Why Earls Fall in Love (8 page)

As he stared moodily at the impression in the soil, he heard the sound of Georgie’s slippers on the stone walk. Standing, he brushed his hands off on his breeches and looked up as she approached.

“I somehow hadn’t expected you to begin investigating so soon,” she said by way of greeting.

“I would have begun last night, but my aunt demanded my attention,” Con said with a raised brow.

“I am sorry,” Georgie said, her eyes troubled. “I did have a headache last night, but I should have been there to entertain her.”

“Easy,” Con said with a smile. “I was merely teasing you. Of course you are allowed an evening off. Especially when Aunt Russell’s house is filled to the rafters with relatives who should spend more time with her.”

“Oh.” Georgina blushed. “In that case, thank you.

“Now,” she said, indicating the area around them with a wave of her hands. “What are you doing here? Investigating the man I saw from my bedchamber?”

Con nodded. “Look at this,” he said, gesturing for her to squat next to him on the path as he showed her the footprint.

“There is an easy view of your bedchamber window from here,” he said, pointing up toward her room. “And after seeing that fellow following you at the ruins, I am convinced that someone wishes you to think your husband is alive, or haunting you at the very least.”

“But why would someone do this?” she demanded with a puzzled frown. “I admit that I was rather…” She paused and Con could see that it was difficult for her to force out the words. He tensed as he guessed what would come next. “I was frightened of him. There at the last, I mean.”

“I know it is none of my business,” Con said quietly, “but could you tell me why he frightened you? I only ask because it might shed some light on why someone would wish to make you think him alive.”

Georgina stood but Con remained where he was, close to the ground, instinct telling him that she needed to feel superior to him in this small way in order to tell her story. She rubbed her palms on her gown—she must have removed her gloves while she was in her bedchamber—and swallowed.

“The truth of the matter, my lord,” she said, her voice strong despite her obvious nerves, “is that my husband was a brute. He had a temper and he didn’t mind venting his spleen using his fists or his belt or anything that came in handy. It didn’t much matter what I did to annoy him, he dispensed punishment for small infractions with as much force as for large ones. Though I was never quite sure what would set him off from day to day.”

Though he’d suspected something along these lines, Con couldn’t help but grind his teeth at her words. He knew that such men existed. He doubtless played cards with them at Whites or fought with them at Jackson’s. But he found it difficult to believe that someone as measured as Georgina would fall prey to one.

“Why did you marry him?” he asked, unable to stop himself from voicing the question aloud. “Why put yourself in the hands of a man like that? You grew up following the drum. Surely your father or the other women following their regiment could have warned you.”

Georgina’s laugh was bitter. “Yes, you would think that a girl raised with the army as I was would have noticed the signs, wouldn’t you? But you’d be wrong.

“Robert was a master at hiding the truth of his real nature from everyone,” she went on. “Except of course the men he killed in battle. It was there that he was able to truly release whatever monster lurked beneath his mask of civility. When he was courting me, I thought he was the most wonderful man in the world. My father did warn me, but I thought I knew better. I know now that Papa must have heard some rumors among the camp followers or the other men. But when it seemed as if Papa would raise objections, Robert made sure to compromise me so that there would be no question of our not marrying.”

“Not that you are not beautiful, but why was he so determined to have you?” Con asked, puzzled. “Wouldn’t he have chosen someone who was without family?”

“I received a quite sizable inheritance from my maternal grandmother,” Georgie said bitterly. “He needed funds to pay his gaming debts. And I was foolish enough to believe that he wanted me because he loved me.”

“But you are employed as my aunt’s companion,” Con returned. “I presume that he spent the inheritance?”

“Every cent,” Georgina said with a twisted smile. “Before the first year of our marriage had ended. Then of course he was angry with me for not being a bigger heiress so that he could have had more money to gamble with.”

Con was silent for a few moments while he thought how pleasant it would be to pummel the late Colonel Robert Mowbray in the face. Repeatedly.

“How did he die?” he finally asked, standing and brushing the soil from his hands.

“Gloriously in battle,” Georgie said with a shake of her head. “It is inconceivable to me how a man who was so miserable a husband could be so wonderful a soldier. He was one of the first to fall at Waterloo and he died honorably. When I first returned to England I began to keep count of just how many people expressed their condolences to me in the same breath as they told me how proud I must be.

“I lost count at one hundred twenty-seven,” she said wryly. “I said nothing, of course. It would be cruel to disabuse all these well-meaning souls of their notions of just what manner of man may be called hero.”

“You are far stronger than many would be in that situation,” Con said with feeling. He’d never really considered how difficult it must be to be a woman. Forced to obey whatever male figure fate or her own blind choosing bestowed upon her as a guardian. Unable to fight back should he choose to strike her, or worse. He remembered what it had been like to be a child, but he’d had benevolent family to look after him. Georgina had no one to look after her.

“I did what I had to do,” she responded with a shrug. “Just once, though, I’d like for every man to spend a day as a woman. So that he could see what it’s like.”

“I do not think you would like to see me as a woman,” Con said with a speaking look. “Can you imagine?”

Though she’d meant her words in all seriousness, Georgie began to laugh. “You are correct. I should not like to see you as a woman,” she said, grinning. “You are quite a handsome man, but as a woman? I fear you would have some difficulty procuring suitors.”

Glad to see the tense expression she’d worn while recounting her story erased, Con raised a sardonic brow. “Do you mean that ladies over six feet tall with enormous feet and the need to shave twice a day aren’t in demand? Mrs. Mowbray, you shock me!”

“It’s true, I’m afraid. Even I am not in demand and I have nothing like your impediments to beauty,” she said with a smile.

“If by that you mean to say that you are lovely despite your hideous gowns and insistence upon wearing your hair in those tight coils,” he said, without thinking, “then you are correct.”

At his words, Georgina’s eyes widened and a blush crept into her cheeks. Realizing his mistake, Con mentally smacked himself on the back of the head. “I apologize, Mrs. Mowbray. I didn’t mean to be so ungallant. Of course your gowns are not—”

“I hope you will not say that my gowns aren’t hideous and my hair is not unflattering, my lord,” she said with a rueful smile, “because we both know that you would be lying.”

Seeing the sincerity in her eyes, Con wished for a large hole to appear in the ground beneath his feet and swallow him whole.

“Besides,” Georgina continued, “I intended them to be. So you are voicing only the opinion for which I devoutly wished.”

Her words penetrated his wall of self-loathing well enough to reach his brain. “What do you mean, ‘devoutly wished’?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “Do you mean to tell me that you wish for people to find your gowns and hair unattractive?”

“Precisely,” she said, as if rewarding a particularly slow student. “I dress so that no one will notice me.”

“Good God, why?” he asked, genuinely puzzled. “Why would someone as lovely as you are do such a thing?”

At his compliment, she blushed. “I thank you for the kind words, but you must know that it’s not true. It’s just that I seem lovely in contrast to my terrible clothes and hair. That’s all.”

Con reached out and grasped her by the chin so that he could look into her eyes. “Let us settle one fiction now, Georgina,” he said firmly. “In a pretty gown, in a terrible gown, in a lovely hairstyle, in a hideous hairstyle, you are a stunning woman. And no amount of downplaying your looks will make that untrue.”

He saw something flicker in her eyes at his words, some realization that there was truth in what he said. At least that’s what he hoped. If she did not believe him, then he wasn’t sure how else to show her the truth of what he said aside from demonstrating it with his body. And that was far more improper than he was prepared to embark upon in his aunt’s back garden.

“I…” She blinked, and shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. Pulling away from his hand, she took a step back. Con felt bereft at the loss of contact. “I thank you, my lord,” she continued. “I do not for a moment believe you, but I thank you all the same.”

Realizing that he would have to continue this conversation later, Con gave a brisk nod. “Now, about this fellow last night,” he said, glancing around at the ground to give her time to recover her composure. “He was definitely made of flesh and blood. Look here again at the footprints he left.”

“So it really was just a trick of the light that made him seem ethereal?” Georgie said, sounding relieved. Con cursed himself for a fool for making her reveal so much about her husband. Now that he knew just how awful Mowbray had been, he didn’t for a moment think that Georgie would have conjured him out of hope. Fear, perhaps, but she didn’t strike him as the overly fanciful type to see ghosts and goblins in every dark shadow.

“Undoubtedly,” he said. “Just as the man we saw at the ruins today.”

“Not my imagination, then.”

“Not unless we share an imagination, madam.”

She relaxed visibly. “You don’t know how much it relieves me to hear you say that. But how can this person look so much like my husband? For I am quite sure in the light of day that he is dead.”

“Maybe,” Con said, putting his hands on his hips as he looked up at her window again, “we are looking for someone who looks enough like your husband from a distance that he would cause you to mistake him for your husband.”

“Like a relative,” Georgie said with a gasp. “Of course! It must be some distant relative of Robert’s. He never spoke very fondly of his family. I think his parents were both dead, and since he died before I returned to England, there was no occasion for me to meet any of his other family members.”

“Do you know where his family hailed from at least?” Con asked. If one of Mowbray’s distant cousins had been lured into perpetrating a hoax on Georgina, then he would need to visit Mowbray’s relatives in order to find out if there was some male cousin who bore a resemblance to the man.

“I believe they hailed from Cornwall,” Georgina said with a frown. “Penrith, I think he said.”

Con nodded. He could make it to the west coast and back in a few days.

“But if it is true that one of his relations is behind this,” Georgina said thoughtfully, “how would they know where to find me? It isn’t as if I am in touch with them. And I did not make an announcement in the papers when I accepted the position with your aunt.

“And more important,” she continued, “why? It isn’t as if I am wealthy, and even if I were my late husband’s family wouldn’t stand to inherit anything.”

“Ah,” Con said with a frown. “You’re assuming that your death is what this person wants. What if their only intent is to frighten you?”

Georgie’s hands tightened around her reticule. Something else was bothering her. Something connected to this business, he was sure of it. But rather than telling him what it was, she squared her shoulders and stood up straighter.

“I had hoped we would find something that would settle this business today, but I suppose it’s not to be.”

Impressed with her strength, despite his frustration at her refusal to tell him everything, Con stepped closer. Her blue eyes were wide as she looked up at him, showing none of the fear he might expect from a woman who had endured what she had at the hands of her husband.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said softly, taking her hands in his and squeezing them. “I’ll keep you safe, Georgina. I promise.”

He looked at their joined hands, then at Georgina’s eyes. Clearly she was not quite comfortable with something as innocuous as holding hands. What sort of man would make a beauty like Georgina dread any kind of physical closeness? A dead man, his memory reminded him. A dead man he wished he’d made that way.

Con had never been a particularly violent man, but Georgina’s tale of what her husband had done to her had left him with a taste for blood.

But now was not the time, he reminded himself, focusing instead on the light sprinkling of freckles on Georgina’s nose.

“You want to kiss me, don’t you?” she asked, the fear in her voice impossible to ignore.

“I do want to,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers. “But this is not the time or the place. Besides, I can wait until a time when you want to as well.”

A furrow appeared between her brows as she contemplated his words. “I don’t quite know what to say to that,” she said finally, her puzzled expression making his heart squeeze in his chest.

“You don’t need to say anything at all,” Con said with a smile. “Now, what did you have planned for this morning? Will you have someone to accompany you? I don’t want you to go anywhere alone until this person is apprehended.”

She looked as if she would like to argue, but seemed to realize it would be fruitless. “I planned to visit the lending library and then perhaps the confectioner’s. They make the most wonderful marzipan and I know that Lady Russell would like a treat. I suppose I can see if one of your cousins wishes to come along.”

Extending his arm so that she could precede him toward the French doors, Con schooled his features into a pleasant expression though he was feeling anything but.

No matter who the man following Georgina was, as far as Con was concerned he was a threat to her safety. The fact that he resembled her dead husband—a man who had brutalized her again and again—was not a coincidence, Con was sure of it. That someone—whether it was the man who followed her himself or another—was trying to terrify Georgie using the memory of Robert Mowbray indicated a degree of villainy that made the hair on the back of Con’s neck stand on end.