Rogue Grooms (12 page)

She pretended not to see Lord Pynchon, his balding dome of a head glinting in the sunlight, as he smirked at her from his own equipage. She had greeted him politely when she had first arrived, and she had seen the fear in his eyes, hidden beneath the arrogance.

Alex stood next to her left side, tall and handsome, one hand resting near her knee.

She tried to ignore him, as well. It would never do to be distracted by the way his hair curled back from his forehead while she was trying to stay on the road!

“I wish you had let me loan you Scylla and Charybdis,” he muttered, glaring at Lord Pynchon. “They are the steadiest goers.”

Georgina smiled without taking her eyes from the road. “I know they are, Alex, and I vow I would have loved to drive them! But you would not want to cause an
on dit
by loaning me your cattle.”

“Do you think people would say I had wicked intentions toward you if you were seen with my horses?”

“Do you have wicked intentions?”

He leered up at her comically. “Of course! Don’t
you
have them toward
me
?”

Georgina laughed. “Naughty man! You are trying to distract me. Now, go over and sit with Elizabeth and Nicholas, please.”

“Very well.” His hand touched hers briefly, warmly, hidden in the folds of her dress. “Georgina,” he said solemnly. “Do be very careful.”

“Yes. I will. Then we shall all have a lovely champagne supper after, to celebrate my great victory!”

Alex went to the Hollingsworths’ carriage, and stepped up to take his seat beside Lady Kate. She clambered up onto his lap, kissing his chin joyously, and he held her paw and waved it in Georgina’s direction.

She waved back, then gathered up her reins as Alex’s friend Freddie Marlow stepped up to the mark. He fired off the starting shot, and Georgina burst away down the road, neck and neck with Lord Pynchon.

The shouts of the crowd rang in her ears as she urged the horses to ever greater speed. “Come on, my beauties!” she shouted. “You can do it, I know you can!”

The exhilaration of speed sang in her veins, and all she could see was the finishing line just ahead. It was close, so close, and she was so far ahead of Lord Pynchon ...

Then there was a tremendous jolt off to her right side, a jarring thud as the curricle tilted precariously.

Georgina felt herself falling, an inexorable slide from the curricle’s seat. She fell faster and faster, reaching out to grasp something,
anything,
but finding only air beneath her hand.

She landed then, a hard fall on her back. Vaguely, as if from a great distance and through a thick fog, she heard shouts. A dog barking. A woman screaming—Elizabeth screaming.

Alex’s face swam into view above her, pale and drawn.

“Georgina!” he cried. “Can you hear me? Are you well?”

“I—believe I am well,” she gasped. Indeed, she felt only numb. Shocked. How could it have ended this way?

“Let me help you to rise.” He slid one arm gently beneath her, drawing her up.

Georgina screamed at the sharp pain in her shoulder. Then everything faded to darkness, and she felt no more.

 

The doctor had at last arrived to see Georgina. Alex, from where he lurked in the darkened corridor outside her room, had only a glimpse of her flame-colored hair against a white sheet before the door shut again. Only Elizabeth was allowed in the room with Georgina; Nicholas and several concerned spectators to the ill-fated race were gathered in the White Hart’s common room, drinking and waiting.

Alex had refused to leave his place outside that door.

He sat down on the straight-backed chair that had been placed there for him, and buried his face in his hands.

No matter how tightly he shut his eyes, though, he could not blot out the sight of Georgina, so white and still in his arms. Her scream had been horrifying before she fainted, and her arm, before he had bound it up with his waistcoat, had lain at a sharp angle.

Alex had faced battle many times, had had horses shot from beneath him, had seen death at the end of a French bayonet. He had never been so terrified in all his life as he had been to see Georgina’s curricle smash, and her lying so still on the ground.

If she was lost to him, after only just finding her...

The door to her room opened, interrupting his dark thoughts, and Elizabeth emerged. Her face was reddened from crying, but she seemed composed.

“How is she?” Alex asked her desperately.

“Alex!” cried Elizabeth. “I did not see you. Have you been here in the dark all this time?”

“Tis of no matter. Tell me what the doctor said.”

“He said she will be well. She has a dislocated shoulder, and her arm is bruised. We will have to wait for her to wake to be sure her head is right, but he thinks there is no cause for worry.”

“Her arm—her painting,” Alex said, his tongue seemingly unable to form complete sentences.

“She will make a full recovery. She must only be careful for a few weeks, which will surely make her wild! Georgina is never happy but when she has a paintbrush in hand.”

Alex laughed in utter relief and joy. Georgina would recover! She was not lost.

“Will you not come downstairs with me now?” Elizabeth said gently. “You should have something to eat, or at least some wine.”

“No, I want to wait here. Georgina may have need of me.”

Elizabeth took his arm, firmly urging him toward the stairs. “She is in good hands now, and she has taken some laudanum. You will be of no use to her when she is awake and does need you, if you are ill. Now, come with me. We will have some supper.”

Alex went with her reluctantly. “Are you certain
you
are well, Lady Elizabeth? You look rather tired.”

“I am, a bit. It has been a very long day, but the babe is quiet now. Earlier she was kicking and rolling fiercely.”

“She?”

“Oh, yes. I am sure it must be a girl, and there is only one name for her, with all her energy. Georgina.”

“Indeed.” Alex smiled. “I would have thought the world full with only one.”

 

“Georgina,” a soft voice called. “Georgie dear, can you hear me?”

Georgina’s eyelids felt weighted, as if by lead. She could not open them, or even talk through a mouth gone sticky. She opened her hand, and ran her fingers along the soft linen sheet beneath her.

A bed? When had someone brought her home? And what of the race? Had she lost? What had happened?

Then she remembered. The accident; falling from the curricle. Alex coming to her, lifting her. The awful pain from her shoulder.

She slowly lifted her heavy hand to touch that shoulder. She found the gauzy feel of bandages there, holding her immobile.

“She moved!” cried the voice. “I believe she is awake. Georgina?”

Georgina forced her eyes to open, to focus on the woman who sat beside her. “Lizzie?”

“You
are
awake!” Elizabeth said. “Praise be. I was so worried.”

“W-water?” Georgina managed to croak.

“Oh, yes, of course!” Elizabeth held a goblet to Georgina’s lips, holding her head as she drank thirstily.

Sated, Georgina fell back against the pile of pillows. “How long have I been—asleep?”

“Several hours, dear.”

Georgina turned her head toward the one small window, and saw that it was night. Only the lamp beside the bed gave any light. “Hours?”

“Yes. The wheel of the curricle caught in a rut, and you were thrown from it. Remember? You dislocated your shoulder, and the doctor set it while you were unconscious. He gave you some laudanum for the pain. Are you in any pain?”

“Not at all. I am only so very tired.”

“Then you must go back to sleep! We will leave you.”

“We?”

Elizabeth gestured toward the doorway, and only then did Georgina see the two men hovering there in the shadows. Nicholas and Alex both looked distinctly worse for wear, their hair on end as if they had run their hands through it, their clothes rumpled.

Georgina smiled weakly. “You two look dreadful,” she said. “A dislocated shoulder hardly calls for a deathbed vigil!”

Nicholas laughed, while Alex shuffled his feet ruefully.

“We did not know if your head was to rights,” Elizabeth explained. “You looked so very pale, and your breathing was quite shallow.”

“Well, I am fine now. Where are we?”

“The White Hart. And we shall stay here until you are completely recovered.”

“I will be completely well by morning, I am sure. But you should be in bed, Lizzie. This cannot be good for the baby.” Georgina looked to Nicholas. “Take your wife away now, Nick, and make her rest, so that I can get some sleep.”

“Happily, Georgie.” Nicholas came to help Elizabeth to her feet, and kissed Georgina’s cheek gently. “You gave us such a fright today.”

“I apologize, my dears. I promise I shall never do it again. Now, good night!”

“I shall look in on you later,” Elizabeth warned.

As they left the room, Alex came to take their place, sitting down in Elizabeth’s empty chair.

Georgina reached for him with her good hand, and he took it between both of his. His lips were warm as he lowered them to her palm.

“I was so scared, Georgina,” he whispered. “When you fainted away in my arms...”

“You, Alex? Who led charges into vast regiments of murderous Frenchies? Scared by a woman’s faint?”

“Yes,” he answered simply.

Despite the sleepy haze she was in, Georgina wanted to cry. She wanted to cry, and laugh, and shout her thanks to God for sending her this dear man.

But she was far too weak to do any such thing. Instead, she just squeezed his hand. “You take such care of me, Alex. I do not deserve you.”

“You deserve much better than me.”

“Oh, no, my dear. You are a good, kind, brave soul. I am wild and scatty. Everyone says so, and today you had the proof.”

“You are far braver than I,” he answered. “Fearless, in a way I never have been.”

“Alex ...”

“This is not time for declarations. You are ill. But you must know, Georgina, how greatly I admire you.”

“As I admire you. Of course this is a time for declarations!”

Alex pressed one finger against her lips, stilling her words. “I did not want to press you so soon, Georgina. But your accident has shown me that there is not time to waste in this life. Perhaps, when you are recovered, you would consent to go with me to Fair Oak, and meet my mother and sister.”

Georgina was almost shocked speechless. No one had ever invited her to meet his
mother
before. That was for sweet young virgins, for intendeds, for brides.

Oh, great heaven. Alex wanted to
marry
her. To make her a respectable woman, a duchess.

Whatever could she do?

“You—you want me to meet your family?” she stammered.

“Yes. There are things, many things, you should know before you commit yourself to—to anything,” he said slowly. “Fair Oak is my home, the best place for you to make any decisions. So will you come?”

Georgina’s mind raced furiously. Alex’s mother was no doubt quite a high stickler, being a dowager duchess. Would Georgina’s manners be acceptable to her? Would her clothes? Her past? Her art?

Whatever would she pack to visit a ducal estate? She would have to visit a
modiste
.

“Georgina?” he said, breaking into her dazed and scattered musings. “Will you? Please?”

“Oh, yes,” Georgina replied. “I would be honored to meet your family.”

Then she swallowed hard, past the knot of trepidation in her throat.

 

Despite her exhaustion, and the pain that was once again creeping up on her, Georgina lay awake long after Alex left her. Things were moving so very quickly now, her head spun from it. It was as if the moment of her accident, the second that she had thought her life to be over, had changed everything, had propelled them forward.

Alex’s intentions
were
honorable. He wanted her to see his home, meet his family. Be very certain before she “committed” herself to anything.

She had thought that perhaps, just perhaps, he had had serious intentions. Maybe she had even hoped it, deep down in her heart. She had known she would never consent to be his, or anyone’s, mistress, so if that had been his wish she would have had to break off all contact with him.

She had intended to never marry again, of course. She so loved her life, her work, her independence. She had thought she would never again meet a man who could respect all that—until Alex.

Georgina had watched him on the night of Elizabeth’s
salon,
as he looked at her paintings. He had looked at them with appreciation and respect, had listened to her as she spoke of her work. He was never condescending or dismissive, as so many of her so-called “admirers” were.

Alex was a very special man indeed.

Georgina did have some misgivings over his words that there were “things she should know.” But surely there was no harm in just
meeting
his family, seeing his home? If his family disapproved of her, or if she felt uncomfortable with them, it would be better to know.

There could be no harm in this. None at all. Surely.

Reassured, Georgina slid down beneath her nest of blankets, and gave in to her sleepiness, warm, comforted, and full of delicious anticipation.

“Are you quite certain you are recovered enough for this journey?” Elizabeth asked worriedly, as she sat on Georgina’s bed and watched Georgina and Daisy sorting through gowns and hats. “Does your shoulder not still pain you?”

Georgina laughed. “You make it sound as if I am going to the pyramids of Egypt! It is only a fortnight in the country, and I promise I will not go riding or driving.” She held up a lavender-striped muslin gown, with a low, square neckline trimmed in silver lace. “This is not too daring, is it?”