‘London isn’t an escape from anything, for me,’ she muttered mutinously.
‘You have not given it a chance.’ He half-turned to her. ‘And nor did I, when I first arrived on St. Mary’s. I was upset for a long time. Even though I knew, deep down, that I was there for my own good, I...was very, very unhappy.’
He looked uncomfortable, as though it was costing him a great deal to admit this.
Perhaps that was why he hadn’t written to her, then. Perhaps he was ashamed of being so unhappy, and hadn’t known how to put his feelings into words. Perhaps—
‘Come,’ he said, getting up and moving away from her a few paces, as though admitting that much was too embarrassing for him to be able to sit still. She followed him until he stopped abruptly by a case full of brightly coloured butterflies.
He gazed down at them, his throat working. Was he thinking about the day she’d filled his bedroom with the tiny, British cousins of these exotic specimens?
Had her gift, the time she’d spent collecting them all, meant anything to him at all?
‘Do you think,’ he said, thoughtfully, ‘that caterpillars have any notion that one day they are going to turn into beautiful creatures like these? Do you think they have any idea what it would be like to have wings?’
‘No.’
He turned to look at her, expectantly, and she knew he wasn’t speaking about butterflies and caterpillars at all. ‘Are...are you saying that...I am like a caterpillar? Wanting to stay on my little leaf, rather than going out into the world and becoming a butterfly?’
‘Ah, not exactly. Putting it the way you have just done is to imply some sort of criticism. And I cannot fault you for thinking or feeling the way you do. I felt the same, don’t forget. No, what I am saying is that you don’t need to be afraid of new experiences. Of becoming the beautiful creature you are meant to be.’
‘The trouble with that metaphor,’ she said bitterly, ‘is that I’m doomed to stay a caterpillar. No matter how hard Stepmama tries to make me into one, I simply cannot be a butterfly.’
‘What do you mean?’
She sighed. ‘Look, you know that I never used to fit in with the other girls in Bartlesham. But once Stepmama taught me how to behave like a lady, I did think I might be able to...pretend I was normal. But then, none of the men at the local assemblies would ask me to dance, even though they flocked round Sukey. The only way to get them to dance with me was to ask them. Which they had to do, from good manners, but it wasn’t the same...’ Not when she saw a flash of something like fear in their eyes. As though they were picturing her knocking them down.
‘The men of Bartlesham are idiots. Take it from me. You are perfectly splendid exactly as you are.’ He waved his hand at the glass case. ‘There are all sorts of different butterflies. And you do not have to be like all the others to be a butterfly. Have you learned nothing from Miss Durant? She reminds me of you at that age, before...life, shall we say, crushed out that spark.’
He’d liked her then. Before Stepmama and Papa had tried to turn her into a Sukey butterfly. A task that had always been doomed to failure, because inside, she was always going to remain a grub.
But what did he think of her now?
He gazed down into her face with concern. ‘Why can you not believe you are attractive? Ah—the idiot male inhabitants of Bartlesham.’ His lips thinned. ‘Georgiana, you believe, I hope, that I would never lie to you?’
‘Ye...es.’ She thought for a moment. He had actually been outspoken to the point of rudeness, on occasion, but he had never fobbed her off with anything less than the truth. ‘Yes,’ she then said with more conviction.
‘Then let me tell you, in plain speech, speaking as a man who is most definitely not an idiot, that you are a most attractive woman. You have lovely eyes. Lovely hair. And your figure is...’
‘Big,’ she interjected. ‘Ungainly.’
‘No,’ he said sternly. ‘Your figure is splendid. Full, yes, but with a firmness that speaks of health and vitality,’ he corrected her. ‘When you couple that with your love of the outdoors and energetic pursuits, it makes men looking for a wife see that you would be a good choice to mother their children. And I am sure you could have many of them...’ he seized her hands and gave them a squeeze ‘...with no difficulty whatever.’
‘I...I...’ She blinked as her eyes started stinging. She wasn’t going to be a mother. Ever. Not if she couldn’t overcome her revulsion at the act that was necessary to get them.
‘I know your mother died in childbirth,’ he said gently. ‘But that need not be your fate.’
What? He thought that was why she’d asked him for a pretend marriage? He thought she was a coward?
‘It isn’t that,’ she cried indignantly. ‘I’m not afraid of that!’
‘Then what—?’
She tore her hands and her gaze away from him, her heart beating rapidly and her stomach squirming. She couldn’t tell him about...about Wilkins and Liza.
‘I just...cannot, that’s all.’
‘Yes, you can, Georgie,’ he said, walking round her until he was standing in front of her. ‘You can do anything you set your mind to. I can see that your stepmother’s influence has diminished your belief in yourself, but deep down, is there not still a spark of...that girl who was not afraid of what anyone said, or thought? The Georgie I knew—’ He reached out and with his forefinger lifted her chin so that she was looking into his face, rather than at his boots. ‘She would have taken London by storm. She would probably have done it by flouting just about every rule governing the behaviour expected of debutantes. She’d have acquired a large following of devoted admirers. And if any of them had tried to step out of line she’d have had no trouble giving them a leveller. Probably literally,’ he finished on a wry smile.
Her breath hitched in her throat. He admired all the things about her that Stepmama had told her were bad. He thought other men would find them attractive, too. That if she could just dare to be herself, they would flock round her, the way they flocked round Sukey.
For a moment, a vision of that Georgie, holding a swarm of suitors in the palm of her hand, flitted into her head.
But then she focussed on the way Edmund was smiling at her. And they all vanished. Because Edmund was the only man she wanted to smile at her like that. And find her fascinating. And look at her as a potential mother for his children.
Something happened to her insides. To her breasts. To her mouth. Something she’d never felt before.
But she knew what it was, all the same.
Oh.
It was like being slapped in the face by an enormous tree branch when galloping through a densely wooded area.
The ‘right man’, Stepmama had said, would make her feel differently. She had been speaking of some mythical Corinthian, the kind of man Papa would have liked for a son-in-law. But Georgiana was looking at the right man, right now.
It was Edmund.
And that was the moment she knew exactly why she’d proposed to him. Why she couldn’t think of any other man as a husband. It wasn’t because she was afraid of leaving Bartlesham, or devastated by the prospect of having to sell Whitesocks.
It was because once she married someone else, it would be over between them. Finally and irrevocably