The Debutante's Daring Proposal by Annie Burrows

Author:Annie Burrows
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin Historical
Published: 2017-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

For the whole of the next week, Georgiana made sure she stayed out of secluded corners, smiled at every man who asked her to dance and tried not to object whenever her cleavage got more attention than she did.

After all, it wasn’t as if her eyes were behaving much better. Instead of giving every partner her wholehearted attention, the way Sukey did, Georgiana’s gaze roamed freely over the other guests attending whatever ball, or rout, or breakfast she happened to be at. Especially if it was the slightest bit tonnish. Even though she knew Edmund didn’t make a habit of going to such things, he had turned up at Miss Twining’s debut and he had danced with her.

But evidently he had no intention of giving anyone a chance to gossip about them again. Which was a good thing, she decided gloomily one afternoon as she sat in the drawing room, listening to the rain lashing the windowpanes. She hadn’t liked the way Lady Tarbrook, for example, had looked at her the next evening, at the Fairweathers’ musicale. Or the way she’d nudged the fat woman sitting next to her and started whispering behind her fan. She knew they’d been speculating about her relationship with Edmund, because that kind of whispering had started the moment he’d left the Twinings’ ball.

And because Stepmama had confirmed it on their way home.

‘It isn’t that you have done anything wrong,’ she’d hastened to assure Georgiana, when she’d been on the verge of defending herself. ‘It is just that Lord Ashenden’s behaviour was so very unusual for him. It was bound to cause speculation. Now that I’ve explained our long-standing connection, all you need do is continue to behave properly and the talk will die down. As long as he doesn’t make a habit of monopolising you and ignoring every other eligible female in the room,’ she’d said irritably, ‘you should be able to brush through without a hint of blame attaching to you.’

Which implied that people might blame her for Edmund’s behaviour if she did put a foot wrong anywhere else.

Which conclusion absolutely infuriated her. Why did people always blame the woman when there was any sort of scandal? She would wager that nine times out of ten it was the man’s fault.

Her mood today wasn’t improved by the fact that Stepmama was making them all sit here pretending to do needlework just in case somebody called. Which wasn’t likely. What kind of idiot would venture out in such foul weather?

Just then, as if to mock her assumptions about the intelligence of Town dwellers, there came a knock on the door. And a murmur of male voices in the hallway. And the sound of a light tread upon the stairs.

Then in walked Edmund.

‘Mrs Wickford,’ he said, ‘Miss Wickford, Miss Mead.’ He bowed to each in turn. ‘I was just passing on my way to Bullock’s Museum and it occurred to me that you might care to accompany me.’

‘Oh! Lord Ashenden,’ said Stepmama, mangling the needlework in her lap.

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