Dominic took her hand and bowed over it, then placed it on his arm and covered it comfortingly with his own large hand. “Miss Hartley. I am here, as arranged, to convey you back to town.”
Georgiana’s eyes flew to his and read the silent message there. The warmth of his hand banished her fears. She had complete confidence in him.
With an encouraging smile, Dominic turned and, seeing her cloak, released her to fetch it.
The action broke the spell which had held Charles immobile. His normal pasty complexion had paled at the sight of his childhood nemesis. Now his face flooded with unbecoming colour. “You’re out of order, Ridgeley,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “My cousin is in my care. And she’s not returning to London.”
Settling Georgiana’s cloak about her shoulders, Dominic raised his brows in fascinated contemplation of the thinly veiled threat. His gaze met Charles’s squarely, then wandered insultingly over the younger man’s frame. Dominic Ridgeley was a man in his prime, a noted Corinthian, five years older, three inches taller and two stone of sheer muscle heavier than Charles Hartley. And Charles knew it.
To Georgiana’s intense relief, he dropped his eyes, blanching, then flushing again. Bella’s brother tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and patted it comfortingly.
“Come, my dear. My carriage is waiting.”
By some magical machination, Georgiana found herself escorted gently but firmly out of the inn by a route which exposed her to no one other than the innkeeper, bowing obsequiously as they passed. Handed into the same luxuriously appointed coach that she had used on her previous visit to the inn, she sank back against the fine leather with a small sigh of relief tinged with disillusionment. The search for her mother’s portrait had nearly ended in nightmare.
The evening was closing in. Georgiana glanced up to see Lord Alton’s large frame silhouetted by the light thrown by the flares in the innyard. He paused, one foot on the carriage step, and gazed back at the inn, an expression she could not define on his face. Then, abruptly, he stepped back. “Your pardon, my dear. Unfinished business.” He frowned and added, “I won’t keep you more than a minute.”
He shut the carriage door, and Georgiana heard him call up to the coachman to watch over her. Peering out of the window, she saw him stride purposefully through the main door of the inn.
As the minutes ticked by, the conviction grew that Lord Alton’s “unfinished business” lay with Charles. Georgiana fretted, frustrated by her helplessness. She had almost reached the point of sending the coachman in search of his master when Lord Alton appeared on the inn steps. As he strode across the yard, Georgiana scanned his person. He was undeniably intact. His greatcoat swung, impeccable as ever, from his broad shoulders. She expelled a little sigh of pent-up breath and hurriedly moved farther along the seat to make room for her rescuer. Then he was in the carriage and they were moving.
To her consternation, Georgiana found travelling in a closed carriage with Bella’s brother was almost as much an ordeal as being in the inn parlour with Charles. But, while with Charles she’d had to subdue her disgust, with Lord Alton it was an entirely different emotion she fought to control. At one level, she revelled in his nearness, in the delicate wafts of sandalwood and leather that subtly teased her senses. Occasionally a deep rut jolted her shoulder against his arm. But the feelings which rose up inside her were too dangerous, too damning. Ruthlessly, she fought to quell them, forcing her breathing to slow and her mind to function.
“Did Bella send you?”
Dominic had been waiting, with what patience he could muster, for her to recover. He frowned into the gathering gloom and turned towards her. “Both Bella and Julian Ellsmere.”
“Lord Ellsmere?”
“The same. He saw you leaving London with Charles—a ‘tow-headed bounder’ was his description.”
His clipped tones destroyed any impulse Georgiana had to laugh.
“Then Bella sent around a note and told me where to look for you.” Dominic studied his angel’s face in the faint glow of light cast back from the carriage lamps. He could see no sign that she understood the danger she had been in, no comprehension of the fear and worry her impulsive start had visited on him. His tone became noticeably drier. “I find it hard to understand why, knowing Charles as you do, you consented to this ill advised junket.”
At the clear censure in his voice, Georgiana stiffened. She swallowed the peculiar lump in her throat to say in a small, tight voice, “I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any inconvenience.”
Inwardly Dominic cursed. This interlude was not progressing as planned. He was having the devil of a time holding on to his temper, rubbed raw by the troubled speculation of the hour and more it had taken to reach the inn. The impulse to shake her was strong. Yet, in his present mood, he doubted the wisdom of laying hands on her. And, wise in the ways of young ladies, he knew his angel, far from being adoringly penitent, was close to taking snuff. If he gave in to temptation and read her the lecture burning the tip of his tongue, she might well treat him to a deplorable display of feminine weakness. For once, he wasn’t sure of his ability to withstand such a scene. With a “Humph!”, he folded his arms across his chest and stared moodily out of the window.
For her part, Georgiana kept her gaze firmly fixed on the passing shadows, concentrating on subduing her quivering lips and blinking away the sudden moisture in her large eyes. It was really too much! First he had taken charge of her, like a guardian, just because she had asked for help. Then he had not had the sense to recognise her at the masked ball and had made her lose her heart with his wickedly sophisticated ways. Now he was treating her like a child again, upbraiding her, blaming her instead of Charles!
Trying not to sniff, Georgiana determinedly dragged her mind away from its preoccupation with the gentleman beside her and turned it to consideration of something—anything—else.
Lord Ellsmere’s actions, for instance. Why had he gone to Lord Alton, rather than directly to Bella? That Bella should have summoned her brother was no surprise, but why had Lord Ellsmere done so? No answer occurred to her. Giving up on that issue, she wondered how to acceptably ask what he had done when he had re-entered the inn. She felt she had a right to know; it might prove important in any future disputation with Charles. Surreptitiously, she glanced at him.
In the light thrown by the lamps of a passing carriage, she saw a bloody scratch across the knuckles of his right hand.
“Oh! You’ve hurt yourself!” Without a thought for propriety or the consequences, Georgiana captured his hand in hers, holding it closer to examine the wound in the dim light. “You’ve been…been milling with Charles!” Settling the large hand firmly in her lap, she whipped out her small handkerchief and wrapped it tightly over the cut, tying a small knot in the lace edging to keep it in place. “There was no need, I assure you.”
A deep sigh greeted her protestations. “Oh, there was every need. Charles needed to be taught a lesson. No gentleman goes about scheming to ruin a lady’s reputation.”
“What did you do to him?”
His head back against the squabs, Dominic tried to read her expression. “Don’t worry, he still lives.” When she continued to wait patiently, he grimaced and added, “He was unwise enough to make a number of suggestions I found distinctly ungentlemanly. I took great delight in making him eat his words.”
“But you might have been hurt! You were hurt.” Georgiana looked again at the hand which still lay in her skirts, gently cradled between hers. Suddenly recalling the impropriety of holding a gentleman’s hand in her lap, she reluctantly released it, thankful the dim light hid her blushes.
His lips twisting in a smile he knew she could not see, Dominic equally reluctantly withdrew his hand from where it lay, stilling the all but automatic impulse to reverse the situation and capture her hand in his. He had initially been stunned into immobility by her impulsive actions. When his wits returned, he had seen no reason to shorten a moment which had touche
d him strangely. Now, sensing her unease, he sought for some comment to distract her.
“Anyway, I doubt you’ll be troubled by Charles again.”
Georgiana heard and nodded, but, suddenly feeling ridiculously weak, sought refuge in silence. Too many emotions swirled in her breast, conflicting with all the accepted precepts, and his nearness only compounded her confusion. She fixed her gaze on the scene beyond the window, the shadows of trees merging into the darkness. Yet her mind remained centred on the man beside her.
Perceptive enough to sense her turmoil, Dominic smiled into the darkness and, smothering a small sigh of frustration, put aside his plans for furthering his suit. She was nervous and on edge. Doubtless, her recent brush with the despicable Charles had contributed its mite to her state. In fact, now he came to think on it, it was wonderful that she hadn’t treated him to the vapours. Most young women would undoubtedly be weeping all over him by this juncture, not concerning themselves with his minor hurts. In the dark, his fingers found the lace edging of her handkerchief wrapped tightly about his hand.
The moment was not right, either, for bringing up the subject of the masked ball. He was far too experienced even to contemplate making love to her now, while she was so touchy. There was, after all, tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And all the days after that. For, if nothing else had been settled this evening, he had definitely decided that Georgiana Hartley was not going to be allowed to slip out of his life. Whether she realised it or not, she was there to stay.
He paused in his mental ramblings to glance down at the slight figure beside him. She sat absorbed in her thoughts, her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Another half-hour would see them in Green Street. With another smile for the darkness, Dominic settled his head comfortably against the well stuffed squabs and closed his eyes, the better to indulge his fantasies.
Georgiana sat silently, taking herself to task for her forward behaviour. A lecture on the unwisdom of allowing her fanciful dreams to lead her to read more into Lord Alton’s actions than was intended followed. He was very fond of Bella. She should remember that he had come to find her in response to Bella’s request—brotherly devotion was the emotion which drove him to protect her, nothing else. Her stern admonitions made her flinch inwardly but did little to ease the tightness around her heart.
Gradually, without conscious direction, her tired mind drifted to consideration of its main preoccupation. Of course he had no interest in her. If he had known who she was at the masked ball, he would have mentioned the fact by now. She knew little of the ways of gentleman rakes, but felt sure a coach trip, together alone, must rate as one of those opportunities too good to let slip. Yet the man beside her remained silent. She stole a glance at him from beneath her lashes. His eyes were closed. Emboldened, she allowed her gaze to skim the contours of his face, the wide forehead and squared chin, his firm, well shaped lips… Finding her mind frolicking in fantasies of how those lips would feel against hers, Georgiana forcibly withdrew her gaze and returned it to contemplation of the darkness beyond the window.
Ravello. The image of the villa there, now hers, materialised in her mind’s eye. She seized on it. And was suddenly struck by the obvious solution to her troubles. Charles was a bully and totally unscrupulous. He would continue to threaten her peace of mind while she remained in England. And Bella’s brother, too, disturbed her rest and reduced her ability to cope with the daily round of fashionable life. Yet she was not particularly enamoured of the social whirl; it would cause her no great pain to eschew the life completely. It was a pleasant diversion, nothing more.
With sudden conviction, she made up her mind. She would see out the Season with Bella, as she had promised Arthur she would. Then she would return to Ravello, a great deal older and a great deal wiser. She stifled a small sigh and forced herself to promise—when winter set in, she would be in Ravello.
The increasing light coming from street-lamps as they entered the capital made it worth while for Dominic to desert his imaginings in favour of the real thing. He had been watching Georgiana for some minutes, wondering what it was that kept her so serious, when a point which had thus far eluded him surfaced as a question. “Georgiana, do you have any idea why Charles wants to marry you?”
As he said the words, he realised they were hardly flattering. Still, he had a high enough opinion of Georgiana Hartley to be sure she was not the sort of flighty young woman who believed all men who wished to marry her were smitten by her beauty. The memory of her numerous suitors, all of whom were most definitely smitten, himself included, brought a wry smile to his lips.
In the flickering, shifting light, Georgiana saw the smile, and her heart turned to lead and dropped to her slippers. To ask a question like that and then smile condescendingly! Well, if anything was needed to convince her Lord Alton had no romantic interest in her it was that. Doggedly, she forced her mind to concentrate on his query. Frowning with the effort, she shook her head and answered truthfully, “I have no idea.”
“It was the same while you were at the Place?”
Georgiana nodded. “Exactly the same.” She paused, then decided she might as well tell Lord Alton the whole of it. He knew so much already. Choosing her words carefully, she explained Charles’s claim of a long-standing betrothal.
“And you’re certain such an arrangement never existed?”
“Quite sure.” Georgiana paused, then added in explanation, “My father and I were…very close. He would never have done such a thing and not told me. Not for any reason.”
Lord Alton seemed to accept her assurance. He sat silently beside her as the coach rumbled along the cobbles towards Green Street.
Dominic had no doubt that Georgiana’s beliefs were true. He only wished he had known of Charles’s claim before he had returned to the inn parlour. The tenseness he had felt but not recognised on his drive to the Hare and Hounds had converted to anger once he had got Georgiana safely away—anger that had demanded some outlet. So he had returned to the parlour, to be quite unnecessarily provoked by Charles’s animadversions on his cousin. In the end he had administered a thoroughly deserved thrashing. He knew Charles was close to financial ruin—was, in fact, technically bankrupt. Georgiana’s small fortune would not come close to meeting his mounting debts. After suggesting Charles would be wise never to approach his lovely cousin again, he had repeated his offer to buy the Place. The sum he named was far more than Charles would ever get from any other, with the Place situated as it was. Charles had only attempted a sneer through swollen and cracked lips.
Dominic contemplated a late-night return to the Hare and Hounds, to pursue further the reason for Charles’s apparent fixation with marrying his cousin. Even less than Georgiana did he believe Charles would act for the good of the family. There was something in all this that he was missing, some vital clue which would make all clear. But Charles would almost certainly have left before he could return to the inn.
He turned the anomalies of Charles’s behaviour, both with respect to Georgiana and to the sale of the Place, over and over in his mind. Suddenly, the two connected. Dominic straightened in his seat.
“Georgiana, have you been to see your father’s English solicitors yet?”
Dragged from the depths of a series of most melancholy thoughts, Georgiana shook her head. “No. I suppose I should, but there doesn’t really seem much point.”
“But…” Dominic paused, then decided he was going to interfere even though he theoretically had no right. Right be damned. He was going to marry the chit, wasn’t he? “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall you left Italy before notification of your father’s death was acknowledged by your English solicitors. Is that right?”
“You mean,” said Georgiana, brow wrinkling in an effort to get the question straight, “before they wrote back after they got the letter from the Italian solicitors?” At Dominic’s nod, she agreed. “Yes, that’s right.”
“And you haven’t seen your father’s will?”
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“No…no. That was left with the English solicitors. But I always knew I would inherit all Papa’s money. And the villa at Ravello.” She paused, puzzled by his line of questioning, not sure of what possibilities he saw. “But surely if there had been anything more, or anything unexpected, someone would have told me by now?”
“Who are your solicitors here?”
“Whitworth and Whitworth, in Lincoln’s Inn.”
“Good. I’ll take you to see them tomorrow.”
Georgiana turned to look at him in amazement. She had not previously had much exposure to the autocratic side of Lord Alton’s temperament. She surveyed the satisfied expression on his face with misgiving. “But…why?”
He smiled at her, and she almost forgot her question.
“Because, my dear Georgiana,” he said as he captured her hand and raised it to his lips, “Charles, despite all evidence to the contrary, is not a complete gudgeon. His attempts to coerce you into marriage must have some motive behind them. And, as your kinship with him is the only connection between you, I suggest we start looking for the answer with your father’s solicitors.”
Despite the clear impression that Lord Alton had a stronger motive for insisting she visit her solicitors, Georgiana got no further chance to question him. He had barely ceased speaking when the carriage pulled up outside Green Street. In the ensuing hullabaloo there was no opportunity to do more than thank him prettily for his rescue and meekly accept his instruction to be ready the next morning at eleven.
GEORGIANA RETURNED Arthur’s reassuring smile as the Alton town carriage drew up at the entrance to Lincoln’s Inn. Both she and her host had been taken up by an irresistible force at eleven that morning, their objective being the office of her father’s solicitors. Despite her belief that nothing new would be learned from Whitworths, Georgiana was enjoying her first view of an area of London she had not previously had cause to visit.
Lord Alton, sitting beside her, had leant forward to speak to the porter. As he leant back, the carriage lurched forward again, over the cobbles and through the large gate of the Inn. The cobbled yard was surrounded by buildings entirely given over to solicitors and clerks. By each doorway leading on to a stairwell hung the bronze plaques of the practitioners within. The carriage drew up before one such door. Lord Alton jumped down and gave her his hand.