Chapter Four

      Edmund’s first instinct was to get to his feet and set off for London in pursuit. To explain...

      What, exactly?

      Meanwhile, the young Mr Wickford was sitting down heavily on a pile of curtaining on the chair opposite and spreading his meaty fingers over his knees. ‘Yes, Mrs Wickford senior is going to launch her daughter into society, now they’re out of mourning. Has great hopes for her.’

      ‘Does she?’ said Edmund, as a matter of form, since he was only half-attending. He was far more concerned with imagining how Georgiana must have felt, having this man and his wife turn her out of doors a matter of hours after he’d so brutally turned down her proposal.

      ‘Shouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t do very well,’ Mr Wickford was saying. ‘A taking little thing, is Sukey.’

      ‘Sukey?’

      ‘Ah, should more properly refer to her as Miss Mead, I suppose, but then she’s such a friendly sort of girl, it’s hard to stand upon form with her. Not a bit like Miss Wickford,’ he said with a shake of his head.

      ‘What,’ said Edmund, his hackles rising, ‘precisely, do you mean by that?’

      ‘Oh, well, you know,’ said Mr Wickford, waving his hands.

      ‘No, I am afraid I don’t.’

      ‘Of course, you will hardly know her, will you? Well, let us just say that she is a strange, awkward girl. Not that she can help it, I don’t suppose, given the way she was brought up. The mother died in childbirth,’ said Wickford, which was something Edmund already knew. But the reminder jolted him. Was that why Georgiana didn’t want a normal marriage? Could she be afraid of having children? ‘Disappointed my cousin immensely,’ Wickford was droning on. ‘Wanted a boy, d’you see? Well, that’s natural enough, ain’t it? Trouble is, he went and treated the girl as if she was the boy he wanted, instead of facing facts.’

      That was not how it had been. Georgie’s father had simply allowed her to act exactly as she wished. Well, Edmund amended, he might have encouraged her love of horse-riding and outdoor pursuits by praising her skills. But he had definitely not attempted to mould her preferences beyond that. If she had shown an interest in...say...dolls and dresses, he was pretty sure the man would have bought her bolts of satin and lace back from the market, rather than new riding boots or a crop.

      ‘It was only when she got to the age where she really needed a mother,’ said Mr Wickford, leaning forward in a conspiratorial sort of way, and winking, ‘that he saw his mistake. Which was why he married again. Needed a woman to knock the rough edges off. Make her behave like a lady. And, of course, providing her with a sister like Sukey, who could set her a shining example of femininity, was an added bonus.’

      Was that what people hereabouts thought had happened?

      Was that, in fact, what had happened?

      But—why would a man who’d allowed Georgie to run wild for so many years suddenly try to change her? If that even was his motive for remarrying.

      ‘And Mrs Wickford is the sort of woman who enjoys knocking the rough edges off, I take it,’ said Edmund, feeling his way forward tentatively.

      Mr Wickford chuckled. ‘Do you know, whenever anyone says Mrs Wickford, I still think they mean my mother. But there’s my cousin’s widow now, as well as my own wife. Though that is taking some getting used to. Only been married a fortnight.’

      ‘My felicitations,’ he responded automatically and without enthusiasm.

      Mr Wickford beamed at him. ‘Thank you, my lord. I do consider myself most fortunate. Couldn’t think of marriage at all before I came into this property, let alone to a woman like Sylvia Dean. Took some persuading, none the less...’

      ‘Indeed?’ He leaned back and raised one eyebrow, inviting further confidences. Not that he had the slightest interest in this fellow. But he’d already learned far more about what had gone wrong in Georgiana’s life in five minutes with the loquacious fool, than he’d done in ten years.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Wickford, smiling fatuously. ‘Courting her took up pretty near all my time. If it wasn’t for Mrs Wickford senior being so willing to stay on here and keep the place running smoothly, I’m not at all sure I’d have taken the trick.’

      Edmund didn’t think he’d reacted, but he was not all that surprised when Lion emitted a low growl. The man had admitted that permitting Georgiana and her stepmother to remain in what was, after all, their own home had not been an act of compassion at all. Instead, it had been very much to his advantage. And as soon as their usefulness had come to an end, he had promptly evicted them. In Georgiana’s case, from the only home she’d ever known. He glanced round the room as Wickford continued to enthuse about his new bride, noting, everywhere, traces of her heritage. Her father might very well have chosen the hunting prints on the walls and most of the furniture looked as though it had been handed down through several generations.

      At which point, he saw another reason for the distress which had prompted her to run to him with her outrageous proposal. Not only was she being forced into taking a step which she found abhorrent, she was also losing everything she’d ever called her own. He must have seemed like her last chance to salvage something—a sort of metaphorical clinging to the wreckage of her life in the faint hope of finding a refuge that was at least familiar, if not what she really wanted.

      But instead of being man enough to listen to her, really listen with a view to understanding, he’d rubbed salt into what he could now see were very deep and grievous wounds by getting angry with her. Shouting at her. Rebuffing her.

      She hadn’t deserved such treatment. Even