Rogue Grooms (20 page)

Pity was the one thing he could never bear to see in her lovely eyes.

So deeply were his thoughts occupied with Georgina, that he was almost surprised to not see her waiting on the front steps when he turned into view of the house.

What he
did
see surprised him even more.

There were two men on his roof, clambering about with much noise of hammering and sawing. A hearty country housemaid was scrubbing at the windows, while another beat at a dusty rug hung up on a line. A rather gnarled old man was clipping efficiently at the hedges, and a younger man was clearing the brush from the neglected flower beds.

Alex had not seen so much activity about Fair Oak since before he left for Spain.

And in the midst of it all was his sister, flitting from the gardeners to the maids, giving some instructions, pulling up some weeds, pushing aside old roof tiles the workmen had thrown down. She looked like a sunbeam, a dancing sunbeam in a yellow-and-white muslin gown he recognized as one of Georgina’s.

She saw him at last as he pulled the horses to a halt, and waved at him merrily, a broad smile on her face. She hurried across the drive toward him, and he was struck by how pretty his little sister looked. It was not just the fashionable new dress: her cheeks were pink and glowing, her eyes a vivid, sparkling blue. Even her hair shimmered, a halo of shining, sunyellow curls.

She was no longer the pale, worried young woman he had met upon his return home. She was again the Emily of their old life, who he would seize about the waist and twirl into the air, just to hear her squeals of laughter.

How had such a transformation come about in the days he had been gone?

“Alex!” she cried, only waiting for him to alight from his curricle before she threw her arms around him. “How grand it is to see you! You should have written to us that you were returning. I would have made sure this mess was tidied up!”

Alex kissed her cheek. “There was no time to write. You are looking very pretty, Em!”

“Thank you! It is the dress.” Emily spun about, preening just a bit in the primrose muslin. “Is it not pretty? Georgina loaned it to me.”

“Loaned?”

“Well,
gave
, I suppose, since I had to let down the hem. There is a matching bonnet, too. Was that not kind of her?”

Alex nodded slowly, a faint misgiving stirring. Georgina was
giving
his sister gowns? “Very kind. Where is Georgina, by the way?”

“Oh, I fear she is not here. She received a letter from her friend, Lady Elizabeth, saying she was not well. So Georgina went back to Town.”

“Lady Elizabeth is ill?”

“Yes. But Georgina wrote just yesterday to tell us that all is well now.”

“I am very glad to hear it. It seems a great many exciting things have happened in my absence.” He gestured toward the activity all around them.

“Yes! Isn’t it marvelous?”

“I am not certain. What is
it
?”

Emily bit her lip, obviously beginning to be concerned by his distinct lack of enthusiasm. “Let us go inside, Alex. You must be thirsty after your journey. I can send for some tea, and I will tell you all that has been happening.”

“I would like that, Emily.”

Even the library did not look the same as he had left it. The furniture had been pushed back so that the rug could be removed and beaten by the maid outside. The scent of polish and beeswax hung heavy in the air, and the tabletops and wooden chairs gleamed. The draperies had obviously been washed, because he could now see their forest-green color clearly, free of dust.

A small oil painting, a view of Fair Oak in a distinctive style he recognized as Georgina’s, hung over the carved mantle.

“Things
have
changed while I was gone,” he murmured.

“So they have.” Emily sat down in an armchair before the now empty and scoured fireplace. Alex sat across from her, just as they had on that bleak afternoon when he had spoken with the lawyer.

“Tell me all that has been happening,” he said.

“Well, Mary and Violet came up from the village, to help with some of the heavy cleaning that has been too long neglected. And Violet’s brothers took on the roof. It has been leaking terribly, you know; the wallpaper in the gold bedchamber is quite ruined, but now that the roof has been fixed, we can go about repairing it. I have also hired on some laborers to begin the hay making in a few weeks. With that out of the way, we should have a good start on the fall plowing.”

Alex listened to all this in silence, his hands opening and closing on the carved arms of his chair. It was excellent that all this had been taken care of, of course; he had been very concerned by how the damp from the leaking roof could be affecting his mother’s health. But still . . . “How could you afford to fix the roof, Emily? The money I sent you from the Grange could only have covered the household expenses.”

Emily fidgeted, smoothing her skirt, patting her hair. She looked at the floor, at the fireplace, anywhere but at him. “Oh, but it was so good of you to send that money, Alex! You are always such a good brother.”

“And you are a good sister. But you are changing the subject. I know you are a fine manager, but how did you stretch that money so far?” He feared, though, that he already knew.

Emily’s words only confirmed his fears. “Before Georgina left, she—she loaned me some funds.”

“Loaned? Like your frock?”

“
Gave
me, then! But I thought—that is, I was sure, that soon enough she would be my sister, so her gift was quite proper. Was I wrong?”

Alex remained silent. So very many emotions—predominantly an anger whose force startled him, a hurt whose depth startled him even more—swirled through him that he feared to speak. He feared what he would say.

His worries had all come to pass. Georgina had been appalled by his home; appalled at his poor judgment in leaving Damian to manage all and going off to war, at leaving his family to this cruel state. Rather than leave, as he had feared, she had pitied—which he had feared even more.

She tried to fix all his mistakes. She used her money to solve problems that were his alone.
His
responsibility,
his
duty, not hers. He had wanted to take care of her, but instead she was taking care of him.

Emily watched him, her elfin face creased in worry. She had looked so very happy in the garden. He hated himself for killing that joy, for making her look so pinched and worried again. He hated himself for the things that had befallen her and their mother while he was gone.

He hated that he could not solve things for his little sister, as he had always mended her broken dolls and dried her tears when she was a child. Someone else had solved them, and that someone else was a woman he loved. A woman whose admiration he had so longed for.

Alex had been called a hero, had collected medals, and been lauded by so many people. But he had never so wanted to appear heroic in someone’s eyes as he wanted to in Georgina Beaumont’s.

He wanted her love, her respect, since he so loved and respected her. Instead, she thought him to be pitied and helped.

He was so angry. Whether at her, or himself, or even his dead brother, he did not know. He only knew he must
do
something about it, or he would burst from it.

“Alex?” Emily said quietly.

Alex shook himself out of his dark haze, and looked over at his sister. She had twisted her hands so tightly into her skirt that she wrinkled the fine fabric.

“You
were
wrong, Em,” he answered. “You should not have accepted that money, and Mrs. Beaumont was wrong to offer it. She is not to be my wife.”

Emily stared at him, her mouth agape. She looked shocked and deeply wounded. More wounded than he had ever seen her. “But—you brought her here! You introduced her to the neighbors. You made her part of us. She was the most exciting person I had ever seen.” Emily’s lower lip trembled. “I thought she was to be my sister!”

Alex shook his head, feeling even more dismal than ever before. “It was wrong of me. I am sorry. I was mistaken.”

Emily leaped to her feet, deeply agitated. “Mistaken? Sorry? It is the money, is it not? This is all my fault.”

“Of course it is not your fault.”

“It is! It is my fault for taking the money, for misjudging how you would react. I should have known your pride. But it is also your fault!”

“Emily, please.”

Emily was beyond hearing. Her voice rose as she cried, “Yes, Alexander, your fault. For making Georgina think you were to marry her; for making me believe she was to be my sister, and that all would be well at last. I would have expected something like this from Damian, but never from you.”

“Emily, calm down! Please,” Alex beseeched, deeply hurt at being compared to Damian.

“No, I will not calm down! Not this time. Never again!”

With that, she burst into tears and fled the room.

Alex sat there for a long time after she left, still and numb as he listened to the sounds of the roof being repaired, of the new maids singing as they went about their duties. As he stared sightlessly at the new painting over the fireplace.

Then he slowly rose to his feet, and went out to the drive where his curricle still stood.

There was something he must do. In London.

Vauxhall Gardens was crowded to capacity for the masquerade. Every box was full of brightly clothed revelers, listening to Signora d’Angelo—the new Italian soprano—sing, lots of laughing, talking, getting thoroughly disguised, or making assignations for the Dark Walk.

Georgina watched it all, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of it, as well as the company in her own box. Nicholas and Elizabeth, dressed as Harlequin and Columbine, fed each other strawberries, while the Fitzgerald ladies, an aunt and niece who could almost have been golden-haired twins, giggled over a naughty story Hildebrand and Freddie were telling. It concerned old Dowager Lady Dalrymple, her poodle, a footman, and a privy.

Even Georgina had to laugh at the story’s finale, as she waved her shepherdess’s crook at them admonishingly. “You two are really very silly! How Wayland ever puts up with you, I cannot say.”

“It is because he is rather a humorless fellow, himself,” Hildebrand answered jokingly. “He keeps us about to make him lighthearted! Would you care for some more champagne, Mrs. Beaumont?”

“Yes, please. My glass has been quite empty this age!” said Georgina. “But I have not found Wayland to be humorless. He merely has a—noble bearing. He must have been very dashing in his regimentals.”

“I do wish we could have seen him before he sold his commission!” Elizabeth interjected. “He really looks so dignified and elegant, quite Caesar-like.”

“You are making me jealous, my dear!” cried Nicholas. “Am I not elegant and dignified?”

“Oh, yes, darling. The most elegant and dignified man I have ever met,” cooed Elizabeth.

Georgina sipped at her champagne, and smiled as she watched Elizabeth and Nicholas laughing together. “Lizzie,” she said. “I am so happy you were feeling able to accompany us this evening.”

“I would not miss a Vauxhall masquerade for anything! It reminds me of the night Nick and I met, in Venice. Do you remember that night, dear?” Elizabeth turned a tender look on her husband, who kissed her hand in return.

“How could I ever forget it?” he said.

Georgina looked away from the romantic scene, feeling a bit wistful. It had been many, many days since she had last seen Alex, and she had not received so much as a note from him. There had been a letter from Emily, but even that had been over a week ago, and she had scarcely mentioned her brother in its contents.

Had Georgina been mistaken, then, in Alex’s regard? Had she misinterpreted his attentions?

Even as these doubts flitted through her mind, she dismissed them. Alex’s glances, his kisses and embraces, had been always full of such sincere tenderness.

Hadn’t they?

She
had
been sure of them at the time. But now, with him so far away and so silent, and with her surrounded by a noisy crowd so she could scarce think, she was assailed by misgivings.

Perhaps his feelings had been only of the sort that soon faded when the object of affection was gone from sight. She would not have thought Alex’s feelings to be of the fickle kind, but then she had been wrong before.

Georgina looked off into the crowd, searching for something, anything, to take her mind away from these melancholy thoughts. She should not be dwelling on such things on such a lovely night. What she really needed was some distraction, some merriment!

Some more champagne.

She poured more of the golden, bubbling liquid into her glass, and sipped at it as she watched the revelers. The Italian soprano had finished her song, and dancing had commenced among the masqueraders. Georgina giggled as she watched a knight in full armor, obviously quite foxed, wobble and fall over amid great clanking. Not even his lady fair, with the help of an Egyptian prince and Henry VIII, could rouse him. The dancing went on around him.

Then she saw her friend, Lady Lonsdale, clothed as Aphrodite in flowing white gauze draperies, in a box across the way.

She seized on the escape.

“There is Harriet Lonsdale!” Georgina said. “I do believe I will go and say hello to her.”

“Shall I escort you?” Freddie offered, though he looked quite reluctant to leave the side of the younger Fitzgerald lady.

“Oh, no. Her box is just across the way, see? I shall be safe just walking over there. You all must stay here, and enjoy the last of the strawberries.”

“Send Harriet my greetings,” answered Elizabeth, then she went back to whispering with her husband.

Georgina gathered up her shepherdess’s crook and the fluffy blue and white skirts of her costume, and slipped from the box. She skirted the dancers, who were swirling and skipping most vigorously, and dodged a strawberry seller and another shepherdess, who was leading a real sheep on a silk rope.