‘The thing I like most about him is that he prefers me to Sukey. He has come to Town to find a wife from the Quality, as he calls it, so that he can start a dynasty that nobody will be able to call vulgar. But he dislikes what he calls niminy-piminy females.’
‘Niminy-piminy? He actually used that term? In your hearing?’
‘No. He told Stepmama,’ she said, with a smile at the memory of Stepmama’s outrage at having her darling so described. ‘He then went on,’ she admitted in a voice that shook with suppressed laughter, ‘to say that a strapping great wench like me was a much better bargain, to his way of looking at it.’
‘He thinks he will get more to the pound, is that it? And for this, you will accept his suit?’
‘I did not say I meant to accept his suit,’ she retorted. ‘It is just that I cannot help feeling, well, flattered that he prefers me to Sukey. Without betraying the slightest trace of sentimentality.’ She would definitely not be able to hurt him, even though she was bound to disappoint him.
Edmund looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. ‘Of course he is setting his sights on you, Georgie. You are of much better birth than your stepsister. I dare say he discovered that your mother came from a lesser branch of an aristocratic family, while your father was landed gentry during this interview he seems to have had with your stepmother.’
‘Oh. Well, yes, he did, as it happens.’ She eyed Edmund with resentment. ‘You have just disposed of the one point Mr Armitage had in his favour. I really thought he was taken with me. But he isn’t at all. It is my background he finds so appealing.’
‘Very well, let us forget about Mr Armitage. Tell me of your other suitors.’
‘Well, there is one I am sure you do know. Mr Eastman. Percy Eastman.’
‘Eastman? Good God.’
‘There is no need to say it like that. He is exactly the kind of man Papa always said I should marry, you know. A Corinthian. A connoisseur of horseflesh, with plenty of address. And yet...’
‘Indeed. With Percy Eastman, there is always that qualifying and yet.’
‘I don’t know why that should be. He is always perfectly charming. And he is comfortably off, moves in the best circles and is very handsome.’
‘And yet...’ Edmund quoted her.
She nodded. And Edmund shepherded her to the next display case while she gathered her thoughts about Mr Eastman.
‘It is something about his eyes, I think,’ she said. ‘There is no kindness in them. In fact, he always has this slightly mocking air, as though he regards everyone else as innately inferior and rather amusing. Though, to be fair, he is wealthier, and better connected, and better looking and more intelligent than most people I’ve met in London.’ She sighed. ‘And this is exactly what I mean about your idea of writing a list being so...useless.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, on paper Mr Eastman would have much to recommend him. Yet whenever he bows over my hand and looks up at me from under those hooded lids...’
‘Yes, quite. In Eastman’s case I think you should definitely trust your instincts.’
‘But then, when Mr Armitage smacks his lips and rubs his hands together as though he’s just spotted a bargain, or Major Gowan spills his drink down his coat because he cannot tear his gaze from my...from the front of my gown, it puts me in mind of what they will expect of me in the marriage bed. And I just...’ She shuddered.
‘There is no need to get into such a taking,’ he said soothingly, patting her hand.
Which incensed her so much she forgot herself.
‘It’s all very well for you to say that. You are not the one who has to smile politely while some horrid man practically thrusts his nose down...’ She glanced down at herself, making an exasperated gesture at the mounds straining at the fabric of her pelisse. And wished, not for the first time, that she’d never grown the beastly objects.
Edmund winced.
She wasn’t surprised. She must have really shocked him, saying that.
And now he was removing his spectacles and polishing them on his handkerchief.
Today, however, the knowledge that she’d shocked him into a spectacle-polishing silence gave her no satisfaction whatever. She’d shocked herself by referring to things that ought never to be spoken of between a man and a woman.
‘You know,’ he said, replacing his spectacles on his nose and hooking the wires over his ears, ‘there are ways of repudiating suitors...’
And, just like that, she was furious with him again.
‘It’s all very well being all calm and rational and supercilious, but you’re not the one that...’
‘That...?’ He stood there regarding her calmly, his face betraying no emotion whatever.
‘Oooh!’ She stamped her foot. ‘If it was happening to you, you’d sing a different tune, I can tell you!’
He raised one astonished eyebrow.
‘Yes—just imagine if you had to get married and lots of...of ugly women started...ogling you, and...and you had to put up with it all...and—’ She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘And don’t you dare smile.’ He wasn’t smiling, exactly, but his lips had definitely twitched in a way that hinted he was sorely tempted to do so. ‘It isn’t funny!’
‘Not remotely.’
‘And don’t patronise me, either.’
‘I am not doing so. I am in complete agreement, knowing far more of that sort of thing than you might imagine.’
‘What? How can you possibly?’
He shrugged. ‘Well, it is just that I am quite a catch myself. Why do you think I never or—to be strictly accurate—very rarely make an appearance on the social scene?’
She didn’t have to think about that statement for even a second. ‘At least you have a choice. Whereas I have to...’ She whirled away. Walked to the next cabinet of curios.
He followed her. Stood next to her in silence. Waiting.
‘Oh, very well, I beg your pardon,’ she said, once she could no longer feign any interest in the display of antique weaponry. ‘You don’t have to tell me I am behaving very badly today. It is just that I seem to have reached the end of my tether and—’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Quite.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Actually, having witnessed Major Gowan’s behaviour I can see why you are so angry with him. I can also see that you feel trapped and observe that you appear to be struggling like any frightened creature would, when caught in a trap.’
‘I am not frightened,’ she said indignantly. ‘But trapped, yes, I do feel trapped. Because there isn’t any way out that I can see, apart from doing the one thing I most wish to avoid.’
He gave her that look, the one he applied to a new specimen, or puzzle that he was determined to solve. And then, after a few moments’ scrutiny, led her to a bench where he sat her down.
‘Believe it or not, I do understand how you feel. It is something like how I felt when I was...obliged to leave Bartlesham and everything and everyone I knew. And it was frightening.’ He gave her a stern look as though daring to argue with him. When she didn’t, he continued. ‘You panicked when faced with a similar exile. I know you did, because nothing else would have compelled you to propose