‘Well,’ said Sukey, darting Edmund one of her most winning smiles. ‘I am sure I have never sat upon more comfortable seats.’
‘My mother is excessively dedicated to her own comforts,’ he said with a slight edge to his voice as he took the seat opposite her and Sukey. It made Georgiana wonder what his mother could possibly have done to set his back up to the extent he would make a comment that could be interpreted as a criticism.
‘As you note, the hood can be drawn up so that she need never miss an opportunity to go shopping, or visiting, no matter how inclement the weather,’ Edmund added with a definite hint of disapproval.
‘Unless,’ Georgiana pointed out mischievously, ‘you purloin her means of transport.’
He dipped his head in acknowledgment of her riposte and, though his expression remained grave, there was a glint of something like appreciation in his eyes.
‘I have purchased tickets for you both, for Bullock’s Museum,’ he said. ‘So that we need not waste time gaining admittance.’
So he hadn’t just been passing and thought they might like to visit the museum. He’d planned it all very carefully. Well, of course he had. He didn’t have a spontaneous bone in his body.
‘I am sure,’ he continued, ‘you must both be very eager to get inside and view one of the most remarkable collections of its kind in existence.’
‘Are you?’ She raised her eyebrows, wondering exactly what he was playing at.
His eyes flickered towards Sukey, briefly, telegraphing his intention to explain his motives. ‘Of course,’ he said, with a perfectly straight face. ‘It will be a most educational experience for you. Bullock is a member of the Linnean Society, you see, and has arranged his collection according to their principles. I shall now endeavour to explain them to you both, so that you will be able to truly appreciate the specimens we are about to view.’
Sukey’s appreciation of her carriage ride faded in almost inverse proportion to her own amusement as his exposition of those principles grew increasingly detailed. By the time they arrived at the imposing entrance to the museum, Sukey looked as though she was on the verge of doing something desperate. Like leaping out and running, screaming, for home.
‘You will note,’ Edmund was saying in his driest tone, as the footman handed them out of the barouche, ‘the sloping pilasters, which have been ornamented with hieroglyphics in an attempt to replicate a temple in the Egyptian style. Hence, the cognomen of The Egyptian Hall.’
Sukey shot her a look of despair behind his back, as he turned to extend his arm for Georgie to take. She had to bite down very hard to stifle a giggle.
‘You will find more touches of the East adorning the inner rooms,’ he continued as if he was completely unaware of the effect he was having on both girls, ‘although the collection itself has been gathered largely from the South Seas and the Americas.
‘I shall procure a programme for you, as a souvenir of this visit,’ he declared with a beneficent smile for Sukey, which made her alter her facial expression into one of gratitude so quickly that Georgie had to put her hand to her mouth and pretend she was stifling a fit of coughing.
‘Do you need a glass of water?’ He eyed her with apparent concern.
‘No, no,’ she said when she could master her voice sufficiently to speak. ‘I shall be fine, presently.’
‘Then let us proceed,’ he said, drawing them into the next room.
‘Oh, look,’ cried Sukey, brightening considerably, though not because she’d seen an interesting specimen in any of the glass cases arranged round the walls. ‘There’s Dotty and Lotty over there.’ She waved frantically, in a way that Stepmama would have deplored had she been there to see it. ‘Oh, Georgie,’ she gasped, ‘whoever do you think those gentlemen can be who are escorting them?’ Each girl was leaning on the arm of a rather dashing-looking young man in naval uniform, while a rather disgruntled-looking civilian was trailing along behind them. ‘Oh, do pray excuse me, while I go and find out,’ she said, bouncing on her toes in her eagerness to escape.
‘And that, I fancy,’ observed Edmund with satisfaction as Sukey practically sprinted across the room to the other party, ‘will be the last we see of her until it is time to leave.’
‘Which was your intention all along,’ she said, rapping him over the forearm with her rolled-up programme. ‘Honestly, Linnean principles indeed.’
‘It is completely true,’ he replied with feigned affront. And then added, with an almost boyish grin, ‘As is your own deduction. I was determined to find a way to have a conversation with you in private and, when I happened to hear that the Pargetter girls intended bringing their latest victims here, I could not think of a better opportunity to do so. Therefore, I seized it.’
‘And your mother’s barouche.’
‘That, too,’ he admitted. ‘Are you angry with me? For tormenting your stepsister in order to be rid of her?’
She probably ought to be. But his performance had been so funny. And she hadn’t had anything to laugh about for such a long time.
‘That depends,’ she eventually said.
‘Upon?’
‘Your motives.’
‘I have already told you. I wish to have a...serious conversation with you.’ He paused in front of a case containing a variety of nasty-looking weapons, as though weighing his words.
‘If you are thinking of asking me,’ she said, when the silence had dragged on to the point where it was becoming uncomfortable, ‘about the list you suggested I make, then I have to tell you, it has done me no good.’
‘Oh, you actually made one, did you?’
‘Yes. No. That is, I haven’t actually written anything down, but I have been keeping a sort of tally in my head of the...um...potential I can see in any of the gentlemen who have paid me any marked attention, in the hopes of counterbalancing my reluctance to...er...proceed any further with any of them.’
His brows rose. ‘Have there been very many such men?’
‘There is no need to sound so surprised. You were the one who told me, after all, that I was bound to attract more men than just Major Gowan if I was patient.’
‘But, in the space of a week? I mean...’ He checked himself. ‘Of course you have acquired a court. A beautiful girl like you—it was bound to happen.’
Beautiful? He thought she was beautiful? Her cheeks heated and her stomach did a funny little squeeze.
‘N-not a court, exactly,’ she explained. ‘Though there are now two more men who are being rather obvious about their interest in me. According to Stepmama,’ she added, in case he thought she was boasting.
‘Tell me about them,’ he said sternly.
‘Well, my favourite...’ she wrinkled her nose. ‘Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, my least unfavourite—’
‘Though less grammatical,’ he put in.
‘Yes, well. His name is Mr Armitage.’
‘Armitage?’ He looked at her sharply. ‘Never heard of him.’
‘I don’t suppose you have. He hails from the North Country where he has a lot of mills and such like. He is, according to Stepmama, obscenely wealthy.’
‘And that makes him an acceptable suitor, does it?’
‘I have already told you that is not the case, or I wouldn’t