Her reflection quivered as another boat passed them. Georgiana bent closer to examine her eyes, for the murkiness of the water made them look hollow. An eel slipped through the water and she followed its path, fascinated by the supple movement.
The steady rhythm of the oars dipping in and out of the water stopped.
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"Steady, Miss Darcy! If you lean over too far, we will tip,"
said Gatley.
She righted herself slowly and mumbled an apology.
"You are cold and wet," he remarked quietly.
She wished he would take up the oars again and keep rowing.
She did not want his attention. But the oars stayed stubbornly still, and she was forced to look at him.
"I am wet, but I am not cold," she said.
"I can tell you are cold," he replied, "for you have goose bumps on your arms."
He reached a decision.
"I am sorry to cut the expedition short, Mrs Darcy," said Gatley.
"I know you will be disappointed, but it is damp and cold on the river and hardly the place for someone with wet clothes."
Caroline nodded. "You are perfectly correct, Mr Gatley. But you need not cut your expedition short. If you would be good enough to row us to the shore, I will see to it that Miss Darcy returns home safely."
"It is too long a trip for you to travel unescorted," he replied.
"I have been on the river so many times it holds little interest for me. I came for the company, not the river. I will be happy to escort you."
The sun suddenly appeared from behind a cloud. His dark eyes caught the light and glittered strangely. They tugged at something inside her, and Georgiana felt a tremor, as though a feather had trailed across her skin.
"We would be glad to have your company," said Caroline, giving Georgiana a gentle prod of the elbow in her ribs.
"I would be grateful, sir, for it is true that my clothing has become quite clammy and uncomfortable. I would like to go home."
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As she stepped out of the boat, the sound of merriment and laughter floated down the river to her. Her throat constricted, but she promised herself that, whatever happened, she would not cry.
Caroline insisted on inspecting Georgiana's stockings when they reached the carriage, requesting Gatley politely to wait outside for them. Drawing down the shades, Caroline took one look at them and told Georgiana to take them off.
"I cannot!" said Georgiana, horrified "How could I then sit here all the way to London without any stockings?"
"Mr Gatley is a gentleman. He will not inspect you to see if you are wearing stockings, and if he does, well, he will have a surprise, will he not?"
"My dress is not very long," said Georgiana, since the current fashion reached above the ankles.
"You will have your boots on,"
The effort of removing her stockings in the narrow space of a carriage, as well as Caroline's attempts to coax some laughter out of her, soon lightened her mood. It was as if the wet stockings themselves were responsible for her unhappiness, for the moment she peeled them off, she began to feel better.
"Now your boots," said Caroline.
Georgiana immediately regretted taking her half-boots off. For without the smooth surface of her stockings, with her feet damp, and the nankeen boots wet, it was impossible to put them back on.
"If only I had worn leather boots," she said. "If only I had thought more of the mud and less of elegance!"
"Try harder," said Caroline, squatting to the floor of the carriage.
"I will steady them for you and pull them up. You push."
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But the boot did not yield. Try as she would, it refused to accommodate her foot.
"It must have shrunk," said Georgiana.
"I have never heard of such a thing," said Caroline, "but I can think of no other explanation."
"What shall I do?" said Georgiana, staring in despair at the reluctant boots and at the shrivelled wet feet resting on the carriage floor.
"I cannot imagine," said Caroline.
Just then Gatley knocked at the carriage door.
"Are you ready to leave, ladies?"
Caroline and Georgiana exchanged glances and burst into suppressed laughter.
"What shall we do?" whispered Georgiana, aware of Mr Gatley on the other side of the door.
"You shall have to put the boots next to you on the seat," she said, "and cover yourself with the blanket. Quickly."
The stockings were still on the floor. Georgiana blushed to think of Mr Gatley setting eyes on such an intimate item of clothing.
"The stockings," she said, wrapped up in the blanket and unable to move.
Caroline scooped up the stockings.
"Just a moment, Mr Gatley," she replied. "We will be with you shortly."
She held out the stockings. "Here, stuff them in your reticule."
But Georgiana's reticule was quite useless for such a function. It was very pretty, made of knitted silk with elaborate beading, but it could hold nothing more than a small delicate kerchief and a few coins.
"Let us take one each," said Caroline, opening her own reticule.
This proved to be the best solution.
"You may come in, Mr Gatley," she said, pulling up the shades.
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"We will have to hope we do not need a handkerchief on the way back," said Caroline, in a half-whisper. "I wish I had thought of it earlier."
"It is too late," said Georgiana, as Gatley stepped through the doorway and filled the carriage with his presence.
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Chapter 20
Georgiana was more than annoyed at herself for interrupting the outing. She felt guilty for dragging Gatley away, when it was he, after all, who had arranged the whole trip to Richmond. Now, because of her silliness, he was obliged to drive back to London.
He took the seat next to Caroline, who sat directly opposite her.
Georgiana was intensely aware of her naked feet touching the dusty floor of the carriage. Every jolt of the carriage, every quiver, passed through the soles of her feet. She was aware, too, of the side of his shiny leather boot, just inches from hers, and imagined what would happen if he accidentally stepped on her bare toes.
She caught a couple of the glances he sent her way too. There was something different about them, something she could not define, that made her question whether he suspected what lay beneath the blanket.
Meanwhile, he gave no sign at all of resenting his inconvenient return to London. He was in remarkably good spirits, his dark eyes lightened by humour. He entertained them at first with boating tales featuring some of his friends, then with stories about his first attempt to row a boat.
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For some reason--Georgiana was sure it had something to do with her need to hide her feet--the carriage seemed smaller than usual. She did not recall having such a sense of his closeness to her when she had travelled with them to the ruins. It was the exact same carriage. Why then did she see him in more detail--from the tiny scar at the corner of his upper lip to the thick lashes that lined his eyes?
A sneeze interrupted these unfamiliar thoughts. Caroline, who had not gotten wet at all, was sneezing. Unthinking, hand on her mouth, she groped with the other hand for her reticule and opened it.
A glimpse of her own white stocking met Georgiana's eyes. How was she to stop Caroline from bringing the stocking to her nose?
Caroline sneezed again.
The stocking, long and silken, and not at all like a handkerchief, appeared in her hand.
She raised it to her nose.
Georgiana had no choice. She had to stop Caroline most urgently. Any verbal statement would attract the attention of Mr Gatley, who was looking out of the window.
She kicked Caroline hard in the shin.
Caroline stopped pulling out the stocking, frowned, then, realising what she was doing, crumpled the stocking quickly into a ball and stuffed it back into her reticule.
Caroline's hand stilled in the act of tying the reticule. She looked pointedly at the ground.
It was Georgiana's turn to frown. Then horror coursed through her as she spotted a row of dainty pink toes peeping from under the blanket. She pulled her foot back to safety, keeping a close eye on Gatley, who was still looking outside.
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It was only when they reached the familiar townhouses of London that she sat up in her seat in a panic. They had a far bigger obstacle ahead of her to deal with. How in heaven's name could she step out of the carriage in her bare feet?
She threw a desperate look at Caroline. Oddly enough, the same thought seemed to occur to Caroline at the same moment, for her eyes widened. Luckily, Caroline's usual good sense in emergencies came to the fore.
"Mr Gatley, I wonder if we could drop you off first at your address, before going round to Berkley Square?"
If Mr Gatley thought it a strange request, especially since they were riding in his own carriage, he was too much a gentleman to say so.
"Of course," he said. "I will instruct the driver."
They dropped him off at his townhouse.
Both Georgiana and Caroline breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut behind him and the carriage began to move away.
Georgiana stretched her leg out and wriggled her toes.
"You cannot imagine how cramped my legs feel, for I did not dare move them, in case the blanket slipped and revealed my feet again."
Caroline began to laugh once more.
"We still have one more obstacle to surmount," she said, "which is how to get you into the house again. You cannot be carried in, with bare feet."
In the end, they found a solution. They would send the footman to fetch Georgiana's maid Rosie and to request her to bring some clean stockings and open shoes to the carriage, and all would be well.
"What a to-do," said Caroline. "I cannot believe how complicated it all has been."
"Well, at least Mr Gatley never noticed," said Georgiana.
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If Georgiana had been privy to Gatley's thoughts, she would not have been so complacent.
He whistled a merry tune as he ran up the steps to his home and handed his hat cheerfully to Gibbs, the butler, who promptly handed it to a footman. He headed immediately to the library, where Gibbs poured him a snifter of Madeira.
"Has anything untoward occurred, sir?" asked Gibbs. "You have returned early."
"Nothing untoward, no," he replied. "Something quite enchanting did occur however."
The old retainer stood waiting placidly to see if his employer would see fit to inform him.
Gatley laughed. How could he tell the butler about Miss Darcy and her little pink toes? She had tried so hard to hide them--little knowing that he had spotted them from the beginning. Her futile efforts made him shake with suppressed laughter, and he had been forced to look out of the window for the longest time until the fit had subsided. And then Mrs Caroline Darcy with the stocking! It had easily been the most amusing carriage rides he had ever been on.
Gibbs was still waiting.
"Miss Georgiana Darcy slipped in the mud and was obliged to return home. It was--amusing."
Gibbs did not answer, a sure sign that he disapproved.
"You would have laughed too, Gibbs, if you were there."
Gibbs said nothing, a definite indication that his disapproval had reached rare new heights.
"I can't explain it, Gibbs, I'm sorry. Not without relating the whole story. If you keep standing here, Gibbs, I will be tempted to 252
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tell you. So I think perhaps you ought to go and leave me to my reflections."
Oddly enough, the moment Gibbs closed the door behind him, Gatley lost the urge to laugh. He cast his memory back to that moment by the riverside, and Miss Darcy's humiliation as Channing opened his mouth to laugh and the others followed.
He did not like what was happening to his cousin. Channing was careless, of course, and his success with the ladies, happening to a weak mind, had made him arrogant. But he was not generally malicious. Yet lately he had seen some small signs of this--nothing very obvious, but a tendency that made him uneasy.
He would not like Channing to become anything like his father.
He would have to talk to him, of course, even though it was becoming harder now to do so. Channing, rather than turning to him for advice, seemed to be erecting a barrier between them.
Perhaps it was just as well. Channing had depended on him too much in the past. Maybe it was time he went his own way. He was certainly more than old enough, at twenty-three. As long as he was not led astray by his new set of companions, people like Parvis who were callous and self-absorbed. Channing tended to be weak-willed and too easily led by others.
Like Miss Darcy. She too was easily led by others. If only she could realise that, by imitating her cousin Clarissa, she was doing herself a disservice and might even end by being hurt. If only she would listen to what he had to say.
Georgiana's missing stocking did not go unremarked with her brother either. Darcy, hearing a carriage, was alarmed first by their 253
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early arrival, and then alarmed even further by the odd comings and goings of the servants. He came out quickly and peered into the carriage.
"Has anything happened?" he said, seeing Caroline in the carriage. "What has happened to Elizabeth?"
How characteristic of her brother to ask first about Elizabeth.
"There is nothing to worry about, Mr Darcy," said Caroline.
"Elizabeth is perfectly safe and even now enjoying a boat ride on the river. The reason for our return is simple: Georgiana has had a soaking, and Mr Gatley was kind enough to cut short the excursion and bring her home."
Darcy opened the carriage door just as Georgiana was engaged in putting on a stocking. He raised his brows eloquently.
"We had to take them off in the carriage," explained Caroline.
"We did everything in our power to hide the fact from Mr Gatley."