An Elegant Façade (Hawthorne House Book #2) (24 page)

“It’s from Ashcombe,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

She bit her lip. “What does he say?”

“That you should find someone—anyone—else to marry.”

She blinked. “Truly?”

Colin sighed. “No. That’s me offering a personal interpretation. The man is telling you to take more care of the company you keep. He says you have an agreement.”

“I never actually agreed.” Georgina looked at the toe of her slipper appearing and disappearing from beneath her hem as they danced. The song was drawing to a close. Colin fought the desire to dance her right out the door and away from the ball.

Colin did not like the instincts boiling in his middle. “Was this before or after you asked for my help with Miss Clemens?”

She swallowed hard enough for her throat to ripple visibly. “Before.”

The burn rose to his chest. “Did he tell you to stay away from Miss Clemens?”

Her head swooped up, defiance in her eyes. “And what if he did? He is looking out for my reputation, which is what I need in a husband. He’s worried Lavinia’s . . . malady will reflect poorly on anyone spending time with her.”

“Because she stutters? And you want to marry this man?” The song ended. Colin leaned forward to hiss in her ear. “You cannot possibly hide your secret from your husband for the rest of your life.”

“I’m counting on his own pride to motivate him to help me hide it.” She straightened and raised her voice to a normal level. “Thank you for the dance, Mr. McCrae. I’ll see myself to the refreshment table.”

With a growing sense of hopelessness, Colin watched her walk away. Her white skirts swished through the crowd, taking her straight to Ashcombe’s side. He didn’t look happy, but whatever Georgina was saying seemed to appease him. She was right. Ashcombe’s pride would probably keep him from revealing her secret in public, but what would he do to her in the privacy of their own home? Could she survive the derision and neglect he was sure to serve her when he realized he’d been fooled? Would she become a pretty shell to be twirled around at parties and then shoved back into a corner?

And why was he bothering himself with these questions, anyway? There wasn’t a thing he could do about it. The decisions were hers to make. He just didn’t want to see her make them.

He thought of his own sister. She’d be in the midst of her first Season now. Was she thinking clearly? Making good decisions? Was their father looking out for her interests or his own?

Perhaps he should return to Scotland after all.

She’d told Lord Ashcombe that she wouldn’t be available to ride the next day. By the time she’d arrived home from the ball, panic had set in. She was missing a chance to convince the earl to marry her. Because of, what, his arrogant assumptions? She’d do well to get used to those.

Thank goodness Harriette had taken it upon herself to save Georgina from contemplating her fallacy all afternoon. She invited Lavinia over to paint. Rather, she’d sent a note under Georgina’s name inviting Lavinia to come paint.

Georgina looked up from her fire screen to see how Lavinia’s was faring. They’d set up in the conservatory for inspiration but the blob of pink and red on Lavinia’s screen didn’t resemble any plant that Georgina could see. “How is your, er, rose?”

Lavinia tilted her head to the side and contemplated her screen. “Very f-far from an accurate f-flower, I’m afraid.”

Georgina giggled. If Lavinia’s attempt were supposed to be a
rose, it looked like it had fallen in the road and been trampled under a few dozen horse hooves. “It’s not your best work, I’ll grant you.”

“Yours is gorgeous.” Lavinia stood from her stool and moved to stand behind Georgina.

“Thank you. When I finish it, it shall be yours.”

Lavinia gasped. “Oh, I c-couldn’t.”

“Yes. You shall. Honestly, I paint more of these than we could possibly use. Even the servants’ fireplaces have screens.”

Georgina flicked her brush along the screen, adding a green leaf to her vine of climbing roses. Harriette’s idea had been a perfect distraction. Especially since Ashcombe had already sent word that he was canceling their riding engagement for tomorrow as well.

Do you really want that in a husband? A man who will punish you for caring for other people?

No, he wasn’t punishing her for caring. He was reminding her that her actions had consequences. He hadn’t said she couldn’t see Lavinia, only that she couldn’t be seen with her. A problem Harriette had solved nicely.

You think that’s a significant difference?

Perhaps not a significant one, but it was a difference nevertheless.

Georgina swirled the paint into the center of one last rose. She’d given in to the fact that, for now at least, she was stuck with this strange inner voice that had taken the form of a miniature Colin McCrae. It didn’t surprise her anymore when he appeared, and she no longer berated herself for answering.

You deserve more than that.

Of course, sometimes she still ignored him.

“There!” Georgina stepped aside so Lavinia could view the full painting. “It will look lovely in your home.”

Lavinia nodded and smiled. “Better than my own efforts.”

“You can claim it as your own.”

“Then I would have to explain to Mr. D-Dixon why I couldn’t replicate the effort on anything else.” Lavinia laughed softly as
she ran a hand along the edge of the screen, admiring the twists of roses and winding vines.

Georgina’s brows drew together and she busied herself with packing away the paints. “Mr. Dixon? Why should he matter?”

“I’m going home to marry him.”

“But . . . didn’t you come to London to find someone else? Because you didn’t want to marry Mr. Dixon?” Georgina dropped onto Lavinia’s vacated stool.

“I’ve been here t-two weeks, Georgina. No one will d-dance with me twice, and the only visitors we have are my aunt’s friends. They’re very nice ladies, but d-don’t tend t-to bring eligible gentlemen with them.” Lavinia shrugged. “Mr. D-Dixon knows me. It will work well. I shall simply enjoy London for the next four weeks and then return home and cease being a burden on my father.”

Anger flashed through Georgina. Over the years she had pushed most of her childhood friends away, but Lavinia had remained, clinging to the hem of Georgina’s life like a thorny burr. They’d never been close enough for Georgina to share her shortcomings with Lavinia, of course, but she’d felt comfortable having Lavinia over for tea or visiting the village shops together.

Perhaps because you assumed her struggles would make her more likely to accept your own if she were to
find them out.

Georgina rolled her eyes. Her inner Colin was as annoying as the real one. The point was, Lavinia was her friend, and no friend of Georgina’s was going to settle for a husband who wouldn’t raise her lot in life. Georgina had saved Jane, at least for the time being, and she would save Lavinia.

“You mean he knows of your speech.” As soon as she’d blurted the words, Georgina wished them back. They’d never spoken about Lavinia’s problem before.

Wide brown eyes looked at Georgina. “Y-yes. I sup-p-pose that is a significant thing.”

“But you can’t marry someone simply because of that.”

How is that any different than what you’re doing?

Georgina imagined shoving the little man into her paint box
as she slammed the lid shut and flicked the latch to keep it closed. She and Lavinia were in very different situations.

Lavinia reached out and hugged Georgina, driving thoughts of imaginary men from her head. When was the last time someone other than Harriette had really hugged her? “You’re very sweet, Georgina, but so is Mr. D-Dixon.”

“But listen to you! You won’t even be able to say your own name properly,” Georgina whispered, stunned that tears were threatening to cloud her vision.

Lavinia gave a watery laugh and wiped away a tear of her own. “No. But he says I c-can help with the estate. He knows I’m not st-stupid. It won’t be a love match, but it will be a good match.”

Georgina blinked. Why did she care who Lavinia married? She was right. Mr. Dixon wasn’t a bad man for someone of Lavinia’s situation. Lavinia wasn’t doing anything that hundreds of women in England didn’t do every year.

Maybe because you’re hoping for more than just a respectable
match yourself.

He was supposed to be drowning in watercolors. How had he gotten out of her paint box? She shoved him back into her mental closet and added an iron gate for good measure. He was right. Of course he was. Georgina was feeling desperate about her own situation. But the fact was, Lavinia was stronger than Georgina. Lavinia had no choice but to tell the world about her problem. She’d had to be strong in the face of society’s derision.

Georgina had not. Georgina had manipulated and fashioned her life so she could pretend that she wasn’t fundamentally damaged.

What did that say about her?

Before Colin could add his own thoughts, she built a mental wall about the iron gate, keeping him out of sight. Whatever he had to say about this revelation, she didn’t want to hear it.

The first commission Colin had ever made came from Mr. Dunbar, the owner of a general store in Glasgow. Colin had tipped the
man off that his sons, famous for their witty shouting matches and sporadic fistfights, were one of the store’s biggest draws. People shopped just to watch the boys battle.

Mr. Dunbar had then told his sons that one of them was going to have to muck the barn all summer and they had to decide which one. The fight had gone on for two weeks, and Mr. Dunbar made more money than in the previous two months combined. He’d given Colin a nice bonus.

From that time on, Colin’s fate was sealed. He’d lost himself in numbers, in patterns, in fluctuations, and how events impacted sales and shipments. He’d found what God created him for, and ever since he’d been able to throw himself into the predictions and calculations with abandon.

Until now. His trusted escape was failing him.

When he should have been studying weather patterns and grain returns, he was remembering waltzes and green eyes. Instead of considering the impact of various shipping records, he was contemplating how people’s secrets drove them to desperate measures. Wasn’t that how he’d ended up in London after all?

He set the pen aside with a sigh. Lady Georgina Hawthorne had managed to do what no one and nothing else had ever done—distract Colin.

For the tenth time that morning Colin read the first line on the report in front of him. An hour had passed while he stared at the numbers. No matter how he looked at them, no matter how much he reprimanded himself for his lack of concentration, they remained just that. Numbers. They didn’t take on a life of their own, as they always had. They just sat on the page as cold, calculated information.

The knock on his study door drew a sigh of relief. Anything was better than this struggle to accomplish something that had always come so easily.

Was that what reading was like for Georgina? An impossible struggle to achieve something that should be simple?

He bid the butler to enter with a spark of hope in his voice. Per
haps the man was going to bring him something more captivating than numbers to banish the thoughts of Georgina from his mind.

“There’s a Mr. McCrae here to see you, sir.”

Colin blinked. “A Mr. . . . But I’m Mr. McCrae. Are you feeling all right, Taggert?”

“Top-notch, sir. The man says he’s your father.”

Colin stared at the butler until the clock on the mantel ticked over the minute, snapping him out of his reverie. The butler’s news was certainly mind-consuming. Blinking to relieve his dry eyes, Colin rose from behind his desk. “Er, drawing room. I’ll see him in the drawing room.”

“Very good, sir.” The servant bowed and left the room.

His father was in his home. It wasn’t so surprising that his father was in London. Colin knew of at least three times in the past five years the man had been in Town. But he’d never been to see Colin.

Irritation rose, a burning sensation in the center of Colin’s chest. Five years of silence. Five years of pretending nothing had happened, that he’d never had a son born to witness his shortcomings. But now that there was the possibility Colin might come back and work under Alastair? Now he found the time to visit.