Nick call to her and began to run blindly. She had exposed her deepest feelings to him, and she was afraid. Running across the saloon, she thrust open a door to the terrace and rushed out into the night.