She had found it unusual, but faintly intriguing. It must be pleasant, or people would not take it. But since she could think of no proper woman who used it, there must be something scandalous about it. In the end, she had refused, not sure that even her normally lenient father would approve.
Sir Nash had given an indifferent shrug and set the box on the table near the fire in case she changed her mind. It had been a somewhat bizarre flirtation, but not harmful. Then, she had looked at the box again.
At first glance, the scene painted on the top of the smooth stone box was just as ordinary as the evening. A young couple in a woodland glade: he entreating, and she shielding her face with her hand and refusing with a shy smile.
But then, Sir Nash had taken another pinch and set the box down again, tapping the lid and drawing her gaze to it. The picture had changed. The girl, who had been wearing a pink gown, did not seem to be wearing anything at all. The hand to her face looked less like an innocent refusal and more like a desperate, frightened denial.
The boy who had been with her was no longer a boy at all. His chest was bare and his legs were hair-covered and ended in the cloven hooves of a goat. But the place where those legs met was as human as a Greek statue. And he was doing...
Something.
George was not exactly sure what was going on. But the girl in the miniature looked both revolted and compelled. By the strange way George felt when she looked at it, she was sure that it was something she was not supposed to know about. And the snuffbox was something that no decent gentleman would show to a young lady he was courting.
When he was sure she had seen it, Sir Nash picked up the box and dropped it into his pocket again. Then he gave her a knowing smile and remarked at how pretty her hair was and how much he favoured blondes.
Blondes like the one on the snuffbox.
‘You see?’ When she came back to herself, Marietta was pointing again. ‘She cannot come up with a logical reason for this refusal.’
‘I do not like him,’ George said, more weakly than before.
Because he showed me something I do not understand and I am afraid to ask you what it means.
‘Affection sometimes grows with time.’ Her father sounded almost hopeful as he said it and cast a brief, disappointed glance to his wife before looking out the window again.
‘I will not marry him. You cannot make me.’ George almost shouted the words, trying to regain his attention.
‘On the contrary, my dear. We can and you will.’ Marietta favoured her with a cool glare. ‘Either you marry Nash, or I will go.’ Then she turned to her husband and gave him the tight, uncompromising quirk of her lips that she thought was a smile. ‘I can no longer bear things as they are. Surely you must see that. Either you bring your daughter to heel, or I will go back to the Continent where I am sure to find someone who will respect me. It will be the two of you, alone again, just as she wants.’
After seven years of strife, that sounded almost too good to be true. George turned to her father with hope in her eyes, and waited for his response.
When it came, it was not the vindication she sought, but another tired sigh. ‘You have heard your mother, Georgiana. She is quite out of patience with you. Now let us have no more nonsense about refusing offers before they have been given, especially when they come from your mother’s cousin.’
For a moment, she could not believe what she was hearing. He had been forced to choose. And without a moment’s hesitation he had chosen Marietta. ‘She is not my mother.’ The words sounded childish, but she could not help them.
The carriage was just pulling up to the front of the Knight town house and she opened the door and jumped out before it had even fully stopped. Then she ran through the front doors, up the stairs, and to her room before her heart could break any further.
Inside, her maid was dozing in a chair, awaiting her arrival. She took one look at the ruined ballgown and murmured, ‘Oh, miss’, before reaching to help her out of it. ‘Let me call for a cup of warm milk. Then we will put you to bed.’
‘Do not treat me like a child,’ George said, immediately regretting her temper. She took a deep, calming breath. ‘I am sorry, Polly. But I do not want to go to bed. I do not want to spend another night in this house. Call for the trunks. We are going away.’
The girl looked up at her with a worried smile. ‘Where are we going, miss?’
It was an excellent question and one for which she had no answer. There was not a relation near or distant who would keep her, if her father wanted her to come home. And she had never thought to put aside even a small portion of the generous allowance she’d been given against disaster. Until this moment, she’d never had an inkling that she might need to.
She sat down on the end of the bed. ‘Never mind. I cannot think of a place we might go to.’ She thought for a moment. ‘And if I become a governess, I doubt my employers would allow me a lady’s maid.’
‘A governess, miss?’ Polly gave her a knowing grin. ‘Are you thinking about running away, again?’
Again. Had she really done it so often? It had become an idle threat she made, after particularly bad arguments with her stepmother. But the idea of employment had never lingered for more than a minute or two. She’d been an indifferent student. What good would she be as a teacher?
‘I must do something,’ she said, more to herself than the maid. ‘I cannot marry Sir Nash.’
‘Nash Bowles?’ At the mention of marriage, her maid dropped any hint of formality. ‘I will send for the trunks, immediately. We will get you away from here, so he cannot find you.’
‘You know him?’ She had not spoken of him in front of Polly. She had not even wanted to think about the man.
‘All the servants know him. And the girls know to keep away from him.’ The words ended in a whisper.
‘Why?’ But she suspected she did not want to know the answer.
‘He...’ Polly shook her head and left the sentence unfinished, just as George had done earlier. ‘He is not a fit husband for a gently bred young lady. My brother says...’ She paused again. ‘Do you remember my brother Ben? He was a footman here until he outgrew all the livery.’
‘I remember Ben.’ Georgiana covered her mouth, trying to hide her smile. Ben Snyder had not just outgrown the uniform—he had far outstripped the other boys in size and weight. At six foot four, and seventeen stone, he’d towered over the rest of the staff and dashed Marietta’s hopes for servants as evenly matched as the horses on the family carriage.
‘When he left here, he went to work at a gentlemen’s club. And the things that happen there...’ Polly paused again. ‘Well, he says that they are not the least bit gentlemanly. Even so, he has had to turf Nash Bowles out on more than one occasion for behaviour that the owners would not sanction.’
‘So, he is not a gentleman?’
‘He is not even a rake,’ her maid confirmed. ‘He is worse than that.’
It was just as she’d feared. The whole house seemed set on her marrying a lecher. ‘What sorts of things does he do?’
‘Ben would not tell me.’
‘Would he tell Father?’ And would the word of a former servant be enough to save her?
‘I do not think he would do that, miss,’ Polly said. ‘If Ben tells anyone what happens in the club, he risks losing his position. It is supposed to be very secret.’
‘Perhaps, if there were a way to get Nash to admit to everything... Or, if I were to see it for myself...’
Polly’s eyes grew round and she gave a warning shake of her head.
George