Why Earls Fall in Love (7 page)

By now they’d reached the doorway leading into the tower. On the ground around the base of the tower, blocks of stone lay in varying positions, as if they’d fallen from the top and simply stayed where they’d landed for the last several hundred years.

“Shall we ascend?” Con asked, gesturing for Georgie to go first. From his position he had a nice view of her backside as she climbed up the narrow staircase. But soon enough it became too dark to see anything, no matter how much he’d wished to.

“It is so dark,” she said from above him, and he could hear her hands pressing against the stone walls to ensure that she followed the right path.

“You’re doing very well,” Con said, resisting the urge to press against her body that was so close in front of him. Not so much for licentious reasons but because he wanted to ensure her safety. “Do not let go of the walls.”

“I won’t,” she assured him. “Without it, I do not think I’d be able to follow the path.”

Finally a small beam of light shone over their heads and Georgina heaved a sigh of relief. “Finally,” she said, “I was afraid we’d never find the top of this tower.”

By the time they’d walked a few steps farther they were in full sun. Stepping up and onto the parapet of the tower, Georgie gasped. The view of the surrounding countryside, including Bath and the river Avon, was extraordinary.

“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” Con asked, stepping up beside her. “It’s been years since I’ve been up here, but it is just as overwhelming as when I first made the climb.”

“It is difficult to believe that it’s all real,” she said, raising her hand to shade her eyes from the glare of the sun. “Bath and all its buildings look like a child’s miniature set.”

“I think so too,” Con said with a grin. “It is hard to believe that you cannot simply reach out and pick up Bath Abbey with your hand.”

“I wonder if I can see Lydia and Philip and James,” Georgie said, stepping forward a bit to look over the edge and at the ground below.

But instead of Con’s cousins, she saw something that made her blood chill. It couldn’t be him. It simply couldn’t.

“What is it?” Con asked, stepping up beside her.

How could the man be so bloody perceptive? Georgie wondered with a sigh. “Nothing, my lord. I just thought I saw someone I knew.”

Immediately he stilled. “Your husband again?” he demanded.

“I’m sure it isn’t him,” she said, not bothering to deny it this time. “It’s likely some stranger who looks like—”

Con’s voice cut across her words. “Where is he, Georgina?” he asked, his tone brooking no foolishness.

Knowing she had no choice, pointing, Georgie said, “There, over by the elm tree on the other side of the stables.”

Silently, she watched as he shielded his own eyes from the sun and peered out across the open land at the stables which were some thousand yards from the tower.

“I see him,” Con said, his voice sharp with anger. “I am going to go down. You stay here.”

“Certainly not,” Georgie protested. “If this person is indeed my husband, then I have every right to confront him. If he isn’t, then I have the right to ask him why he is following me.”

“I don’t have the time to argue with you,” Con said, giving up far more quickly than Georgie would have expected. “Just stay behind me and do not say anything to this fellow until I’ve spoken to him.”

Georgie followed Con down the steps to the ground below. Once they reached the doorway, Con began to walk as quickly as he could, and Georgie had to run to keep up. When they reached the stables where they’d both seen the man who looked so much like Colonel Mowbray, they were both disappointed to find no one there.

“Where did he go?” Georgie asked, gasping as she finally slowed her pace and stopped beside Con. “He was right here.”

His walking stick clutched tightly in his hand, Con strode over every square inch of ground in the little area between the trees and the stable wall. “He is gone,” Con said on a muttered oath. “He must have realized you’d seen him.”

“But how is that possible?” Georgie asked, feeling deflated and out of sorts now that their quarry had flown. “It isn’t as if I shouted when I saw him.”

“No, of course not,” Con said, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. “He must have noticed us coming down to the ground below and suspected that you might wish to confront him. Whatever the reason, he is gone now.”

Her knees suddenly going weak, Georgie collapsed onto a stone bench on the edge of the trees. Unable to keep up her pretense of nonchalance, she covered her face in her hands. “Why is he doing this to me?” she asked, her voice trembling. “This person must wish to frighten me. But why?”

Lowering himself to sit beside her, Con took Georgie’s hand in his and squeezed it. “My aunt told me before I arrived that something was bothering you. Could this person who is following you be connected with that other matter somehow?”

That must be his reason for watching her so closely last evening, Georgie thought with a sinking feeling. Her disappointment was absurd. Of course that was why. “Perhaps,” she said. “Though I cannot tell you. About the other matter, I mean.”

“I’m afraid you must tell me, Georgina,” he said, calling her by her Christian name as if he had no concern for the proprieties. “I won’t have someone frightening you like this. No matter how strong and independent you think yourself to be.”

“It isn’t that,” she protested. Though perhaps that was part of it. What bothered her more was that if she told him about the threatening notes, then she’d have to betray Perdita and Isabella as well. And that was the last thing she wished to do. “It isn’t my tale to tell.”

“Do you think I am the sort of man who will go about town telling everyone I meet your secrets?”

“Of course not,” she chided. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then tell me,” he said, knitting his fingers through hers. “Let me protect you.”

“I will consider telling you,” she said finally, unable to simply open up to him, but also unable to deny him outright.

“I suppose I shall have to be content with that for now,” Con said, rising to his feet. “Let’s gather up the rest of our party and leave this place. The ruins are not as magical as they were when we first arrived.”

And to Georgie’s disappointment, he was right. Allowing him to lead her away, she realized, however, that she felt safer than she had in a long while. So, perhaps the magic wasn’t quite destroyed after all.

Four

By the time the group returned to Henrietta Street it was well past time for tea, and pleading a headache, Georgina went to bed early. There was no sign of the man in the back garden, and when she awoke the next morning, she was refreshed and ready to start the day.

Concerned that her time away the day before might have left Lady Russell without entertainment, Georgie hurried up the stairs after breakfast to check on the older woman.

Her employer, however, had not been bored in the least by Georgie’s absence. When she reached Lady Russell’s sitting room, Georgie found her engaged in a lively debate with her elderly sisters while they all three worked on needlepoint. Since Georgie had never been very good at needlework, she was thankful that it was her mistress’s sisters and not herself who had been co-opted into the activity.

“So you see, I have survived quite well without you, my dear,” Lady Russell said, looking much better than she had in weeks despite the fact that her gout-ridden foot was still propped on a stool. “Go off and enjoy yourself while my sisters are here. I vow, when I was your age I could think of nothing more dull than to be confined in a drawing room with three elderly ladies doing needlepoint.”

“I am hardly a debutante, Lady Russell,” Georgie argued, appreciating the old woman’s kindness but not wishing to shirk her duties. “I am quite content to keep you company while you ladies chat and sew. Even if I am not any good at it. The sewing, I mean.”

“It’s not that she wishes to make you feel unwelcome, Mrs. Mowbray,” said Lady Ayers-Ricker, who shared her sister’s tendency to forthrightness, “but there are certain matters we wish to discuss that might be … unsuitable for you to hear.”

Unsuitable? Georgie tried to figure out what Lady Ayers-Ricker meant. Then realization dawned. “Oh, do you mean childbirth and things like that? I assure you, I am quite familiar with such things. Life following the army quite relieved me of any squeamishness I might have had on that score a long time ago.”

“Not childbirth, Georgina,” Lady Russell said with a glare. “Other things.”

Georgie stared at the older woman, trying to figure out what could possibly be more squeamish-making than childbirth.

Then it dawned on her in a horrible mental image that she would not wish upon her worst enemy.

All three sisters saw her expression and laughed. Georgie felt her face redden.

“I see now you understand,” Lady Slade, the third and youngest of the Callow sisters said with a grin. “It never fails to amaze me how shocked young people can be to learn that they were not the ones to discover lovemaking. It’s as if they think they all sprang forth fully grown from the cabbage patch.”

“In that case,” Georgie said, ignoring the chuckles of the three elderly ladies, “I will leave you all to your sewing and perhaps visit the lending library. Have you need of anything while I am there?”

“Not at all, my dear,” Lady Russell said with a wave of her hand. “Be off with you. And for goodness’ sake, enjoy yourself. There are any number of amusements here in Bath if you would but allow yourself to partake.”

Shutting the door behind her, Georgie hurried away as if pursued by the hounds of hell. How was she supposed to guess that three elderly ladies would still be interested in discussing such things? She was not yet thirty and had no desire to discuss the matter. With anyone. Much less other ladies.

She’d never told another soul—not even Isabella and Perdita—but she didn’t see what all the fuss was about when it came to sexual congress. When she’d agreed to marry Robert she’d been eager enough for his kisses. But she’d soon learned that the act itself left her feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable. There had been times when she thought there might be something more to it. But soon enough she’d realized she was mistaken. And whatever she’d been expecting was not going to happen, as if she’d started on the road to some fantastic destination, but had been forced to stop halfway there. But since Robert seemed to enjoy it, and it was one of the few times that he really seemed pleased with her, she submitted to it when the mood came over him. For the first few years, at least.

She never explained her puzzlement to her husband. He already found fault with her every decision and action. She could only imagine how he’d have reacted to hearing she found his lovemaking to be less than satisfactory. And after a while, he stopped coming to her bed at all, so it became a moot point.

Putting Robert from her mind, Georgie hurried into her bedchamber to prepare for her outing.

Her reticule was tucked away in a drawer of the desk she used for a dressing table, and Georgie sat down at the table for a moment to remove her purse as well so that she could count out the money she’d need.

She was dropping the coins into the drawstring bag on her wrist when a flash of light caught her eye from the window. Curious, she rose and looked out into the garden below where she saw Con kneeling in the spot where she’d seen the apparition of Robert the night before last. In his hand, he held some sort of shiny object that she presumed had caused the flash that caught her eye.

Throwing up the sash, she saw him look up and shield his eyes against the sun. Recognition dawned on his face and he gestured for her to come down.

Curious, Georgie locked her dressing table and headed downstairs to meet Con in the garden.

*   *   *

While Georgie was upstairs having her horizons expanded by the Callow sisters, Con had retrieved his spyglass and a small notebook from his bedchamber and set out to investigate the spot where Georgie had seen her late husband two evenings before.

The garden was well tended, if small. It was laid out in quadrants. The first two, closest to the house, were taken up by a kitchen garden, near the kitchen door, and a pretty little flower bed near the French doors off the drawing room. The left side was bisected from the right by a pretty stone pathway that curved through the greenery like a country path. The far border nearest the alleyway was marked by a curved row of shrubbery that shielded the view of the yard itself from the path running behind the row of houses. There was, however, a gate in the corner, and it was here that Georgie had seen her husband.

Fortunately, the ground on either side of the stone walk that led to the gate was bereft of any grasses or vegetation of any kind. And at some point, the man Georgina saw must have felt it necessary to step off the stone path, for it was here that Con found the clear, strong impression of a man’s boot. Curious as to what sort of view a man might have from this vantage point, Con retrieved his spyglass from inside his coat and put it to his eye, scanning the back of his aunt’s house until he saw Georgie’s room, which was the second from the left. He could even see her there now, her head bent over some task. He’d best warn her to move whatever bit of furniture she was using away from the window.

His glass must have caught her attention, however, for she looked up and her eyes narrowed as she saw him. Realizing it would be easier to explain himself in person instead of from his current position three stories below her, he gestured for her to come down.

While he waited for Georgie to appear, Con reflected on the various reasons why someone might wish to make Georgie think that her husband was still alive. When she’d admitted to him what she’d seen he’d been inclined to suspect her of exaggerating. After all, Robert Mowbray was rumored to have been a bit of a brute, so it was reasonable to assume that she would fear that somehow he’d manage to come back. Or worse, that he’d faked his death in some sort of trick.

But yesterday at the ruins he’d seen the man who seemed to be following Georgie and the fellow had the same light brown hair and build that Georgie had described. Never having met the man himself, of course, Con had no idea whether the man resembled Robert Mowbray, but he believed that Georgie thought so.